Trio of useful utility applications

While most of us are familiar with the variety of Amateur Radio software staples such as logbook programs, digital mode software, and other radio-related tools, there are also a wide variety of utility software packages that may be of use or interest to the amateur operator. Today we’re going to take a look at three of them.

First out of the gate is PhotoStickies. This is a free app available in the OS X App Store that is used to display images as floating pictures over your desktop. The image source can be just about anything that can be handled by your Mac, ranging from images on your hard drive to webcam feeds from the web. PhotoStickies can also auto-refresh images that change periodically, and can be used to resize or rotate the images as well. The limits on this program are really up to your imagination. Here in my shack, I use PhotoStickies to display the local hi-resolution 300-mile Doppler Radar image for Washington DC from The Weather Channel; thereby allowing me to keep an eye on approaching storms. Here’s how it looks on my desktop