Top 10 underused tech products in 2008

This list of top ten is very important and precious for engineers as well as web masters.
I’m putting together a top 10 list of undiscovered or underused technology products. Awesome programs, technologies, and hardware that haven’t been widely adopted. So, let’s have a look.

10. Quartz Composer (Mac, Free)

Mac OS X has had the Quartz framework for a long time. In some ways it is very simmilar to Leopard’s Core Animation. It allows developers to add animations into their software. Programs like iMovie (’06 version, for themes), PulpMotion, and Photo Presenter use this technology. Using Quartz Composer (Which comes with every mac as part of Xcode) you can easily make interactive, real time animations fed by data as opposed to keyframes. You can make Mac Screensavers, modify or create iMovie themes, extend programs like PulpMotion, or just make a cool looking animation. Well worth trying if you’re on a mac, especially since it’s free.

9. TivoCast (TiVo, Free with Tivo subscription)

Tivo’s been doing some cool stuff with the ability to network Series 2 and 3 DVR’s. You can dowload shows from your TiVo onto your computer, you can schedule shows from your machine, and, biggest of all IMO, you can watch video podcasts. Unfortunately, mostly because of TiVo’s odd encryption, very few shows support it. With TivoCast, shows like ‘DL.TV’ and ‘CNET’s tips for digital living’ end up right in your now playing list. I’ll take that the couch over my desk chair any day. I think TiVo is to blame for the not-very-wide adoption of this, they seem to only be giving their encoding technologies to a small group of testers, not quite ready to open the floodgates of Vodcasts on the TV, but if it gets big, the line between big networks and small sites will be blurred even more.

8. GarageBand (Mac, $79-$99)

I know I know, again with the mac stuff, but I think garageband deserves to be here not because nobody knows about it, that’s certainly not true, but because it’s being used as a ‘toy’ more than an actual tool. It is great for making music and podcasts, and I don’t know why more indie bands and podcasters don’t use it. The pro’s probably have reasons to use other software like Logic, but I really can’t think of much that GarageBand really lacks (although i’m definetly not an audio engineer). It’s a great toy, but I think it can be more.

7. Miro (Win/Mac/Lin, Open Source)

Video podcasts are the future of entertainment. Getting good shows whenever for free is just awesome. iTunes does a pretty good job of aggregating, downloading, and organizing them, but when you want some more features and power (or you wanna use it on Linux), Miro is the way to go. It has a very large iTunes style ‘Guide’ to many video podcasts. It uses torrent technology so you can actually download HD video podcasts, which is more than you can say for like, umm, my TV. There is a great color-coding system so you can easily see what’s unwatched, what’s downloading, and what has yet to be downloaded. It even has a built in iSquint kinda thing going on, you can download videos from 6 different sites including YouTube and Google Video. Unfortunately there’s no iPod syncing and no Front Row style interface thingy, but that’s not a deal-breaker for me. When I can’t watch something on the TiVo, Miro’s got it.

6. Multimedia Fusion (Win, $100)

As crazy as this sounds, i’m actually gonna go ahead and mention a windows-only app (It kinda works in WINE, not all that great though). Multimedia Fusion is a program that allows you to make 2D games and applications with absolutely no coding. It’s so easy to use, I had it down when I was 8 (Not to brag … or insult people who can’t figure it out). It’s a lot of fun to use, and there is a relatively large community of people to help you out with it. Plus, it’s an easy way to learn some simple concepts used in real coding (if’s, and’s, functions, etc). If you’ve got windows, switch to mac, buy parallels, and run this.

5. Mogulus (Web, Free)

Hey, who says websites aren’t tech products? This Adobe Flex based app is amazingly powerful, plus it’s ad based, so it’s free. Mogulus allows you to stream your own live TV channel over the web. You can not only stream your web cam like with Ustream, you can mix it together with other peoples cams, youtube videos, and titles. I think they may be coming a little too late, but it’s a really cool site and I hope it goes somewhere. It’s currently in private beta and I can definetly tell why, it’s not feature complete at all, and the servers constantly get overloaded. It’s got great potential and I think it should be getting more hype than it has.

4. EffectsLab (Win/Mac, $100-$150)

I’ve always wanted to make special effects in movies, but, y’know, Motion runs at $1300 plus the cost of a mac that’ll run it, that’s way out of my range. Luckily for me I stumbled upon these guys. Their stuff isn’t as powerful as Motion, no, but it’s a LOT cheaper and can do quite a bit of VFX stuff. Not quite professionall, but it’s easy to use and get’s some pretty good results. You can do particle systems, muzzle flashes, lots of optics stuff, color grading (kinda like the new Apple Color), and image filters. There are also other programs they make where you can do Green Screen and stuff. Over all, a little slow, but cheap and easy.

3. Adobe Flex Builder (Mac/Win, $500-$700)

People who follow me on twitter will probably be sick of me talking about this, but I think it should be in this list. While it is easily the most expensive thing here, I think it’s worth it. It is an IDE for Flash web apps, Flash Builder is made for animation, with some interactivity thrown in, Flex Builder is made for apps. Examples of sites include TweetAhead, Mogulus, ScrapBlog, and much more (Bigger list here). It’s based on the eclipse IDE, so it features Drag and Drop layout, Code Hints, Autocomplete, Property setting, and all that good stuff. It’s really easy to use and really powerful. It’s expensive, but with a student discount you can get it for as low as $80, plus there is a free trial version.

2. Blender 3D (Mac/Win/Lin/Solaris/BSD/Iris(?), Open Source)

Oh look, another program that my followers are probably sick of hearing about! Blender is an open source 3D modeler. It’s got a weird, kinda crazy interface. It’s hard to get used to, but is actually really really intuitive. Not really noobie freindly, no, but really quite powerful. There aren’t really any amazing features that nobody else has, although it does pack the power of quite a few professional programs into one. It’s got a modeler, a complete game coding system, a nodal compositor, a movie editor, and an audio editor. Granted most of the tools that arent modeling are a little weak. I make my theme songs in it, and a lot of other people have done some really good looking things.

1. Linux (OS, Open Source)

I know you were all hoping for the amazing killer app that NOBODY has ever heard of that washes your dishes, does your homework, and buys you sodas, but no, this one is old news to nerds. I put linux at number one because I think it’s still a nerdy kinda thing, but will soon emerge as a household term. Ubuntu is, I think, easier to use than Windows. It’s finally ready for the big time, it’s finally ready to be on the old junker machines and the new ‘eww, vista’ machines. Yes, linux is currently being under-used. It’s great because it’ll run just about anywhere, like on my 8 year old laptops. It’s very customizable and very stable. Most of these others are not very widely recognised even in the tech community, linux is in the next class, not widely recognaised in the mainstream.

So, there you have it, some of them maybe a little lame, I know, but I hope you all fond something new. I dunno how I run into all this niche stuff, but I do and I love it all.