I’ve actually had a couple of people ask me what tools I use for various tasks so I’m going to compile a list of the various applications I use ‘every day’. That’s in quotes as obviously I don’t use all of these tools EVERY day but I consider them part of the list of tools I couldn’t do without. I don’t use anything particularly special but I’ll make this list for those that’ve asked anyway. Secondly, I keep meaning to make a list of tools I use for my own reference so it’ll double as that, too.

I’m not going to go into a whole load of detail about what the benefits of each one are – I’ll let you work that out for yourself if you want to try them (feel free to contact me if you want to discuss any of these though). I will include a couple of things which aren’t strictly applications too, e.g. hosting services. So, here we go – these details are correct as at June 15th, 2010.

Operating system :: OS X 10.6.4 (Snow Leopard) on 27″ iMac. I made the switch from Windows towards the end of 2009 and am wishing I’d done it years ago (strictly based on what I use my machines for). Please keep comments about Mac vs PC to yourself as I’m not interested in comparing the two – they’re both great for different reasons.
Office Suite :: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac … unfortunately I have to say that compared to the Window version this really is quite crap.
Email client :: Thunderbird 3
App dev environment :: Xcode 3.2.1 when writing for OS X, Visual Studio Express (C#) when writing for Windows (Parallels Desktop)
Web dev environment :: Coda by Panic
FTP client :: Transmit by Panic
MySQL administrator :: Navicat Lite
Text editor :: TextEdit, built into OS X
Primary browser :: Opera 10.53.8343
Twitter client :: Nambu
Password storage :: KeePassX – *highly* recommended on both OS X and Windows (the Windows version is called KeePass).
iPod manager :: iTunes – on OS X it’s actually really good and seems 100x more stable than the Windows version.
CD/DVD burner :: None, built into OS X
Photo processing :: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 – I used to use Capture One 4.8 from Phase One but it started to fall WAY behind Lightroom in terms of post-processing options … a real shame.
Fitness management :: Rubitrack for Mac (my training device is a Garmin 310xt)
Instant messaging :: Windows Live Messenger
Movie player :: VLC (everyone should use this although it struggles with the TSCC codec unfortunately)
Audio player :: iTunes
Archiving utility :: Built into OS X

One thing you might notice is they’re pretty much all free tools with the exception of Lightroom, Rubitrack, Coda and Transmit, all of which I own licenses for (no they’re not pirated!).

Website host :: ICDSoft – these guys are AMAZING. I wouldn’t use anyone else for Linux hosting.
Email service :: Gmail
Blogging engine :: WordPress 3 RC3 (final version due soon) and ExpressionEngine Core 1.6
Online photo sharing :: Flickr (I own a ‘Pro’ account)
RSS feed management :: FeedBurner
Website statistics :: Google Analytics
Search engine :: Altavista … haha yeah right.
Bookmarks :: Delicious – I stopped using browser-based bookmarks many years ago. Ok, so bookmarks are considered a bit backward now but I’ve got stuff on Delicious that I refer back to all the time.

That’s about it really. As I said earlier I’m happy to discuss any of these if you like – just post a comment or use the Contact Me link at the top of the page.

Thanks!