Ask HN: What Software Did You Pay For In 2012 - <AUTHOR> What software or apps did you find worth breaking out your wallet for in 2012? <comment><USER10> SublimeText 2. What a great piece of software.

And on a completely unrelated note, I then got thoroughly enamoured with Emacs. Thus donated some money to that.

</comment><comment><USER11> FreeBSD: [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting- those-...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting-those-who- support-us.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> IntelliJ during it's 75% off sale. I'm still experimenting with it, but overall it seems solid and better for Ruby than my previously used Textmate or Aptana Studio.

I also bought a couple of games, split equally between PC and PS3.

<comment><USER13> Similarly, I bought WebStorm. I'm happy enough with Eclipse and at work we have a few plugins for the build system, but I'm not a fan of Aptana, so WebStorm seemed like a nice IDE for JS related projects, and in the 75% sale it was $12 or something, definitely worth the price.

I've bought a few games in the Steam sales over the year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised no-one said Dropbox yet. I upgraded to their 100GB account which is now my main backup drive.

Also paid for some iPad games for my daughter :-)

<comment><USER15> I did the Google Adwords trick (advertising your Dropbox referral link) to bump my account up to 17GB. ~$20.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Spotify (I guess more of a service than a piece of software)

Wikipedia £5/month donation

Civilization V

</comment><comment><USER17> Quick Office HD Pro for iOS (the only productivity app I bought)

A bunch of iOS games including GTA: Vice City

Also bought CoD: Black Ops Zombies on iOS today but trying to get a refund as online multiplayer doesn't work and apparently hasn't worked for months. Apple should never have approved the most recent app update.

A couple of XBLA games

Spotify, does Xbox Live count?

So, yeah. Mostly games.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady

      Evernote Premium (I store everything in this including photos of handwritten notes which it makes searchable)
      Aperture (I'm not a photographer but I prefer this over iPhoto and Google's Picasa)
      Sublime Text 2 (Excellent piece of software)

</comment><comment><USER18> Coda 2. I understand the Sublime Text crew is probably going to yell at me, but I freakin LOVE Coda.

Oh, also Spotify Premium. I'm not sure if that counts.

Still looking for a CRM simple enough to be worth paying for, but it's not happenin. I'm building one myself I suppose!

</comment><comment><USER19> Mono for Android EZPdf reader for Android (not as good as GoodReader for iOS but better than any other pdf reader): (<http://m.unidocs.com/ezPDF_Reader_Android_Pro.html>)

Need for Speed for Android and Temple Run (only games I bought this time and)

Spyglass for Windows (<http://clockworkengine.com/>) Reeder for Mac (I hardly use this though) CodeBox for Mac (<http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/>)

</comment><comment><USER20> Mobile software: None at all.

Desktop software: OSX (on a new Mac), SourceTree (<http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/> .. now part of Atlassian), Viscosity (<http://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/>). Other than some random games through Steam, that's it. I pay for VMWare every 2 years or so, as well.

Cloud stuff: Only normal VPS hosting, and some domain names.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very refreshing to see all the Sublime Text 2 purchases - I myself have not yet purchased it (I barely use it compared to Vim).

I purchased RubyMotion [1] thru a student license (80% off!) although admittedly I haven't used it all that much. I still get my money's worth out of CodeSchool [2].

[1]: <http://www.rubymotion.com/>

[2]: <http://www.codeschool.com/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> LastPass Premium, best $12 dollars I have ever spent.

<comment><USER22> Agreed... On my second year of $12 and happy as day one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> None.

All the tools I use personally (vim, git, svn, bash, ubuntu…) are free. My employers takes care of the stuff he wants me to use.

The only online "things" I pay for are my ISP, a Linode, a VPN, a few domain names and an old Dreamhost account.

I don't have a smartphone/tablet so I didn't install any pointless 0.99$ app.

I've bought a few second-hand videogames for my kids (DS/Wii), though, but that's not what you are asking for, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER24> Postbox: <http://www.postbox-inc.com/> Postbox is a _fantastic_ desktop email client, based on Thunderbird. It's primarily geared toward Gmail / Google Apps users. Paid $10.

Nirvana: <https://www.nirvanahq.com/> Nirvana is a Getting-Things-Done Saas. $5/month

</comment><comment><USER25> Too many titles to list, but I essentially paid for two categories: Mobile apps (bought through the Play Store) and free software that I use regularly and that allowed/asked me to donate. I started setting aside a small amount every month for the latter category. Examples are XBMC, SickBeard, X-Notifier, Cyanogenmod, PortableApps and JellyTime.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mountain Lion. Parallels 8. Windows 8. 1Password. I can never decide whether I don't really need that many applications, most applications I buy have long lives, or there are so many great free applications that I rarely need to buy something. Probably some combinations of the above.

</comment><comment><USER27>
      - <USER2>
      - Sparrow (RIP)
      - Tweetbot for mac
      - <USER3>
      - Echofon for mac (RIP)
      - <USER4>
      - Daisy Disk
      - <USER5>
      - Alfred's Powerpack (2x)
      - <USER6>
      - Sublime SFTP
      - ColorSchemer Studio
      - <USER7>
      - <USER8>

+lots of cheap apps at app store

</comment><comment><USER28> <http://logmein.com> for remote desktop (subscription)

<http://www.displayfusion.com> for multi-screen management

<http://mirc.com> for irc

<comment><USER29> Haha, people still use mirc!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Probably half a dozen iPad apps (I'm looking for a good drawing solution) tax prep software, AnyDVD, my renewal/subscription to Proteus (eCAD), Mass Effect (PS3). Earlier in the year I had paid for World of Warcraft but that has since lapsed.

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel CloudPull was a good buy. It means I'm not vulnerable to data loss if Google decides to freeze my account, like you sometimes hear about. <http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com>

<comment><USER32> I am the developer of CloudPull. Thank you for the link and the kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> \- Bunch of steam games on sale and Humble Bundles \- Several android apps & games \- Minecraft \- Internet Download Manager (Windows) \- Donated to some free softwares I use (GIMP, Blender)

currently trying out ST2, not sure whether I'll buy it yet,,

</comment><comment><USER34> Quite a few games through Steam during sales and two Humble Bundles. I played maybe two (out of over 20) of those games. Then I bought 2 licenses for PyCharm during the 75% off sale, not intentionally of course. Hoping for a refund.

</comment><comment><USER35> Goodreader on iPad (fantastic), and some random games. Some odd Android stuff.

iRacing on PC. This game has made me its crack ho. I keep buying cars like I'm the Sultan of Brunei. For the closest thing to real racing, nothing comes close.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sublime Text 2, CrashPlan, all the 2012 Humble Bundles, and assorted iOS apps.

</comment><comment><USER37>
        - Crashplan.com backup
        - billomat.com invoicing
        - letsfreckle.com timetracking
        - mite.yo.lk timetracking
        - <USER9>
        - "Thomas Was Alone" game on steam
        - tons of iPhone apps

</comment><comment><USER38> IntelliJ during it's 75% sale and Cornerstone from Mac App Store. I also paid this year for Skype and Google Talk during my trip abroad.

All were great deals but IntelliJ was the best investment of them all.

</comment><comment><USER39> BeerSmith - an excellent program which helps you come up with recipes for beer, tells you the estimated strength your beer will likely be, based on the grains etc. you choose.

Github - Love the UI

</comment><comment><USER40> 1Password for Mac and iOS, because remembering 50 passwords sucks and having only 5 leaves you really exposed when something like PSN gets compromised.

</comment><comment><USER41> As a consumer : <http://followgen.com>

As a developer : iron.io optimizely stripe

</comment><comment><USER42> Soundcloud, Github, SublimeText2, Carbon-Copy-Cloner, WinClone 3, Netflix, Spotify, Humble Indie Bundle 7

</comment><comment><USER43> As far as I remember... Only games this year. All of my applications have been free in some form.

</comment><comment><USER44>
      IntelliJ IDEA
      ClassicShell
      SecureCRT
      SmartGit
      Copernic Desktop Search
      xplorer2

</comment><comment><USER45> PassPack, RubyMine and PhpStorm. I found LastPass quite horrible to use compared to PassPack.

</comment><comment><USER46> Sublime Text 2, Logic Pro, Rdio, 1Password for iOS, and a small handful of other iOS apps.

</comment><comment><USER47> Sublime Text

</comment><comment><USER48> Sublime Text 2, iA Writer, Pages / Numbers / Keynote (iOS + OSX), Reeder (iPad), CS6

</comment><comment><USER49> Lightroom, Resharper, Sublime Text.

Then several of the Humble bundles and a dozen games on Steam.

</comment><comment><USER50> Pixelmator

Emacs for OSX

Diablo 3

SteerMouse

An OSX upgrade

Civilization 4 (was cheap in the Mac App Store, but I never ended up playing much)

GTA 3 for OSX (also cheap, also only played a few times)

If we're including web services, then also:

GitHub

SmugMug

Vimeo

Flickr

</comment><comment><USER51> PhpStorm and RubyMine subscription renewals during Doomsday sale. :D

</comment><comment><USER52> Resharper 7 (with the 75% off), Day One, Transmit FTP for OSX.

</comment><comment><USER53> PyCharm (and even added another year during the doomsday sale)

</comment><comment><USER15> xScope: <http://xscopeapp.com/>

Soulver: <http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/>

</comment><comment><USER54> Spotify, some android apps and I plan on buying Sublime soon.

</comment><comment><USER55> Some Android apps/games on sale at .99c or less, that's it.

</comment><comment><USER56> Android's Minecraft, BubbleUpnp, Music Folder Player.

</comment><comment><USER57> Sublime Text. Better Terminal Emulator Pro.

</comment><comment><USER58> Win 8, and I haven't booted it for weeks.

</comment><comment><USER59> Games, workflowy.com and Sublime Text 2.

</comment><comment><USER60> iaWriter Pictos Day One Tweetbot Coda 2 Starcraft 2 Civ 5 CS 6 CSS Hat Dropbox Color Snapper Spotify

</comment><comment><USER61> Maya 2013, anti-virus, os x upgrade

</comment><comment><USER62> Sublime Text 2 TextMate GitHub

</comment><comment><USER63> Both for the iPad:

* SmartGo Kifu * OOTP Baseball

</comment><comment><USER64> Software:

* Sublime Text 2

* CodeKit

* Transmit

* OS X Mountain Lion

* MAMP Pro

* ColorSchemer Studio

* Advanced Custom Fields Plugins (for WordPress)

\---

Android:

* Pocket Casts

* Nova Launcher Prime

* ROM Toolbox Pro

* TuneIn Radio Pro

* Titanium Backup

* Instapaper

\---

Services:

* LastPass Premium

* Pinboard.in

* Audible

* Instapaper

</comment><comment><USER65> RubyMine from JetBrains.

</comment><comment><USER66> 100GB on Google Drive.

</comment><comment><USER67> Sublime text 2

Goodnotes on iPad

Some games on steam

</comment><comment><USER68> Mono for Android

</comment><comment><USER69> iA Writer & Sublime Text 2

</comment><comment><USER70> Diablo3

</comment><comment><USER71> Let's see...

\- Sublime Text 2

\- iA Writer

\- Tweetbot

\- Alfred

\- PHPStorm & RubyMine

\- Rdio

\- Coda 2

\- Things

\- FTL

</comment><comment><USER72> MSDN Subscription

Mountain Lion

Acorn

A bunch of iOS Apps

</comment><comment><USER73> Toodledo

</comment><comment><USER74> humble indie bundles</comment>


Ask HN: What are the cheapest yet reliable forex/commodities/indices brokers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> So i am seeing a lot of sites that compare some brokers but i dont really trust these...

I am looking for a broker with minimum acc of 1000 or 2000 euro.

And i wish to do algo trading and i am in Europe.

thx</comment>


Show HN: Easily Schedule with Busy People – Real-Time Calendar Sharing - <AUTHOR> http://web.meekan.com/

<comment><USER2> great smart solution!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> AMAZING!</comment>


Google Wave: the beginner's guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/google-wave-the-beginner-s-guide-655127

<comment><USER2> Wave is a nice platform to program for. I have never written any gadgets but I have played around quite a bit with writing robots (and I wrote a DevX article on robots a while ago).

I still think that the Wave web app itself can stand improvement, but I am enthusiastic about the platform. The really exciting time will be when an open source version can be easily installed on any server for private Wave access inside an organization, a family, etc. (and still support federation to Google and other Wave providers).</comment>


Why email is crucial to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/05/24/why-email-is-crucial-to-google-microsoft-and-yahoo/

<comment><USER2> I'll admit. I'm a sucker.

I have mail accounts to both Yahoo and Google.

Because Google.com just has a search box, I always enter mail.google... to save time.

But since Yahoo does have a rotation of stories (often very bad but I still sometimes get sucked in) I go to Yahoo.com first and then click to the mail section.

</comment><comment><USER3> i always thought of email as a way to get you to get a username, which is just a "gateway drug" into other services the company offers. For example, all of a sudden it's easy to find yourself on the Picasa site, and upload pictures doesn't require ANOTHER username/password because you're already logged in (cookie)

</comment><comment><USER4> So how does Alexa get these numbers, exactly?</comment>


Zynga's Chief Operating Officer Quits After Demotion - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/48578603

<comment><USER3> EA, his former employer, is suing Zynga for copying their games and specifically named him in the suit. Surprised the article doesn't mention this.

<comment><USER4> It's clear from Pincus's past actions that Zynga doesn't play by the rules everyone else does

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The company blamed changes to Facebook's algorithm"

This is what caught my eye. yes Zynga is primarily based on fb but aren't they supposed to have their own back since they have gone public with multi-million dollar IPO ?

<comment><USER5> Welcome to the walled gardens in the cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> YES! Zynga shall burns tonight!

On a serious note, I am glad that our entertainment future won't be afflicted with "The Curse of the Cow Clicker" and we will just get back to making genuine games.

<comment><USER7> The zyngafication of games has already begun and is happening regardless of what happens to Zynga. Micropayments and free to play games are moving from the fringe to the default and this is terrible for gaming. It's terrible because it forces companies to become zyngafied. They rely solely on numbers; they shove their their gimmicks down your throat. Gaming is slowly moving from 'nerds and kids having fun' to 'pigeons in a box having their wallets picked'.

Ultimately, hating on Zynga is pointless, because that mindset has infected EA, SOE, THQ and even the 'good' developers like valve[1] and blizzard.

In short, game developers have gone from small groups of nerds to large corporations run with a corporation-like efficiency. The product managers that so brutally follow analytics in the SF web dev scene are also starting to infiltrate gaming.

[1] In team fortress 2, crates drop which require you to purchase a key to open. This exact move is very common in free to play games, but as far as I know it was developed by Zynga in Mafia Wars.

<comment><USER8> I think it'll be a temporary thing. Look at Bethesda, for example - <USER2> experimented with crap DLC like horse armor, but then quickly turned to solid, fairly priced mini-expansions.

Age of Empires Online had to overhaul its pricing. Microsoft Flight crashed and burned (har har) after trying to sell new planes and areas bit by bit.

If Zynga does fail in a serious way, it should hasten the demise of the "social gaming" business model.

<comment><USER7> I think there will a bigger backlash than even your examples in the near future. It will be similar to app.net, people will realize that paying is better than not-paying.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I hacked Git commits into TestFlight release notes (& felt dirty doing it) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fullcontact.com/2012/12/20/git-commit-messages-testflight-jenkins/

<comment><USER2> Love the line:

"LOOK AT THAT CODE! It's absurd, asinine, just plain awful! …however, it worked!"</comment>


Ask HN: Why do people tend to slam on the return/enter key? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's the equivalent of yelling "DONE" to each line. I mean really, the satisfaction of hitting that carriage return is like crossing a finish line over and over....it doesn't get old? I think we need to go back to having a margin bell to ring at the edge of 80 columns :) (see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card) why this is so) so we know exactly when to hit the return.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because it would be too tiring to slam on all the others.</comment>