Tools and Links for Windows - August 22 2009

I will be bringing a series of posts of useful utilities and interesting links for developers and everyday use as well.  Some of them become indispensable and others are task specific.  Some are free and others aren't.  I'll let you know which ones are for sale but most of them will be free. Programs Notepad++ is a powerful text editor for any kind of text file.  It offers Syntax Highlighting for some languages such as C#, VB, ASP, C, C++, Java, HTML, Pascal, etc.  It lets you define your Systax Highlight configuration for non supported languages.  It also includes Auto-Completion, Multi-Document, Zoom, Drag and Drop, Bookmarks and other great features. ColorPix is a small program (no installation needed) that lets you grab the color information of the pixel your mouse in pointing at.  It provides a zoom option for easier color picking and the color information is presented in different formats. ZoomIt is a screen zooming utility that provides the functionality to annotate and draw onscreen and copy the image to the windows clipboard.  Customizable hot keys available and sits quietly on your system tray. TrueCrypt is a free open source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux.  Its main features allow the creation of virtual disks that can be mounted as a real disk, encryption of an entire partition or USB drive and powerful encryption algorithms.  It's really a very powerful encryption software.  Give it a try. FileZilla is a free open source FTP client and server program.  Update regularly. KeePass Password Safe is a free program to manage and protect all the passwords you use for all your activities.  It saves all your password in one database that is locked with a master or key file.  Only remember is the password to open this database.  By the way, the database is encrypted. WinMerge is a free open source file and folder comparison utility that lets you see clearly the differences between text files and folders.  It provides synchronizing and merging functionality that is very easy to use. Windows Live Writer.  The program I'm using right now to write this blog post.  It works with Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, BlogEngine.NET and many others. PortableApps Please visit the PortableApps web site for free applications and utilities you can use directly from your USB Flash Drive.  No installation required and they're ready to use on the go.  Some of my favorites and recommendations are: Notepad++ (yes, it is in portable format as well) FileZilla (also here) VLC Media Player (yes, the best media player is also in portable form) 7-Zip.  Compression utility KeePass Password Safe Lightscreen Portable for you screenshot needs WinDirStat is a useful utility that analyses your disk usage and provides a cleanup option as well.  it helps you identify exactly which files are occupying your space.  It includes a number of nice features. WinMerge That's it for today.  I'll share some more by next week.  Cheers!