{"id":18154,"date":"2014-07-31T10:04:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T14:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediastorm.com\/blog\/?p=18154"},"modified":"2014-07-31T10:04:40","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T14:04:40","slug":"mediastorm-guide-to-essential-production-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/31\/mediastorm-guide-to-essential-production-software\/","title":{"rendered":"MediaStorm Guide to Essential Production Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in February, MediaStorm upgraded its Mac Pro towers for the fiery new\u00a0models<\/a>. Here\u2019s a complete list of the applications I installed on my new machine.<\/p>\n

Backup and File Management<\/h2>\n

ChronoSync<\/a> ($40) – Handy tool when you need to mirror a group of folders between hard drives.
\nDropbox<\/a> (free, paid upgrade for more storage) – We\u2019ve moved away from FTP for file transfers. Dropbox is far easier and much simpler.
\nHazel<\/a> ($28) – Automatically organize and copy files according to user rules. (MediaStorm Guide)
\n<\/a>Space Gremlin<\/a> ($3.99) – A graphical representation of every file on your hard drive. Great for finding space hogs.
\nSuperDuper!<\/a> ($27.95) – Industrial-strength backup. Backs up one drive to another. (MediaStorm Guide<\/a>)
\nTransmit<\/a> ($33.99) – For those rare occasions when I still need to transfer files via FTP.<\/p>\n

Editing<\/h2>\n

After Effects<\/a> – I\u2019m like a teenager with a learner\u2019s permit when it comes to motion graphics. Still, I like to have it handy if I need to make something simple.
\nAperture<\/a> ($79.99) – For picture editing and management, although we have begun flirting with Lightroom (MediaStorm Guide<\/a>).
\nFinal Cut 7<\/a> (no longer produced) – For editing legacy projects.
\nPhotoshop<\/a> – I rarely use photoshop, but it\u2019s good to have around for enhancing images.
\nPremiere Pro<\/a> – My editing workshorse. This is where I spend 80% of my time.<\/p>\n

Editing Utilities<\/h2>\n

Flip Player<\/a> (free)- A Quicktime plugin for viewing Window\u2019s WMV files.
\nHandbreak<\/a> (free) – For ripping DVDs.
\niShowU HD<\/a> ($29.95) – For recording the computer screen when we produce online training<\/a>. I use ScreenFlow<\/a> ($99) for blog posts.
\niZotope<\/a> ($349) – For audio repair and sweetening.
\nKeyboard Maestro<\/a> ($36) A macros tool to speed up logging. Can\u2019t live without it. (MediaStorm Guide<\/a>)
\nPiezo<\/a> ($14.99) – Record audio from any application on your Mac.
\nPlural Eyes<\/a> ($199) – Great for syncing multiple cameras and audio before building multi-camera sequences. (MediaStorm Guide<\/a>)
\nTranscrivia<\/a> ($29.99) – The only way to transcribe.
\nVLC<\/a> (free, donations accepted) – A great video player for files QuickTime can\u2019t open.<\/p>\n

Utilities<\/h2>\n

1 Password<\/a> ($49.99) – The ultimate password manager.
\nAlfred<\/a> (free, paid upgrade) – Like your Mac\u2019s search bar but much, much better.
\nBartender<\/a> ($15) – Put menu bar icons on a hidden shelf. Keeps the top of your mac clean.
\nFantastical<\/a> ($9.99) – a menubar calendar application that understands natural language when creating events, i.e., just type \u201cThursday at 8\u201d and you\u2019re good to go.
\nMenuMate<\/a> ($4.99) – Shows all of your menu options right at your cursor, one click away.
\nPrivacy Scan<\/a> ($14.99) – Sometimes you just need to take a bottle of bleach to your browser\u2019s history and cache.
\nTwitter<\/a> (free) – Keep up with the latest cat trends, and also\u00a0@Mediastorm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing<\/h2>\n

Byword<\/a> (free) – A clean, minimal writing environment. I write blog posts with Byword and then copy them to Google Drive<\/a> for team editing.
\nChrome<\/a> (free) – I use Safari as my default browser but for some reason it has problems copying and pasting in Google Drive.
\nJustNotes<\/a> ($9.99) – Simple storage for note-taking.
\nKeynote<\/a> ($19.99) – For\u00a0methodology<\/a> and\u00a0fthef<\/a> presentations.
\nGlui<\/a> ($6.99) – For marking up screenshots that I use in blog posts.
\nText Expander<\/a> ($34.99) – Create snippets, or shortcuts, of frequently used text.
\nText Wrangler<\/a> (free) – For the odd occasion when I need to format text in HTML.<\/p>\n

Have a great tool I didn\u2019t mention? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in February, MediaStorm upgraded its Mac Pro towers for the fiery new\u00a0models. Here\u2019s a complete list of the applications I installed on my new machine. Backup and File Management ChronoSync ($40) – Handy tool when you need to mirror a group of folders between hard drives. Dropbox (free, paid upgrade for more storage) – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tools","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediastorm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}