Programs used (by me)

Well, I can only mention 3D Max 2009 right now.
3D Max 2009 is another 3D studio max modeling program that is in many way just the same as what I have always seen.
Considering that 3D studio Max 08 (I think) was the first one I checked out. That dosen't mean to much, but one thing that I noted was that this version had some bugs. Freezing problems and such.
You are always prepeared for it (at least we say so) but sometimes you are caught by surprise and you have to do some work again. Why did we choose to use this paticular brand you ask? we had desided to use V-ray, and couldn't find a version compatible with 3D Max 2010. But we managed to get trough it, and we even figured out how to convert most of a 3Dmax 2010 file to a 3Dmax 2009 file... Ok, I have written 3D max enough times now.

3. party programs/services:
We used a some of theese, at least I did.
Wave: a comunication servise from google.
Dropbox: a private file share program.
Skydrive: a web based file sharing through Hotmail.

Wave: this one was practical and helpfull, It's designed as a remade E-mailing system, instead of mails being sent between mashines, you have a server everyone can check out. So if someone want to change something in the mail, everyone get to see it instead of that person having to send the mail back to everyone. (you can see how things look before the changes)
But, We used this for planing and story, with the story, I wrote the hole story into one of the "Waves" and gave the other members acces to it. they in turn added small text boxes next to the part they had a suggestion to, and we once in a while went trough it and debated/voted on changes, so the story was originaly mine, but was handed out and molded by the hole group through it.
In the planing I used this as a way for people to find work, and let people know what they where doing. But since no one checked this thing, it ended with me having to hand out work and making sure that no one assignment was double booked. This was a great way to form an idea and collect thoughts, And I would like to use it again in the future.

Dropbox: this lets you have a folder on your computers that will try to synchronise itself with the other once, if a change is made in one of them, the same change will be made on the other computers, meaning, if you add a file, it will be copied to the other folders, if you delete somthing, it wil be deleted from all the computers.
You set up networks through a web page, where you can give access to other partisipents. They will only get access to the folder you choose, so you can share diffirent folders with diffirent people.
I use this program personally as well, since I can transport files between school and home without any sweat, or memorysticks. There is a drawback with the size, as you can only have about 1.5 gig in your folders all together, you can pay to get more, or you can Refer someone to get more space. https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEzMDAzMjg5

Skydrive: This one was not maintained, it seemed usefull, as you put things on the web, to be downloaded at a later point. There where some problems with size, and the fact that you manually had to upload and download things was just to much work. It is practical in a pinch, but I would recoment other solutions instead. like dropbox or a memorystick. On the pluss side, a lot of people are useing hotmail from their youth, so it's accesable.