Tools I could not live without 2015
I try not to overdo it with amount of tools I use, but I’ll make a short list of tools I use right now.
Project management and productivity
- Wunderlist - Simple list manager. Mainly for personal simple use.
- Trello - For organization of teams and more complicated projects.
- Sunrise Calendar - For replacement of Google Calendar. But I still keep data at Google.
- Google Apps - For email, documents and calendar storage.
- One Drive - Cloud storage. Mainly for photos. Has better integration with my Windows Phone.
- Skype - For team communication.
Code writing
- Visual Studio Code - I learned to love Editor over IDE.
- Visual Studio Community - Best IDE, is still must for bigger and older projects.
- LinqPad - Very useful tool for quick code testing. Connect it to your DLLs and test everything right away. This should not replace unit tests, but it’s very useful anyway. I sometimes use it instead of command line.
- Notepad++ - When even Visual Studio Code is too heavy.
- Resharper - Powerful extension to Visual Studio.
- ditto - Clipboard manager. Once you get used to it, it saves you years of your life.
- WinMerge - Simple text file comparison.
- debuggex - Incredible way to test your regular expressions.
- Papercut - Development SMTP server. It’s must have if you create application that sends emails.
.Net Libraries
- nuget - Package manager.
- autofac - Fast and easy stub and mock object creation (for unit testing).
- moq - Fast and easy stub and mock object creation (for unit testing).
Javascript libraries
- angular - Great ecosystem including Ionics.
- jQuery - Not Everything has to be single page application.
For annoying registrations
- BugMeNot - Find already existing accounts (I’m looking at you Code Project).
- 10 Minute Mail - For quick registrations when you don’t want to give your real email.
Misc
- Paint.NET - Very simple to use image editor. Even as a programmer, you need one.
- Spotify - Unlimited music for few dollars.
- VLC - Best video player.
Relaxation
- Calm.com - Stop for a few minutes.
- Guided meditation that my talk your language
- Hand exercies
- f.lux - ease your brain while working late hours
Some of my own
- string.Format - Quick test of string formatting. Great for dates etc.
- string encoder - Fast encode/decode tool (HTML, URL, BASE64)