This is a continuation of the article I started three weeks ago on the hardware and software I personally use. In this edition, I will focus on specialized software, mostly used for specific organizational functions such as music, DVD’s, eBooks, etc.…plus more.
1. Music: For my music, podcasts, audio books and even some videos, I use an 80GB iPod Classic. If you use an iPod, you are almost forced to use the free Apple’s iTunes. Now, you will hear a lot of Windows users complaining about iTunes (but not many Apple users). It is extremely bloated, has some stuff you really don’t need, and is a pain to upgrade as you must download the whole program again. But, frankly, I have never had a problem with using it and it does the job pretty well…keeping all my music organized and readily accessible. There are other programs that do almost the same thing and will work with iPods, but all fall short of iTunes, if you use an iPod. And for educational podcasts and videos, you cannot beat the wealth of free materials in the iTunes store.
2. DVD Organization: If you collect DVD’s of movies and TV shows, check out Invelos’ DVDProfiler. It is an excellent way to keep your collection organized. When you enter a new DVD, it pulls all the information about the DVD into the data file…actors, director’s, synopsis, cover art etc. Basically, you don’t have to enter anything except the name, or even better, the DVD’s bar code number. Everything else is filled out for you, with room for you to make notations. It is free, although there is a $30 paid version you might want to purchase if you get seriously involved.
3. E-book Organizer: As mentioned here before, I use Amazon’s Kindle for a great portion of my reading. The number of books available to me number in the millions and many of them are free and come from other places besides Amazon. If I order a book from Amazon, it is easy as the book is sent to my Kindle wirelessly within a minute of my purchase. But, if I get books from other sources, I used a free program called “Calibre.” This great program is an excellent organizer program that can do many things besides collecting book purchases when you download them. It can collect books done in most other formats and convert them into the Kindle format, then send them to my Kindle via USB. But Calibre works with all book readers and formats, so if you bought a Sony Reader or Barnes and Noble Nook, you will want Calibre also. It has many other functions besides those mentioned here, but if you have an e-reader of any type, Calibre is a must!
4. Web Page Design – In the past, I used a discontinued software product from Symantec called “Visual Page.” It has been discontinued for some time, but I still find myself using it. For the most part, I use a program from Serif called WebPlus X2. It takes some time to learn how to use it (I found that to be true with all Web Page design programs), but I like it a great deal and it does a very good job for me. I am sure I have not fully realized its entire potential, but I am getting there slowly by surely. This is not a free program. The cost is around $80 and the current version is X4.
5. FTP Program: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is the program I use to send newly created and revised Web pages up to my Website. For this specialized software, I use Filezilla, another free program that is just excellent and is probably the choice of the majority of Web site designers. It is a dream to use.
Next time, I will focus on productivity software, such as spreadsheets, word processing and much more.
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