What I install on a new machine: Free apps

Starting the new job, you start with a new machine. I thought it would be interesting to go through my 'bag-o-tricks' as far as what I install.

These apps are free. Some are free as in beer; some are free as in speech (or as Stallman says, free as in freedom).

I'd love to know what other people have in their must-install list for a new machine. I might be missing something awesome.

Windows Live Messenger & Writer: http://get.live.com/wl/all

Still going strong with two great apps. My humble requests:

• Messenger guys: please save my preferences on the server. I hate re-configuring tabs, welcome screen, contact grouping, sounds, etc.
• Writer guys: please fix your support for images in Blogger. This is my only complaint.

Paint .NET: http://www.getpaint.net/

I will admit to frequently lusting after a licence to Adobe Photoshop. No longer. An amazing app that just keeps getting better and keeps staying free. Awesome.

.NET Reflector: http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/

If you code .NET, this gets installed before VS. Amazing. Also keeps getting better.

Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Yes, I'm one of those guys.
Yes, I have friends that work on IE.
Yes, I wish them well.

But...

I believe in open standards. The only way to protect and encourage open standards is to have many prevalent implementations of said standards.

Firefox is just better. Even when it crashes, it remembers where I was flawlessly...something IE never does. It scales web sites in a (more) rational way. The extensibility is also amazing, as I share below.

Greasemonkey: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

What a clever concept. I really only use it for one script, though. Would love to know more good ones.

Google Secure Pro Greasemonkey Script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/5951

Later, I will go through all of the web apps and services I use, but here's a hit: I use a lot of Google stuff.

Google supports HTTPS (SSL) on most of it's properties, but not by default. You have to put https:// manually in the URL.

This script does that automatically for a whole host of Google properties. It's also extensible for any web site. (Like sneakemail, which I'll go into in another post.)

Flash Blocker: http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

Another great Firefox add-on. This one replaces all flash content with a little arrow. When you press it, the flash loads but not before.

Great for seeing only the content you want to see and nothing else.

Sumartra PDF: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/ 

See my comment about many implementations of open standards. This is a solid client. It doesn't support all of the bells and whistles of Adobe Acrobat, but it's super small and doesn't install any tray icons or run any background services. Kudos.

Skype: http://www.skype.com/

Great for chatting with the folks and the brothers.

My parents are doing video conferencing.

Scary.

Notepad++: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

You can guess: a better version of notepad. Much better.

Support for syntax highlighting for multiple formats (C#, Xml, Ruby, etc.), a convenient shell context menu, tabs, the whole sha-bang.

I discovered this years ago. It keeps getting better.

For those times when you don't want to wait for VS to load.

Process Explorer: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Last, but not least.

Ever want to delete a file and not know which process was keeping it open? This is the tool.

From our friends at SysInternals (that are now our friends in the Windows Kernel team).

What did I miss?

I'd love to know about *your* bag-o-tricks. I'll re-post anything I find useful.

Share the love and have a great Saturday.

I'm leaving Microsoft

You read that correctly. September 14 is my last day at Building 10 on the Redmond Campus (well, at least as an employee).

Here is (most of) the goodbye email I sent to colleagues and friends last week.

Where to start. Iowa State. Fall of 1998. A career fair. I was a freshman looking for free stuff. The MS recruiter wanted to see a resume. I didn’t have one. (I didn’t think I would need one.) I ran back to my dorm, wrote enough to fill a single page, and brought it back to him.

Early that spring I flew to Sea-Tac and had an on-campus interview. (I was warned that that winter had 100 sunshine-less days.)

In May 1999 I showed up in Redmond for an internship. Building 25. I shared an office with a woman who’s a great friend to this day.

After 3 internships, a stint as a Microsoft Student Consultant at ISU, and 5 great years as an stock option award earning employee, I’m going to try something drastically different.

Friday, September 14 will be my last day in the office.

Monday, September 17 I’m going to work at a small, actuarial company building internal, web-based LOB apps.

• No, I’m not crazy. (At least I don’t think so.) It’s been almost a decade since I’ve built anything substantial end-to-end. I’ve got pretty good at designing the tiny pieces of something XXXL. I’d like to try my hand at implementing a huge pieces of something M.
• Yes, I’ll be staying in the area. Actually, working from home most days.
• Yes, it’s all .NET still. I’m actually looking forward to cranking on SQL, ASPX, WCF, Workflow, Linq, ADO Entities, etc.
• Yes, it’s hard to leave. I’ve been plugged into Microsoft since just after high school. It’s been a great ride. I’ve learned an amazing amount and met some amazing people. Recently though, I’ve realized that if I was ever going to unplug, it was never going to get easier than it is now.

http://j832.com is my web site. It mostly just links to my blogs. I plan to keep work.j832.com going for any WPF stuff I hack on. The other blog will be everything else. :-)

(If you want the j832 thing explained some time, just ask.)

I have two closing thoughts.

First, Doug Purdy shared a tag line that Don Box and he used on a presentation once: “There is only one program…and it’s still being written.” Microsoft was a gig. My new company is a gig. There will be gigs after. The gig is not the important thing. It’s the stuff you’re building. I love software because in the end it’s all about helping people record, explorer, and communicate thoughts, memories, and ideas. If we keep making that faster, easier and just better we will all still be working together...and making the world just a bit better.

Second, a video I discovered a couple months ago. While it was after I’d made most of my decisions, it does a good job of representing the stuff in my head right now…the stuff I’m trying to figure out. It’s absolutely worth sharing: http://blog.j832.com/2007/07/music-and-life.html

I will close out the way my good friend Robby did. A master of great design: simple and to-the-point.

Goodbye and thanks again,

>Kevin

Q: What does this mean for me, loyal reader of work.j832.com?
A: Hopefully not much. I plan to keep working with and blogging about WPF. I have some clever project ideas that I still want to hack on. A cool upside: I can actually collaborate in substantial ways with community members. I may blog a wider variety of stuff, but given the new job I'm sure it'll be mostly .NET-related. I'll keep my non-geek stuff on my personal blog: blog.j832.com.

Q: What about the bag-o-tricks?
A: The current URL (blogs.msdn.com/okoboji/pages/BagOTricks.aspx) is going to die when my MSDN blog dies. (I'm not sure about when that'll happen, actually.) So I'm introducing a new, even more stable home for the latest-and-greatest: j832.com/BagOTricks. I hope this will be valid as long as I remember anything about WPF and I pay my ISP bill.

Q: Are you planning any updates the bag?
A: Great question! I can't say much, but...um...expect great things from a lot of what's in the bag. (This is my subtle and evil way of leaning on Larry. Sorry dude.)

Q: What about the NetFX install stuff?
A: I'm going to hand this off and make sure that those who've emailed me are taken care of--hopefully by making the code generally available.

As I've said to many folks, I'm looking forward to the transition from a Microsoft High Priest for WPF to just another geek in the big city.

See you on the other side, my friends.