Tools of the trade
These are the tools I use everyday and consider them essential for my work. I use Macs at both home and in the office so most of these are Mac only, sorry PC users!
This is my favourite IDE, after years of using Dreamweaver, dabbling with Eclipse, Aptana and Netbeans - this is the one that gets everything right for me. The tabbed, all in one interface, is fantastic, the SVN integration is awesome and we are big fans of the code sharing over Bonjour in the office.
Transmit
www.panic.com/transmit
Also from the guys at Panic, this is great FTP client.
Growl
http://growl.info/
Growl provides subtle notifications in the corner of your screen for various applications and activities for FTP file uploads, new IM or Email messages. It means I can focus on what I’m working on and can choose to ignore the Adium duck flapping in my dock if the IM message doesn’t warrant an immediate response.
Local development area.
Time Tracker
http://code.google.com/p/time-tracker-mac/
Stunningly simple time tracker, really useful.
Textmate
http://macromates.com/
A very powerful and feature rich text editor.
Textsoap
www.unmarked.com/textsoap
I just recently found this one, so haven’t played with it that much; but so far it looks like it’ll handle anything I throw at it and give me nice plain text.
Firefox
www.mozilla.com/firefox/
My Firefox is loaded with extensions, so many, I think its worth a separate article.
Litmus
http://litmusapp.com
Feed it a URL or a send it an email and Litmus provides screenshots in a variety of different browsers or email clients. They also provide Alakine - a desktop application and a plugin for Coda to better integrate testing into your workflow.
Parallels
http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/desktop/
As great a tool as Litmus is, sometimes a screenshot isn’t enough and you have to actually test the functionatily of a site. Parallels allows you to quickly turn on a virtual machine and run another operating system. Currently I have 3 Windows XP VMs installed covering the latest 3 versions of Internet Explorer.
Notebook
http://www.moleskine.com/
Essential for problem solving, notes in client meetings. I like the small blank Moleskine’s as they are neat looking, small enough to slip into a pocket and the blank pages are versatile.
Balsamiq
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups
I came across this Air app recently, its a great looking tool for creating quick mockups of web pages. It has a simple drag and drop interface and I love it’s sketchy style.
Spotify/ Last.fm
www.spotify.com|www.last.fm
I listen to music almost constantly, I find it helps me focus. I tend to use Last.fm more at work, as I can tune to my radio station and it will play for hours playing (mostly) only music I actually like. Spotify is also great, but the radio stations aren’t as good as Last.fm and I’m often paralysed by choice when I try to thing of an artist or album I want to listen to.
Pepsi Max
Sweet, sweet, sugar-free caffeine!
