Lately, I've been getting a lot of questions from fellow developers about the various tools I use in the course of writing and maintaining software.  Throughout the years I've tried a lot of software, liked a lot of software, hated a lot of software, and ultimately found a good set of scripts, plugins and applications which really facilitate getting the job of programming done.  Here is a list of some of the software I'm currently using...

Text Editor:
To be sure, the most important tool in my tool-chest is the simple text editor - Notepad just won't do...  As a web developer I spend all day editing text.  Whether it is Java, C#, PHP, XQuery, XHMTL, JavaScript, CSS, XML or some archaic server configuration dialect, 99% of the work I do is in a text file.  To me, this is kind of like owning the right bed - if you are going to spend a significant amount of time in it, you really want the right one...

• Windows: UEStudio by IDM Computer Solutions, Inc. ($$)
  This is the upscale version of their flagship UltraEdit editor. The lifetime upgrade option was the best purchase I ever made, I wish I'd done it the first year.
• Linux: UEx by IDM Computer Solutions, Inc. ($$)
  This is brand new, and isn't really feature complete, but it is already better than gedit, and starting to get the feel of the UltraEdit I love on Windows. I paid $40 for a year's license (mostly to encourage the effort), we'll see how it shapes up...

XML Editor:
I spend enough time working with XML and related technologies that it really justifies having a dedicated piece of software.

• Windows & Linux: oXygen XML Editor by SyncRO Soft Ltd. ($$)
  Beyond the general XML features, I particularly appreciate the XSLT & XQuery processing and MarkLogic/eXist/Saxon integration. It works as both a stand-alone application, or as an Eclipse plugin. SyncRO Soft is also generous in providing a number of extra tools which have proven covenient such as an XML diff tool and a stand-alone Subversion client.

Diff Tool:
The process of comparing files and directories is far too painful a process to do manually, having the right tool can really save the day.

• Windows: UltraCompare by IDM Computer Solutions, Inc. ($$)
  I picked this up bundled with UEStudio primarily because TortoiseCVS lacks a decent diff tool, and it has really been very useful.  The directory compare and binary compare functionality really set it apart from other diff tools I've seen. Note, a "lite" version is included with UEStudio, and either version is fully integrated with the editor.
• Linux: I'm looking for the right tool, any suggestions?

Code Formatter:
Source code from various places can often be a bit messy - in the case of JavaScript, it is often crunched and obfuscated - being able to orderly format source code can be indispensable to understanding it.

• Windows: Polystyle ($$)
  This tool integrates nicely with UEStudio and handles a variety of languages.
• Linux: I'm looking for the right tool, any suggestions? Eclipse does work to a degree, but I'd like something that integrates with UEx (picky, I know).

FTP/WebDav Client:
Much of my time is spent moving files from place to place, and having a tool which remembers the myriad of connection info/credentials is a BIG time saver.

• Windows: BitKinex by Barad-Dur, LLC. (Freeware)
  I actually paid ($20-$30) for this before they started giving it away, but it has not been updated since it became freeware.  It is pretty solid software, but it looks like there won't be future releases.
• Linux: I'm looking for a decent WebDav tool for Linux, FTP seems pretty well covered by FileZilla.

Command Line Interface:
Often times the good old command line is still the best (if not only) way of accomplishing a particular task.

• Windows: Console (Freeware)
  This is a nice tabbed command console application, definitely worth the download. Be sure to get recent version for x64 bit OS.
• Linux: The Gnome Terminal which comes with Ubuntu suffices for now, but I'm open to suggestions.

Tail:
As ridiculous as it seems, Windows does not include a file-tailing utility such as *nix's tail.

• Windows: Tail for Win32 (Freeware)
  This is a clunky old program I found years ago. It's certainly not ideal, and some features flat out don't work, but for now it is my preferred solution.
• Linux: tail -f works just fine.

Screenshot:
I don't know that it is always true, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Without a doubt, screenshots are often helpful in conveying problem scenarios, and frequently can be useful as conversation starters and brain-storming tools. While all OSs I use provide some sort print-screen functionality there are certainly better options.

• Windows: Snagit by TechSmith Corporation ($$)

Screen Capture:
If the picture is really worth a thousand words, then screen captures are worth millions.

• Windows: Camtasia Studio by TechSmith Corportation ($$)

 

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There is a limitation (at least on some versions of Windows) of 11 total icon overlays. As more applications have been utilizing this feature of Windows, problems with TortoiseSVN, TortoiseCVS, and others have arisen. Any beyond the first 11 alphabetically are ignored and not displayed. If there are particular overlays you must see, you can work around this issue by updating which keys appear within the following key in the Windows registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

I found it convenient to simply rename a couple by prepending "z_" so that most TortoiseSVN icons appeared...

Here are a couple links I found on the subject:
http://blog.falafel.com/2009/12/17/WindowsIconOverlayLimitations.aspx
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1057734/tortoisesvn-icons-not-showing-up-under-windows-7

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What is an AJAX Library CDN?
The concept of an AJAX Library CDN is that of simply utilizing a shared CDN (Content Delivery Network) to deliver common JavaScript components to many websites.  By sharing these resources from a common CDN each individual website no longer has the burden of serving the content and gains the geographical advantages inherent to a CDN.  Additionally, the client web browser (using normal caching settings) benefits by only needing to download the content once, any sites referring to the common content would use the cached copy.  In the end that means faster loading websites for everyone...

Google's Take...
For some time now I have been using the Google AJAX Libraries API to serve prototype.js and scriptaculous.js for my blog as a means of reducing bandwidth over my connection.  I imagine it also helps to make the site faster.  Client's may already have cached copies of the files from Google, so there would be no reason to download it from my server.  In far off lands Google has the added bonus of being able to serve this stuff from local machines.  This service has also been extremely helpful for development purposes, as I no longer need to copy these files into each webapp I work on.

Microsoft Limps in...
http://www.asp.net/ajax/CDN/

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Just to give a heads up, it appears there is a rampant computer virus going around.  So far my email server has received 3 infected emails today (8/18/2009) addressed to 3 different email addresses.  Each of the emails contained .zip attachments that were identified by AVG as being infected by "Trojan horse Injector.FG".  Email purporting to be from UPS and DHL, containing .zip attachments should not be trusted!

Some more info can be found http://www.kenkai.com/seo-blog-article-203.htm and http://www.kenkai.com/seo-blog-article-207.htm.

Email Text:

Dear customer!

Unfortunately we failed to deliver the package which was sent on the 5th of June in time because the addressee's address is erroneous. Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office.

Your United Parcel Service of America

My email server has received 3 infected emails today (8/18/2009) addressed to 3 different people:

From: "Clinton Rollins"
Subject: UPS Tracking Number W2G9838
File: UPSNR_45c9df57.zip

From: "Larry Coon"
Subject: UPS Tracking Number G6IBR4I
File: UPSNR_eb10f759.zip

From: "Tod Hoffman"
Subject: UPS Tracking Number I3UZ6CC
File: UPSNR_37701591.zip

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