My top ten tools

Posted by Ed Nice on 5 June 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: web tools, add ons, software, killer apps

Whilst writing some news a few days ago, I got thinking about some free tools and apps that I use all the time that realy make my life a whole lot easier.

The thing that got me thinking about it was when I mentioned Speed Dial in Opera, I wondered if there was an Add On like it for Firefox? Of course there was. It isn't quite as slick as the one in Opera, but it works just as well, so I've added it.

I realised that there are a lot of things that I use that are really useful, free and could be useful to others too.

So my top ten apps and tools. The term is Killer Apps isn't it? Ok, my top ten Killer Apps.

Number 1 - Firebug Add On for Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

Firebug is a browser add on that lets you inspect the html and css for a web page. Well, that sounds simple and you can see that anyway, so what's the big deal?

Well, it lets you select elements within the html and tells you what css element is styling it. Ok, a little more interesting...

It also shows outlines overlayed on the web page, plus many more features that you will find useful.

Seriously, if you write html/css, this is a must. If I had to lose a finger or Firebug, I'd lose a finger. I've got ten of them. There is only one Firebug.

Number 2 - The RegEx Coach http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/

If you don't know what regular expressions are, you probably won't share my passion and enthusiasm for this app.

If you write code but don't know what they are [catch up dude], if do know what they are but either don't use them or use them all the time, this is still a great piece of kit.

It allows you to write and test regular expressions against text. Simple I know but it saves so much time testing stuff in a sandbox before wondering why things aren't working in your application. It is also a little known fact that girls go wild for guys who know regular expressions.

Number 3 - Xpath Designer http://www.organicbit.com/Posts/2007-02-XPathDesigner.html

Like Reg Ex, XPath is something you use or you don't.

XPath (for those of you who don't know) is a way of defining a position within the nodes and elements of an XML document. If you use XML or XSL(T) you will probably use XPath.

The great thing about XPath Designer is that it lets you text XPath expressions against XML in a sandbox. This is great to write, test and debug XPAth stuff before it goes in to your application.

It's written in .NET with source supplied. Respect to Gerry Shaw (who wrote it).

Number 4 - Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Notepad++ is really just a text editor but it is great for writing any text based files, especially source code.

Tools like Eclipse, Visual Studio and DreamWeaver are all great but sometimes, you just need a small, lightweight tool that lets you write code. This fits the bill perfectly.

It does some additional things like language intellisense and spell checkers but I only really use it for simple text style editing.

The best text editor around in probably UltraEdit http://www.ultraedit.com/. It is a commercial product but at $50 it is a great piece of kit.

Number 5 - IcoFX - http://icofx.ro/

IcoFX is a free icon editor.

I use it mainly for creating favicons but in the hands of a good designer, it can produce some great work.

Number 6 - FileZilla http://filezilla-project.org/

FileZilla is a free ftp client and server.

I use the client all the time. It makes it really quick and easy to manage web site files.

The server rocks too, so if you are looking for a really usable ftp server application, check it out.

Number 7 - MySqlYog http://www.webyog.com/en/

MySqlYog is a GUI for administering and developing in MySql. The community edition is free.

If you use MySql or want to start, this is a great way to develop databases. It's especially useful if you use Windows as the shell is pretty awful, even if you use Putty.

Number 8 - WAMPServer http://www.wampserver.com/en/

WAMPServer is an application that installs Apache, MySql and PHP in a Windows desktop. It also installs an admin tool.

Although this is techniclly a 4-in-1 application, it is the admin tool that is the cool part.

Yes, Apache, MySql and PHP are all great but installing and configuring it all, especially on windows, can be a bit of a bind. WAMPServer seems to fit the bill, plus it gives you a whole load more stuff that you'd never have with installing it all individually. This is why it is on the list.

With WAMPServer, you get a nice GUI menu that allows you to start/stop things right down to the module level in Apache and config settings in PHP.

There is a similar thing for the mac http://www.mamp.info which is amazingly called MAMP Server. I've not used it but it seems to do more or less the same thing.

If you develop in PHP on Windows, this really does make any dev environment on localhost a breeze.

Number 9 - SilverStripe http://www.silverstripe.org

There are a load of open source CMS frameworks out there, but I kinda like SilverStripe best.

Ok, compared with Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress, it is still quite immature, but it really is a great way to build a web site with a content management interface built in.

One small criticism would be the documentation and help which is ok but can be a bit fragmented and it can be difficult to get straightforward answers to some questions. This is to expected though and it is down to users like myself to contribute to the community and share my knowledge. See, I told myself off there...

If you get a CMS from me, t will most likely be based on SilverStripe. If you want to try a CMS framework out for yourself, install WAMPServer and try SilverStripe.

Number 10 - Password Safe http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

Now this was going to be Kuler, but I realised I have a load of great web sites to tell you about, so I'm going to tell you about that later.

For me, Password Safe is a godsend. It works as the name would suggest. It is a safe that stores all your passwords.

Ok, it's really just a little GUI with an encrypted database but it is easy to use, can be put on a pen drive and means I only need to remember 1 strong password, not 4/5/600.

Only last week a client got bitten by a zombie guessing passwords. An annoyingly, they used one password for everything. Oh joy. Another great thing about Password Safe is that it generates really random passwords for you. And best of all, you don't need to remember them any more.

Ok, so that's my current top ten killer apps. I'm glad I had ten, I actually have a few more but I promised ten, so you only get ten.

If you ave some killer apps that I don't know about, please post them here.

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Thanks for reading.

//ed.