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Below are some thoughts on software applications that I have found useful. I have no relationship with the vendors other than that of customer and user. I've skipped a few omnipresent programs that I use but have nothing in particular to say about, such as iTunes. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Operating system: Windows 7 (on my newest PC); Android (on my phone).
Bibliographic database:
I use EndNote X4, and am generally happy with it. It has some drawbacks, though: the high price of the software and upgrades, and the somewhat clumsy EndNoteWeb sharing function. But it is reliable and it integrates well with Word.
The free Firefox add-on Zotero is intriguing and I hope that it soon will become good enough to justify adopting for professional purposes. It is very good at scraping records off the web, and its group sharing features look appealing. Some key limitations as of version 2.0.9: 1) It has no global replace capability; 2) It needs to sort by author's full name, not merely the surname; 3) Some ugly workarounds aside, it limits you to a single database (library); 4) It clearly has trouble importing large collections from EndNote without a lot of record-by-record cleanup.
Encryption:
I once used PGP when it was free. Currently looking for other solutions.
File management: Total Commander. Embarrassing name but good program.
File synchronization:
For a long time I tried to keep all my files based on just a single system, aside from backups. But it makes much more sense to keep mirrored copies of critical folder trees on each computer in use, as well as on a server drive. Careful synchronization then becomes a must. I use Super Flexible File Synchronizer; the pro version supports SFTP.
FTP: FileZilla Client
Password management:
KeePass is free, open-source, thoughtfully done — in short, lovable.
Photo utility:
Irfanview has long been an impressive freeware utility for photo viewing and basic editing and format conversion. Note in particular the batch processing functions, e.g. for resampling or renaming a large number of photos or image files at once.
Text editor:
EditPad Pro, while not free, is elegant and efficient. I use it for many things, including writing Stata do-files and html pages like this one. Its fine features include good syntax coloring, keyboard shortcuts, and sophisticated text encoding options for dealing with different character sets such as Unicode, GB, and Big5.
Statistics: Stata 9
Web browser:
Firefox, with these add-ons: NoScript, for self-defense against malicious code; Flashblock, for getting control over the visual cacaphony that many sites throw at you, and Xmarks, for effortlessly synchronizing bookmarks among different computers.
Also, Chrome, for interfacing with the world of Google: Contacts, Calendar, Documents, etc.
Word processor:
I was a WordPerfect dead-ender, cherishing the memories of versions 4.2 and 5.1, which got me through college. The realities of academic publishing and collaboration, along with the need to work with Chinese-language material, made me reluctantly switch to Word. As I learned more about it, and particularly since installing Word 2007 and Word 2010, I came to embrace its paragraph-based, object-oriented ways. For those not already familiar with Word's finer points and the efficient but widely neglected styles feature, definitely see Shauna Kelly's site, and also the MVP site.
Miscellaneous utilities:
Speedfan for monitoring system temperatures
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