My Web Development Tools

June 17th, 2007 | Category: Heidi's Entries,Recommendations
written by: Heidi Cool

freehandsm.jpg
Whether you're drawing a goofy turtle to use in a Flash
animation, or need to design a new logo, Freehand is at hand.

Aaron Shaffer recently posted a link it up of the tools he uses in his business, so I thought I'd share a list of the tools I use most often in Web development and related projects.

Hardware/Other
  • Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Konica FT-1 Motor (35mm film SLR that was quite cutting edge in its day)
  • Computers: Dell Latitude, Macintosh G4, MacBookPro. The Dell is best left docked because it requires multiple restarts after I put it back in the docking station. It's also impossible to see the screen when using it outside—even on a cloudy day. The MacBookPro on the other hand travels quite easily and the screen is crisp in even bright sunlight. The Mac is also wicked fast, even with many programs open at once (which is always).
  • Music & Podcasts: Video iPod
  • Phone: LG VX8600. I don't know why this doesn't have a nickname like the Chocolate or the RAZR; it's a pretty cool little phone.
  • Web Hosting: Aurora Project, The Geek Empire, Dreamhost.
Software
  • Animation: Flash
  • Audio: Audacity
  • Blogging: Movable Type
  • CSS Editing: TextEdit, Notepad. Sure, I could edit stylesheets in Dreamweaver, but simple text editors work well and I can have two stylesheets open side by side so I can copy and paste between them.
  • E-mail: Outlook, Webmail, Gmail, PINE.
  • FTP/SFTP/SCP: Fetch, Fugu, WS_FTP, WinSCP
  • Music & Podcasts: iTunes
  • Page Layout (print): InDesign
  • Photo Archiving: Flickr
  • Photo & Raster Image Editing: Photoshop
  • Spreadsheets: Excel, OpenOffice Calc
  • Web Design: Dreamweaver
  • Web Browsers: Firefox, Mozilla, SeaMonkey, Opera, Safari, Camino, Internet Explorer. I use Firefox on a regular basis, but need the others to check the Web sites I'm building so I can compensate for browser differences. Mozilla and its replacement SeaMonkey are all-in-one browsers that include news readers, e-mail and other features.
  • Word Processing: OpenOffice Writer, MS Word
  • Vector Illustration: Freehand, Illustrator. Alas Freehand won't be upgraded in the future due to Adobe's purchase of Macromedia. Given that the FTC had made Adobe sell off Freehand years ago when the company acquired Aldus, I had hoped the same would happen now, but perhaps the antitrust laws have become less stringent. It looks like I'll have to sharpen my Illustrator skills, but I'm really going to miss Freehand.
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14 Comments »
  1. You might want to check out FlashFXP for FTP. I really like it.

    Comment by Aaron Shaffer — June 18, 2007 @8:38 pm

  2. Aaron, thanks for the suggestion. I've been using WS_FTP for eons, but FlashFXP sounds like a great option for Windows users. The pricing seems quite reasonable as well. On the Mac side I've also heard good things about Transmit. Kevin was always perfectly happy to just use Dreamweavers built in FTP funtionality, while I've always used an external program. I prefer the interfaces of these other programs, esp. compared to the old command line days, but it may be just a matter of sticking with old habits.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — June 19, 2007 @12:55 pm

  3. My approach to your entire list changed when I read : "CSS Editing: TextEdit, Notepad." You must be high to use Notepad for anything dude.

    Comment by s — June 20, 2007 @8:00 am

  4. S, If I'd said MS Word, I'd see your point, but for stylesheets, what I need is something that will edit text and will absolutely not add any formatting. There are any number of basic text editors available, but when that's all you want, it doesn't make much difference which you use. You just need to be able type some text, delete some text and sometimes use "find and replace." Have you had particular issues with Notepad that make you feel it doesn't allow one to edit .txt or other plain text files properly? What is your preferred plain text editor?

    Comment by Heidi Cool — June 20, 2007 @12:18 pm

  5. When I adjust colors, I like use Colorschemer. It is fast and easy to use.

    Comment by Richard Ma — June 23, 2007 @12:34 am

  6. As I recently got a mac, I'm a big fan of Coda. It's a great utility -- even though it's commercial -- that lets you use terminal, CSS/text editor, and file browser, all in one. On top of that, I'm a huge "nano" fan, which means I like to edit directly on the site itself.

    Comment by Jonathan — July 2, 2007 @11:25 pm

  7. Great to find buddies on FlashFXP. It rocks. :-)

    Comment by Edmund — July 3, 2007 @2:31 pm

  8. Thanks for this blog. It has been really useful to me. It has opened my eyes to notice just how many different programs are out there.

    Comment by RareHosts — July 9, 2007 @7:09 am

  9. I'm always curious to hear what if any online tutorials people are going to. Do you have any favorite say... online photoshop tutorial sites?

    Comment by Brian Berg — July 19, 2007 @7:05 pm

  10. I don't know that I have any favorite tutorial sites. Typically when looking to solve a particular problem, I'll start with Photoshop's help feature, then if that doesn't solve it, do a Web search. That said I have watched a few episodes of Photoshop User TV, which is quite well-respected and likely to give you some good new ideas. This 30 minute video podcast is produced by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — July 22, 2007 @4:27 pm

  11. Thank you for the tool information! I think I will have to consider some additions in the list of programs I use. Thanks! PS: I recommend the program Notepad 2 for simple coding :D

    Comment by Glorby Gadget Man — July 31, 2007 @9:39 am

  12. Great to find buddies on FlashFXP thanks

    Comment by tonny — August 2, 2007 @3:18 am

  13. Thank you for the tools.

    Comment by Mohamed — August 8, 2007 @4:23 pm

  14. I would be interested to see the web development tools you suggest for SEO. I put together a list of the free SEO tools I use...I'm cheap :)

    Comment by TomG — August 27, 2007 @12:41 pm

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