Software Database at OZaC

Alarm Clock 2

Of Zen and Computing — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:45:51 +0000

Alarm Clock 2 will wake you up with any song, playlist or podcast in your iTunes library. It features an “easy-wake” option that slowly increases the volume of the alarm to avoid jarring you out of bed. Alarm Clock 2 is not only mean to wake you up, but will also wake your Mac from sleep in order to operate. Alarm Clock 2 sits in your Mac’s menu bar and can be snoozed with the Apple remote.

Charles Web Debugging Proxy

Of Zen and Computing — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:46:30 +0000

Charles is proxy software for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux that monitors and displays http traffic. Charles operates between your browser and the rest of the universe, giving you access to all of the raw data that flows back and forth as you navigate the web. Ever wanted to see exactly what kind of information is being passed back and forth between your computer and the sites you visit? Charles will show you.

Charles is an especially handy tool for web developers. By utilizing Charles, a developer can see what’s going on with their AJAX applications and flash animations. Charles is also able to slow down your ‘net connection and show you exactly how fast a site would respond to a person using a modem.

Charles is free for 30 days, after which you must pay a $50 license fee.

Canon EOS Utility

Of Zen and Computing — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:00:02 +0000

The Canon EOS Utility is a piece of software that allows you to control and interact with your Canon EOS Digital SLR camera via your computer. The EOS Utility has two main functions: download photos to your computer, and control the camera with your computer.

The EOS Utility features a few different methods for downloading photos from your camera, to your computer. You can either download every photo on the camera’s memory card, or select a subset of your photos and download only those. The EOS Utility will import photos to any folder you choose.

The Canon EOS Utility can also let you control your camera with your computer. You’ll see the same settings in the EOS Utility window that appear on the camera’s LCD: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and all the other bells and whistles can be controlled through the EOS Utility. This can be especially useful for eliminating blur from long exposure shots: eliminate camera shake by hitting the shutter button on your computer, instead of the physical shutter button on the camera body.

The Canon EOS Utility ships on a CD enclosed with your Canon Digital SLR Camera.

Democracy Player

Of Zen and Computing — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:00:40 +0000

Democracy Player is a desktop video application whose goal is to make watching video on the Internet as simple as watching television programming. Consider all the different ways it is possible to watch video online — browsing YouTube, visiting video blogs (vlogs), downloading torrents, and more. The intention of Democracy Player is to unify all those different content sources under one application, and present Internet video through a series of “channels”. With Democracy Player you can browse YouTube videos, download & watch torrents, and subscribe to various content all through one interface.

Democracy Player will be changing it’s name to Miro shortly.

Last.fm Audio Scrobbler

Of Zen and Computing — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:00:47 +0000

The Last.fm Audio Scrobbler is a free download that works in conjunction with the Last.fm social music site to analyze your musical tastes and provide you with new recommendations. “Scrobbling” is a term Last.fm uses to describe how their system works — the Last.fm Audio Scrobbler keeps track of what you listen to in your desktop audio player (e.g. iTunes), and sends the names of those tracks back to Last.fm. Last.fm adds these tracks to your profile. As the service collects more data on your listening habits, it begins to give you recommendations for new music related to what you already listen to.

In order to download and use the Last.fm Audio Scrobbler, you must become a member of their site.

Adobe Bridge

Of Zen and Computing — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:00:14 +0000

Adobe Bridge is file management software meant to be a “bridge” between all of the different creative software products offered by Adobe. With Adobe Bridge, you can browse, label, tag, and rate all different kinds of multimedia files, including camera RAW files. My favorite use for Adobe Bridge is sorting through all of my recently imported digital photos and separating the keepers from the junk.

Adobe Bridge is sure to boost your productivity, and lower the times it takes to sort through your media files. Virtually all of the organizational functions of Bridge are accessible via keyboard shortcuts, enabling you to work as fast as you can type. I can take a few hundred photos with my digital camera and blow through the entire lot, labeling and rating each file, in just a few minutes using Bridge — now that’s productivity!

Adobe Bridge is free software that’s distributed with Adobe products. If you have Photoshop, you already have Adobe Bridge.

For some great insight on how a photographer can improve his workflow with Adobe Bridge, check out Photowalking with Thomas Hawk: The Photoshop Lessons, Part I and Part II.

Adobe Bridge web site

Flickr Uploadr

Of Zen and Computing — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:21:53 +0000

Anybody who uploads medium or large quantities of photos to their Flickr photostream should not be using Flickr’s default upload form. Click, browse, open, click, browse, open… it is just too inefficient. Flickr makes uploading numerous photos a breeze with the Flickr Uploadr utility.

Flickr Uploadr is a lightweight utility that is very talented at uploading an organizing batches of photos. With Flickr Uploadr, just drag and drop your image files right into the Uploadr, apply some tags to the batch, choose your security & privacy settings, select a target album, and hit the “upload” button.

In addition to batch settings that apply to every photo you upload, Flickr Uploadr also lets you edit individual photos. Click through each photo in the batch, and you can edit it’s title, description, tags, and more.

Flickr Uploadr is available for both Mac and PC.

Mozilla Lightning

Of Zen and Computing — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:13:47 +0000

Mozilla Lightning is a desktop calendar application that is distributed as an extension to Mozilla Thunderbird. Lightning is built as a Thunderbird extension because its goal is tight integration between your e-mail client and your calendar.

Lightning builds upon the similar Mozilla Sunbird application by adding a number of features found in other office productivity platforms like Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail/iCal. Mozilla Lightning allows you to link tasks between your calendar and your e-mail, accept event invitations (even from other people using different calendar software), and synchronize your calendar with your PDA or mobile phone.

Dev-C++

Of Zen and Computing — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:00:51 +0000

Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a free C++ compiler and fully integrated development environment. If you’re looking to learn C++ programming but do not have access to the Microsoft Visual Studio, Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a great option to consider. Dev-C++ is especially useful for students who cannot afford Microsoft’s IDE. Released under the GNU General Public License, the Dev-C++ IDE is available absolutely free of charge.

An Integrated Development Environment, or IDE, is more than just a compiler. While the compiler takes care of turning your code into an executable, the IDE is meant to supply all the tools you need to write that code in the first place. Some features of the Bloodshed Dev-C++ IDE are file browsing, function lists, and syntax highlighting.

FileZilla

Of Zen and Computing — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:00:31 +0000

FileZilla is FTP software for Microsoft Windows. FileZilla is an FTP client enables you to exchange files back and forth between your computer and another system over a network connection. If you need to upload files to a web site, or some other type of server, an FTP client is exactly what you need to get the job done.

FileZilla also offers FTP server software, which enables your computer to act as a server. By running the FileZilla server, you can allow others to log into your computer and upload and download files. This could be very useful if you have a spare Windows computer that you’re using as a test web server.

In addition to plain old FTP, FileZilla also supports the much more secure SFTP protocol. FTP is considered extremely insecure because it transmits passwords in plain text, while SFTP adds a layer of encryption that guards your passwords from prying eyes.