I am always looking for apps or utilities that can increase productivity or at least shorten the steps that it takes to do something. A few months ago I came across the great utility, Alfred. Alfred is a launcher for OSX and within a couple keystrokes you can launch your favorite app. But it doesn’t stop with just launching apps…you can also search the web, amazon, wiki, maps & more.
If you want to check it out, you can find more information here.
Check this out…Propellerheads is releasing Reason 6 in just a few days. Here is what they are doing for owners of Reason and Record.
**Information from Propellerhead’s website.
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On September 30th, 2011, we’re letting you name your upgrade price.
Wait. What?
That’s right. If you own both Reason and Record you decide what you will pay for the upgrade to Reason 6. We trust you to decide what Reason 6 is worth to you. Whatever you decide, that’s what you’ll pay*.
*Anything you want, as long as anything is at least $1.00/€1.00. But you’ve already decided to pay more than that, right?
I recently came across this open source software. If you find yourself trying to remember details for productions, events, etc.; this might be something for you to check out.
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OpenProj is a free, open source project management solution. OpenProj is a replacement of Microsoft Project and other commercial project solutions. The OpenProj solution has been download more than 1,250,000 times in the few months since launch and is being used in over 142 countries. A free download of OpenProj is available here and is distributed under the CPAL license. OpenProj is ideal for desktop project management and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. It even opens existing Microsoft or Primavera files. OpenProj shares the industry’s most advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and provides Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more. There is literally no time or effort involved in switching to OpenProj, and your teams can manage projects on any platform for free. Projity worked closely with leaders in the commercial and open source industries in preparation for the release of OpenProj. It is a welcome addition, not only for project management users, but also for users in all software segments. Microsoft Project retails for $999.99, is installed on 7% of all Office desktops and drives over $1 billion in revenue for Microsoft. OpenProj fills an important gap in the desktop market, as a key component in the Office family of products now has a replacement available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows.
AC-7 Pro Control Surface for iPad
Saitara Software
One of the tipping points for me in getting an iPad early on was “how will this help me in my weekly worship leading. Granted, I am quite the Apple enthusiast but didn’t want to just get an iPad just to say I had one. Once I saw the AC-7 Pro Control Surface app, I was hooked. This control surface has modes for Logic, Digital Perfomer, Pro Tools as well as Mackie Universal Control. I have used it in ProTools, however, it is very buggy and not as enjoyable of an experience. Once I hooked it up to Ableton, I was stoked. I ended up replacing my Axiom 61 on stage for the iPad!
One of the ways that I use AC-7 Pro is by setting my Click on Channel 1 and Loop/Perc on Channel 2. This gives me a standard way of adjusting my fader levels without having to think too much. The only I really need to adjust anything is to boost the click level or fade the loop. I then midi map the “Select” button at the bottom of each fader to a particular song. This gives me the ability to jump to a particular song on the fly. There are many more features that I could cover in a later post but here is a quick look at AC-7 Pro and how I use it on a weekly basis.
AC-7 Pro is available in the iTunes App Store and sells for $9.99.
