Software and Hardware Reviews: Tools for Practitioners

Software Review: Adobe Creative Suite 3

Could this be Adobe's best upgrade yet? And does Adobe Creative Suite 3 have a role to play in your private practice or other small business? This first part of our review focuses on Dreamweaver CS3, while Parts 2 and 3 cover the other Creative Suite components.

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Software Review: DEVONthink

Information management software DEVONthink has a serious problem: it is so uncannily capable that many of its users don't want anyone else to know about it. Content to let their colleagues or competitors think of it as just some 'database thing', they don't want to let the cat out of the bag: for certain purposes, this software is a Mac user's secret weapon.

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Software Review: BBEdit 8.5 Upgrade

With a significant upgrade to version 8.5, one of the most powerful text-editing packages available on any platform acquires some new features and refines existing ones. It also sees a big price drop. Check out our previous review of BBEdit 8.0 for the full story on this remarkable software package, or read on to learn what's new in the upgrade.

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Tools for Practitioners: Logitech Cordless Trackman Optical

We could have used Logitech's top trackball for just a day or two and our conclusion would have been the same as after many weeks of testing: this is a great pointing device. If you're looking for help avoiding repetitive stress injuries, or if you just plain prefer trackballs over mice, this one is worth trying out.

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Tools for Practitioners: Microsoft Office 2004 Professional

The latest version of Microsoft's venerable Office suite for the Macintosh does a better job of delivering elegant functionality than any release since the days of Word 5.1. Is it enough to enable Mac OS X-based practitioners to interoperate seamlessly in a Windows-dominated world? And is the full Office suite necessary for the typical mental health professional in private practice?

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Tools for Backup: LaCie and Maxtor External Hard Drives

As described in our article on basic backup strategy for your private practice and our case study in backup strategy, an external hard drive provides an attractive storage medium for fast, secure, and reliable backups. We take a look at two leading contenders for external backups: the LaCie d2 and the Maxtor One Touch II. Although similar in many ways, each drive offers particular features that make it more suitable for particular groups of users.

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Tools for Practitioners: Kensington Expert Mouse Wireless

Is your mouse giving you grief from too many hours spent pointing, clicking, and dragging your way across a desktop? If you're a mental health practitioner working extensively with clients online, you probably cannot avoid the pointing, clicking, or dragging -- but you can avoid the mouse. Just turn it upside down, cut off the cord, and call it a trackball instead. Or, like Kensington, call it the Expert Mouse Wireless.

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Tools for Practitioners: Kinesis Ergonomic Keyboard

For mental health practitioners working extensively with clients online -- particularly using text-based modalities like email or chat -- it is probably only a matter of time before keyboard comfort becomes an issue that cannot be ignored.

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Reviews of Older Products

Although they might have been great at the time, these products have since been superseded by newer releases reviewed here:

• Dreamweaver 8 and GoLive CS2
• Dreamweaver MX 2004