TechnocratTechnocrat’s Random Thoughts

To expand on my previous post of development tools I use, these are the internet tools I use.

First tool is Firefox.  If you are still using IE as your primary browser, you should stop.  IE sucks to put it nicely.  It’s slow and doesn’t follow the internet standards.  IE 8 may change all that but that’s down the road.  For now I would suggest using Firefox.  Opera and Chrome are good alts but I think FF offers the most bang.  You can get custom skins and the plugins for it are outstanding.  When the next version comes out of beta it will out render almost all the current browsers out there.

For the addons I use in Firefox there are a couple of really important ones to me.  First is Firebug.  It allows you to debug javascript and html issues.  It’s not the most user friendly and sometimes doesn’t work right.  But when it does it helps alot.

I also use Foxmarks to keep my bookmarks synced between computers.  Also if you loose your PC you can get your bookmarks back really quickly.  Also you can access all of them online which is nice.

Another one I can’t live with out is Autocopy.  It automatically copies anything you hightlight.  No more ctrl+c or right click copy.  It has a few other features but thats all I use it for.  If you go for this one you need to find the project homepage to download it.  The version on mozilla doesn’t work right.  Not sure why they haven’t updated it.

StumbleUpon is another awesome addon.  It takes you to random websites in categories you choose.  Its will take you to pages you might otherwise never go to.  I have found tons of useful tools and information with it.

The final Firefox tool is Web Developer.  It allows you to do a number of html tasks.  The one I use the most is validate html.  But you can do a ton of other things, like edit CSS or HTML on the fly.  It’s VERY powerful and useful.

Another tool that I use ALOT is GetRight.  It’s not free but for $25 I think you get a very powerful downloader.  You can split downloads into parts and get it from various sources.  You can also pause and resume downloads.  Using it with the flashgot addon for FF and you have an awesome downloading tool.

The final tool I am going to put out their is Microsoft Live’s sync.  It allows you to sync folders over the internet across multiple PCs.  Comes in handy when you need to keep a folder synced for projects and such.

That’s all I got for now