Here is a list of Tools and Application I use every week at least
Dreamweaver
got to Start with Dreamweaver 8.0.2 yes I know CS3 is out but its buggy as hell and for most people version 8 is stable and easy to use there is not a day that goes by when this tool is not fired up Dreamweaver has some wonderful Extensions that can save lots of hours recoding straight forward stuff, Dreamweaver has some good site management tools
Photoshop CS2
yes again I know CS3 is out but just like Dreamweaver its still buggy as hell one of the best graphic design tools there is. great for editing graphics for web sites as well as modify photos, Comes with some great effects and loads of plug in's
CVSNT
Only really just started to use this open source version control system and to say I was impress would be an understatement, once you understand the basic principles its fairly easy to configure and well there is a lot of support out there on the web for it
WinCVS
one of the best clients around for win32 for CVS on any platform including CVSNT, easy to use interface with a lot of support on the web
FireFox 2
where would we be without dear old FireFox, in a future blog I will talk about my favorite and most useful extensions for FireFox but for now I just say if I didn't have FireFox I would cry I think
Internet Explorer 7
What I hear you say why do I need that if I have FireFox, well simple stuff that works in FireFox doesn't work in IE and stuff that works in IE doesn't work in FireFox so I am afraid that makes IE a must have but you don't have to use it for browsing stick with FireFox for that unless you hit one of those oopps we never tested it with FireFox sites
Notepad++
I love this tool when I can find the bug in Dreamweaver I go to Notepad and 99% of the time spot it right away it a full feature text editor with loads of help for HTML, Perl, PHP, ASP etc etc name a language and its there in the list of file types
CSS Tab Designer 2
ok so I am lazy, I could code all the CSS by hand but when you have great tools like this why bother, if you want a very smart looking Interface very web 2.0 Style then you should have a look at this and its great for beginners too as they can just user the bog standard output and not customize it at all.
MySql Administrator
one of the best MySql managers around also come with the migration tool and query browser nearly everything you need to manage a MySql DB with on windows or Linux from a Win32 workstation.
FileZilla
A very good open source FTP client that I use to move sites from UAT to Live environments they also have a server product that I confess I haven't looked at yet but I will let you know when I do.
Windows Live Mail Desktop
Running a few Sites and also the standard Webmail's like Hotmail and Yahoo means I have quite a lot of Email Accounts in addition to my exchange accounts This is a Great tool for managing difference account and Access RSS Feeds and Newsgroups in one client
Windows Live Family Safety
Anyone that's a parent these days worries about what the child might find on the Internet, things you really don't want them to be exposed too, this free Tool from Microsoft is very good easy to set up and is based around Live Accounts
Picasa2
This is a Graphics Management tool Perfect for managing you Graphics and photo libraries but so much more, as its a Google tool you get all the normal Google goodies like web albums and the ability to add pictures directly to your blog. you can also create a collage also interacts with Google screen saver and Google Earth all this and some good basic Editing tools with effects as well if you use Google tools then your find this very useful.
Web CEO
If your releasing a webiste you will need to think about promoting it and here is a free tool that will help you with a lot of the basic's, there is a paying version with a lot more features but for the basics of working out what keywords to use and monitor your ranking in lots of different search engines
Toad for MySql
Although this covers a lot of the same area's as MySQL Administrator it also provides two extra tools that are very helpful, the first is SQL Modeling tool that gives you a visual tool not dislike access to create views. The second really useful Database management tool is Reports (reverse Engineering) of the database structure, what great for both upgrades and documentation.
VMware Server
Now they have released a free version for download this is the most useful developers and Techie tool of all time, no more destroying PC installation with testing and having 10 PC's around your desk for every version and type of OS now you can have virtual development environments on one machine
Password Safe
If you like me your signed up to about a million different web sites, every web site these days wants you to sign on from Hotmail and Google to MySql Sites they all want a username and password. of course you could use the same username and password for every account you set up but if you do that your crazy some sites are less safe than others and if your one password becomes known someone could get access to everything. so this is a great little tool, from now on you still only need to remember one password that opens your password safe and in there you can store you passwords and usernames as well as information about the sites URL Notes Extra, that's all well and good but now you just got to come up with good passwords but the writer of this software has even thought of that and includes as password Generator that always creates Strong Secure passwords.
More to come in part 2
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