Whenever I am building a new PC I always forget to install some of the tools that I love. When I remember that I forgot, I then sometimes struggle to remember what that little tool that does some tiny little thing that I love, but has a weird name is called.
No more. They will now be collated here and perhaps one day, when I grow up, I will have a tools list as big as Hanselman's Tools List.
My .NET Life Would Not be Worth Living Without
- ReSharper - Does it make you 10 times better or 100? The argument rages.
- Reflector - Lutz Roeder's baby, now with redgate.
- GhostDoc - Spooky how it makes your code look better.
- Visual Studio - What good is a sexy add-in, without a something to add it to?
- Subversion - Source control I trust. Made me forget VSS and (so far) ignore TFS.
- TortoiseSVN - Explorer GUI for Subversion. Will my head be turned by Visual SVN?
- Google - Yeah I know. But when did you last hit F1 in Visual Studio and NOT smash your monitor?
- Firefox Add-ons - I wonder if there is a tool to do XYC? Yep, someone built it. See my faves below.
The Rest...
- 7-Zip - Especially now WinZip want to charge me for something every 10 minutes.
- TrueCrypt - The last line between my key chain flash drive and MI5... (this is a joke, packet sniffers)
- RoboForm2Go - The only thing that knows all my passwords.
- Send To Toys - Lets me do things like "Send to Command Prompt". Although not on Vista right now (for me).
- PlainTextClipboard - Takes all the fancy formatting that other apps put on the clipboard and plaintextifies it.
- JkDefrag - Simple and mesmerising defrag. Look into my clusters...
- Workrave - Sheep that keeps my ulna nerve healthy. Reminds me that 12 hours non-stop coding is bad.
- Ultramon - A must have for the multi-monitor warrior (I am only a 2 panel man).
- Fiddler2 - Who doesn't like to sniff HTTP? It's all the rage and Fiddler is still my fave.
...and Firefox
Firefox - Mainly because of the following extensions:
Updated: 26/08/2008 with Firefox section and some other minor edits.