As is well-documented on this site, I am a sucker for web development tools and am always on the lookout for new tools to make my job easier. You can probably understand, then, how excited I was to hear about a new AJAX performance tracing tool that makes debugging performance issues in the bane of my existence, Internet Explorer, easier.

Anyone who has done any web development at all knows that Internet Explorer is, by far, the most difficult browser to support. It simply doesn’t do well with complex web applications. In fact, I would say that around 30% of my development time on NPMap goes into trying to work out performance issues/bugs that are specific to Internet Explorer. And as web applications continue to increase in complexity, this task is only going to be become more and more difficult and time-consuming.

Luckily, Dynatrace recently released a tool called dynaTrace Ajax (free download) that should make debugging Internet Explorer performance much easier. It allows you to analyze your AJAX-driven web application in depth, including all network activity, JavaScript parsing and execution, etc. I’m not going to dive in deep here, because more intelligent people have already done the hard work (see below for links to detailed write-ups on dynaTrace Ajax), but I will say that if you are building complex, AJAX-driven web applications, I highly recommend this tool.

• John Resig – Deep Tracing of Internet Explorer
• Steve Souders – dynaTrace Ajax Edition: tracing JS performance
• More…

Photo by memestate.

I just read on Lifehacker that Foxmarks has released versions of its bookmark synchronization utility for Internet Explorer and Safari (for Mac, not yet Windows). This is exciting news, as now I can truly consider using Safari while working on my Mac. On top of this, I can now get my bookmarks onto (and off of) my iPhone). The downside is that the available versions don’t include support for Internet Explorer 8, which I’ve been using because of its vastly improved developer tools, Safari for Windows, or Google Chrome. Oh well, I’m sure it will come soon.

In the past, the limitation of not having my bookmarks available in other browsers has been too much to overcome, so I’ve consistently stuck with Firefox. I’ll probably continue to use Firefox for most of my browsing (Firebug is very important to me), but this just means that there is now one less reason to stick strictly with Firefox.

You can find the downloads on the Foxmarks site.

Firebug is a web developer’s best friend. Without it, there are times when we’d be absolutely lost. Luckily it is actively developed and well-supported.

The 1.1 beta version was released in the middle of February, but I’m just getting around to upgrading to it. Until I started to actively use Firefox 3, I didn’t see much of a need to upgrade (Firebug 1.1 can be installed on Firefox 3), but boy was I wrong. There are a couple of big additions that make this a must-have upgrade for me:

• eval() debugging – this is the big one. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into cryptic issues using the eval() statement. Firebug 1.1 handles this by displaying code sent to eval() in the Script panel as a new source file. This code can then be debugged just like any other JavaScript in Firebug. If you don’t want to debug eval() code, you can always turn this option off. You’ll get better performance with it turned off.
• Aptana IDE editor integration – I use Aptana’s Eclipse plugin for all of my CSS, HTML, and JavaScript coding, and integration between Aptana and Firebug only makes my life that much easier.
• Cache tab for Net panel – this should make it easy to verify if a resource is cached or not.
• Supports Firefox 3 – already mentioned this one above, but thought it should be mentioned again.

I’ve been having some serious TortoiseSVN performance issues lately, including 30-45 second system freezes when using Windows Explorer to navigate through my system directories, so I decided to try and dig in a bit to figure out what was going on. Here’s what I found:

A lot of TortoiseSVN’s overhead comes from the TSVNCache process. This process is responsible for tracking changes in versioned files and displaying status information back to the user through the Windows Shell. Unfortunately, it seems that the TSVNCache process is a bit of a resource hog and doesn’t work as efficiently as one would hope.

Here are some tips to help alleviate the issues. After implementing these two “fixes”, my performance issues went away:

Set the TSVNCache.exe process to a lower priority:

• Open up the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del then press “Task Manager” button).
• Under the “Processes” tab, sort by “Image Name” and then right-click on “TSVNCache.exe”.
• Hover over “Set Priority” and select “Low”.

Turn off Icon Overlays, other than where they are explicitly needed (e.g. the directory where your repositories are located):

• Open up the TortoiseSVN settings dialog (on XP, Start > All Programs > TortoiseSVN > Settings (32 and/or 64 bit)).
• Click on “Icon Overlays” in the settings tree on the left-hand side of the dialog.
• Check the “Show overlays and context menu only in explorer” box.

Narrow the icon overlays down to only your Subversion directories using the “Exclude paths:” and “Include paths:” dialogs at the bottom. Here are my settings:

Here’s where I found most of the information: http://www.nabble.com/Disable-TSVNCache.exe-to-minimize-disk-IO–to2385446.html.

I’ve been all 64-bit, minus a number of Linux and Windows 32-bit virtual machines that I trash use for specific tasks, for over two years now. I initially had some issues with driver support, but – other than this – have been impressed, from the very beginning, with the stability and performance of the 64-bit versions of XP and Vista.

That said, one thing I haven’t been impressed with is Microsoft’s inability to recognize that once you put a version of an operating system out there, you need to support it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to install a Microsoft software product on one of my 64-bit machines and been told that it isn’t supported on the 64-bit version of the operating system.

This has changed – at least somewhat – over the last year or so, as more and more people have migrated to 64-bit, so I was taken aback when I downloaded the final release of my favorite blogging client, Windows Live Writer, and discovered that it wouldn’t install on my 64-bit version of XP (for some reason I had no problems installing it on Vista x64, although it seems that others have had problems installing on Vista x64, as well). The crazy thing about this is that all of the beta versions of Windows Live Writer installed fine on XP x64, but when Microsoft moved to their all-in-one Windows Live installer they moved away from distributing an .msi and to distributing an .exe that wouldn’t work on 64-bit. What they were thinking, I can’t say, and they *still haven’t released a 64-bit compatible version of the installer, although it seems that doing so would meet the needs of a fairly large group of users and would be a fairly trivial task.

[Steps off of soap box]

Now, on to how to fix this problem:

1. If you have a beta version of Windows Live Writer installed on your machine, uninstall it.
2. Download “Install_{1F973A7F-3FE4-4D11-A9A2-E869C2899A7D}.msi” using the link below.
3. Double-click on the .msi. The install should run and complete, although you won’t be prompted to confirm the install or see any other fancy dialogs.

Sorry, but the download seems to have disappeared.

Last Updated: December 20, 2006

Anyone who works on a computer for a living has their set of favorite software applications and utilities. These tools help increase their productivity and often become an integral part of their standard workflow. I am no exception. This list is an ongoing, updated, list of my favorite applications and utilities. These are the tools that I can’t do without and install first on a fresh operating system.

These types of lists that others maintain have led me to the discovery of many new useful tools. I hope that this list does the same for others.

As I discover new (for me) applications and tools, I will tell you all about them in posts (click on the “Utilities” category in the tagcloud to view all of these individual posts). If a tool becomes indispensable to me, I will add it to this list. I have grouped apps/utilities by function, although I expect that the general categories will change as tools are added and my needs change.

Before I move on, here are some things that I look for in an application/utility:

1. Targeted purpose: I don’t like applications that try to do everything, as those that try to be all-encompassing tend to fall short in most areas. I, rather, think that most well-designed applications do a few things, and do them well.
2. Minimal (or efficient) utilization of system resources: An application that hogs system resources ultimately takes away from my productivity.
3. Improve My Performance: If an app doesn’t work for me, I don’t use it. I’ve stopped using many application/utilizes simply because the interface didn’t feel right.

So, without further ado, here they are:

[Blogging]

• Engine(s)
  • dasBlog – My blogging engine of choice, dasBlog is an open source ASP.NET application that is actively developed by a pretty dedicated group. I’ve been impressed with the speed of new feature deployment, and you can always get the latest and greatest through the daily builds. As some have suggested, the actual releases tend to be a bit on the slow side, but it’s easy enough to get to the cutting edge features (e.g., lately: Google Sitemap generation, simple theming, integrated “Captcha” support, mobile support, etc.) in between major releases.
• Tools
  • Windows Live Writer – This blogging tool is everyone’s new favorite toy. There’s a reason for this: Live Writer allows bloggers to write and post entries via an elegant and easy-to-use interface. The interface will even grab your site’s stylesheet(s) and allow you to view what your post will look like when uploaded to your blog. And most importantly, Live Writer is easily extended; extensions are simple to write, and there are many already available for download from the Windows Live Gallery.
    • Favorite Plugins
      • Insert Code – This nifty little plugin from Omar Shahine formats C#, HTML, Javascript, MSH, TSQL, and Visual Basic code using CSS (either embedded in your page or added to your standalone stylesheet(s)). The C# formatting is especially impressive, thanks to Jean-Claude Manoli’s C# Format.

[Burning]

• ONES (Optical New Edge Storage) – I was turned on to this burning application by a colleague last year. It does everything that I need, and does it quickly and without bogging down my system. Granted, it doesn’t have as many features as some of the more mainstream/popular burning applications, but the price is right (just under $25) and I never have a need for most of the extra features anyway.

[Compression]

• 7-Zip – Most probably already know about 7-Zip, as it has been around for awhile and is very popular. This open source archiver replaced WinZip (and the built-in Windows compression tool) on my workstation long ago, and it continues to impress. It is integrated with Windows Shell, has a command line version that allows for quick and easy batching, and usually compresses 2-10% better to ZIP than other ZIP programs (their numbers, not mine). And most importantly for me, it supports unpacking of RAR files.

[Computer Maintenance/Performance]

• Paragon Partition Manager – In my previous life in the IT world, I used disk partition tools daily. Whether it was reformatting a failed drive or adding a logical partition, I needed a tool that would partition a drive either from boot or from within Windows (and without having to restart the OS if used from within Windows). Most importantly, I needed a tool that would format (create, merge, and split partitions) without completely messing up the existing operating system. These requirements might sound straight-forward, but you would be surprised at how many utilities promise just these things but fall short in one or more areas. Out of all the utilities that I found, Paragon Partition performed the most consistently. Another plus about Paragon: you can easily reformat a partition from boot using just a keyboard. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to reformat or recover a partition on a system that couldn’t boot to find that the USB mouse was not recognized in the utility.
• CCleaner – CrapCleaner has long been my all-around cleanup utility of choice. I run both the cleaner tool and the registry cleaner tool at least once a week on both my home and office workstations. The cleaner tool gets rid of all the junk that builds up on a Windows install (temporary files, etc.), along with other application files (IE, Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Office, media players, etc.) It also has a great Startup cleaner tool that shows all of the processes that run on Windows startup and allows you to delete any unwanted entries/processes. It is available for free download from a host of sites.
• ESET Nod32 Antivirus – I first started using Nod32 when I switched from XP 32-bit to XP 64-bit. At the time, there were only a few antivirus suites that supported 64-bit. I gave Nod32 a shot, and have been happy ever since. It’s the first antivirus app that I’ve tried that allows me to truly say that I don’t notice it running. It runs in the background at startup (no annoying splash screen or loading of multiple processes) and doesn’t hog system resources (the installer is only ~11 MB!). It also doesn’t try to do everything; it is, first and foremost, an antivirus tool.
• O&O Defrag – A defrag program that takes care of disk maintenance for you. Like Nod32 Antivirus, I started using O&O Defrag when I moved to Windows XP x64, as the defrag app that I was using at the time was 32-bit only. And also like Nod32, I haven’t seen a need to go back. I don’t have their latest version, 8.5, but it has a new “Screensaver Mode” which activates the defrag(s) only when your screensaver is activated. If you’re looking for a simple and elegant defrag program, I highly recommend O&O.
• Windows Defender – This spyware tool is a free download from Microsoft from users who own copies of Windows XP, Vista, and Server 2003. As the name suggests, it is optimized (if that is the right word) for the Windows OS, and it monitors vulnerable sections of the OS (and, as we all know, Windows has quite a few of these areas).

[Content Management Systems]

• Plone – An open source content management system (CMS) that is built on top of Zope, Plone is the most powerful and intuitive CMS that I’ve found. I first started working with Plone when I was putting together an intranet site for a small (20-35 people) organization. At the time, spending money on a solution was not an option, and I knew from experience that there were mature open source products available that would meet our needs. I didn’t know, however, which solution I wanted to use. In researching all of the options, I ran across Plone and haven’t looked back since. Know Python? Well, you might want to take a look at Plone.
• Windows Sharepoint – I have used Windows Sharepoint with a couple of different organizations/teams now, and I really like its project management capabilities. Sharepoint’s strength is not as a full content management system. It does, however, encourage team members to collaborate and communicate better, and it’s certainly nice to have a single repository for all of the necessary pieces of a project. I have played with Sharepoint 3 quite a bit, and have been especially impressed with how easy it is to customize individual portals. It also includes some pretty great feature additions, including more efficient use of RSS 2.0, the ability to search over multiple Sharepoint sites, the addition of wikis, and version history for lists (for a more complete list of feature additions/changes go to Greg Hughes’ blog post).

[FTP]

• FileZilla – Another no-brainer that has been around for awhile, FileZilla is an open source FTP client (they also offer an excellent FTP server) that includes all the features you’ve come to expect in an FTP client. The feature that I like the most is FileZilla’s “Keep Alive” system. This feature keeps my connection from timing out, even when I’m not currently using it. This is especially useful when performing prolonged updates of websites over FTP.

[GIS]

• Desktop GIS
  • Quantum GIS – An open source desktop GIS that runs on Linux, Max OSX, Unix, and Windows, Quantum GIS isn’t nearly as advanced as ESRI’s full-featured (but expensive) ArcGIS Desktop. It does, however, provide some pretty decent functionality, and is constantly being improved by a group of developers. Especially exciting is GRASS‘ integration with QGIS, which greatly enhances the number and quality of tools available in QGIS’ toolbox (and makes access to GRASS’ powerful tools available to many more users through a GUI). For a beginning GIS user, QGIS offers a nice place to get started, and even for those more advanced users who are interested in working with open source tools (or on non-Windows platforms), QGIS offers some pretty cool features, including the ability to interact with PostGIS (a spatially-enabled RDBMS running on top of PostgreSQL) and support for some interaction with MapServer (an open source internet map application). Quality cartographic tools are the one remaining gaping hole, but I’m sure this is on the list of coming improvements.
• Virtual Earth
  • ArcGIS Explorer – I’m not sure that ArcGIS Explorer, which was just released in late November, will ever run as well or have the same quality imagery as Google Earth, but as a lightweight GIS client it fills a much-needed niche, allowing non-GIS users to perform some basic GIS functions in an easy-to-use interface. It can consume a slew of services (including IMS and WMS), and can also be extended through geoprocessing services served by ArcGIS Server. As far as usability and appearance go, though, it looks and acts a lot like Google Earth, which is probably a good thing.

[Graphics]

• Google Sketchup – This powerful little 3D modeling application is a lot of fun to work with. Its interface is intuitive enough to allow a user with absolutely no experience to build realistic and good-looking models in no time at all. And after you get done with your model, you can bring it into Google Earth quickly and easily. I’ve heard some say that you can create models in five minutes with Google Sketchup that would take you hours to create with CAD.
• Inkscape – Another great open source application that fills, at least partially, a much-needed niche in the open source graphic design toolbox. Inkscape works with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), a W3C XML-based standard, and does much of what you’ve come to expect out of an editor tool. It runs on Windows and Linux, and for all you Mac users it looks like Inkscape was recently – November 2006 – ported to MacOS X. If you’re looking for a full-featured editor like Adobe Illustrator, you might want to look someplace else. However, if you just need some basic vector editing tools, with some advanced tools included, give Inkscape a try.
• Irfanview – A freeware graphic viewer, Irfanview supports too many file formats to mention. It is also very lightweight and starts and runs quickly. I started using it because of its ability to manipulate photos without compromising the EXIF data (something that many image viewers now do), but have come to love it for its simplicity and richness. As far as image editing, Irfanview is limited, but you can perform some basic manipulations, including easy and fast resize/resample, creation of thumbnails, and manipulation of some basic effects.
• The GIMP – Again, I’m no graphic designer; the majority of my image design/manipulation involves the creation of simple graphics for the web. I am confident, however, that even if I were a more advanced designer the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) would continue to meet my needs. As I use the GIMP, I am constantly amazed at its speed and flexibility. It allows for scripting in many different languages, truly making it as powerful as the end-user, and there are a bundle of plug-ins available to help users extend/improve the functionality. Why aren’t all programs designed this well? And it’s truly platform-independent; you can use the GIMP on MacOS X, Unix, and Windows.

[Imaging]

• Acronis True Image – An imaging backup utility with the same functionality as the better known Norton Ghost, True Image allows you to create an exact image of a partition/drive/computer. You can then restore this image quickly and easily from backup in case of an emergency. And best of all, the recovery is quick and seamless. I’ve actually recovered from a failed harddrive in less than thirty minutes, and it’s just as easy to mount the backed-up partition and browse it to recover an individual file. I’ve used True Image in both a corporate and home environment, and it met my needs well in both instances. Overall, I really liked the ability to automate the backup process through the True Image Management Console, although I did run into some problems with permissions (most likely due to network issues, though). The new version, 10, also has built-in support for differential backups. This should enhance the ability of an organization’s IT staff to remotely backup workstations and respond to emergencies.
• Daemon Tools – Anyone who uses cd/dvd images regularly probably already knows about Daemon Tools. Daemon Tools acts as a virtual drive, allowing you to mount an image and browse and use its contents. It’s remarkably handy; I just store .iso images of all of my software now, and don’t worry about losing/damaging hardcopy disks.

[Internet]

• Mozilla Firefox – No explanation needed; in my opinion, hands-down the best browser available. Hundreds of add-ons are available, so you can customize it however you’d like. Here are my favorites:
  • Bloglines Toolkit – Integrates with Firefox and notifies you when new blog posts are available. I love Bloglines as a service, and this extension makes it even easier for me to keep up with developments.
  • Colorful Tabs – If you’re like me, you open tabs in Firefox to organize your train(s) of thought. I like to think that I don’t overuse tabs, but it was hard to justify this thought before I found the colorful tabs extension; I was constantly finding myself lost in a sea of open tabs. Now, however, they are all colored, meaning that I can finally separate and organize them in a logical manner.
  • Download Statusbar – A simple, yet elegant add-on that takes away the default Firefox download window and puts your downloads in the bottom status-bar of the browser.
  • Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – I chose Foxmarks over Google Browser Sync because of its ability to stay connected and running on multiple computers at the same time. It doesn’t have the same synchronization capabilities as Google Browser Sync (it can’t synchronize passwords, tabs, etc.), but I never used those features anyway. It does everything that I need, and runs smoothly and silently in the background.
  • IE Tab – A must for those who find themselves switching back and forth between Firefox and Internet Explorer. IE Tab switches the rendering engine (from Firefox to Internet Explorer and back again) at the click of a mouse button. It doesn’t work in all cases, but it is a quick and easy way to see if a bug in the page is browser related.
  • Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus is the first extension that I install on a fresh Firefox, as it has become an integral part of my browsing experience. Granted, I don’t use all of the extension’s capabilities, but I do use quite a few of them. Many of the features are slowly getting absorbed into the base Firefox versions, but Tab Mix Plus still offers a host of options that you can’t find in other extensions.
  • Web Developer – A must have for web developers, this extension provides access to a host of development tools – including the ability to validate CSS and HTML, disable cookies and javascript, and “live edit” the CSS and HTML – through an easily-accessed toolbar and menu.

[Media]

• Audio
  • foobar2000 – foobar2000 is actually a freeware audio player, but I use it solely for its conversion capabilities. It’s got command line capabilities and a software development kit, so it is easy to extend the interface to meet your needs.
  • MediaMonkey – This free, or cheap (depending on what features you need) audio library/player runs fast and easy and handles large music libraries elegantly. The app’s website claims that MediaMonkey can handle “50,000+ files…without bogging down”. I’ll be honest, I haven’t tested it at that level, but I do have a large music library, and have been impressed with how well the program runs, even when performing batch updates, etc. It’s tagging capabilities are, in my opinion, unmatched in any other audio application; it even hooks up to Amazon.com, Freedb, and CD-TEXT to grab album art, track lists, and more. It also has built-in support for MP3 devices (yes, including iPods), and you can convert tracks and burn straight to cd from within the interface. I suggest giving the free version a try and, if you like the interface and need more power (the ability to auto-convert music, encode unlimited MP3s, etc.), you can always upgrade to the “Gold Version” for cheap. And, oh yeah, like most of the apps that I have on this list, MediaMonkey can be extended through the use of scripts.
• Images
  • Adobe Lightroom – A powerful, yet intuitive, tool for manipulating and publishing photos, Adobe Lightroom is still in the public beta stage. I really enjoy the interface, though; especially the ability to perform some advanced (for me) operations on my photos. If only it were integrated with Smugmug…

[Messaging]

• Windows Live Messenger – I don’t use instant messenger much at home, but at work I use it quite a bit. The feature that I’ve always liked about Microsoft’s Messenger is its integration with the operating system. And since the organization that I work for is strictly Microsoft, it made perfect sense to move towards their instant messenger. I can’t tell you how many times the Remote Assistance feature has saved me loads of grief. I know that Vista has better Remote Assistance support built in (including, thankfully, the ability to offer Remote Assistance), but we aren’t going to moving to Vista anytime soon. And a plus I almost forgot to mention: Live Messenger and Yahoo! IM recently teamed together. Now you can chat with friends from the opposite service. If we could just talk them all into getting along…

[Miscellaneous]

• Conversion
  • Convert – A quick little conversion utility that I find myself using more than I would’ve thought when I first found it, Convert, well, converts “units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy, and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions!” It is the ultimate all-in-one conversion tool.
• File Synchronization
  • FolderShare – Up until recently, this application kept all of the files that fall somewhere in-between personal and work synced up on multiple computers (two desktops and two laptops). That was until the company that I work for decided to block all of the “unused” outgoing ports on the firewall. Oh well, another useful tool that I can’t use anymore. I wanted to put it on here, however, because it really is a great way to stay organized. And best of all, it’s a free service.
• PDF
  • CutePDF – CutePDF became my primary .pdf creation tool when I moved to a 64-bit operating system. Acrobat’s print to .pdf driver wasn’t supported in 64-bit, and I needed a way to quickly and easily create .pdfs. Well, I found the solution in CutePDF. It is simple in that its sole purpose is creating .pdfs. However, it works much faster than Acrobat, doesn’t contain ads (like some other free .pdf makers), and is free for personal and commercial use.

[Passwords]

• KeePass Password Safe – This open source password safe is supported on more platforms than any other password safe that I’ve found. It installs to many mobile devices, allowing you to take your passwords with you, and uses encryption algorithms to make sure that your passwords stay secure. Additionally, it allows for easy import/export, meaning that you can likely take your passwords with you if you decide to switch to another password manager. Don’t like it? You can either extend it with the available plugins or develop your own plugins.

[Productivity Enhancers]

• Application Launcher
  • Launchy – Runs in the background, and allows you to launch applications by pressing a hotkey combination. Also indexes directories and files. You can limit what Launchy indexes, per directory and per file type. The utility is also skinnable, and open source.
  • SlickRun – Another hotkey utility, SlickRun fills in where Launchy leaves off. This minimalist command line utility is much more than just an application launcher. It allows you to specify “MagicWords” and start utilities by using these phrases. For example, you can tell SlickRun to perform a Google search and launch Firefox with the results when you type “search” and then specify the parameters in a popup input box. You can also run command line utilities through SlickRun. Like Launchy, you can change SlickRun’s appearance and default behavior. It is a free download, but not open source. And, oh yeah, there are packages of “MagicWords” available for download at the SlickRun website.
• Miscellaneous
  • Windows PowerShell – Think of PowerShell as Microsoft’s regular ‘ole command line on steroids. This utility is available for free download from their Download Center and is supported on Server 2003, XP, and Vista. With PowerShell, you can leverage the power of scripting in a much more consistent environment. It is designed with IT administrators in mind, but anyone who works with data or finds themselves repeating tasks should look into PowerShell to see if it can make their lives easier. Here’s a repository of sample scripts to get you started.
  • Windows PowerToys – The PowerToys pack for Windows XP is a collection of tools that either enhance the operating system or fill in the gaps where needed. To me, the ClearType Tuner, Open Command Window Here, and Tweak UI powertoys are a must. The ClearType Tuner tweaks the way that XP handles fonts, making them much more readable and attractive. The Open Command Window Here powertoy allows you to right-click on any folder and select to open a command prompt window that is already pointed to the directory. The TweakUI powertoy (which is also available in 64-bit) allows you to tweak your operating system to make it run just like you want. All of these powertoys are free downloads.
• Multiple Monitors
  • UltraMon – I found out about this cool little piece of software from Scott Hanselman. If you work on a computer with more than one monitor, UltraMon is an absolute necessity! The enhancements that it makes to your workstation are minor, but they allow you to work and navigate with multiple monitors in a much more efficient and intuitive way.
• Screen Grab/Capture
  • Gadwin PrintScreen – This freeware screen grab app has a couple of features that I really need – including the ability to hide the cursor when doing a grab, grab screenshots from either a full screen or defined area, and automatically name and save grabs – and some that I just like – copy captured area to clipboard and automatically create shadow.
  • Wink – This “Tutorial and Presentation creation” application creates Flash videos from captured screenshots and defined content (titles, text boxes, etc.) I’ve used Macromedia’s Adobe’s Captivate product before, and it really works well. However, Wink does much (not all) of what Captivate does, and is available as freeware. And, of course, cross-platform support is always a good thing.

[Programming Tools]

• Differencing and Merging
  • WinMerge – WinMerge aids in the comparison of multiple files. It is the best differencing and merging tool that I have found, and, yes, it is open source.
• Subversion
  • TortoiseSVN – This open source Windows shell version control tool integrates directly into Windows Explorer and allows developers to collaborate on projects without stepping all over each other.
• Text Editor
  • Notepad++ – This actively developed, open source tool is hands-down the best text editor that I’ve found. I was hooked on Textpad for awhile, but didn’t like the fact that you had to pay for it (does anyone ever like paying for stuff?). Notepad++ supports many programming languages, including C#, C++, CSS, Fortran (just in case), Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, VB, and XML. It also allows you to open multiple files at once, and keeps them in tabs along the top of the interface.

[Virtualization]

• Desktop
  • VMware Player – This free download from VMware allows you to load virtual machines and work on the guest operating system. Have a Microsoft virtual machine? VMware Player can run it. VMware Player is the perfect environment for learning and playing around, and you can find some pre-built machines available for download on the VMware Technology Network website.
• Server
  • VMware Server – VMware’s server product is more robust and, thus, much larger than Microsoft’s Virtual Machine product, which goes against one of the three points that I made at the beginning of this list. It is also, however, much more adaptable. You can control all aspects of the virtual machine through the provided framework, whereas with Microsoft’s Virtual Machine product you have to delve a bit deeper to get into the nuts and bolts of the guest machine (and in some cases you just can’t get all that deep into Microsoft’s implementation). I used some of the beta versions of VMware Server and have really gotten used to how it works. Overall, the application is solid enough to run in a production environment. Like for its Player product, VMware has made some pre-built virtual machines available for download on their website.

[Visualization]

• DesktopEarth – A cool little application that places NASA imagery, including bathymetry and nightlights on your desktop. You can tell it where to center and even tweak the display to show imagery based on the actual time of year. Even cooler: it actually updates on a schedule (e.g. every five minutes), showing the progress of the sun across the earth. It may be a little heavy for some, but I like knowing how much daylight I have left.
• Digital Blasphemy – Okay, I know, this is a website. But still, it’s got some great dual and tri-screen wallpapers available for download.
• Yahoo! Widgets – Yahoo! purchased Konfabulator back in 2005 and changed the name to Yahoo! Widgets. The quality of the engine has only increased since then. There are thousands of widgets available for free download, and most of them are really quite slick. I don’t use many widgets myself, but do love the weather widget.

[Web Applications]

• Smugmug – I fell in love with Smugmug several months ago. It is the slickest photo app that I’ve seen (it has an AJAX-enhanced interface), and the unlimited photos that I upload to my Smugmug account live in multiple places across the country (read: no worries). Plus there are no ads and visitors don’t have to login to view your photos. The company is made up of photographers who take quality very seriously, and the price is extremely reasonable for the services that are offered. I haven’t yet gotten around to migrating my photos off my desktop to the servers yet, but I plan on uploading them as soon as I get my broadband connection back (fingers crossed, should be soon). I might even use the API to try and build some custom apps. Smugmug offers a free (no credit card needed!) two week trial, so there’s no excuse not to try it.

Microsoft released Windows Live Writer this past week, and I thought I would give it a try (like everyone else in the blogging world, it seems). Here are my initial impressions:

• The interface is more intuitive and less complex than my current blogging tool, w.bloggar. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t as powerful, though; it seems to have all of the features that I used with w.bloggar – and looks better doing it.
• Connecting to dasBlog to post was almost too easy. Live Writer supports the new Really Simple Discoverability (RSD) standard, which means that for those blogging engines that support the standard, connecting and posting is as simple as pointing the interface your blog’s URL. At 1.8, dasBlog doesn’t support RSD, but it will in 1.9.
• The availability of plugins and an API should be a huge boon to the Live Writer project. Omar Shahine has already got a couple of plugins up his sleeves that I am excited about, and I plan on trying the “Currently Listening” plugin later this week.
• Another strength that I see in Live Writer is its image and mapping capabilities. You can add images, change the layout and image properties (including adding custom watermarks), and edit images without leaving the blogging window. The image editing capabilities remind me a lot of Picasa. Adding custom maps from the Windows Live Local service is just as easy, and is a real asset to the application.
• The ability to preview your post – CSS and all – from within the Windows Live interface is outstanding. Whereas before I often had to publish the post and then go into the built-in editor to correct formatting errors, now I can just post and go.

Overall, I am – as you can see – very impressed with Live Writer. It has the exact capabilities that I need, and nothing that I don’t. I really look forward to using some of the plugins that will undoubtedly come out of the API.

Scott Hanselman just recently posted an entry about application launchers. In the entry, he covered the two that I use every day – Launchy and Slickrun. They work well together, each filling in where the other lacks. I use Launchy to start applications and index local directories and files (you can tell it what directories and type of files you want it to index and let it go on its merry way). Slickrun is much more powerful, but also takes more getting used to. With it, you can browse to shares and create nicknames – or “Magic Words” – and use them to launch applications or URLs.

Both utilities are minimal (Launcher hides until you want to use it and Slickrun is a tiny, unobtrusive box that hovers wherever you place it) and have AutoComplete functionality, which really enhances the overall usability.

In the aforementioned entry, Scott covered several more launcher utilities. I have tried a few of the others (just recently giving up Colibri for Launchy [reason: I wanted more than just an app launcher] and Google Desktop for Slickrun [reason: Google Desktop was too bloated for my tastes]), and will likely try the rest of them out in the near future.

Note: Launchy is open source and Slickrun is freeware, so there’s no reason not to try them!

Listening to Tom Petty – Highway Companion…