Yes, these are Windows tools as that is my current OS of choice so to speak.

There is a saying that

A bad tradesman blames his tools

However a good combination of useful utilities can be invaluable.

Essentials

These are two utilities which are invaluable

ClipX which I found out about on Jeff Atwood’s blog here. Anyway ClipX has been hugely productive for me. I had tried ClipMate but it was just too much whereas ClipX gets it just right in terms of usability and being light weight.

SlickRun is just such a quick and simple way to open applications. With some many things on my Start Menu it is a really time saver and well worth the time to set up.

File Comparison mainly for Text Files
Free and recommended WinMerge . Personally I use Beyond Compare 2 which I find to be awesome but may not justify the US$29 for the licence.

Database Schema Compare
I have used “Free Database Compare 1.0” at http://www.starinix.com/sqlcompare01.htm and it worked very well. Also considering using the tools included in Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Database Edition.

Text Editor
Notepad sucks and Visual Studio is hardly lightweight. For many years I have been using Metapadas it is very light weight and includes the normally handy things like line numbers. Metapad is free too! Textpadis good but not free. Sure there are lots of others but I am happy with my Metapad as I don’t use it for editing source code (not since Java days).

An Editor that I have been keeping any eye on is e which is tailored particularly for Ruby on Rails. Very much a bundle of UNIX and Apple Mac features on the PC. Also covered in my post here is InType.

An another editor I really like but do not use any more is EmEditor. It is not free, but I used with the Academic Licence. It is lightweight and had all the usually fancy bits you require such as line numbering and syntax highlighting.

Notepad++ is my current favourite. It is free and has more feature than you can shake a stick at.

Another free text editor of note is: Programmers Notepad, Crimson Editor, JED

Screen Capture
Most days I am taking part of a screen to include in an email or document. I have two tools none of which are spectacular but do the job. They are both called Capture. I am wondering if ClipMatemay be a good investment long term. Finally Vista has Snipping Tool but only seems to capture one image at a time – still better than Windows XP. Scott Guthrie recommends Snagit which is I am sure is good but at $39 US not that cheap.

Clipboard Management
As above ClipMateis the “Rolls Royce” solution. However I have recently discovered ClipX thanks again to Jeff Atwood and his blog post Reinventing the Clipboard. ClipX is free and as an added bonus you can use Ctrl-V to paste with formatting or use ClipX and Ctrl-Shift-V to paste as plain text.

Graphics Editing
This is a whole topic on it’s own. Adobe PhotoShop and Corel PaintShop are the high end, big money editors but the Adobe Elements range is better value. However for just the basics and editing something for a Web Page the paint.net is amazing and free. I really think I could do everything with paint.net as unless you want some sophisticated photo editing or special graphics effects it is hard to beat.

Backups
Backups are generally painful i.e.
– Time consuming
– Media storage, purchase etc
It is not ideal solution as you don’t get any history of incremental changes but recently I have just been “cloning” my critical data to USB Drive (2Gb and 4Gb) and External Hard Drive. The clone is quick as you are just effecting the changes and not copying everything. I have purchased FolderClonefor the job. It does a good job but I would not say it is brilliant – very focused on just one thing which is probably a good thing. FolderClone is by Salty Brine Software .

Jeff Atwood has recently blogged about some good options but you do need to fork out a bit of cash – see What’s your Backup Strategy .

Icon Editing
There are some pretty fancy tools but I find Visual Studio does the trick once you get the hang of it (especially transparent backgrounds).

Testing and Windows Programs automation
I have tried RoboForm but it seems to take over everything a bit which I wasn’t keen on. In the past I have used Rational Robot but that is ridiculous large, expensive and cumbersome. I am wondering if one of the Macro programs could be good for automated testing :-

  • PTFB ProPush the Freakin button I believe. EDS use it for automating a Windows Client and seems to work well
  • Macro ToolWorks which I have not tried
  • Macro Express the old faithful

Virtual CD / DVD
Why this isn’t included in the Windows OS I don’t know. For corporate use there is the Microsoft Virtual CD which is very basic. Personally I like I like Virtual Clone Drive as it is free, small and a bit different (Swiss Company). It gives you an “Angry Sheep” icon for your Virtual Drives which makes them stand out if nothing else.

I do think Daemon Toolsis probably a the best and most well know product however the licencing seems to have changed recently. The “free” version includes Ad Ware (which you can choose to not install) which I didn’t like so uninstalled it. With Daemon tools it does seem to try and “hide” itself which I wasn’t keen on – The Wiki entry is a bit biased but worth a read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_Tools.

Of course the main purpose of Daemon Tools is to hide itself because it is used my “Gamers”. Most games insist in having a “Play disk” in a CD/DVD drive in order to play the game. It typical form of copy protection. But it is a PITAfor people who legitimately bought the game and many others to have to swap the disk to change games. The solution was to create an image of the play disk and mount it as a virtual drive. Unfortunately the game developers didn’t like this either and developed various forms of copy protection to stop the imaged disk from working. Daemon Tools is designed to get around that copy protection. But game developers then see you as a pirate as it bypasses their means of protecting their product, leaving it open for pirating. Some game developers modified the copy protection to actively look for tools like Daemon Tools and to disable it. Game developers are stuck between saving their product from piracy or being nice to there customers. The honest customer lost out. Hence Daemon Tools (and other simliar tools) has to hide itself, not specifically from the OS, but from the game developers because the game developers do not trust anyone.

Not forgetting that to start with you need your virtual image. Daemon tools has it’s own format and there is also the .ISO images like you get from MSDN. For creating ISO images can’t go past ISO Recorder (Updated October 2008 – Yes, but ISO Recorder does not burn DVD’s under Windows XP. Have been recommended ImgBurn as an alternative).

For the Corporate option of Microsoft Virtual CD here is the info

The Microsoft tool (Win XP Virtual CD Control Panel) which is not that great but does the job. There are details at many blogs and other places (links below) and there is also a ReadMe.txt when you download it from Microsoft

James Welch Blog (Mentions Virtual CloneDrive which works in Vista).

Actual Microsoft link is Microsoft Downloads .

Refactoring for VB.NET
This can be invaluable for consolidating and upgrading / updating old code. If you have to do it there is the potential to save literally hours. Suprisingly this tool from Developer Express is free for fully featured program – Refactor! for Visual Basic® .NET 2008 and 2005 .

Zipping from within .NET
I can’t believe how easy this library is to use. Works with .NET 2.0 and above. Very handy small library. DotNetZip Libary – Home .

Lists of Lists
Worth looking at but I find some of these utilties either don’t work well or don’t end up adding much value.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Tools
I end up spending my time maintaining a number of rather large VBA apps based on Word or Excel. Lack or inconsistent indentation is easily fixed thanks to Indenter. There are many more tools supplied from MZToolsthat look very good however I don’t want to invest heavily in VBA if I can avoid it.

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my colleague Martin for his insight particularly around the Text Editors and Clone Drives which is an area in which I am not very knowledgeable.