As an out sourced IT Support company serving many different areas of business here at Glo Networks we use a large variety of different software every day. As such we would like to suggest some of the software we find useful to our blog readers:
Smartcode VNC Manager
In the words of the creators: SmartCode VNC Manager is a powerful yet easy to use remote administration, network management and monitoring software.
Our thoughts: This is a very handy way to manage several remote sessions at once, as well as store connection details for ease of access.
TeamViewer
In the words of the creators: Teamviewer - the All-In-One Solution for Remote Access and Support over the Internet
Our thoughts: Sometimes getting access to a remote session can be tricky if not already configured; TeamViewer makes it simple. With this small program it becomes easy, just run a small program from both ends and enter the numbers from one into the other. This is what powers our GloRemote software.
WinRAR archiver
In the words of the creators: WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.
Our thoughts: Very handy compression/decompression tool. Can be very effective at reducing the size of certain files for transferring or storage. Also useful for splitting and joining large files.
Skype
In the words of the creators: Skype is software that enables the world's conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype on their PCs to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users.
Our thoughts: Perfect communications tool for keeping in touch for free over the internet, whether by video, voice or text chat. Also able to call phones over the internet with purchasable credit.
Ultra Edit
In the words of the creators: Replacing Notepad or looking for a powerful text editor? UltraEdit is what you're looking for. Versatile and easy to use, UltraEdit is the ideal text, hex, XML, HTML, PHP, Java, Javascript, Perl, and programmer's editor.
Our thoughts: Very nice text editor, good macro functions for changing formatting. Put simply can do pretty much anything you may need to a text based file.
mIRC
In the words of the creators: mIRC is a popular Internet Relay Chat client used by millions of people, and thousands of organizations, to communicate, share, play and work with each other on IRC networks around the world.
Our thoughts: IRC has been a great simple way to keep in real time communication with a group of people over the internet since 1988. mIRC is one of the most popular IRC clients and not without good reason. Simple and incredibly versatile and extensible, we use this software extensively at Glo.
Filezilla Client:
In the words of the creators: FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.
Our thoughts: The FileZilla FTP client is great for transferring files to and from FTP sites, the GUI is simple but has good range of features behind it.
DokuWiki
In the words of the creators: DokuWiki is a standards compliant, simple to use Wiki, mainly aimed at creating documentation of any kind. It is targeted at developer teams, workgroups and small companies. It has a simple but powerful syntax which makes sure the datafiles remain readable outside the Wiki and eases the creation of structured texts. All data is stored in plain text files no database is required.
Our thoughts: Dokuwiki is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A wiki. Nothing more nothing less. We love that. We use it for documenting our own and our customer's systems. It's uses flat files, which allows us to do some funky templating. In addition it provides the concept of namespacing. For those who aren't programmers the best way to describe it is in comparison to folders in a file system, or if you want it in terms of wiki; a wiki within a wiki. The cherry on top is the fact that it allows you to use LDAP authentication, allowing us to link it in with our Active Directory. Sprinkle on a few custom and open source plugins and we have our documentation system.
Dropbox
In the words of the creators: Dropbox Secure backup, sharing and sync made easy.
Our thoughts: Great for keeping your important files synced between several machines. Simply pop the file into the Dropbox folder on one machine and Dropbox will automatically sync the file to any other machines you have set it up on. Also provides a history for backup purposes and sharing functionality with which you can share files or folders over the internet.
Mac Software
Parallels Desktop
In the words of the creators: Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac is the #1 choice of customers worldwide to seamlessly run Windows applications on a Mac ÔÇö without rebooting. Graphics intensive programs are a breeze with new and enhanced DirectX functionality.
Our thoughts: We like Macs, they're powerful, quality built machines, but the biggest downside is not being able to use any Windows software. Parallels allows you to do both without feeling like a compromise. Whether you prefer the look and feel of OSX or Windows, Parallels will give you the experience you prefer with access to the software for both OS's.
VMWare Fusion
In the words of the creators: Run the most demanding Mac and Windows applications side-by-side at maximum speeds without rebooting. With more than 80 new features in VMware Fusion 3, including 5X better 3D graphics performance and 35% faster end-to-end performance in version 3.1, it's never been easier to run Windows on your Mac.
Our thoughts: As with Parallels above, VMWare Fusion is great for allowing you to run Windows applications on your Mac. As both are great products with lots of features shared between them choosing one over the over really comes down to preference (unless you're looking for a specific feature only offered by one or the other product, see this side-by-side feature list from Wikipedia)
Colloquy
In the words of the creators: Traditionally, chat clients on the Mac have been anything but glamorous. Colloquy is an advanced IRC, SILC & ICB client which aims to fill this void. By adhering to Mac OS X interface conventions, Colloquy has the look and feel of a quality Mac application.
Our thoughts: Colloquy is a user friendly IRC client for Macs with a great interface.
Cyberduck
In the words of the creators: Open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files, Google Docs & Amazon S3 Browser for Mac & Windows.
Our thoughts: A nice feature rich, open source browser for remote files; Cyberduck integrates well with the OSX operating system. One cautionary note: we've found SFTP performance to be slow out of the box.