My Must have tools Part 2

Microsoft Visual Studio Express

Here is a set of tools from Microsoft for single type development, there is a Windows Desktop One a web one and others, if you want the power of Visual Studio but can't afford it (no Surprise there) then this might be a good starting point.

CutePDF

Now we all know the best format for completed documentation is PDF but hey Adobe PDF writing is like 2 arms a legs and the left nipple to buy, so it didn't take long for other to write PDF writers, this one is my favorite it work very well and doesn't even cost a arm hair. works well from just about any application that has the option to print from, basically like all the others it creates a document to PDF printer driver so instead of the document coming out on paper it comes out as a PDF magic huh

Winmerge

Need to compare two files or need to merge two files then you need Winmerge merges all know files dead, oopps got in advert mode there. but seriously (no not the album by Phil Collins) this is a great little tool can be used also anywhere from the file system, from within Dreamweaver or WinCVS. oh and its open source too.

Opera

Figaro figaro figaro oopps sorry not that sort of Opera but in fact yet another web browser and yes once again its open source with loads of widgets once again good for testing not really a lot more to say except Thunder bolt and lightning very very frightening Me Galileo.

Net Tools

A set of network Diagnostic, security and monitoring tool over 150 different tools in one package, from port checkers to time sync and IP Calculator if your dealing with any kind of network Security or monitoring you want this set of tools, all runs in a single window so easy to keep open while you do other thing without taking up all the room on your taskbar.

First Page 2006

This is more than just an application the whole web site is dedicated to web master / designer. The application itself is a good basic WYSIWYG HTML editor but it also comes with loads of JavaScript ready to run so taking a leave out of the book of my friends over at lazy view why reinvent the wheel, someone done all the hard work all I have to do is copy and paste it. the web site also has a lot of online tools worth looking at.

The Sea Monkey

Remember Netscape ? well when I installed Sea Monkey suite. It was a bast from the past, Netscape renamed with all the old tools, again really just another browser but still worth checking your pages with.

Acrobat Reader

well you need to be able to read all those PDF you create, Still the best reader for its money

Developer's Tips & Tricks - Standard version

Great little tool, if you use may different program languages and scripting languages you end up collecting lots of different tips you really want to keep, this is a great little tool for keeping them indexed

There are many great tools out there I haven't even started on Online Resources that I use or browser extensions. I will talk about these in the future and I am sure I will have more tools and Applications to tell you about, I normally look at one or two most days

del.icio.us Tags: Open Source, Web Design, Utilites, Application, PDF, Browsers, Programming, Development

My Must Have Tools Part 1

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

Technorati Tags: Software, Tools, Application, Open Source, Freeware, Web Design, Graphics, HTML, CSS, Password Management