Like many, I’ve come to rely on a suite of programs that are a vital part of my everyday academic workflow. We’re talking about programs (and platforms) that I’d be completely lost if I didn’t have. In the spirit of this sentiment, I’m kicking off a series to explore the applications that I just can’t live without. While this first one is going to be fairly general, future installments will focus on a specific domain. For instance, I’ll do a “5 Web Development Applications I Simply Can’t Live Without” and “5 Lecturecasting Applications I Simply Can’t Live Without”—you get the idea.
A couple of caveats (both general and specific)…first, this initial list is hardly a complete representation of those programs (and platforms) that I use religiously (the same goes for all future lists in this series). Second, I am a dedicated Mac user, and have been for years. As a result, most (though not all) of the applications that appear on this list are Mac only. Ultimately, the point of this discussion is to present some applications that you might not be aware of—applications that might end up making your life easier (like they have for me). This being said, commence with the list!
Things
We at ProfHacker are no strangers to Cultured Code’s Things. Ryan wrote an in-depth exploration of how you can use the popular task management app to manage academic life. I absolutely love Things. It’s powerful, flexible, elegant, and it keeps my academic life (relatively) in order. I use it to manage just about every task in my life (grading, projects, grant writing, research, writing, etc.). The important thing worth mentioning is that I’ve fully committed to using Things as part of my everyday work pipeline. For Things to work (for any task management app to work), you need to commit to using it. It won’t do you any good if you don’t actually input (and organize) your tasks, and work towards completing those tasks.
Things has only gotten even better for me with the iPad version (which syncs wirelessly with the desktop version). Some caveats for the desktop/iPad combo, however. It gonna cost you. Unfortunately, the iPad version of Things is definitely one of the more expensive apps out there—it’ll set you back $19.99. Add that to the $49.95 you have to spend to get the desktop version, and you are talking about a pretty expensive task management app. The other wrinkle in this is that you will need to spend another $9.99 if you want to get the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Things.
WordPress
While not a program per se (at least not in the same way that other things on this list are programs), WordPress is probably the most important piece of software I use. I use it for all of my class websites, all of my personal websites, and all of my project websites. Just about every website I’ve put up in the last six years or so has been done so using WordPress. Now, I’m hardly alone in my reliance on WordPress. There are many other academics who are dedicated users of the platform.
So, why do I use and love WordPress? Honestly, it comes down to several key things. First off, WordPress is open source (and I’m a great believer in the importance and power of open source development). Second, it has an extremely vibrant developer community. There are countless developers building plugins & themes. Thirdly, it uses relatively accessible web technologies. With a little knowledge of PHP, CSS, and HTML, it’s quite easy to dig your hands into WordPress (to build/customise themes or hack your install to get it to do something different). Finally, it has a very famous “5 minute install.” Yes, that’s right, if everything is set up on your server correctly, it only takes 5 minutes to install. The extra bonus is that WordPress doesn’t really have any heavy server requirements. As long as you’ve got PHP (version 4.3 or greater) and MySQL (version 4.1.2 or greater) you are good to go. It’s really that easy.
Camtasia:Mac
I do a lot of video lecturecasting. Actually, I do a lot of lecturecasting. All of my classes have some sort of video lecture component (my online are composed completely of video lectures). My tool of choice for creating these video lecturecasts is Camtasia:Mac. Developed by Techsmith, Camtasia:Mac is the Mac version (as its name suggests) of the popular windows-based Camtasia Studio. Camtasia:Mac allows me to effortlessly record lecturecasts with the camera in my MacBook Pro. Editing is easy (though not anywhere near as robust as what you might find in a more upscale video editor). Camtasia:Mac also features a powerful array of compression and export options, including the ability to dump your video directly to YouTube and Screencast.com. The other important thing (for me) is that TechSmith is a local company. So, using Camtasia:Mac is also about supporting an awesome local business (which in term supports the local economy).
Yojimbo
I’ve tried lots of information organizing/management applications over the years, and I seem to keep coming back to Yojimbo. Developed by Bare Bones Software, Yojimbo is great for organizing and accessing the mounds of information that we academics acumulate on a daily basis. I use it for everything from course and project planning to notetaking in meetings. Yojimbo will accept just about everything you need it to: text, bookmarks, PDF files, web archives, serial numbers, passwords, or images. You can organize the information using tags, labels, and collections, and access it with Yojimbo’s searching and browsing features. In addition, Yojimbo’s content will appear in a Spotlight search. The other great thing is that Yojimbo is pretty cheap—clocking in at a reasonable $39 for a single user license (multi-user licenses cost more&mdsh;though not much). There is also an educational version that will only set you back $29.
Coda
I do a fair amount of web work (both design and development). Whether it is for grant funded projects or teaching, I’ve always got my hands in some sort of web code (HTML, XHTML, XML, PHP, etc.). Back in the day, Macromedia (now Adobe) Dreamweaver was my HTML editor of choice. It was fully featured and efficient. However, as new versions of Dreamweaver were released, it became bloated. More and more features were added that I simply didn’t need or use, and the program became pretty top heavy. The result was that I started looking for a new HTML editor. What I found was Coda. Developed by Panic, Coda is a “one window” web development environment—which basically means that Coda contains a series of features for design, coding, testing, and reference that would normally be spread out across several applications.
Coda’s editor is elegant and quite powerful (and allows real time collaborating using the Subetha Engine). In addition, it has a a version of Transmit (Panic’s awesome FTP client) built right in. You’ll also find an SVN client and a terminal under the hood. Coda’s price is also pretty decent. A license will only set you back $99. The bottom line is that I would be completely lost without Coda.
What About You?
So, now that I’ve laid out some of the applications that make my life a heck of a lot easier, what about you? What are the programs you can’t live without?
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user jhderojas.]
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41 Responses to 5 Applications I Simply Can’t Live Without (and Why)
micahvandegrift - June 30, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I have been waiting for a series like this from Profhacker, thanks for taking it on! I am fairly new to tech-apps, and love to hear how real people are using them for real things. That said, here’s a few I’ve been experiementing with, all Mac-based and free, although focused more on enhanced computing experience than GTD:Quicksilver – I liked Spotlight. I used it everyday. Since I heard about Quicksilver, my hard drive searching habits have been forever altered. It is sexy, easy to use and in my opionion more powerful than Spotlight ever was. Only issue I have had is that it doesn’t search peripherals that might be attached (unless I have it set up wrong). So my external hard drive with all my music and videos, and Dropbox don’t show up in Quicksilver searches. Minimalmac.com. “GeekTool is a PrefPane (System Preferences module) for Mac OS 10.5. It lets you display on your desktop different kinds of information,” like a calendar, date/time, to-do lists etc. Took me days to figure out due to my extrememly limited coding experience, but I have been loving it since. Here’s my Geektooled desktop.Time-Out – This is perhaps the most essential app I use. Simply, it is a timer that reminds me to take breaks throughout the day. It can be set to whatever interval you choose, and has micro-breaks and regular breaks. I set my Time-Out to take a 15 second break every 15 minutes, and a 5 minute break every hour. The screen glosses over with a color of your choice and you can set a sound to go off along with the break. For those of us who have to sit in front of a screen all day, taking those 15 seconds to look away or do 5 pushups makes the day much more bearable. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
micahvandegrift - June 30, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Can’t edit comments? Sorry, #2 should be – Geektool – I stumbled across this via Minimalmac.com.
peril - June 30, 2010 at 5:16 pm
I’ll list some of my smaller use-every-day apps in the hope of showing people something new:Dropbox- dropbox.com I use it to get files to my mobile deivces painlessly, sync to my other computers, as a quick way to trasnfer files over the web, the list just keeps going… it makes me wonder how I ever got along without it.Hazel- from noodlesoft.comYour inbox has rules, why shouldn’t your folders? This little guy does all of my sorting for me, it’s great!Skitch- skitch.com a screen snapping tool with great markup features. I use it every day to show people things and to save little bits of websites etcCaffeine- iusethis.com (search) keeps my mac awake when I’m reading. Nothing more irritating than the screen going dark halfway throug a paper.Better touch tool: http://blog.boastr.net/ Enables more than 2 finger mutli-finger support for pre-unibody macs, also allows any mac to customize features of swipes at global or application level. It also enables that side-by-side document snap to the corner of your screen feature that Winblows 7 introduced ;)I love new app hunting :D My more complete list of used software is here http://osx.iusethis.com/user/periliusethis is a great site for finding apps, and for remembering what you have incase you have to rebuild or set up a new system etc.
bibliothecula - June 30, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Zotero has really made life easier for me. I bought extra space on their server because I travel just often enough to want to be able to access pdfs and such in my libraries when I’m on the road, but the free storage was good enough for a long time.I’m looking into trying out some of the apps you listed above–Things sounds great, and Timeout (in the comments) sounds like a good idea too, although sometimes I feel like I ought to be using Write or Die instead. Speaking it that, I don’t use it, but a number of colleagues have found it useful in getting stuff done when it comes to crunch time.
ethan_watrall - June 30, 2010 at 7:25 pm
@micahvandegrift – y’know, so many of my colleagues (including a large chunk of the Profhackers, I believe) use Quicksilver. People who use it absolutely swear by it. I’ve given it a try (a couple of times actually), and I just can’t seem to get comfortable with it…and therefor it has never really wormed its way into my essential apps. Maybe I should give it another shot
micahvandegrift - June 30, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Ethan, I tried Quicksilver twice (and deleted it both times) before committing to it. After reading around, all the sites I trusted highly recommended it. So I followed this tutorial at LifeHacker word for word, and just dove in. The best thing I did was change my hot keys (Cmd + Space) from Spotlight to Quicksilver, so the file-searching habit I was already in forced me to use it immediately. I most often use it for apps I don’t keep in my Dock, or for locating a file I know is buried 10 strokes deep. Great for Address Book and Mail too. Give it one more shot!
rhetprof - June 30, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I bought Things for my desktop and IPhone based on the earlier Profhacker recommendation and really like it. I find however when the stress really hits, I revert to my system of legal-pad masterlist and daily index card. This entry has helped renew my vow to use Things more consistently.Does anyone know if there are plans to allow you to move between two computers and a mobile device? I wish I could have access on my work desktop, IPhone and my personal laptop. Thanks!Mary
baturtle - June 30, 2010 at 11:23 pm
I second peril’s comment about Dropbox. That app has allowed me to share photos with friends in Africa, interview recordings with a transcriptionist who lives on the other side of the US from me, and course materials with a TA. Plus I’m currently co-editing a journal using Dropbox as the repository for our files. The shared aspect of Dropbox is the absolute best, and I find it simple and elegant to use.Another program that I’m using is Circus Ponies Notebook. http://www.circusponies.com/I use this to keep all of my writing, to-do lists, literature reviews, data, etc in one place. You can download the demo for free, but then you’ll want to pay for the real thing.Mary might want to take a look at Mobile Me, assuming she’s using a Mac.
daveapostles - July 1, 2010 at 5:41 am
Everything Linux/Unix and OpenSource. No proprietary crap.
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 6:33 am
@Mary (rhetprof) – actually, Cultured Code is working on a cloud-based system…which would conceivably allow you to sync across multiple installs of Things (http://culturedcode.com/status/)
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 6:36 am
@daveapostles – I completely Agee with the spirit of your remark. However, for me, going completely open source/FOSS isn’t an option (for a lot of reasons). That being said, can you share some of the killer Linux apps you rely on daily?
beveridge - July 1, 2010 at 7:17 am
[Comment deleted by editor. Please stick to the topic of discussion: "What are the programs you can't live without?" Thanks!]
danquigs - July 1, 2010 at 7:32 am
While also use Camtasia:Mac for video lecture capture, I am far more addicted to TechSmith’s little cousin to Camtasia…Jing. The little icon just sits happily on my computer and when I start grading/commenting on student submissions, I simply grab the screen, hit record, and talk through the paper to the student. The finished clip is sent directly to screencast and I am sent a unique wrl which I e-mail to the student. I am limited to a five minute clip, but that has turned out to be a blessing, since more than that proves to be information overload for the student. It’s also real handy for answering the “Prof, I can’t seem to figure out where to post this assignment.” I start Jing, walk through the process while talking, and send the link to the student.
dwilliams5 - July 1, 2010 at 8:01 am
I really like Curio and Evernote to manage brainstorms, projects and the mounds of data. I’m using screencast-o-matic.com for screencasting…it’s great, in the cloud and free. I also like Zotero…but am moving more toward the speedy Chrome, for which, sadly, zotero isn’t ported. But truly, the app I could not live without…gmail, gcalendar, and their associates…I’m there everyday, all day.
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 8:21 am
@danquigs – yup, Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/) is great for quick and immediate little screencasts…plus the basic version is free and cross platform.
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 8:24 am
@dwilliams5 – Curio looks really interesting…like a mashup between mindmapping, notetaking, task management, and project management (ish). Thanks for the heads up on that one.
educationnet2007 - July 1, 2010 at 9:04 am
For Windows only (I think), I use upload available at http://upload.com.
bepps - July 1, 2010 at 9:29 am
I don’t see how anyone gets through the day without some sort of multiple clipboard utility. I’ve used CopyPaste Pro and Chronos’ iClipboard in the past, but I’ve switched to PTHPasteboard Pro because of its better (for me) overall feature set. I particularly like the fact that PTHPasteboard Pro automatically syncs clips across devices, which frequently comes in handy. I find myself copying and pasting a lot of boilerplate language in e-mails and other documents, and for that PTHPasteboard Pro is a godsend.
acavender - July 1, 2010 at 9:44 am
I’ve been experimenting a bit, and for quick and dirty screencasting for Mac users, it looks like Quicktime X might do OK. I’m sure there aren’t very many editing options, so it’s probably not a good choice for people who need to do a lot of screencasting, but for occasional use it might fill the bill. The price tag is certainly right. :)
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 9:56 am
Amy – you should definitely check ut Jing if you haven’t already. As already mentioned (above) its great for quick and dirty, little screencasts.
unclibrary - July 1, 2010 at 10:05 am
Just curious — how/why would I use Yojimbo in addition to Things?
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 10:39 am
@unclibrary – Things is a task management app, while Yojimbo is essentially an information (maybe even knowledge) repository. Things isn’t designed to organize bits of info (text, images, PDFs, passwords, web pages, etc, etc, etc) into discreet groups. Yes, Yojimbo has some to-do list features, but they are nowhere near as robust as Things.
acavender - July 1, 2010 at 10:59 am
@ethan_watrall Yes, I think I’ll have to play with that, too, to see which I like better. I do very little screencasting, really–at most, I might do a few tutorials for my students. Not sure if they’ll run more than five minutes, which may be the deciding factor.
michaelnelson - July 1, 2010 at 11:03 am
My 5 things (Mac):1. OmniFocus. I prefer that to Things, thought they do similar things.2. Devonthink Pro. Awesome for organizing documents. And its “artificial intelligence” can be used to cluster and sort documents. Dump a bunch of articles into a database, have it sort, and then you have the beginning of an instant lit review. Also useful for storing/organizing notes. 3. Scrivener. Excellent for drafting papers and it has become an essential tool for writing and organizing my lectures.4. Bookends. Great reference manager tool. Prefer it to EndNote. Sente is similar, but I found Sente to be slightly less stable for my big document library. All references are indexed by Devonthink Pro (above).5. Quicksilver. Use it so much I almost forget it is an extra app.Honorable Mention:- Keynote (Great if you include media in your presentations)- Bento (Great for organizing my gradebook)
crankycat - July 1, 2010 at 11:09 am
I use Papers by Mekentosj to organize a large library of pdf reference files into a searchable and manageable database.
j_c_rick - July 1, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Ethan: Would you mind terribly posting a link to a clip of one of your lecturecasts so we can see the quality and get a sense of what your students see? Doesn’t need to be the whole thing – just a couple-minute snapshot. Thanks…jen
dgpitard - July 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm
@rhetprof, on Things: I use Things across computers at home and work by keeping the database on Dropbox. It’s not perfect–you have to make sure that you quit in one place before you open it in another. But it works very well. Drag the “Cultured Code” file folder containing “Things” folder to Dropbox, and point the application there the next time it opens.I’m not sure if there’s a mobile version.
daveapostles - July 1, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Linux/UnixCLI (command line interface – grep and tr for concordance work – ftp etc) (and I presume you can do this with Macs since OSX.x is simply a version of BSD Unix – I use PC-BSD on one of my notebooks, although I mainly use Mandriva and PCLinuxOS Linux distros)gretl and PSPP for statsLyX for text processingQuantum GIS (GRASS is more complicated GIS than what I need)VLCAlexandraGIMPXsaneK3B (I write .iso frequently since I change my operating system very frequently)and, of course, OpenOffice including the export to .pdfThose are the packages which I use on a daily basis
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 5:41 pm
@daveapostles – VLC is my plyer of choice…absolutely love it
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 5:58 pm
@j_c_Rick absolutely! All of my classes, and therefor my lecturecasts (for those classes that have them) are completely open. Check out my History of the Digital Age class (http://history.msu.edu/hst250/). The video lectures are in the Schedule section. Some are wrapped in a Flash player (an option you can choose upon export), some are straight Quicktime.
raza_khan - July 1, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Three issues that have to be addressed:1. Either you are a Mac person or a Windows person. The Chronicle should have dealt with both.2. Are we talking about software or website resources?3. Even if we address the two points above, there is a difference of opinion in each discipline..So I am not sure how this helps for me tell you what I can or I can not live without.Raza_______________________________Raza Khan, Ph.D., P.D.Sciences FacultyCarroll Community CollegeWestminster, MD
ethan_watrall - July 1, 2010 at 6:54 pm
@raza_khan – “…issues that have to be adressed?” Really? This is a blog, not a federal report. First, I clearly stated at the beginning of the post that I was a mac user, and that most of the apps that I would talk about would be mac based. You’ll note that I did mention some windows apps. Also, you’ll note that many of the people who commented mentioned windows apps, cross platform apps, and even linux apps. You’ll also note the title of this blog…apps that “I” can’t live without. This was written from my perspective, and I’m a mac user. Second, did you really need me to explicitly segregate desktop apps and web apps? Does it really matter? a useful tool is a useful tool. Finally, yes, we all have a distinct disciplinary perspectives. However, I think that it is fair to say that we can all share something from our perspective/domain, and benefit from the sharing. You have no clue what I do, nor do you have any clue how I work. Assuming what I (and other readers) finds useful is frankly pretty presumptuous.
ryancordell - July 1, 2010 at 7:54 pm
@Mary (rhetprof) check out my bonus tip at the very bottom of the Things post (http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Putting-the-THINGS-in-GTD-/22908/). You can use dropbox to sync your Things list between computers. I sync my desktop at home and my laptop using Dropbox, and then sync my phone with Things of whichever computer I happen to be using. It’s a pretty good hack until Cultured Code actually builds such a solution into the software.
george_h_williams - July 1, 2010 at 8:08 pm
My 5 are these: Dropbox, Espresso, Jing, Fetch, and—drumroll, please!—Wiretap.
csgirl - July 2, 2010 at 5:59 am
I use a windows machine for work and a mac for home. I need apps that work across machines, so I tend to rely on web based solutions.My essentials :1. Google calendar2. Jing3. LiveMesh – yes, it is Microsoft, but it works better than Dropbox because it is so seamless.4. Eclipse (yep, I am in computer science, so this is an essential)5. Zotero, although my archive is a total mess and I still can’t figure out how to generate bibliographies. Better documentation would help this application.
mhick255 - July 2, 2010 at 10:27 am
+1 to Things, WordPress , Devonthink, Wiretap, and Dropbox. I do occasional interviews, and Skype + Wiretap + Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (for transcribing) has turned into a great workflow for me. For website coding, I jump back and forth between two programs:TextWrangler, a free text editor from Bare Bones (who also make Yojimbo) – I use this for quick edits because a) it’s free, b) it has line numbers, and c) it includes color-codingEspresso, $80 from MacRabbit – I use this for larger projects because it includes nice project workspaces, lots of auto-text for different programming languages, and live previews. I use both of these with Flow, a Mac FTP client.
jrstrang - July 2, 2010 at 11:28 am
Great ideas on here. I’ve slowly fallen in love with Sente since I read about it on Profhacker. And I also like Transmit as my FTP client because it has Amazon S3 integration.But if we’re talking day-to-day, the single most used app on my desktop is Gruml, a free Google Reader desktop client. Wait, I take that back, Overflow might be the most used because it actually is part of my dock!
ethan_watrall - July 2, 2010 at 12:03 pm
@jrstrang – good call on Overflow…it is a great little utility/application that I often forget about.
ucbcseas - July 6, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Although I know the initial article was written by a Mac user, I agree with one of the posts above that it would be nice if the Chronicle could include some more information on useful tools for research and writing organizationin particular for Windows users. I am chained to Windows by my university, and am not tech-savvy enough to migrate constantly between two systems.
raza_khan - July 8, 2010 at 6:45 pm
@ethanMy comments was in no way disrespect to your article whatsoever! I was just stating my views on the title. If the title could be more descriptive, it would give the reader a better picture. I did read the comments on windows apps. This is just my personal view that it would do the readership a better service if the title was 5 Mac Applications I Can’t live without (in the field / discipline area). Lastly, I commend you for writing the article as it does spark a wealth of response from the readers but it is difficult as you can see and notes from the discipline-specific applications.
george_h_williams - July 9, 2010 at 8:22 pm
@ucbcseas: Here at ProfHacker, we cover a wide variety of tools and not just those that work on Macs. For instance, you might be interested in our posts on Zotero (parts one and two), on OpenOffice, on LaTex, as well as Ryan Cordell’s overview of PDF management/annotation software applications (here and here) and my somewhat similar overview of word processing applications.@raza_khan: Only 3 of the 5 applications Ethan covers above are for Macs only. None of them are designed for one specific discipline.