Re: Best tools/resources/software/books of 2010?

[Rob Hudson <caveatrob -at- gmail -dot- com>]

   1. *Autohotkey *(I'm a whiz at creating quickie GUI's as references,
   pop-up menus, and quick and dirty entry forms that generate html)
   2. *Breevy *- starting to overtake AutoHotkey with its ability to handle
   abbreviations, put them into folders, and create pop-up context menus with
   them; also, the author is SUPER responsive and often integrates new features
   based on suggestions
   3. *Balsamiq Mockups* - by far the best wireframe/prototyping tool. It
   looks like a hand drawing, so no idiot bosses can mistake it for a finished
   product (like many HTML prototypes "become")
   4. *Gmote - *Mouse gestures for Windows itself. Works GREAT and it's
   free.
   5. *Beyond **Compare *- file and directory compare
   6. *PowerGrep *- which now searches Word documents, can collect results,
   and can do multiple levels of replace. Used this a lot to search/replace
   static HTML in documents
   7. *Cintanotes *- quick and easy note software for when Evernote (which I
   also use) gets too heavy. Text only notes.
   8. *Calibre *- ebook conversion is tops, even though the interface is a
   little bloated and clunky.
   9. *Everything *- FAST directory indexer. If you use smart filenaming,
   you can search up anything in seconds. Uses regex.
   10. *Dropbox *- couldn't live without its sync; now you can choose which
   folders a particular PC will sync
   11. *Word Web* - best pop up dictionary/thesaurus I've found, though I'm
   always looking for something better.
   12. *Express Scribe* - great for dictation when you do those interviews
   13. *Flash Renamer* - rename files en masse with regex
   14. *UltraEdit *- I've been with this for ten years; I use macros,
   scripts, and tag lists extensively. Also has a great column mode for writing
   a bunch of SQL statements at once, for example.
   15. *Fineprint *- even though it's $50, it's saved me a ton of paper and
   it's great for combining documents for printing.
   16. *Jing *- a little crude, but it's great for demonstrating stuff. And
   who needs to listen to anything beyond the five-minute limit anyway? I used
   this to grade papers and to demo new features for the website I built for my
   company.
   17. *Xplorer2 *- file manager.
   18. *X1 **Professional *- the most comprehensive set of plugins; will
   index files and email
   19. *Snagit 10*
   20. *MindManager - *new version is a little more optimized for speed
   21. *Foxit PDF Creator *- I switched from PDFXchange, though I still use
   their viewer. It's peppy.
   22. *HTML **Tidy*
   23. *XNView *+ *Picasa *- one for shell extension and one for general
   viewing. An old copy of Photoshop 7 still tides me over for minor web and
   graphic work. XNView can now be tweaked to avoid creating a giant DB file.
   24. *SlickRun *- a little command bar that sits in the corner of your
   screen and also has a neat pop-up jot notepad
   25. *Rasterbator *- takes any image and blows it up as big as you like
   with dots (looks kinda like old bazooka joe comic dots). Really makes an
   impact.
   26. *Revo Uninstaller *- possibly the most comprehensive uninstaller
   around
   27. *7Zip*. I keep wanting to return to Winzip, but its ship has sailed.
   28. *Sumo *- the version without the extra spyware
   29. *Evernote *- 4.0 is a lot faster than 3.5, although I had to
   Autohotkey a lot of the keyboard combinations to make them like 3.0
   30. Completely FREE security, for the first time ever:
      1. Comodo Firewall
      2. Avira On-Demand only
      3. Super Antispyware on demand only
      4. Malwarebytes on demand only
      5. Hijack this
   31. Word 2007 (with VBA and custom ribbon code)
   32. Excel 2007 (with new VBA and custom ribbon code)
   33. PowerPoint 2007 (with new VBA and custom ribbon code)

Portable tools

   1. Thunderbird *2* with extensions:
      1. *Archive **This*
      2. *Attachment Extractor *(I use this to sort and pull down
      Gmailattachments since Gmail *still* won't let you sort by subject or
      sender.)
      3. *Zindus *- syncs Gmail contacts
      2. Audacity
   3. Filezilla
   4. Eraser
   5. SpaceMonger - it's a little dated, but it's still the best disk space
   mapper around
   6. Filedate - for the idiots that still look at those as a reliable
   indicator of what you've accomplished
   7. NIRSOFT utilities/SYSINTERNALS utilities (download WSCC and it'll pull
   all of them down)

Web Browsers/Tools

   1. *Chrome *- although it's still not quite where Fox is; but, it finally
   has a portable version!
   2. *Fox 3.6* with
      1. dblClicker
      2. download statusbar
      3. downthemall
      4. firebug
      5. firegestures
      6. read it later
      7. toodleDo (my new GTD system; it's amazing)
      8. view source chart
      9. web developer
      10. xmarks
      11. zotero
   3. *Filezilla*

Website/Online Tools

   1. *Wush **Hosting *- for PHP, SVN
   2. *Dropbox *(subscription)
   3. *Evernote *(subscription)
   4. *Ning *- liked it but at $20/month it was prohibitive
   5. *JQuery *- has made a lot of my old ASP sites more usable
   6. *ToodleDo *(also on the iPhone)

iPhone Apps

   1. Stanza - ebooks converted from Calibre. It's a pain to get books onto
   it without using the Calibre server
   2. Read it Later
   3. Mobile RSS - best Google Reader I've found
   4. Alien Blue - because I'm hooked on Reddit
   5. ToodleDo
   6. Mint.Com - current financial status
   7. Calengoo - for Google Calendar weekly view
   8. Dropbox
   9. Evernote (though its performance is disappointing)
   10. Amazon
   11. Ebay
   12. Netflix (streaming rocks)
   13. Mashable
   14. FluentNews
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