I just got a new Desktop PC, it’s a DELL 760, with two Dell 2208 WFP monitors. I thought this might be a good opportunity for me to list all the software and packages I install on my machines. I am a Systems Administrator and a Web Developer, so I use a lot of different tools.

Development Tools:

• XAMPP – An easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl.
• Notepad++ – A free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
• Tortoise SVN – Subversion client for Windows.
• Adobe Web Premium Suite – mostly for Dreamweaver and Photoshop
  • SubWeaver - Tortoise SVN Plugin for Dreamweaver.
• GIMP – Free GNU image manipulation program (similar to Photoshop).

Browsers:

• Firefox – 90% of my browsing is done with Firefox.
  • Adblock Plus – Block annoying Ads.
  • Download Statusbar – I like this for my download management.
  • Firebug – Necessary tool for any web developer.
  • Firesizer – Also pretty nice tool to see how your site looks in specific resolutions.
  • Forecastfox – Nice little forecast plugin for FF.
  • Gmail Manager – Best Gmail plugin out there, reports on my 16+ gmail and gmail hosted accounts.
  • IE Tab – Two uses: 1) for sites that only work in IE – but you don’t want to open IE and 2) to test a site in IE.
  • oldbar – I don’t like the big fat URL bar with firefox, this makes it one size with all the benefits of the new bar.
  • SecurePassword Generator – Great tool for generating secure passwords.
  • TwitterFox – Twitter plugin.
  • Ubiquity – Don’t really use this much, but it’s there just in case.
  • User Agent Switcher – Testing iPhone-enabled sites and hacking airport wireless.
  • Xmarks – Bookmark syncing.
  • YammerFox – Yammer plugin.
• IE – Comes with Windows, barely ever use it for anything except testing.
  • Xmarks – Bookmark syncing.
  • IE7Pro – Use for Ad Blocking.
• Google Chrome – Browser compatibilty and some productivity uses.
• Safari – Mostly to test browser compatibility.
• IETester – For testing browser compatibility in IE6 – IE8

Utilities:

• 7-Zip – Simple compression utility for Windows.
• allSnap – Enables window snapping in Windows.
• ImgBurn – Easiest and simplest CD/DVD burning tool.
• VirtualCloneDrive – Best ISO mount utility I’ve used.
• Tweakui – To enable X-Mouse features.
• StrokeIt – Mouse gestures.
• Taskbar Shuffle – Sometimes I want to re-arrange my running taskbar.
• AVGFree Antivirus – Halfway decent Antivirus.

Productivity:

• VMWare Player – Using for virtual Kubuntu and Mac OS X desktops.
• VMware Infrastructure Client – Using for Linux and Windows Servers.
• PuTTY – SSH client for Windows.
• WinSCP – Easy to use SCP client for Windows; also does SFTP and FTP.
• Microsoft Office Professional

Unproductivity:

• iTunes – Podcasts and Apps.
• Pidgin w/ Facebook Plugin – Using for AIM, Google, and Facebook chat.
• VLC – Best video player out there.

That’s pretty much everything that I install and use on a regular basis. There are some other small utilities, and such, that I have installed for non-business related tasks, so I didn’t include them here.

If you have any questions or comments about what I use, please ask. I’d love to know what you use on a regular basis. So if you have a blog I encourage you to do a similar write-up and let me know about it.