Astraware Suppliers

Here are the companies and products which Astraware currently use

Development & Software

Development Tools

  • Unity3D Pro
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Textwrangler
  • Blender
  • Audacity
  • Goldwave
  • Glyph Designer
  • SVN
  • Versions
  • XCode

Software Services

  • Google Docs for online docs and email
  • Dropbox (pro) for our main file saving and syncing
  • Freshdesk and Hotline for helping us to sort our incoming customer support, and providing in-app support and FAQs
  • Flurry for analytics
  • Xero for accounting
  • New Relic for monitoring our servers

Other Software

  • VMWare Fusion (Running a copy of Windows 8, and various Ubuntu VMs)
  • MAMP
  • Sequel Pro
  • Total Finder
  • Kaleidoscope
  • Dash
  • Apache Open Office
  • Libre Office
  • MS Office
  • Skype
  • Tweetbot
  • Thunderbird

IT

We predominantly use iMacs for our development, kept up to date with Mac OS. We occasionally use Mac Books for work or travel but the benefit of having a powerful computer with a large and clear screen means we use the iMacs almost exclusively.

We have a single machine at our office running VMWare ESXI on which we have a few machine images typically running Ubuntu for server development purposes.

We have a single NAS backed up for file storage to Amazon S3

Our websites are hosted on Amazon AWS, using their RDS to provide the data. This is currently hosted in the Virginia (USA) location, but can be scaled and replicated at any of their locations just as easily. We monitor these using New Relic just to keep an extra eye on whether any servers are feeling particularly stressed.

We use some Raspberry Pi computers for fun little electronic projects, including an automatic reminder for when the tea is brewed.

Business

We have a range of business suppliers, but prefer to keep our business needs particularly simple.

  • Electricity and Gas from Ecotricity
  • Accounting by Hardwickes
  • Office Internet & Telephony by Zen Internet
  • Insurance from Allianz

We Do Not Use

There are various services which we do not use, and do not need (even if we did at some previous point!).

  • HR Services
  • Recruitment Services
  • Outsourced Development Services
  • Outsourced QA Services
  • Web / Design / SEO Services
  • Marketing Services
  • Office Supplies
  • Courier Services
  • Telephony Services

We’re a two-person team running things quite fine, thanks, with very low costs. If you’re hoping to gain our business, your chances are pretty much zero, as we don’t use or need what you’re selling.