Monitoring HTTP requests can be very useful when developing for example RESTful webservices. The Java utility tcpmon provides such a monitoring utility. We must define a local port and a remote server and port. We then send our request to the local port of tcpmon, which will redirect it to the server. We can see the contents of the requests in tcpmon.
I (have to) use Windows Vista for my development efforts. When working with Java, Groovy or Grails I spent a lot of my time at the command prompt. I couple of years back I purchased 4NT from JPSoft. This was a good move, because my command prompt productivity increased by 1000%. 4NT contained a lot of useful extra commands and environment variables.
But now JPSoft has released a free version of their command processor: Take Command Console LE. Really a must have if you are using Windows and spent your time at the command prompt. Together with Console2 I have a winning combination.
Today I learned about a very useful command in Windows Vista: mklink. We create hard and soft links with mklink just like with Unix like operating system's ln command. Especially the soft links are useful, because we can create a link which points to another file or directory. The link can be accessed as if we access the original file or directory.
Personally I like to create a bin directory at the root of my drive and put it in the PATH variable. In this bin I create soft links to the executables I want accessible from the PATH variable. This way I don't have to add a lot of directories to the PATH environment variable.
mkdir \bin cd bin mklink java.exe %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe
If we run the dir command we can see which files are links, because they are denoted by <SYMLINK>.
We can also use the mklink command to shorten deep directory names. For example if I work on a project in the directory C:\Users\hkleinikkink\data\work\projects\client\applications\dev I want to use the short name currentproject:
mklink /D C:\currentproject C:\Users\hkleinikkink\data\work\projects\client\applications\dev cd \currentproject
To remove a directory link we must use the rmdir and not the del command. del will delete all files in the directory.
I like to have multiple virtual desktops. I put my e-mail application on one desktop and my development environment on the other. This way I can keep my window list for one desktop minimal. Otherwise I have to use Alt-TAB all the time to get to the correct window. With VirtuaWin I can have multiple desktops and switch to them with simple shortcuts, like Win+1 for desktop 1. Or Win+right arrow to get to the next desktop. VirtuaWin is very fast on my machine and therefore very useful.
I was never satisfied with the Windows Explorer for my file manipulation needs. Especially copying or moving files can be cumbersome with the tree view in Explorer. A couple of years ago I discovered Total Commander. And now I cannot do without it. The two-pane view of directories makes it so easy to copy or move files. The tabbed directory views makes it easy to swich back and forth between directories. And there is so much more to make it a really useful piece of software.
When I worked on Linux I really liked how I could focus a window without bringing it to the front. It saved me a lot of mouse clicks and annoyance. Another nice feature is that text selected by the mouse is automatically placed in the clipboard. And by clicking the middle mouse button we can paste the text again. But then I had to use Windows again and I couldn't use these nice features. I thought...
TXMouse is a little utility to give Windows users the same mouse functionality as Linux. We only have to start TXMouse when Windows starts and we are ready to go. I can put the focus on windows without raising them to the front. I can select text and it is copied to the clipboard. I can use the middle mouse button to paste text from the clipboard. This saves a lot of mouse and keyboard clicks.
When I develop a web application I cannot do it without the Firefox add-on Firebug. Firebug is a add-on with great features like editing and debugging HTML, CSS and Javascript. Also a good monitoring tool to see which files are loaded for page, their sizes and download time. And much, much more.
FireCookie is an add-on to the Firebug add-on. With FireCookie we can easily see and change cookie values. On my latest project this would have been very helpful if I had known about this add-on earlier.
For my work I am at different locations for different projects. Sometimes I work at clients with complete internet access, but most of the times we are behind firewalls and proxy servers. I like to keep in touch with friends and colleagues by instant messaging now and then. Normally I use Pidgin, but this doesn't work if I am behind firewalls and proxy servers.
Ah, up until yesterday, because yesterday I discovered Meebo. With Meebo I can login to different instant messaging accounts like ICQ, GoogleTalk, MSN and AIM. Once I am logged in I can open new chat sessions with all my friends and colleagues right from the browser. And because I do it via the browser I don't get in trouble with firewalls and proxy servers.
Update: And now Meebo also has a Firefox addon, which makes it even easier to use Meebo.
Developing web applications for me is mostly programming Java code. But sometimes I need to create a image, or change a existing graphic. A couple of years ago I did some pixelart for PixelDam and I tried GIMP. GIMP is a free image manipulation program with a lot of options and tools. And I was impressed with all the options available. With GIMP I can work on images and do almost anything I want or can (of which the latter is mostly the case, because I am not that creative when it comes to graphics).
GIMP is available for multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows. The user interface needs some getting used to, because every image is a separate window on the desktop. The following screenshot show GIMP in action:
It is not something I do regularly, but sometimes I want to sent a screenshot of a web page to a client. I prefer to show the real deal, but proxy settings at the client can prefend accessing the real web page. The next best thing is sending a screenshot. Of course it is simple to just press PrintScreen in Windows and save the result to a graphics file. But this will only save the visible part of the web page. What if the web page must be scrolled to see the complete contents? We can scroll ourselves, press PrintScreen again and finally stitch the graphics together to one big graphic file. Sounds boring and cumbersome, so I googled and found Fireshot.
Fireshot can be installed as a Firefox add-on and with a simple mouse click we can make screenshots of our web pages. We can choose to create a screenshot of just the visible part of the page, but also of the not visible part. Fireshot will scroll our page and stitch it all together to one graphic automatically.
Fireshot has a lot of options, like adding text or graphics before saving the file. I don't use them as often, but the simple fact I can now save the complete web page as a screenshot, makes it worth while installing.
The following figure shows a screenshot of the KralenCreatie website (in Dutch) for a page that needs scrolling:
Working with Windows Explorer has always been difficult for me. I was used to Norton Commander back in the days and Midnight Commander when working on Linux. Opening and closing tree nodes just to get anywhere with Explorer is not easy. And then simply copying files from one directory to another is difficult if both directories are not really close to each other. And that is why I use Total Commander. Total Commander makes it easy to open two directories side by side. Copying files from one side to the other is easy. The option to open tabs is very useful, because I tend to have a couple of directories open when working on my code.
Total Commander is shareware, but every upgrade has been free, since I bought a license a couple of years ago. That was money well spent.
Sysinternals have a bunch of nice tools to look at what is happening on our computers. The one I use most is the Process Explorer. The Process Explorer is basically the Windows Taskmanager on steroids. We get a lot more information about the different processes, the CPU usage, the command line that started the process and more. So every time my computer gets slower I start Process Explorer to see which process is responsible and kill it immediately.
I use Putty to access other computers through telnet or SSH. Putty is very configurable and support the protocols well. The option to save sessions with their settings is very useful, because connecting to a computer is now a simple mouse click.
I work on a laptop with Windows Vista. But most of the time I must copy files to a Linux server via Secure Copy Protocol (SCP). There is a command-line version available, but I prefer the graphical client WinSCP. WinSCP provides a two pane view of the local and remote directories. Copying is as easy as selecting files and selecting the copy command. Or we can even drag-and-drop files between the panes. Another nice features is the use of Putty session information to connect to the remote servers. This way we only have to configure server sessions in Putty and WinSCP will import the information.
I really like to spend my days at the command prompt. But the default Windows command prompt is not so exiting. It is just a square box where we can typ our commands. With Console2 we can change this.
Console2 is a graphical shell around command processors. We can choose any command processor we want. For example cmd.exe, but also Cygwin or 4NT. The nice thing is we can use tabs! This way we don't clutter the taskbar with different command prompt entries, but simply use the tabs to switch between command prompts.
Another nice feature is the transparancy we can set for the Console2 window. The following screenshot shows the background of my desktop shining through to the command prompt.
And when the Console2 application has no focus we can even make it more transparant. As we can see in the following screenshot:
I always like to have a smile on my face when I am working with my computer and Console2 brings me that smile.
I use Pidgin to stay in touch with my friends and collegues through instante messaging (IM), because it easy to use and fast. I have IM accounts for MSN, AIM, ICQ and GoogleTalk, but I don't want to use the client software of each of this accounts. In the past I have used Trillian Pro, but lately starting up Trillian Pro was slow and I had to pay for it.
Looking for a replacement I stumbled upon Pidgin. Pidgin is a successor to GAIM which I have tried before. But back then I found the user interface to basic, compared to Trillian Pro. But Pidgin is much better now. The user interface is smooth and integrates nicely with my Windows Vista operating sytem. The smileys are very polished and bring a smile to my face. Pidgin is also very fast to start up. And because the user interface is localized my wife enjoys Pidgin in Dutch.
For me Pidgin is now a mandatory piece of software in my software toolbox.
