January 16th, 2007

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18 Must Have Software Tools for the PC

For Christmas this year from work I got a DELL D820, Intel Core 2 T7400 @ 2.16Ghz, 2 Gigs of RAM and 100 Gig Hard Drive. It is sweet. Any how, I had to move computers which can be a pain. Here is the list of must have software tools I have installed. If you develop web applications, this is a must have list.

CrapCleaner - A must have to easily keep your PC running smooothly and not letting crappy temp files cog your memory.
HomeSite - My HTML/PHP editor of choice. I only wish Macromedia/Adobe had never bought them. Macromedia/Adobe have basically stopped development of this once fine product, but I haven’t found anything better.
UltraEdit - My Text editor of choice. This thing can do almost anything and best of all it handles huge (over 100mb) text files without a problem.
Visual Studio 2005 - I do all my .NET work out of here, I also just installed SP 1 and have found it to speed things up.
SQL Server & Management Studio 2005 - It took a little bit to get use to it vs Query Anaylizer/Enterprise Manager but I like it now so much better.
FireFox 2.0 - My default Web Browser for so many reasons (most of them are extensions listed below)

FasterFox - Speeds up FireFox by changing some default settings
FireBug - A must have for debugging web applicatons
iFox - My theme
ColorZilla - A great tool to get HEX values of colors.

Proccess Tamer - This keeps any wild proccess under control
Gaim - I have an AOL account but this thing is so much nicer and less resource intense
SlickRun - My quick launcher of choice. I blow the font up so this thing is pretty big on my machine
FireWorks - I’ve never found Photoshop to be intuitive, I much prefer FireWorks for web work in terms of how things are cut
Navicat - A mysql admin tool. I have a lot of issues with Navicat (definitely a future post) but it does have its advantages, like its upload ability and user management set up.
SSH Client- A must have for PC users that work on Unix boxes.
Surround SCM - Our version control.
TestTrack Studio - Our defect tracking and test case management tool.
Zune Theme for XP - I have Vista as a dual boot but when I am in XP I prefer for it to look this way.

Google Desktop - I’m finding I use this less and less by keeping my mail cleaner on a daily basis. I use it strictly for search, their sidebar stuff is god awful. This tool might be dropping off the list soon.
FileZilla - Simple and clean FTP client.
VNC - I manage MC OS X machines. OS X makes it easier to manage things thru their GUI sometimes. The same can not be said for any of the Linux builds.