Configure Your Machine to Develop Web Applications

Apparently I forgot that I have a blog and decided to just ignore it for months. So in an offering of peace, I bring to you my list of tools that I consider to be my daily essentials:

Password Management

• RoboForm – A must have for anybody with more than 3 passwords (You) Worth the money, trust me. This is probably my top time-saver right now.

Virus Protection

• Trend Micro PC-cillian Internet Security – Does pretty much everything you need it to do

Office Suite and Document Viewing

• Microsoft Office – I load this only because I have a license for it. If I didn’t, see below…
• OpenOffice.org – Free software that has pretty much everything MS Office has and can open files created in the MS Office suite (Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc.)
• Adobe Acrobat Reader – Standard for well formed documents and forms

Web Development Tools

• Zend Studio 5.5 – Not to be confused with the bug-laden Zend Studio for Eclipse 6.0 (see my previous post)
• Eclipse – I use the PDT for PHP development. Not really a fan of Eclipse, but you have to know it since it is industry standard and hey, its free.
• XML Notepad – Handy free tool for viewing XML output in a tree format
• Xampp – Local development environment with Apache, PHP and MySQL all in one package

Browsers

• Firefox – Obviously
• Flock – Social networking browser based on Mozilla engine. Saves a bit of memory over FF
• Internet Explorer – Yes, you still have to test on IE6 and IE7

Browser Extensions / Add-Ons

• Firebug – The best tool for web development out there.
  • Tip: Add the “Inspect” button to your toolbar for quick access
• Web Developer – Lots of handy features like cache clearing and table outlines
• del.icio.us – Keep your bookmarks up to date
  • Tip: Add the “Tag” button to your toolbar for quick bookmarking
• StumbleUpon – Find sites that you never would have found. Great for development if you set your interests to be programming-related
• Screengrab! – Handy for quick screen captures
• Tab Saver – Restores your last tabbed session

Database Tools

• SQLyog – Great tool for working in MySQL. Have to buy it though
• MySQL Query Browser – Free interface to MySQL databases. Not as good as SQLyog, but it’s free!

FTP and Telnet Applications

• FileZilla – Great FTP app with SFTP capabilities
• Bitvise Tunnelier – Opens an FTP window and a SSH window with one quick logon

Images & Graphics

• Adobe Photoshop CS3 – The best out there
  • If you can’t afford Photoshop, check out The Gimp
• Picasa – Google’s picture manager.
• Instant Eyedropper – Awesome tool for stealing color codes from anywhere on your screen

Music

• Rhapsody – Well worth the monthly charge for the “Rhapsody To Go” subscription
• Pandora – The best web-based radio station. I use this to find good music that I would not otherwise know to look for. When I hear a song I like, I go add it to my library in Rhapsody for playing later

Instant Messenging

• GoogleTalk – The best overall instant messenger
• MSN Messenger – Everybody is on here
• Yahoo Messenger – For some reason people still use this, so I load it too

A few more random setup things I do…

• Taskbar on the Side – Quick access to the programs you use the most without ever going into the Start Menu!
  • Add all the programs you use the most to your taskbar
  • Now, under start menu properties, change the taskbar properties to not be locked
  • Now grab the task bar and drag it to the left side of your screen
  • Resize it to be just wide enough for the icons
  • Change the task bar properties to turn on “Lock the Taskbar,” “Auto Hide,” and “Always on Top”
  • Now you can access all your frequently used programs just by hovering your mouse to the left side of your screen! Sweet!
• Virtual Desktops for Windows – VirtuaWin is a slick program that gives you multiple workspaces in windows, switchable with configurable hot keys
  • I generally set up 6 desktops:
    • 1 for Outlook and Web Development tools (Eclipse, Zend)
    • 1 for telnet and FTP connections (FileZilla, Tunnelier)
    • 1 for planning and help docs currently in use (APIs, developer guides, language references)
    • 1 for image editing (Photoshop, Picasa)
    • 1 for Music (Rhapsody and Pandora)
    • 1 for personal chat windows and web-based email (Messengers, Gmail, Hotmail)

Well that’s about the setup I use. Hope this helps you out! Feel free to leave suggestions as I may have inadvertently left some stuff off.

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