Philoking.com

We get so caught up these days in “open source” this and “proprietary” that. Sometimes it’s a good idea to forget the dogma and just talk about what is simply good software. I decided to do this in a top 10 list, and as you will see, it is not tied to either Windows or OSX. This is just a list of software I love: (In no particular order)

10 – Mozilla Thunderbird (Free)

There are tons of email clients out there. I don’t have a single thing bad to say about them really. I use Outlook 2010 at work, I have Mail and Windows Live Mail installed on my Macs and PCs respectively, but for my home use, on both PC and Mac, I use Thunderbird. I host my personal mail via Gmail and Thunderbird works very nice with IMAP mail. I did use Postbox for a while, and really liked it also, but sometimes you just can’t beat free. Thunderbird is free, cross platform, stable, fast and I just like it.

9 – Windows Live Writer (Free)

I am writing this blog using it as we speak. I use it for both personal and professional blogging on a variety of platforms (WordPress, SharePoint, Community Server) and it’s rock solid and easy to use all the way around. Unfortunately for you Mac guys out there, it’s PC only, but it’s so good that I know for a fact I am not the only one who keeps a VMWare or Parallels running on my Macs so I can use it when I need to.

8 – Pidgin IM (Free)

If you communicate with a ton of people, you can’t be tethered to a single protocol. Some people don’t mind tons of Windows and apps running. I guess my OCD tendency for order and control takes hold here. Give me one list, and one chat window, tabbed with all of my conversations, regardless of network. That’s what Pidgin does, it supports MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Facebook, Myspace, the list goes on and on. It’s PC only, I solve this problem on the Mac using Adium.

7 – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ($239)

Ah, the program that knocked Adobe Photoshop out of my rotation. I actually own a legal licensed copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4. The sad reality is I use it about once a month maybe. That might be exaggerating actually. I use Lightroom all the time on my Macs. It’s PC also, but I only bought the Mac version. For going through tons of photos, making adjustments and minor corrections, and quickly publishing them to services like Flickr or Facebook, it’s a photographer’s dream.

6 – Zune (Free)

I am sure you are thinking that if I didn’t have a Zune, I wouldn’t use this software. I’d slap you in the face for saying that sir! It’s all about the ZunePass. I get all you can eat music downloads for $15 a month. I can download 10 songs a month free and clear as MP3s, and run the software on 3 PCs, as well as have my music on 3 devices. To be clear, I DO have 3 Devices, a Zune HD, a 120GB Zune and an 80GB Zune, but I would have it either way. It’s beautiful, it helps you discover tons of music you never knew existed, and it’s Microsoft man!

5 – Tweetdeck (Free)

This time a year or so ago I was blogging about how I just don’t get Twitter. Now I do, and boy do I. I don’t think I could manage it the way I do without Tweetdeck. I use it at work to keep up with the world’s conversations about our products, and I use it at home to keep up with my geek pundits and tech news as a whole. It’s free, runs on Adobe Air so it runs on any platform.

4 – Dropbox (Free)

I know I have blogged it recently, but I freaking LOVE Dropbox. Probably my most favorite software right now by far. I use it all the time. I use it on my iPhone, I use it on all my PCs and Macs, I move files back and forth with it all the time. I use it with my wife and friends to share files. It’s just an amazing way to keep access to all of your files, as well as share files with others. It’s just there, it works like you would expect, and it’s fast as hell.

3 – Foxit Reader (Free)

Let me make this clear. I HATE Adobe Acrobat Reader. Not only is it the most bloated software in the world, it also tries to sneakily install crap you don’t want. Foxit Reader is a very lightweight and easy to use Acrobat Document (PDF) reader. It’s free and works like a charm.

2 – X Marks (Free)

I use Internet Explorer 8 all the time. I use Firefox a fair bit. I use Safari from time to time. How do I make sure I never have to worry about finding bookmarks? X Marks keeps them perfectly in sync on any browser on any platform. It’s install and forget. You can also manage your bookmarks online which is very handy.

1 – Handbrake (Free)

Those of you that know me, know me to be pretty damned complaint when it comes to legal software, legal music, legal video. I buy them all. One thing that grinds my gears (thanks Peter) is that when I want to watch video I have legally purchased on the go, I need to repurchase it?!? No thanks. I use handbrake on the Mac and the PC to rip my DVDs into files I can carry along with me.

Conclusion…

Wow, a top 10 list of software I love, and only one of them isn’t free. Go figure. I have of course many paid programs I use and love (Final Cut, Logic Studio, Pro Tools, Photoshop, Office, Windows) but I wanted a list of stuff that is very useful to a broad set of people. Looks like the cost of general productivity software is getting low!!! If have provided links so you can download (or buy in the case of Lightroom) I hope you enjoy the recommendations.

If you read my blog, you probably already know I am a big fan of Microsoft’s Zune. As disheartened as I am when people haven’t heard about it, I get even more frustrated when people don’t get it, and give Zune and the ZunePass subscription a bad rap without even understanding it.

I am going to try another way to look at it, that maybe will make you understand it a little better, and see the benefits of the service.

Your Own Private Idaho

Not really Idaho, imagine if you had your own radio station. One that only played music that you like. The soundtrack to your life if you will. Today I have been playing with the Smart DJ feature in the 4.0 version of the Zune software.

Now the Genius feature in iTunes grabs what it thinks are songs you will like to listen together from your library, and organizes them for you in little playlists, that’s nice and all. The problem is you won’t hear anything that’s not in your library. Zune’s Smart DJ leverages your library to help understand who you are and what you like, but then it grabs music from your library AND the entire ZunePass catalog. Today alone I have found five or six must have CDs. It has you pick just four artists you like right off the bat. I chose Steve Vai, Megadeth, Dream Theater and Foo Fighters. I clicked the Smart DJ on Steve Vai, and it found him and his obvious contemporaries in my library, but the music it pulled in from ZunePass was incredible. If you are a guitar music guy, download some Tak Matsumoto, trust me!

A New Way To See

So the problem you will probably throw back at me is the ZunePass subscription. $14.99 a month seems to get in the way for a lot of people. Let me first make one point extremely clear, this is a point I see misunderstood more often than not:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE ZUNEPASS TO USE A ZUNE! It will operate like an iPod/iTunes with purely purchased unprotected MP3s, as well as your own songs and rip your CDs, just like you would expect.

That being said, why the heck wouldn’t you! Think about this:

• It costs about as much as buying one CD per month.
• It’s two dollars cheaper than the premium XM Radio subscription.
• It’s the same price as downloading 15 songs per month on iTunes.
• It’s way cheaper than a cup of coffee a day for you Sally Struthers types.
• It’s less than 50 cents a day man, how cheap are you, really?

The Value

I am not always sure what people think ZunePass entails, but imagine going to iTunes, and being able to download whatever you want, whenever you want. Of course there are a few artists you can’t *ahem, Metallica* but most of them are there and not only do you get to listen to any of that stuff, you get to download 10 songs per month you can keep as clean clear MP3s.

If you were to compare it to XM or Sirius, other subscription based services, the benefit is clear if you like music. You can keep the music that you download on up to three Zune devices AND three computers AND on the web. For me that means I can listen to it when I am at home on my Media Center PC (as well as through my extender on any Xbox 360 in the house as one single device), I can listen to it on my laptop, I can listen to it on my work computer, then I can also have it on a Zune I keep in my car, a Zune I carry around, and my newly ordered Zune HD when it comes in. To top that off, I can listen to it on any computer I am at through the browser, both PC and Mac.

If you compare that to paying $17 a month to have access to a bunch of channels of music you might want to listen to on one device, that’s not much of an option at all is it?

The Devices

This article is meant to talk about the service and software, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Zunes are really very nice media players. Both Video and Audio, as well as FM Radio (HD Radio on the Zune HD) built in WiFi to sync your music without connecting to your computer as well as download new music from the device if you are in a hotspot. Let me tell you a story about that…

My wife, Andy and I were traveling about 6 months ago. We had gotten into listening to comedy albums, but ran out. We found a Burger King with WiFi, I connected up, I browsed the store, and I downloaded some new Comedy albums to the device while we ate. When we hit the road we had plenty more to listen to. That’s hard to beat eh?

It’s worth a shot

I am betting you can find yourself a very cheap 1st or 2nd gen Zune if you want to try this thing out and see if you like it. The real beauty is that Microsoft understands the nature of software, and updates even the old Zunes, that means your 1st generation Zune will have the same software features as my new 120GB 3rd Gen Zune.

If you are skeptical, sign up for 14 days of free ZunePass and see what all is out there to listen to, you’ll be amazed at the service, I am sure of it.

What’s that you say? Subscription sucks because you want to own your music? Here are some numbers for you.

What’s that you say? let me explain a little further. I pay $14.99 per month with my Zune Pass subscription. It gives me access to millions of songs to download, and I get to keep 10 songs DRM free per month. At iTunes prices, DRM free is $1.29, so that’s $12.99 worth if iTunes music per month, and I get to download unlimited DRM’d music to listen to for the additional $2 per month.

Basically, if you were to fill up your iPod Classic 120GB device with the cheaper DRM’d music at $0.69 per song, it would cost you roughly $11,000. I can download at will, all I want for $14.99 a month for the same songs at the same quality, also under DRM control. At the monthly rate, I would be 95 years old by the time it because more expensive than buying them from iTunes. That’s 61 years!

I have been a devoted Zune/Zune Pass user for about 3 months now, I have two iPods that I haven’t touched in that time. The device is awesome, great interface, built in FM Radio and Wifi that allows you to sync wirelessly and download new music wirelessly.

Why are you still using an iPod again?

I am really curious about something. iTunes is a media player, right? QuickTime is a codec and a browser plugin for the most part, correct?

I mean, iTunes plays MP3 and other media files, I can see there being file associations to open iTunes with certain file types. I know that it’s meta-data is all stored in XML.

Can someone please explain to me why I would possibly need to reboot after updating iTunes? What kind of hooks are you installing on my computer Mr. Jobs? I don’t understand….

So when iTunes originally shipped it was a cute little media player with I would say at least 60% of the functionality it has now. That was 2001 and I remember it weighing in at around 20.1MB. It’s 2008 and it’s about 70MB. That’s quite the growth considering that the only big changes have been video playback and iPhone management.

Size doesn’t really bother me that much, it’s good software, it could be 200MB and I wouldn’t really care, I just wonder when I am forced to reboot, what else is Apple trying to force into my system.

We already know that they will stop at nothing to trick you into installing Safari for Windows, and they blackmail you into installing QuickTime, but what is it? Mobile Me support?

I am not sure, but I have to say that I am pretty much in love with my Zune lately and the Zune 3.1 software is a much more complete and interesting experience these days. I can learn about bands, who influenced them, who sounds like them, find other uses that like them and see what else they are listening to, and get a regular stream of new music that the iTunes store is too cumbersome to show you easily.

I would have balked if you had told me I would be saying this six months ago, but the truth is even with 3 Macs in my setup, I listen to the Zune device all the time and use the Zune software as my music player. Why you might ask? Zune Pass. Today I open it up and it knows me and says, "Hey dude, the new Nickelback is out and you might also like this David Cook fellow…" I pretty much get all you can eat music (even sweeter with the keep 10 addition) and I download the two albums and crank them as we re-arrange the house today. Who could ask for anything more.

Welcome to my newly rebooted Philocast podcast. I haven’t done an audio only podcast in almost a year and thought it was high time I got back on the wagon. This week’s episode features an entirely new audio setup from the last time I recorded one so I hope the audio is top notch!

The topics covered are the new 120GB Zune player and Zune 3.0 software as well as the MSI Wind Netbook. Running time is a little under 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Podcast Studio Notes:

• Apple Mac Pro
• Yamaha 01x
• Presonus Bluetube Mic Preamp
• Behringer Composer Pro XL Compressor/Gate
• MXL 990 Condensor Microphone
• Apple Garageband