Please note that I did not write any of these tools or applications! If you
are looking for those, please see my Projects list.
Many developers and engineers keep a list of utilties and software they find
indispensable. This is my list and I know it will grow. I give them my personal
recommendation and have found them to be useful in one or many situations...regardless of
who employs me. :-)
The most complete list I have seen so far is Scott Hanselman's
Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List
over at ComputerZen. I highly recommend
checking it out!
Here are the categories:
Should have been in Windows
| name |
description |
cost |
| Process Explorer |
I use this in place of Task Manager,
which is all but useless when trying to really diagnose the problem on a PC.
ProcExp gives you
granular details about the processes running, including dlls, files, registry keys, memory usage, etc. |
free |
| TaskSwitch XP |
Windows Alt+Tab on steroids! Lightweight and fast windows switching with thumbnail
views. Very customizable! |
free |
Keeping things secure
Entertain me
Surfin' the web
| name |
description |
cost |
| ieSpell |
A spell checker for Internet Explorer
[this could have easily been filed under Should have been in Windows].
This plug-in will spell check text boxes and forms in the browser. Great for people who
spend any time posting in forums, blogging, etc. |
free |
General utilities
| name |
description |
cost |
| Cropper |
A screen capture utility that lets you decide which part of the screen you want,
versus the built-in choices of 'desktop' [Ctrl+PrtScrn] or 'current window' [Ctrl+Alt+PrtScrn].
It has many more features and functionality, but it's the core that I use.
This is written in C# and requires the .NET
to be installed. |
free |
| Foxit Reader (.pdf) |
Reads .pdf files. Works much, much more efficiently than Adobe Acrobat Reader!
|
free |
| FolderShare |
Synchronize folders and files between PCs no matter where they are
as long as they connect to the internet. I love this application! I have a few files
that I used both at home and work so I have folders shared between my home and work
PCs. Easy as pie.
Not only that, but you can also login and browse a whole PC's file system remotely
through their web UI. Very convenient for those times when you need to grab something
off of the machine and you cannot get to it locally.
|
free |
| Sysinternals |
An amazing suite of PC utilities! Specifically, I use Process Explorer
, Filemon,
Handle and
Regmon quite often. |
free |
| SyncBack |
A very powerful and fast backup (or synchronization) tool with awesome customizability.
You can schedule jobs to do just about anything and then even have it email you if
an error is encountered. |
free |