Essential Software
4/30/2009
Readers often ask me which software I consider essential to my work. Here is a list that I will keep updated. I will also add more details as time allows.
- Avira Anti Virus (Commercial, Free version available) - Lightweight, non invasive, reliable anti virus software.
- Backup4All (Commercial) - Great backup software with lots of options.
- Beyond Compare (Commercial) - Can compare not just files, but directories and more. Also great for syncing directories between multiple computers.
- Daemon Tools Lite (Free) - Allows mounting of ISO and other formats that contain copies of DVDs and CDs.
- CCleaner (Free) - Tool for cleaning up all the left overs that Windows and other programs leave hanging around on your hard drive.
- Delphi 7 (Commercial) - Delphi 7 is very old and there are much newer versions, but Delphi 7 is slim and fast. Most of my work these days is .NET anyways, but when I need native applications Delphi 7 is my trusty fall back.
- Firefox (Open Source) - Browser that is fast, feature packed, and has lots of plug-ins available.
- Foxit PDF Reader (Commercial, Free version available) - Forget that bloated pig Acrobat, use a lightweight reader instead.
- Inker (Commercial) - Replacement for Tablet Input Panel on tablet computers.
- IntraWeb Studio (Commercial) - Web content management system with advanced features in a rich client application.
- Microsoft Office 2007 (Commercial)
- Notepad++ (Open Source) - Full featured text editor with many available plug ins.
- Paint.NET (Open Source) - Great graphics manipulation tool that is easy to use, and powerful.
- Perfect Disk 2008 (Commercial) - Fantastic tool for defragmenting hard drives. Also contains tools to find which files and directories are consuming the most space.
- PrimoPDF (Commercial, Free version available) - Allows printing of any document to PDF format.
- SnagIt (Commercial) - Screen capture utility.
- Skype (Commercial, Free) - Instant messaging application. Skype "just works" and unlike many others is not targeted towards teenagers only, and will not compete with Outlook to see who can consume more RAM.
- Synergy (Free, Open Source) - Allows one keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers, while still using the monitors on each computer.
Under Vista you will notice some oddities, so please read these notes to work around. - Thunderbird (Open Source) - Great mail, news, and RSS program.
- uTorrent - (Free) - Lightweight, spyware free bittorrent application.
- Visual Studio 2008 (Commercial)
- Visual Subst (Free) - Visual tool for setting up drive mappings to folders.
- VLC Video Player (Open Source) - Video player that has built in decoders for nearly all formats. No more codec messes!
- VMWare Workstation (Commercial) - Virtualize your work and run multiple copies of Windows at once.
- WindowSpace (Commercial) - Boost management of windows to new levels. Easily move windows with the keyboard, and "snap" windows into logical places with natural mouse movements.
- WinDirStat (Free) - Fantastic utility that graphically shows hard disk usage. Not just a pie chart, but a true graphical representation of your hard disk.
- WinRAR (Commercial) - Superior compression program. Also supports zip, iso, gz and all other popular formats.
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