Rob’s useful tools

Upon this page are links and brief descriptions of tools that i keep in my virtual "kit". These tools make my life easier, and i hope they will make your life easier as well!  This page is a work in progress, please check back again.

Total Commander: http://ghisler.com

Total Commander is a swiss army knife file managment tool. It replaces Windows Explorer (which is shit) with a dual pane norton commander style interface. Includes:

  • Syncronize Files/Folder/Subfolders
  • Build in FTP client
  • Search tool, with text search (inside files)
  • Built in file viewer that support txt, html, wri, and more
  • Extensive plugin support
  • …and many more not listed

Firefox: http://getfirefox.com

Duh… If you’re not using Firefox, you should be.

  1. Placeholder for firefox extensions i use

Thunderbird: http://getthunderbird.com

Mozilla’s mail client

Opera: http://opera.com

Yes, i use two (three including IE) web browsers. Opera is the pioneer of tabbed browsing. Very customizable, and now free. Includes an RSS reader, mail client, IRC client. The browser engine is lightning fast.

FileZilla (client and server) http://filezilla.sf.net 

Free, Open Source FTP client and server. 

PuTTy  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Free Open Source SSH client, also check out their free SCP client and PuttyTel (to replace Hyperterminal).  Great for day-to-day use.  If you need something a little more powerful check out commercial SecureCRT or free-for-personal-use-but-pay-for-commecial-use Tunnelier 

WinSCP http://winscp.net/eng/index.php 

WinSCP is a great SCP client.  I prefer it to the commercial SecureFX, but use SecureFX more because it snaps into SecureCRT (and shares a single configuration for each host). 

UltraEdit http://www.ultraedit.com 

While kinda pricey (and commercial), i love UltraEdit.  I’ve been using it for so long it’s hard to switch to anything else, however, Notepad++ is very nice free open source alternative.