What I Use

A lot changes in a few years time, and it is about time I updated this post since a lot has actually changed over the last few years when it comes to what I and my family are using when it comes to technology.

Hardware

For travelling and doing a lot of my multimedia management I still use my old heavy laptop; the HP Pavilion dv7 2114eo. This is a 17,3 inch desktop replacement laptop. It is running an AMD Turionx2 Ultra Dual Core Mobile Technology ZM 82 processor (x64), with 4 GB RAM and 2x 500GB hard drives. It is running an ATI mobile Radeon HD 4650 graphics solution.

The Windows Experience Index for this machine, after having upgraded to Windows 8 now looks like this:

My desktop computer is also still my home-built system with a ASUS P5K-E WiFi AP edition motherboard, Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor with 6 GB RAM. The graphics card is a Powercolor Radeon HD 4870 and I have now a total of three hard discs with a total of 3,5 TB storage available.

Software

On both my laptop and desktop computers I am now running Windows 8 Pro x64 version. I am now using the Microsoft Office 365 Preview on both machines, but will soon upgrade to the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 (x64) on at least one of them. I thus happen to be a very happy user of Outlook 2013 for email management. In order to combine my “in the cloud” email (gmail and hotmail) with my regular POP3 email I use the Outlook Connector software.

I use Windows Live Photo Gallery for importing and managing my photos. For editing my photos I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. For keeping my precious photos backed up and synced between my two machines, I use the desktop Skydrive application on both my machines, as well as having purchased the maximum amounth of storage available in Skydrive (cloud – 125 GB). Which is almost filled up in its entirety with my pictures  – Eh, Microsoft… I need more storage on Skydrive!

For not only keeping my photos backed up, but all the other files I value, I have installed Carbonite on my laptop, which gives me peace of mind – I am always backed up – automatically!

For managing my music collection I have to admit to using iTunes. I am not to happy about this particular software as it is slow, but have gotten used to using it, due to the fact that the household now consists of multiple Apple devices.  So, we have wavered slightly off into the dark side 😉 As you will have seen from my recent posts I have been using a Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone 7.5 device, as well as my son having a LG Windows Phone – so we haven’t completely weered off! In order to sync those devices we are both using the Zune software.

When I want to rip a DVD to bring it with me on some of the iDevices or my Lumia,  I use Slysoft AnyDVD and Handbrake for the ripping and conversion.

When it comes to surfing the web, I have totally abandoned Internet Explorer, as well as Firefox, and are now a big fan of Google Chrome! This lightweight, versatile browser is the absolute best that is out there!

For my blogging I use Windows Live Writer, and for chatting I use Skype. For twittering I now use MetroTwit, both the desktop and Windows 8 store versions. I still prefer the desktop version of MetroTwit – it is just amazing. On my mobile devices I use Tweetbot on my iDevices and rowi on my Lumia 900.

For security I use only the stock Windows Defender that comes with Windows 8 and the built in firewall. No need to fork out more money to the likes of Symantec and McAffee.

Multimedia players

As I stated above we now have an multiple iDevices in the household; two iPod Touches, three iPhones (2 iPhone 4 and 1 iPhone 4S), three iPads (2 1st gen devices, and 1 3rd gen), and 1 Apple TV (2nd gen). I loved my iPhone 4 (and am still using it occasionally) and am a big fan of the Apple TV. This device, alongside a Netflix account and my iTunes account has totally changed the way we watch TV in the house. Only occasionally do we watch what the old fashioned TV channels broadcasts.

I am at the moment using my Lumia 900 as my main phone, but will switch to the Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 as soon as I can get it.

Oh, and we still have one Zune 4 Gb player around the house. 😀