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.

Big news coming out from Microsoft this past Monday: They released an early version of their Live Mesh platform to a limited group of testers. Live Mesh is basically a system that connects a user's disparate systems (Windows machines, Mac machines, and mobile devices) together, making it extremely easy to share resources between them.

The core philosophy is to make it easy to manage information in a world where people have multiple computing experiences (i.e. PCs and applications, web sites, phones, video games, music and video devices) that they use in the context of different communities (i.e. myself, family, work, organizations).

It looks like Live Mesh is building on the FolderShare idea and implementation. I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

Here's a link to a series of videos that puts it all together: https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/LearnMore.aspx.

So, the "Find" and "Find/Replace" tools aren't an important part of Visual Studio, are they?

I recently installed the RTM of Visual Studio 2008 Professional on my Windows XP x64 machine, leaving Visual Studio 2005 installed, as well, just in case things went awry with the new version. I've been using the early release versions of 2008 for sometime now, and have been impressed with the performance improvements and many of the new features, so I didn't think that I'd have too many problems with or misgivings about the upgrade.

Well, after the install I was working in the IDE and used the trusty Ctrl-F combo to open up the "Find" dialog. Visual Studio 2008 immediately conked on me. Totally conked. I opened it back up and tried Ctrl-F again and it conked again.

At this point I was ready to go back to 2005 (I was pretty disappointed in the much-hyped JavaScript debugging already), but I decided to do a quick Google search first. After performing the search, I ended up on the Visual Studio feedback site at the "Visual Studio 2008 RTM Search Crashes" bug report.

For those of you who aren't into reading bug reports, I'll summarize the contents: If you use more than one monitor and a utility (UltraMon in my case, but could be a utility that comes with your video card or any other third party utility) that helps you manage the multiple monitor setup, Visual Studio 2008 will crash when you open up the "Find" and "Find/Replace" dialog. This bug is apparently not a problem with Visual Studio 2008, but a newly-discovered (or at least newly-publicized) bug in Windows XP x64.

After reading through the multiple posts that were associated with the bug report, it became painfully obvious that I had only two choices: either uninstall my baby UltraMon or go back to using Visual Studio 2005. I didn't even have to think about it; I immediately went back to using 2005 and accepted my fate.

Today I randomly decided to check to see if an update for UltraMon had been released, and lo and behold it had! And talk about lucky - in this newest release (3.01 = beta 2 of 3.0) Realtime Soft decided to take some of the Windows 'hooks' out, meaning that the Windows XP x64 bug that was causing my Visual Studio 2008 Ctrl-F issues was fixed for me immediately!

I've always understood the importance of backing up my workstations, but haven't always followed through with action. Luckily it has never come back to burn me too badly, although I did have one bad experience a couple of years ago when I lost a good portion of my digital music library. Well, over the last year and a half I've tried to change this by consistently backing up important files to external hard drives and taking image snapshots of all my computers using Acronis' True Image product (see My Favorite Applications and Tools post for more info on True Image). However, with more and more of my life (documents, emails, music, pictures, projects, videos, etc.) living on a computer somewhere, I've decided that I now need a more robust and fail-proof backup solution. Enter Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).

For those who aren't familiar with S3, it is an "in-the-cloud" storage service that Amazon provides as part of its growing list of web services. These web services are built using the same technologies that Amazon.com uses, meaning that a lot of lessons have been learned and integrated into them. Developers can access these services through a variety of web service interfaces, and, using S3, can gain access to unlimited storage on Amazon's robust infrastructure. And yes, this includes the same availability and performance that users have come to expect from Amazon.com. As for backups, S3 is appealing not only because of its availability and performance, but also because files stored in S3 are encrypted and redundantly stored in multiple data centers, meaning that the likelihood of loss of files is extremely low, especially when compared to the chance that your external hard drive will fail. That said, I still don't recommend making an S3 repository your authoritative copy of your data, as it's always a good idea to have at least one copy of your data somewhere where you can access it, no matter what.

I've been keeping an eye on Amazon Web Services for quite a while now, and have recently opened up a dialog with the Amazon Web Services team about the possibility of migrating some of my organization's map cache and media into S3. I've also been playing around with integrating S3 into a couple of demo ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails applications as proofs-of-concept. As I've learned more and more about S3, the idea of using it for personal backups of important information has grown on me.

As I hinted at earlier, Amazon gives developers tools to connect to (authenticate) and transfer files to and from S3. I, however, wanted an easier, more automated solution to help with my backups. I looked at a couple of solutions, including the Firefox Organizer for Amazon S3 (which I definitely suggest using, if just for browsing the files that you're storing on S3) and Jungle Disk, a GUI for using Amazon S3 that mounts your S3 as a local drive letter (on Mac and Window machines, I'm not sure how you connect if you're using Linux, but I do know that Jungle Disk is supported on all three operating systems) and optionally automates backups. I decided on Jungle Disk, as it's easy to setup and use and acts a lot like a local hard drive. Note that there is a one-time *lifetime $20 fee for purchasing the utility. In my opinion it is well worth it. As I've said before, I'm willing to pay for a service that makes my life easier.

Jungle Disk has a ton of configuration options, but is still trivial to get setup and running. You simply download and install the utility, sign up for an S3 account, tell Jungle Disk your S3 account information, and tell it which files (or directories) you want it to backup and when. If you set it up for automatic backups, it will perform a scheduled check to see which files have changed and only backup those that have been modified, keeping the S3 bandwidth/storage costs as low as possible. Taken from the Amazon S3 pricing page:

Storage

• $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used

Data Transfer

• $0.10 per GB - all data transfer in
• $0.18 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out

Requests

• $0.01 per 1,000 PUT or LIST requests
• $0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests

Pretty simple and cheap, eh?

I just installed Jungle Disk and ran my first backup today. I got an average of ~600 kb/s on upload (and, yes, you can limit the upload speed and tell it to run only at certain times), and interacting with the files through Windows Explorer is just as fast as interacting with them on a local disk. In fact, as long as Jungle Disk knows where a copy of a file lives on my local machine, it will access that file automatically rather than going out to S3 to access it. If S3, however, has a newer copy of the file, it will browse to it.

Overall, so far so good. Maybe I can finally have some peace of mind about my digital files?

Tonight I was almost at a breaking point with my newest Windows Vista Ultimate home installation. I've had it installed on my main machine at home for about a month now, and everything has worked flawlessly. Vista Ultimate x64's performance has been more stable and better than XP x64 running on the same hardware. I never ran into any driver issues (which seems to be a common complaint for those who try to run any 64-bit operating system, and especially for those who try to run Vista x64), and never had any stability problems.

Then last night when I tried to boot it down, it hung. No biggie, right? Happens all the time (you can tell I'm a PC user). Well, when I booted back up today I noticed that one of my CPUs was constantly pegged even though there weren't any major processes running. Video performance was also choppy and I couldn't get any audio to play.

I tried everything that I could think of, including registry cleans, spyware scans, and antivirus scans (which forced me to install antivirus software on my machine, something I've been avoiding and will likely reverse here in the next few hours), but I couldn't find anything wrong with the machine.

Suddenly I remembered hearing about some upcoming batch fixes for Windows Vista. With the number of problems that these releases were claiming to solve, some pundits actually starting referring to them as "Service Pack 1" although Microsoft has publicly said that Service Pack 1 won't be released until the final release of Windows Server 2008, which is currently scheduled for February of 2008. After a little bit of searching, I read that these fixes had not yet been publicly released, but that they were available to private beta testers only. You'll understand, then, why I was pleasantly surprised to find links to them during a Google search. It looks like Microsoft just released them to the public today.

So I downloaded and installed them, and oh am I glad I did. After installing 938194 all of my problems disappeared. CPU activity was back to normal, the choppiness disappeared from video, and I got my sound back. I then installed 938979 and everything continued to work! Granted, it's sad that I have to be happy about fixes for problems that should've been fixed in one of the pre-releases, but my expectations at this point are fairly low when it comes to dealing with the behemoths of software. I'm just glad now when problems get acknowledged and fixed.

The point of this story? If you're working with Vista and experiencing video performance issues or really any other problems, I suggest downloading and installing the patches. They saved my night (although, luckily, I do have a recent image that I could've gone back to, if needed - something else that I highly suggest [see the Imaging section of my tools list]). Here are links to the fixes:

• Link to 938194
• Link to 938979

Happy patching!

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.