Programs, Programs Everywhere...(Part 1)

Hello my fellow personages!

Recently I have been particularly interested in the list of software found on our handy dandy center homepage.

Click on that guy...

Then that guy...

And wallah! Software. 

Now the reason I've taken you through this wonderful picture adventure (like climbing Mount Everest, but better right?) is because after I'd gotten over the fact that we have a place where you can check all of the programs that are downloaded on the computers, as well as which ones are Mac/Windows specific (see that heading operating system? Yeah, right below that.) I realized there were some that I had never heard of. So, finally getting around to the point of this post, here's a brief go-to for you guys (and myself) detailing (in a sentence or two) what each not-so-well-known program is used for:

*disclaimer--I am going by which programs I, personally, do not know, meaning this list is not definitive and might include something you're a beast at as well as exclude something you've never heard of--end disclaimer*

This program is described as a "free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product" on wikipedia. One tidbit of advice, if you ever need to search for an in depth explanation of this, make sure you add the word 'program' after its name. There is an app with the same name and it has nothing to do with 3D graphics.
Mac and Windows

  

Camtasia is described on its site as "A powerful, yet easy-to-use screen recorder. [...] Easily record your screen movements and actions, or import HD video from a camera or other source."
Windows only (I assume it's only in studios 1+2)

If you ever need a super in depth description of this program, here is Apple's own user manual, if you just need to know what it does, here's the first sentence under the About Color heading: "Color has been designed from the ground up as a feature-rich color correction environment that complements a wide variety of post-production workflows..."
Mac only (surprise)

Again, here's the user manual if you ever need an in depth description for a particularly hard headed problem. Otherwise, "Compressor gives you resizing, cropping, image processing, encoding, and delivery options, and offers batch processing, VBR options, and H.264 encoding."
Mac only

According to this apple website Compressor 4 is "Advanced encoding for Final Cut Pro-A simplified interface, intuitive controls, and tight integration with Final Cut Pro make Compressor the perfect companion for custom encoding."
Mac only (Only in studios 3+4)

According to cnet this program is "an open source software which can connect to FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer), WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Windows Azure, Rackspace Cloud Files, and Google Docs to distribute your files." Confused? Here's a nice informative forum all about it. Seems to be used mostly by web designers.
Mac and Windows

Another Apple product, another user manual. This is described as a "software for authoring DVD-Video titles" and "lets you work with audio, video, graphics, and text materials that you have already created and edited and orchestrate them into a DVD that can be played on a DVD player or a suitably equipped computer."
Mac only

This looks to be along the same lines as Cyberduck above, at least in the used mostly be web designers area. On cnet it is described as "one of the oldest and most well-loved FTP clients, whose cute fetching dog animation has been running--literally--on macs since 1989." Here's a handy little compare/contrast/manual for Cyberduck and Fetch that I found.
Mac only

I'm pretty sure there are some posts on this blog about this program (how Adobe Media Encoder is better but more complicated if I remember correctly), but if anybody asks and you happen to forget, cnet calls it "a video converter program intended to both rip and convert video files to work on a number of supported devices." This is also only on macs while encoder is on mac and windows.
Mac only

This, as cnet explains, is "Apple's DVD authoring-and-burning tool, working with internal and many external DVD burners."
Mac only

As the manual says, "iWeb is the easiest way to create and publish great-looking websites."
Mac only

From what I can gather from the apple site, this is their presentation software, like Microsoft's PowerPoint.
Mac only

So, this is an interesting one. According to this website (which I'm pretty sure is its legit website, but I could be wrong) "LaTeX is a high-quality system" including "features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation." I also found this site that gives a bit more insight on its basics and the file types it uses.
Mac and Windows



And with that I will be ending part one of this in depth look at all the programs I had no idea existed on the center's computers. Please, stay tuned for the next exciting installment, out next month. A warning though; you'll have to keep a close eye on your socks while reading part two for it is sure to rock them, intense electric guitar solos and all.

See you then my friends!