This is a list of development tools that you can use for various diverse software development,
testing requirements. All the tools are either freewares or sharewares. There could have been some
changes in those tools and the features they offer over a period of time. Moreover, there is a possibility
that the relevant site may not offer that tool as freeware or shareware anymore. Do follow the link to
the site and find out the latest information the tool and its licensing terms.
Some of these tools are downloadable, offline tools which you can download on your local machine and use,
while some are online tools available only on the site, you need to log on to the site to use the tool.
Nevertheless, they all are very useful tools.
I have used most of these tools and have liked them for more than one reason. (one reason is obviously
that they didn't ask me for money ;) Do use them if you like, and let me know if you know more such useful
tools.
Downloadable Tools
- Unipad - I discovered Unipad recetly, and have become a big fan of it since. It is a plain text editor for various languages in Unicode -- and it's a freeware!!! :-) Unipad supports various languages, and has phonetic keyboard support for multiple languagaes without installing extra fonts. Just too good!!! I hope to add some Marathi contents to the site with Unipad now.
- FireFox - Strictly speaking, it's not a tool. But IMHO FireFox is probably the best browser one can get today. With its MDI interface (tabbed browsing), pop-up blocking and all such features, it's just an "absolutely must" for any serious web surfer. I haven't been using IE much eversince I have discovered FireFox. Besides, with its neat JavaScript console and standard-adherence, it can be an excellent tool for web developers.
- Textpad - The ubiquitous text editor.
Highly configurable and with a powerful search and replace feature, perhaps the most loved text editor.
Not really a freeware, but you can evaluate a fully functional verion as long as you want and decide if
you want to purchase it, which includes its own advantages.
- 1st Page - IMHO, the best web development tool for free.
Though not a WYSIWYG editor, it has got really powerful features, very good and customizable interfaces for
amateur and professionals. It has got many JavaScripts, perl scripts, cool DHTML effects and also has a feature to make
your own code library. Also includes HTML validator, XML converter etc. I have almost developed this entire site
using this tool. Too good according to me.
- JCreator LE - A pretty good Java IDE.
The Lite Edition is available for free. Interface is similar to MSDEV, good configurable editor, with nice
help and project management. Very useful for those familiar with MS Visual Studio. Maybe Sun's Forte is more powerful
but it is very much resource hogging, I can't get it to run efficiently on Windows 2000 with 128 MB. I think, JCretor is much
faster and better for basic Java development.
- Forte - Sun's Java IDE. A very powerful IDE with great features,
written completely in Java. This one requires a lot of memory though, so not the best Java IDE yet.
- Proxomitron - This tools converts your own machine into a local
proxy, and you can configure your web browser to use this proxy. There are many advantages of this approach, you can view the
post data that is being posted to the remote site, you can filter HTTP headers, block certain scripts, stop pop up menus
and so on using its highly configurable filtering options. This universal web filter is a great testing tool for various requirements,
it is also available at this alternate address.
There is also a newsgroup - grc.techtalk.localproxies,
to discuss problems related to proxomitron and local proxies in general.
- Sam Spade - A great tool for various internet and
network related stuff. The tool includes viewing raw web site with configurable user agent and referer,
crawling web site, nslookup, ping, SMTP verify, IP block, finger, dig, WHOIS, traceroute, parsing email headers, and a spamming blacklist.
A must for anyone seriously interested in exploring the web. Very good for tracing spam, locating time-zone and ISP for an IP address etc.
The Sam Spade web site also has a good online tool and spam related FAQs.
Online Tools
- Network Tools - A very good online tool for
nslookup, IP block and WHOIS. The site also has a good information about networking and internet in general.
- Favicon - Favicon is a small 16 x 16 pixels icon that
Internet Explorer and some other browsers put in the address bar as well as the favorites menu when you bookmark the site.
(When you add it to your favorites). You can click here
to bookmark this site (technofundo.com domain) and see the favicon. Favicon.com lets you create this icon online
using their icon creation tool. The site also has good information about favicon in general.