Hot Stuff

All the things that I find make my life that little bit easier

Aperture 3 – http://www.apple.com/aperture/

It took them a few goes to get it right but 3.0.2 appears to be pretty stable.  I use a lot of images in my work and I need a tool that lets me capture and touch up quickly for use in presentations or videos.

TrackToys – http://tracktoys.co.uk

Not some smart software that makes running a track car easier but Matt at Tracktoys does exactly that for me.  With limited time and a busy schedule Matt keeps Robert the 968 is ready to race condition and provides trackside support with his pyrometer that really does make you go faster.

Spinrite 6 – http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

I do not think Steve Gibson has upadted this in 5 years.  That is because he has had no need to Spinrite 6 simply works. What does it do?  It mends hard disks.  Lots of different sorts of hard disks and it will even fix them before they become broken.  A brilliant piece of software engineering that uses a detailed knowledge of the physical reasons why disks fail and how they work to check and fix them.

Transmit – http://www.panic.com/TRANSMIT/

Moving files about on the internet is hassle. Transmit just removes all of the complexity for the Mac OS X user. Just about any destination is handled with ease.  You can create little “droplets” to send things to common destinations.  I simply love it.

Update:  I just got an email notifying me they just made Transmit 4 GA.  Simple and painless upgrade.  Focus on UI and usability.

Windows Home Server – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

Now this is a strange one.  I was looking for a backup solution for the house.  I needed something that could support a lot of disk but also had the ability to be extensible enabling it to run streaming servers for example and be part of the home automation network.  Ok, it is built on a very old version of Windows, it is also not that widely supported, but it does exactly what I suspect most families with say 2 or more PCs would ever want. Ours automatically backs up and checks the health of all of our Windows based machines, hosts time machine images for the Macs, acts as our primary media server and automates our lighting. All in one neat box from energy efficient box from http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/