Stuff Brian Uses

I’m always curious what software and hardware other people use, so I thought I would leave this out here as a reference.

Laptop:

• 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display
• 2.6GHz Intel Core i7
• 16GB DDR3
• 1TB PCIe SSD

Workstation:

• ASUS P8Z77 WS Motherboard
• Intel Xeon E3 1245 V2 Processor
• 4 x 8GB DDR3 1600M MHz Memory (32GB Total)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 960
• 1 x 120GB Intel X-25M SSD
• 2 x 2TB Hitachi 7200RPM HDDs
• Philips BDM4065UC 40″ 4K Monitor (in Picture by Picture mode with DisplayPort, MiniDP, HDMI, and HDMI-ML inputs for 4x monitors on 1 screen!)

Software:

• VMWare ESXi
  • I use ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 for my test lab.
• VMWare Workstation
  • I use Workstation for my local VM’s on my Windows workstation.
• VMWare Fusion
  • I use Fusion for my local VM’s on my MacBook Pro.
• Veeam Backup and Replication
  • Used for backups of my ESXi-based test lab.
• SQL Backup and FTP
  • Great little back-up utility for really simple automated SQL Server backups.
• DropBox
  • Doesn’t everyone use this?
• UltraEdit
  • Probably the best text editor available.  It has a great tabbed interface and will open files that are many GB in seconds.  I use it on both my Mac and Windows boxes.
• Notepad++
  • If you don’t want to spend the money on UltraEdit, Notepad++ is the next best thing.  The downside to Notepad++ is that there is no Mac version.
• Remote Desktop Manager
  • There are a lot of options for remote desktop management.  I’ve tried a variety of them, but I still prefer RDM the most.  It has a great tabbed interface and stores passwords in a local encrypted file.  It also has a Mac version and an import/export that works between Windows and Mac.  While there is an Enterprise version with a client/server setup, I just use the regular version.  It interfaces with Dropbox so that I have all of my connections on all of my computers.
• Splashtop Personal
  • RDP works at some clients, but often times its blocked.  Splashtop has yet to fail behind a single client firewall, though I’m sure I’ll eventually find a place that blocks it.
• SnagIt
  • If you see a screenshot on this blog…it was taken with SnagIt.  It has really simple tools to add annotations and borders.  It also does a great job for Webinars.
• Rufus
  • This is a great tool for creating bootable thumb drives.  I won’t say I use it all the time, but if you are setting up a new server or reloading a laptop, it does a great job of creating bootable thumb drives in a hurry.