Michael and I have different backgrounds: he is the founder and the editor of a popular technical site and I am just a developer ;) So do not compare lists.
Here is my list of applications, in alphabetical order, I used often. And to make it consistent with Michael's post, the list is followed by a comment for each tool.
2009
AllChars
Blogger
Dabbleboard
Dropbox
Eclipse
Firefox
FriendFeed (private room)
Gimp
Git
GMail
Google Calendar
Google Reader
Google Search
KeePass
LinkedIn
VirtualBox
YouTube and Google Video
Blogger
Dabbleboard
Dropbox
Eclipse
Firefox
FriendFeed (private room)
Gimp
Git
GMail
Google Calendar
Google Reader
Google Search
KeePass
VirtualBox
YouTube and Google Video
AllChars
For programmers or English writers, keyboards with the US layout are just fine. If you use another layout, then it is a compromise between being able to generate specific characters and staying efficient. AllChars is a Windows tool that can generate any Unicode character with few key sequences (like Ctrl+e+e for €). It is fully customizable and support even macros.
| Company: | FLOSS |
| Website: | allchars.zwolnet.com |
Interesting post from Jeff Atwood: We Are Typist First, Programmers Second.
Blogger
This is the tool used to publish this blog. I have not invest enough time in customizing the page layout, but I know I can easily do it later and updates will be propagated to all posts. A good and efficient tool, IMHO.
| Company: | |
| Website: | blogger.com |
| Launch Date: | August 18, 2007 |
Blogger is a blog publishing platform formerly known as Pyra Labs before Google acquired it in February 2003. Blogger blogs are mostly hosted internally with the “dot Blogspot” domain but they can also be hosted externally on a user’s own server.
Blogger provides bloggers with a WYSIWYG editor that allows them to drag-and-drop widgets, change fonts and edit page elements. Also, Feedburner’s feed management tools are tightly integrated with Blogger blogs due to Google’s recent acquisition.
Credits: CrunchBase
Dabbleboard
DabbleBoard is a tool I blogged about in a post about Effective Communication principles.
| Company: | Dabbleboard Inc |
| Website: | dabbleboard.com |
Dropbox
Dropbox is a composed of plugins to install on your machines (Windows and MacOS) and a website which host your virtual folders. It is a silent tool, working smoothly, and synchronizing folders in background. I use it in conjunction with KeePass to backup my sensitive information.
| Company: | Plum |
| Website: | getdropbox.com |
Eclipse
For an early adopter of IntelliJ IDEA by JetBrains, I had to use Eclipse (company's tool when working with IBM Rational, cheap when working with Compuware). I should recognize that it is going better and better (especially with the refactoring features and the JavaScript support) and it has more plugins than IntelliJ. It is also a platform for OSGi and for Rich Applications.
- Eclipse Website
- IntelliJ IDEA Website
- OSGi Alliance Website and OSGi introduction on Wikipedia.
| Company: | FLOSS |
| Website: | eclipse.org |
Firefox
Having been a Web application developer for a long time, I adopted Firefox (then know as Firebird) in 2003. With the introduction of the Firebug extension (in 2005), it became with primary browser and it had never lost this status. Its early integration of Google search was also a serious advantage. These days, with the faviconize extension and Firefox ability to start with the previous configuration, my browser always starts with: iGoogle, GMail, Google Calendar.
| Company: | Mozilla |
| Website: | getfirefox.com |
| Launch Date: | November 9, 2004 |
In February 2008 Mozilla announced that they had reached 500 million downloads of Firefox, and 150 million active users.
Credits: CrunchBase
FriendFeed
I started to use FriendFeed at its early stages, mainly because it offered the possibility to share information from Web page I can visit randomly. Because few months after its introduction, Google Reader added the Share with note function, I stopped using FriendFeed... until recently when I have invited to a private room: this is a pretty nice service for offline chats. It is not as heavy as e-mails and not as disruptive as instant messages.
| Company: | FriendFeed |
| Website: | friendfeed.com |
| Launch Date: | October 1, 2007 |
In February 2008 Mozilla announced that they had reached 500 million downloads of Firefox, and 150 million active users.
Credits: CrunchBase
Gimp
I never the budget and training for Adobe Photoshop. So I started using Gimp. If you can pass over its weird interface (too many windows, IMO), Gimp offer tons of features for Web application developers: to adjust pictures, to generate textures, to resize images, etc. And there are plenty of free tutorials on the Web.
| Company: | FLOSS |
| Website: | gimp.org |
My favorite video series on Photoshop, starting with the first episode: You Suck at Photoshop #1: Distort, Warp, & Layer Effects.
Git As a developer, I always want to put my code into a source control system. It is not just because I am afraid that my laptop crashes, then wasting hours of work. It is mainly because I want to keep track of the update history. At work, over the years, I used ClearCase, CVS, and Subversion. For my personal development, I used Subversion a lot and now I use Git.
| Company: | FLOSS |
| Website: | git-scm.com |
Free hosting service of open-sources Github - Charges applied for private hostings.
GMail When I started working, I dealt with many machines and I hated having to start one just to look at a specific inbox. With GMail, my account is available anywhere. When I read Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center, I started to use GMail as my knowledge database.
| Company: | |
| Website: | gmail.com |
| Launch Date: | April 1, 2004 |
Gmail, also known as Google Mail, is a free email service with innovative features like “conversation view” email threads, search-oriented interface and plenty of free storage (almost 7GB). Gmail opened in private beta mode in April 2004 by invite only. At first, invites were hard to come by and were spotted up for sell on auction sites like eBay. The email service is now open to everyone and is part of Google Apps. Paul Buchheit, an early employee at Google, is given credit for building the product.
Another Gmail feature is the organization, tracking and recording users’ contact lists. For instance, if you start typing the letter C into the “To” field Gmail will bring up a list of every email address and contact name starting with the letter. This feature helps when you can’t quite remember a name. Plus, Gmail automatically adds and updates email addresses and names to your contact list when you write emails.
Credits: CrunchBase
Google Calendar My first job in Montréal, Canada, was with a small company named Steltor (bought few years later by Oracle). The core business was the development of a distributed calendar system (servers in cluster, native clients, web client, mobile client, etc.). Since then, I am used to tracking my work with an electronic calendar. Google Calendar and its ability to mix many agendas is excellent.
| Company: | |
| Website: | google.com/calendar |
| Launch Date: | August 21, 2007 |
Google Calendar lets users create events, manage multiple calendars and share calendars with teams and groups. Users can view their calendar by day, week or month. Calendar has a “Quick Add”� feature that lets you input natural language entries fast. For instance, you can type “Dinner with Michael 7pm tomorrow” into the entry box and Calendar will add “Dinner with Michael” into tomorrow’s agenda at 7pm without needing a specific date. Calendar can also be set-up to send you SMS or email alerts for upcoming calendar entries.
Credits: CrunchBase
Google Reader In the old day, reading blogs was time consuming and annoying because of the ad banners. With the introduction of Google Reader, reading them from one central place while just using keystrokes was a pleasure. With the introduction of the Share this feature, I became to be a media myself. The Share with note function is an quite recent addition that allows me to point posts that are more important to me.
| Company: | |
| Website: | google.com/reader |
| Launch Date: | October 1, 2005 |
Google Reader is an online RSS feed reader.
Credits: CrunchBase
Google Search Google Search is an amazing tool: recently, I was trying to find a solution to a tough technical problem and I found it thanks to Google Search which pointed toward a blog post written the same day, just few hours before, in Europe! Incredible... When I give a conference into universities, I often say: “If I asked a question today and you have no clue about the response, that's fine. If you still have no clue tomorrow, you're in trouble...”
| Company: | |
| Website: | google.com |
| Launch Date: | September 4, 1998 |
Search is Google’s core product and is what got them an official transitive verb addition to the Merriam Webster for “google”. The product is known for its Internet-crawling Googlebots and its PageRank algorithm influenced heavily by linking.
When users type keywords into the home page search box they are returned with relevant results that they can further refine. Google also has more specific search for blogs, images, news and video. Google will also return search results from your own computer files and emails via Google Desktop.
Credits: CrunchBase
KeePass KeePass is an open source Password Safe. I use it in conjunction with Dropbox. Much usable that PGP/GPG in the sense I don't have to save the decrypted file and then being at risk if I forget to wipe this copy from disk.
| Company: | FLOSS |
| Website: | keepass.info |
LinkedIn I started using LinkedIn when a wonderful team I worked with at Oracle exploded because of stupid political decision. Then some friends left to go with Google, one colleague went to Adobe, etc., and LinkedIn was the tool to stay connected. Since then, LinkedIn allowed to get many job propositions, like Compuware's one I accepted. I have been also able to retrieve friends I had in France, even one I may engage a partnership with.
| Company: | |
| Website: | linkedin.com |
| Launch Date: | May, 2003 |
LinkedIn is a free business social networking site that allows users who register to create a professional profile visible to others. Through the site, individuals can then maintain a list of known business contacts, known as Connections. LinkedIn users can also invite anyone to join their list of connections. LinkedIn offers an effective way by which people can develop an extensive list of contacts, as your network consists of your own connections, your connections’ connections (2nd degree connections), as well as your 2nd degree’s connections (called your 3rd degree connections). From this network, individuals can learn of and search for jobs, business opportunities, and people. LinkedIn also serves as an effective medium by which both employers and job seekers can review listed professional information about one another. LinkedIn follows strict privacy guidelines wherein all connections made are mutually confirmed and individuals only appear in the LinkedIn network with their explicit consent. Other LinkedIn features include paid accounts that offer more tools to find people, and “LinkedIn Answers” developed in January 2007. A free feature, “LinkedIn Answers” allows registered users to post business-related questions that anyone else can answer.
Credits: CrunchBase
VirtualBox Developing software requires sometimes specific configurations. Testing them requires always specific configurations (at least to replay always the same test cases every time the source control system, like Git, is updated). There are the famous VMWare products (Workstation, Player, ESX) and Microsoft VirtualPC. VirtualBox is an open source product provided by SUN Microsystems, and it has nice features while being powerful.
| Company: | Sun Microsystems |
| Website: | virtualbox.org |
VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.
YouTube and Google Video YouTube is famous because of fun videos. But it also hosts technical videos.
| Company: | Youtube |
| Website: | youtube.com |
| Launch Date: | December 11, 2005 |
YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.
Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.
In November 2006, within a year of its launch, YouTube was purchased by Google Inc. in one of the most talked-about acquisitions to date.
Credits: CrunchBase
I hope it helps,
A+, Dom
Nice list.
ReplyDeleteAs a Virtual Box user do you know if one virtual machine can be use by 2 different hosts. And also if those hosts can be two different OS (Windows and Linux) ?
Thanks
Note that I haven't tried this configuration before! But here is my guess:
ReplyDelete- If the OS in the VM does not register its machine name against the DNS, and if it uses a dynamic IP address, I imagine there's no problem running two copies of the same image...
- Whenever VMWare Workstation(*) detects that an image is used on a new machine, it proposes to update the OS to generate a new signature. On the network, both running images appear to be issued from different installations.
- I imagine VirtualBox acts as VMWare tools. If it does not, there are free tools to do it, one coming with CloneZilla, for example.
I hope it helps,
A+, Dom
(*) It's possible that VMWare Player can detect the image copy too.
This is Zohair from Dabbleboard. I'm thrilled you put us on the list. "... can't live without" lists are the highest honor in webdom :)
ReplyDeleteHi Zohair,
ReplyDeleteIt's my pleasure to help others discovering excellent tools ;)
Keep adding features to Dabbleboard!
Kudos, Dom