*** NOTE ***

This page is not complete ( YET! ) but it will give you some idea of the tools I use

************

Many of my colleagues and friends ask me what tool/applications I use most often on my computer.

Browsers

• Browser Chooser -This is a small tool that acts as the default browser allowing you to choose what browser to open the link in. It gives you the flexibility to choose what browser to use for any given task.
• Firefox - This is by far my favorite browser.  There are may plug-ins available to help speed up and diagnose my web site development.  All of the plug-ins I use for Firefox are listed below.
  • MeasureIt  - Allows you to draw a bounding box directly in the browser window so you can tell the width and height of things in pixels.
  • Firebug - By far my favorite plug-in.  Firebug does so many things and makes my life and surely the lives of many other developers much easier.  It will let you examine and change the HTML and CSS of web pages among many other things.
  • YSlow - This is more of a Firebug plug-in than it is a firefox plug-in.  From Yahoo!, this plug-in will examine a web page as it loads to see why the page may be loading slow.  It will give the page a letter grade for its performance.
  • IE Tab Plus - This plug-in allows you to use the Internet Explorer rendering engine to display pages inside of Firefox.
  • Ant Video Downloader - This little plug-in allows you to download any video embedded in a web page directly to your computer for viewing locally.  I really like this one.
  • Firesizer - Allows you to resize the window to specific dimensions.  Great for estimating what your site will look like on smaller resolution screens.
  • Live HTTP Headers - View HTTP headers of a page and while browsing.
  • Web Developer - This is another one of my favorites.  It adds a menu and  toolbar with many options to do things such as disable the style sheets, etc..
• Internet Explorer - Windows default browser.  Say what you will, but this is my second favorite browser.  It is integrated into the operating system by default and when debugging my web sites I am developing in Visual Studio it is just easier to have Visual Studio debug the site in something from the same manufacturer.
• Chrome – Google’s very popular and very fast web browser. 
• Opera – Opera Software’s web browser. I don’t use this browser much.  I have it just for cross browser compatibility checking.
• Safari – This is the Windows version of the Mac default browser.  This is another browser that I have just for cross browser compatability checking.  Hopefully the Windows version’s rendering closely resembles what is shown on the MAC.
• IE Tester – This is a free WebBrowser that allows you to view a web site using the Internet Explorer engines since IE5.5.

Development Environments

• Visual Studio – This is my most favorite application on my computer.  I spend a lot of time writing programs, and this (to me) is the premiere development environment.  I can write everything from web sites to desktop applications to mobile applications.  Below are the add-ins that I use to increase my productivity.
  • ReSharper  - Probably the best add-in for Visual Studio.  It enhances Visual Studio’s shortcuts, adds “Live” templates, a really good refactoring engine, plus enhancements to the intellisense system.
  • GhostDoc – This is a free Visual Studio extension that automatically generates XML documentation comments for methods and properties based on their type, parameters, name, and other contextual information.
  • StyleCop – This add-in analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of style and consistency rules.
  • AnkhSVN – AnkhSvn is a Subversion Source Control Provider for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008 and 2010.  It provides source code management support to all project types supported by Visual Studio and allows you to perform the most common subversion control operations directly from inside Visual Studio.
• Eclipse – This is another popular development environment.  I use it primarily for PHP and Java development.  It is a must have if you want to do Android programming.
• Expression Blend – This is another Microsoft development environment… Sort of.  It is used primarily by designers to design GUIs using the Windows Presentation Foundation.  Use this application in conjunction with Visual Studio to write visually stunning desktop applications.  Unfortunately WPF is not yet available for use with web pages, but with the introduction of HTML 5, it may make the jump.

Other Development Tools

• XML Spy -
  
• Programmers Notepad - This is a wonderful little Notepad replacement aimed specificly at programmers.  It has line numbers, code colapsing, and syntax highlighting for many different languages.  Check out my review about this tool.
  
• SQL Server Management Studio -
  
• Regex Buddy -
  
• .NET Reflector -
  
• WinMerge -
  
• WcfTestClient -
  
• Eazfuscator.NET -
  
• TFS Sidekicks -
  
• InstallShield -
  
• Tortoise SVN -
  
• oDesk -
  
• Fiddler 2 -
  
• Sandcastle -
  
• Sandcastle Styles -
  

Graphics & Video Tools

• Expression Design -
  
• PNG Gauntlet -
  
• Adobe Creative Suite -
  
• Icon Workshop -
  
• DVD Fab -
  

System Tools

• Process Explorer -
  
• Panda Cloud Antivirus -
  
• SpaceSniffer -
  
• WhoisThisDomain -
  
• IMG Burn -
  
• Spybot Search and Destroy -
  
• Power ISO -
  
• Power Archiver -
  
• Zip Installer -
  
• Unlocker -
  
• Remote Desktop Connection Manager -
  
• FileZilla -
  
• RichCopy -
  

Social Networking & Instant Messaging Tools

• Trillian -
  

Office & Email

• Thunderbird -
  
• Microsoft Office -
  
  • Xobni - 
• The Journal - This nice piece of software comes in handy for me.  I use it as a place to do my personal journaling without it having to be out on the internet in a Blog.  I also use it to keep track of my "scratch" work.  Mostly copy/paste operations that I dont want to loose after I have pasted them to their respecitve place.
  
• CutePDF - Great tool to print any printable document to a PDF.  It installs as a printer so all you have to do is print to it and it saves your printing as a PDF document.
  
• Turbo Tax - I use Turbo Tax to do my tax returns.  I like to know that I am getting the return I think I should be getting.  Also, if have a simple return then you can use this for free.  There is also an online version of the software, but I havent tried it yet.  I will probally try it in 2012.
  

Misc Software

• PeerBlock - PeerBlock lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet.  By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries!  They can't get in to your computer, and your computer won't try to send them anything either.
• Zoom Player - Zoom player is afree media player.  It plays wmv, mp4, and other media formats.  The reason I like it so much is because it has a simple user interface and will play media that Windows Media Player and Quick Time player will play all in one application.