Free tools I use for development

Now and then I find a nice free tool hidden on the web. Lately, I found some nice gems mentions on other blogs and I thought I should share my list with you, dear reader. Maybe you'll find something of use and maybe you could recommend some other good tool to me.

 

Another Lens  - A screen magnification tool, written in Delphi 4. [Bjorn Ischo; link from the author's home is not working, this is a correct one: http://www.b-zone.de/zips/lens.zip]

Desktop Icons Save and Restore* - Shell extension that allows you to save and restore position of icons on the desktop. [Jamie O'Connell, http://www.midiox.com/html/desktop.htm]

FireBird - Great SQL database server. I'm particularly interested in the embedded version. [Firebird Foundation, http://www.firebirdsql.org/, http://www.ibphoenix.com/]

GpProfile - My old but still useful profiler. (I am working on a new version.) [Primoz Gabrijelcic, http://gp.17slon.com/gpprofile/index.htm]

GraphEdit -  A tool for visual DirectX filter graph editing.  [Microsoft, part of the DirectX SDK, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms783346.aspx, but is easy to find on the web if you don't want to download and install entire SDK]

IcoFX - Great icon editor and newest addition to my toolbox. [Attila Kovrig, http://icofx.xhost.ro/]

Microsoft Spy++ - Window browser. [Microsoft, part of Visual Studio, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vcug98/html/_asug_home_page.3a_.spy.2b2b.asp, easy to find on the web if you don't need complete Visual Studio]

Putty - Ssh and sftp client. [Simon Tatham, http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/]

IBExpert Personal Edition - InterBase/FireBird management tool. [HK Software, http://www.hk-software.net/ibexpert.com/content/doc_122943-5-10-00.php]

Synergy* - Control multiple computers with one mouse and keyboard. [http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/authors.html, http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/, http://www.stevetrefethen.com/blog/default,month,2006-06.aspx]

TightVNC* - Remote control client and server. [http://www.tightvnc.com/people.html, http://www.tightvnc.com/]

VLC Media player - Media player, which is of particular interest to me because it can play (and wrap/unwrap) DVB Transport Streams. [VideoLAN, http://www.videolan.org/]

WinCVS - CVS GUI which is so good that I don't want to switch to Subversion. [http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=10072, http://sourceforge.net/projects/cvsgui]

Window Clippings - Nice screen grabber, useful when writing documentation. [Kenny Kerr, http://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/archive/2005/09/30/Window-Clippings-1.0.aspx]

Windows SysInternals tools - I need them all. Constantly. [Mark Russinovich, http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx]

Wink - Records all changes on the computer screen and makes a movie. Good for tutorials and to demonstrate a problem to a coworker. [DebugMode, http://www.debugmode.com/wink/]

WinPCap - Tool to monitor and transmit data in link-layer network access, used in Wireshark (below). [http://www.winpcap.org/misc/credits.htm, http://www.winpcap.org/]

WinSCP - Graphical sftp interface, based on the Putty. [http://winscp.net/eng/docs/contributions, http://winscp.net/eng/index.php]

Wireshark [ex Ethereal] - Capture and analyze network packets. [http://www.wireshark.org/about.html, http://www.wireshark.org]

XanaNews - Good newsgroups reader, written in Delphi. [Colin Wilson, http://www.wilsonc.demon.co.uk/xananews.htm]

XN Resource Editor - Resource editor, written by the XanaNews author. Includes simple icon editor. [Colin Wilson, http://www.wilsonc.demon.co.uk/d10resourceeditor.htm]

 

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*More on this product: Remote access to the fourth power