Since I am officially on Microsoft Vista now, I have been extremely happy about the whole performance. Despite the frustration the first couple weeks of installation, testing, migration, finding new replacement for the incompatible software that I have been using, everything is running so smooth, stable, and fast now!! And yeah, I am truly officially on Vista now and will highly recommend it to all people who asks me how it is. It will still take long time to get me to familiar with the whole new thing as I had been so tied up with XP for so long.
Now, it's also the time to list the tools that I am using now on my Vista and will be updated from time to time when any changes are made.
Security Tools
General Tools that I use on daily basis
- Adobe Reader
- PrimoPDF - the free PDF generator
- NotePad2 - it's much easier to configure Notepad2 in Vista to replace the generic Notepad, just simply rename it to Notepad.exe and replace the original one in Windows\system32 folder and that's it.
- SmartFTP free edition - I had been using CuteFTP on my old XP for years but since I have to pay for the upgrade to get a version that is compatible with Vista I decided that it is the time to switch "Cute" to "Smart"
- BurnOn CD&DVD - for the same reason, I change it this one but I am still looking the good alternatives because this burning tool doesn't recognize APE format.
- Firefox with the following add-on:
- Firebug
- GMail Notifier
- Google Toolbar
- IE Tab
- Web Developer 1.1.4
- IE 7 with IE DevToolbar
- Virtual Daemon - must have virtual CD and DVD Drive Emulation tool that I can't live without.
- WinSnap version 1 - the cool screen capture tool I have to use every day. Hoever, I am only using the version 1 as the new release of version 2 is not free anymore. And fortunately, the version 1 is Vista compatible.
- PureText - another must have little tool that stripes all rich features from the text you copy from either Internet or other documents and paste to your editor in pure plain text.
- WinRAR - why do I still need it? Simply because I still receive the .RAR files that I only can use this to open.
- ColorPix - A free color picker.
Programming Tools
- Visual Studio 2005 with ASP.Net AJAX 1.0
- SQL Server 2005 Express with Management Studio Express
- Gemini - my web-based issue tracking system
- SourceGear Vault - my revision and source code control system
- SQL Prompt version 2 - I am only using version 2 as the new release of version 3 costs $195 and I am glad that I downloaded version 2 before.
- CSS Tab Designer
- XML NotePad
- Fireworks - used as my main graphic editor
Other Tools
- Open Office - use as office tool to replace Microsoft Office. No MS Office on my computer even Outlook.
- Gmail - to manage 2 my personal email account
- Outlook Web Access or Remote Desktop - to access my office email account.
- Windows Live Writer - compose and post my blog
- Server Management Tool - to manage all Windows servers in work
- SyncToy - a tool to synchronize my data to my external USB attached storage
- VMware Player
- Virtual PC 2007
[a reader's toolbox] For protecting from viruses there are many types of computers and software that you can buy for personal use. You can download software freely from internet as many websites are providing free. If you need software for business inventory management software is best and microsoft office software can be used for inventory management. The finance software is especially designed for managing your stock. Using software scripts can help you to customize your software. For virtual businesses crm software is best to provide online customer support.