Tuesday, April 28, 2009

GEEK! Permaculture Computerizing

I get this question all the time:

"What are the computer programs you use every day? What are the most useful for your work as a permaculture designer?"

So, here we go...

EVERY-DAY USE
• Omnioutliner Pro - incredible note-taking and organize-everything software. The program I use most.
• Omnifocus - the omnigroup's implementation of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system. beautifully simple and powerful.
• Microsoft Excel - iWork Numbers would work as well, I just haven't switched over yet.
• Mozilla Firefox 3.0 - advanced web browsing
• Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) - powerful cross-platform mind-mapping; a little quirky at times but really excellent.

WEB APPLICATIONS
• Wordpress - powers my website
• Blogger - runs my 7+ blogs
• Doodle - best web app for organizing meetings
• Gmail - rocks. best email ever.
• Google Docs - realtime collaborative editing.

DESIGN & MAP TOOLS
• Vectorworks - $1800 professional Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) software. Awesome, and a steep learning curve.
• Google Earth - free and versatile. combines beautifully with...
• Google SketchUp - free 3D modeling - quick and easy to use

OTHER PROGRAMS
• Adobe CS - especially acrobat, photoshop & indesign
• Preview (Mac OSX) - quick and functional image & pdf editing
• Quickbooks - bookkeeping & invoicing
• Keynote (Mac OSX) - way, way better than powerpoint. seriously.
• Quicktime Pro - most of my video editing here, final touch-ups with iMovie.

AWESOME. Enjoy geekin' it out.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

autocad's 3d modeler is getting way more functional as well- the cost is prohibitive for small business to an extent, but that depends on where you draw your pirate line. thank you pirate bay!