my list of tools - part one

Taking a page from Scott, I decided to sit and catalog some of my favorite tools and programs. Here are the more general purpose tools that I love and use often. If I have time later on, I'll try to list all the development tools that make my life easier.

General Utility

• Notepad2 - I really like this one as an alternative to Notepad. It's got line numbers, better formatting, syntax highlighting, and tons of options. Yet, it doesn't sacrifice simplicity for all these additional bells and whistles.


• AppRocket - Great utility for launching programs without a mouse. Simply hit Alt-Space and type in the first few letters of the program you're looking for. It learns as it goes, and even allows you to browse directory structures and find/play music.


• TopDesk - Great for anyone looking for an Expose clone on Windows. I've already wowed several colleagues with this one.


• TaskSwitchXP Pro - This is a wonderful replacement for Windows' Alt-Tab functionality. Coupled with TopDesk, any problems you've ever had managing several windows at once while multitasking will disappear.


• Trillian Pro - Lots of people use the free client, but the only way to go with this one is Pro. The advanced history view, availability of plugins, and meta-contact management are well worth the $30 the pro version costs.


• imeem - Social networking/P2P/blogging software from the same people who make AppRocket. This is essentially orkut-meets-Blogger-meets-Kazaa. It's invitation only, but I've got 14 invitations to give out, so let me know if you'd like to give this one a try.


• Foxit PDF Reader - Do you think Adobe Reader is a bloated piece of crap that you just have to deal with in order to read PDFs? This little app will let you read PDFs and weighs in at just under 2 MB. Very nice.


• Virtual TI-89 - Any math geek will tell you that the TI-89 was calculator nirvana. I love that I can emulate it on the PC now, complete with an authentic skin! You'll have to do your own digging to find a suitable ROM for the emulator though.


• Paint.NET - As far as I'm concerned, this is the only good freeware paint program out there.


• MaxiVista - If you've got a spare laptop or tablet PC laying around that you'd like to turn into a virtual monitor, this is the tool to do it. It's really nice if you have a laptop that is only used when you're away from your desk.


• OneNote - This is, quite honestly, one of the very few Microsoft products that I just can't get enough of. I doubt I'll ever take notes on paper by hand again.


• del.icio.us - Very cool online bookmark tool with a social networking slant. The link goes to my current bookmark collection.


• SauceReader - A nice RSS aggregator. I've gone through my share of these lately, and this is the one that best suits my usage habits.


• Rainlendar - Puts a nice calendar and to-do list on your desktop. It's pretty, and doesn't take too many resources either.


• Rainmeter - Small plugin-based utility that can do everything from showing an analog clock on your desktop to monitoring CPU and memory usage. Like Rainlendar, it's also very light on system resources.


• HydraIRC - This is a nice alternative IRC client for anyone who's tired of mIRC.


• CDBurnerXP Pro - A freeware CD burning utility. Not as full featured as some of the commercial ones, but it's great in a pinch.


• The GodFather - If you have digital music files, you need this tool. It allows you to rename and organize all your music in a way that you define. It's a little obtuse at first, but after you've worked with it for a while, you can do some amazing things with it.


• DAEMON Tools - I love this utility. It sits in your system tray and allows you to mount ISO files from your hard drive and view them as if they were actually additional CD-ROM drives in Windows Explorer. As an aside, the tool also claims to be able to sidestep many PC game copy protection schemes, but I wouldn't know anything about that.....


• CommandBar for Explorer - Integrates with the Windows shell so that pressing Ctrl-M will bring up a command prompt inside of the Explorer window. If you change directories with Explorer, it issues the appropriate cd commands to synchronize the prompt with the current location of the window. There's lots of other goodies that this one lets you do as well. It's incredibly valuable to be able to see the files in Explorer as you work with them on the command line.