What’s In Your Toolbox?
It’s going to be a long weekend…
With the help of my good friend Keith Crawford, I plan on reformatting my primary development machine today and doing a clean install of Windows 7. This project is long overdue, I can’t remember the last time I reformatted my drive, in fact this SATA drive that I am using now initially ran XP and then VISTA before I upgraded to WINDOWS 7 last year. Fortunately I am pretty diligent when it comes to backups, so the project isn’t as daunting as it could be.
Where to Start Reloading Software??
While preparing my plan of action last night I went through my list of installed software to see what I would need to reinstall once I got the OS reloaded. After going over the list I realized that I don’t use half of the programs that are installed on my machine. This got me to thinking, what else is out there that I might be missing out on? What tools / software do you use to develop client projects?
Here’s a list of the software and desktop applications that I use, please leave me a comment and let me know what you are using and if there is something on the market that I need to look at…
- Microsoft Outlook (Productivity) – Email, Calendars, Tasks, Notes, etc.
- Evernote Desktop (Productivity) – Notes.
- Microsoft Office Ultimate (Productivity) – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
- Microsoft Live Writer (Blogging) – WYSIWYG Blog Editor.
- Jasc Paintshop Pro (Graphics) – Lightweight compared to PS and faster for some jobs.
- Adobe Photoshop (Graphics) – All of the Bells & Whistles for Graphics.
- Adobe Illustrator (Vector) – I haven’t found anything else that compares for Illustrations.
- Adobe Dreamweaver (Code Editor / WYSIWYG) – My favorite WYSIWYG editor.
- Notepad++ (Code Editor) – Probably my favorite straight up code editor.
- Eclipse (Code Editor / IDE) – Rarely do I use this anymore.
- Xlinesoft PHPRunner (Code Editor / IDE / Generator) – Saves a ton of time
- Microsoft Expression Web (Code Editor / WYSIWYG) – Rarely do I use this anymore.
- Coda (Code Editor / WYSIWYG / CSS Editor) – Very nice but only works on my MacBook.
- TopStyle Pro (CSS Editor) – I haven’t found anything that compares
- IPSwitch WS-FTP Professional (FTP) – All of the Bells & Whistles for FTP
- Filezilla (FTP) – Fewer features than WS-FTP but a lot faster.
- Camtasia (Screen Capturing / Recording) – I haven’t found anything that compares.
- SwishMax (Flash / Vector Animation) – A lot faster than Flash to work with .SWF files.
- Audacity (Audio Editing / Recording) – I haven’t found anything that compares.
- Garage Band (Audio Editing / Recording) – Only works on my MacBook
- EZ Audio CD Ripper (Audio Editing / Ripping) – Fastest CD to MP3 Ripper I have found.
- Skype (Communications) – My favorite chat, voice, video conferencing app.
- RingCentral Call Controller (Communications) – Ties into our corporate phone system.
- SSH Explorer (SSH) – Rarely do I have to use this anymore because we have an admin.
- MySQL Administrator (Database) – I occasionally use this to connect to databases.
- TJPing (Ping) – I sometimes use this instead of command line.
- PuTTy (SSH, Telnet) – Rarely do I use this anymore because we have an admin.
Notepad++ Compare Plugin
I wasn’t aware this plugin even existed for Notepad++! This is awesome, I have been using another application altogether to compare side by side files for errors / changes while I code. The cool thing is that it also works with all of the languages that Notepad++ supports and works with also. My partner Greg and I both use Notepad++ for simple inline code editing, it’s fast and very clean. My dream for the Notepad++ project is for them to throw a WYSWYG visual editor onto it (I would completely uninstall and burn my Frontpage / Expression DVD’s).
You can download this compare plugin on SOURCEFORGE. (click here)
