Just like a mechanic, every IT professional needs a set of good tools. Below is a list of my favourites:
PStart: A ’start’ menu for portable applications running of USB sticks or removable disk. Sits in the system tray (www.pegtop.net/start)
TextPad: There are lots of good text editor for windows out there. In fact the only really terible on appears to be Notepad, the one that ships natively with Windows. I’ve gotten used to TextPad (www.textpad.com). It offers just enough of what I need without too much of what I don’t. Other good, more powerful alternatives are Notepad++ (notepad-plus-plus.org) and Programmers Noteapd (www.pnotepad.org)
Altap Salamander: Dual pane file manager (www.altap.cz). Once again, not the most powerful windows explorer alternative, but the one that works for me. If you’re after bells and wisltes and cutomisability check out XYplorer (www.xyplorer.com)
Ditto: Clippboard manager (ditto-cp.sourceforge.net). Once you start using this, you’ll never know how you lived without it!
Pick Pick: Forget Windows’ snipping tool. PicPick is a full-featured screen capture tool, image editor, color picker and more (www.picpick.org/en)
PyCharm: Currently my favourite Python IDE (www.jetbrains.com). I used to use Wingware (www.wingware.com) and am also quite impressed with Python Tools for Visual Studio (pytools.codeplex.com).
AutoHotkey: Scriptable desktop automation tool (www.autohotkey.com). Infinite posibilities with this too. But I use it primarily to allow Ctrl+V copying into the windows command prompt window.
