I have used Audacity the longest so far. It is essentially a programme for recording, cutting and editing audio files. My main use of Audacity is to fade tracks in and out to remove disturbing noises at the beginning or end (e.g. applause).

An example of an audio file processed with Audacity is the song of a nightingale, which I first recorded with the voice recorder app on my smartphone. I enhanced this source file, among other things, by the following steps:

• Removing interfering noises (e.g. crackling caused by moving the smartphone)
• Suppressing the background hiss (noise reduction)
• “Compressing” the pauses between the nightingale’s song intervals (shorten silence)
• Amplifying the audio signal
• Adding a reverb effect

The edited recording of the nightingale's song can be listened to here:

I have been managing my digital images for several years with DigiKam. This programme offers almost everything a hobby photographer needs to bring some order to their image collection. This starts with tagging images using arbitrarily deep cascades of keywords (e.g. Vehicles → Automobiles → Classic cars → Make "Lagonda") and extends to facial recognition for people. DigiKam also provides an extensive set of tools for editing images, e.g. to improve image quality, to change image resolution and size including cropping and enlargement, to decorate, to add captions, etc.

I created this website with Brackets. Before working on the layout of the webpages, I of course looked online at the current range of HTML editors (e.g. on Computer Bild or Designer in Action). After trying a few briefly, I chose Brackets. From the start I particularly liked that with every change in the editor you can simultaneously see what effect it has on the webpage. The editor highlights HTML syntax in colour, the context menu shows most of the common completions so they usually only need to be selected. Incorrect syntax is marked in red and commented on at the bottom of the editor.

Meanwhile the Brackets website refers to its further development Phoenix Code. This new application combines the aforementioned advantages of Brackets with new AI-supported functions. This way I keep my web presence up to date.

Gramps is an open source programme for creating a family tree. It takes the user inexperienced in genealogy by the hand and leads them through all the important processing steps. This is extremely helpful in the often lengthy task of gathering the necessary information. Many useful details, such as a search for people on the internet, assist with this. The diverse options for outputting a family's genealogical data are almost overwhelming, e.g. as "ready-to-use" webpages.

If you want to know more, you can download my Notes on Gramps (pdf, 10 pages).

For browsing the media libraries of the public-service broadcasters I use MediathekView – a very convenient solution that allows both searching for specific terms in the offerings and downloading the programmes you want.