Fear of Fish

I'm happy when I start work, and I'm happy when I stop (a rare occasion), and my happy gleeful day is all down to the set of utilities that I use day to day. 90% of my work is web development in Ruby on Rails and if your day is spent developing on an Apple, then take heed my advice as it's fine tuned and endorsed by happy joy joy feelings.

Note: If you're not on an Apple machine I seriously recommend you switch, like I did. I spent 10+ years developing desktop and web applications on windows and I had no idea that 'the other side' was so much more pleasant. But that's another article.

I said 10, but in fact I put up 12. So sue me. :-)

There are a basic set of utilities I use daily, and I thought I'd share the list with you to top off my previous article. I plan to implement a screencasts page at some point too to compliment my tutorials for those that are too busy (read 'lazy') to read a full article.

So let's get started and take a looksie at my list:

• Textmate There isn't an editor on any operating system that comes close to this editor, it doesn't do code completion per se, it does code snippet insertion based on tab completion. The tab completion works on pre-created character sets. Check out this small auto complete screencast

• CSSEdit By far the best css editor around, with auto completion, web preview and more. This has saved me countless key presses.

• iRatchet I love this little accounting package, it does everything I need from an accounting package, and if it didn't, the developer is so responsive and helpful it would get added in seconds. Stay tuned for the templated invoicing were working on!

• iShowU Although this application is still in the early stages it is showing great promise, get on over there and purchase it for the bargain $20 that he's asking and support the development. Snapz Pro has been mediocre for too long.

• YourSQL I've tried a few applications that edit MySQL and this is the one that does what I need, with no bugs (that I've found yet).

• Parallels Desktop for Mac As a web developer it is my responsibility to ensure clients' sites work in all browsers, so running windows is a prioirty for me. Parallels beats all other virtual PC applications hands down, it's lightning fast, and even stable.

• Quicksilver If you haven't tried this out, you seriously have to. Being able to start any application or open any folder in an average of 3 keystrokes, is highly productive, satisfying and cool.

• VirtueDesktops The ultimate desktop manager for Mac OS X, this allows me to spread my application windows out and have less screen clutter.

• Vienna A nice little news reader that does simple browsing of feeds without the hassle that others try and implement. I just need to open and view feeds, nothing fancy.

• Adium My happy little chat app, it handles all the usual MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Jabber etc. All in one, saving me the hassle of multiple applications.

• Colloquy Where would a developer be without sitting in his set of private irc channels talking to people who know what they're doing.

• High Priority Easy access to my todo lists, nothing fancy, just easy access.

If you'd like to know how this all works together (or at least the development part) then you'll just have to wait till I have time to make the screencast of it.

[EDIT] I've just noticed that I can't do without AppZapper either, what a funky application. It cleans up all the preference files and other odds 'n' ends that an application installs when you want to delete it.