What software do you use?

Audio & Video (I’m an AV editor)—Camtasia 2, Audacity, Video Converter. No games or music software other than what’s preinstalled.

@Pachy: “I’m an AV editor”

Are you using these apps for personal use or for work (or both)?

This would be an awfully long list. What is it you’re interested in learning about us from our software?

Like @dappled_leaves, that list would be quite long, and probably omit half the stuff. Even listing categories would take a bit of typing.

Suffice it to say, I install a lot of different things, and a lot of each of those different things.

@dappled_leaves: “What is it you’re interested in learning about us from our software?”

From you? Nothing at all. I’m just curious. As someone who is often asked to help advise people in their computer purchase, I have found that it is very rare for people to actually be installing software. Rather, they’re mostly living inside the browser.

A coworker and I were discussing this recently, and has had a similar experience. “I have people who want advice on what Macbook Pro configuration they should get, yet when I ask them what software they will be using, it’s ‘Facebook and email’”.

In the middle of this trend, I will occasionally see a thread like this where people are singing the praises of one OS over another. But it leaves me wondering what people are doing with their pcs for non-work purposes.

@dappled_leaves and @jerv – Please don’t list your software. Let me revise my question: what category of software do you install (non-work)? Games, music creation, image manipulation, etc?

Games
Photoshop and Lightroom for personal use.
Word and Endnote for study (although it could be argued that that’s work, i suppose)

The only software I have on my computer that’s not for professional use is Sim City — and I’ve yet to have any time to play it.

I’ve had a few games on my iPad that I’ll play off and on for a few weeks, until I get bored with them, then delete them.

I was recently digging GarageBand for the iPad. Fun to jam on virtual instruments.

@hominid “As someone who is often asked to help advise people in their computer purchase, I have found that it is very rare for people to actually be installing software. Rather, they’re mostly living inside the browser.”

Ah, ok. Yes, I install software for my own use. I definitely don’t “live in the browser”. For me, that would be like trying to live in a room with no air. In other words, yes, I know what software is. Honestly, if they’re listing Facebook and gmail, but not iTunes, then it sounds like your co-worker has been talking to people who just don’t know what software is. In my experience, that’s pretty common.

“what category of software do you install (non-work)? Games, music creation, image manipulation, etc?”

Well, since I’m an academic, a lot of my non-work software is also my work software. Know what I mean? I tend to use the same software that I use for my work as tools in my daily life also, because they’re available to me. Also, it’s difficult to separate life and work a lot of the time. That’s kind of why I’m in this field.

So, I’m talking about things like MS Office, pdf readers and editors, GIS, assorted media software for downloading files, converting file types and viewing/listening to files.

I have a lot of statistical software, but I guess I use that mainly for work – though sometimes I like to program just to develop my skill on my own time.

And this doesn’t count all the software that I have to install to run devices like printers and cameras, etc. I barely keep track of that stuff.

@dappled_leaves – Thanks. You bring up a good point. Are iOS devices still tethered to iTunes, or can you live without a link to a pc/mac?

Is most of the software you use available for both pc and mac? I know that my friends in the academia (sciences) years ago could only work on mac due to the limited compatibility of their software on Windows. And I know people who are into music production, and couldn’t do what they do on a Windows device.

@hominid “Are iOS devices still tethered to iTunes, or can you live without a link to a pc/mac?”

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I use it on PC laptop and desktop. I don’t use it on iOS (I have an iPad, but don’t actually use it for music).

“Is most of the software you use available for both pc and mac?”

I’m in the sciences, and the split is kind of even between Windows and Mac users. I greatly prefer Windows, though for any heavy modelling, I go to Linux because it’s easier (more direct) to talk to the clusters.

Honestly, it’s hard to imagine any tool being available only on a Mac. If it’s Unix-based, I can use it on Linux. It does happen in the other direction. Say, if I wanted to use SigmaPlot for a specific type of graph; that’s not available for Mac (or wasn’t, last time I looked). I never hear any Windows user complain that they don’t have access to some specific software. I do hear Mac users complain – though bizarrely, they seem to blame this on Microsoft. <shrug>

So, I would guess the Mac users are slightly more limited these days (as opposed to what you describe). I also don’t know many people in academia who refuse to switch platforms for personal reasons. That would be silly. You go where you need to in order to use the necessary tools – or you collaborate with someone who can bring those tools to the project. But it’s science. If enough people need it, they’ll eventually create a version that works on their preferred platform.

@dappled_leaves: “I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I use it on PC laptop and desktop. I don’t use it on iOS (I have an iPad, but don’t actually use it for music).”

You don’t need to own a computer in order to have an Android phone. You used to have to have to own a computer (Windows or Mac) to have an iOS device, because everything was managed through iTunes. I was just wondering if that has changed.

I have hundreds of apps for my mobile devices and on my laptop. Apps/applications are software. Since the software is mostly downloaded from the ‘net and not boxes with disks and manuals anymore, people don’t think of software the same way, either. I personally use photo editing, word processing, cable TV viewing and DVR management, games, password management, and cyber security programs – even browsers are software, and I have 2–3 on each device.

iOS is now managed through iCloud, so it isn’t tied to iTunes like it used to be, but it can still be managed that way. I know people who never connect their iPhones to a computer.

@hominid Oh sure, now I get what you’re asking. But I don’t have an answer to your question, because I don’t use iOS for music. I don’t actually have a smartphone.

@hearkat That’s a fair point. It certainly contributes to people conflating Facebook with software, for example. For them, the app that runs Facebook on their device is indistinguishable from the social network itself.

I am on the waiting list for civ beyond earth. Also I prefer to have a word program.

Games, office suites, utility programs, CAD/CAM, video players, video editors, image manipulation, transcoders, drivers, diagnostic software…. a bit of everything.

My computer has been on and here is what I have in my Dock. I never really close applications unless I restart.

johns-Mac-Pro:~ johnpowell$ uptime
19:57 up 4 days, 16:15, 6 users, load averages: 3.28 3.21 3.14

Close All—A application I wrote to close all open Finder windows
Dictionary.app—Since I can’t spell
Terminal.app—I SSH a lot
Safari.app—Browser
Firefox—Yes, I keep two browsers open at the same time
iTunes
TextMate—For my text editing needs
Transmit—The mother of all sFTP clients
VLC—Movies
Plex Home Theater—Stream movies and TV from remote server
Audio Hijack Pro—I can set it to boost the audio levels in applications to 11.
Photoshop and Illustrator—So I can make bad art.

All sorts. I’m not on my personal laptop but I have installed a range of software on it and my netbook. This includes Office, Adobe Creative Suite, browsers, music software, Viber, Skype, software to read to me, Foxtel Go, VPN, other security software, time management software. I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head but there would, be other stuff. I’ve put some of those things on my work laptop but some things I keep off here to try to avoid wasting time.

So I don’t fit the mould of not downloading and installing software.

Trojan, probably…

My laptop is 90% for personal use and 10% for work, so there’s no way I don’t install anything to amuse myself.

Let’s see what I’ve got. Aside from necessary softwares (PDF/DOC reader, browsers, video/audio viewers…), I’ve got:
– English dictionary (for many things)
– Photoshop (mostly for removing the watermarks from images)
– Audition (for removing the background noise from audio, sometimes)
– Daemon Tool Lite (for boosting my iso files)
– Some video/audio editors
– Some antivirus softwares
– A LOT of emulators (all for games!)
– A LOT of games (yeah, for Windows and many other platforms)
– most recently Game audio extractor (it all started with a game with very cool soundtrack. But I figure out that I can use it for other games too, so I keep it)

A few games, Open Office, several different graphics editing programs, messaging, something for simple 3d modelling, music and video players. And anti-virus/malware programs of course.

I have LaTeX for writing scientific documents.