As I’ve said before, I like using open source software whenever I can. So what close-sourced software do I use? Here’s the list below the jump:
- Adobe Lightroom: Really the best software for cataloging and processing digital RAW files. There are some open-source RAW file handlers, like dcraw, but Lightroom has it all in one handy package and I find it really can’t be matched. I do still use GIMP, though, for bitmap twiddling.
- iTunes: I’ve got too many playlists and ratings in here to switch to something else.
- Quicken: The software on this list I truly hate. Again, it’s an issue of simply having too much data to move anywhere else: 15 years of financial data with tens of thousands of transactions is a tough nut to crack. Quicken is the only software I know of that routinely gets worse with every iteration, and they make you pay for a new version about every three years or so. If there was a good alternative that handled all these transactions and did online banking, I’d use it.
That’s about it for software I use regularly that isn’t open source. As you can see, a pretty short list.