Let’s take a short break from the WordPress topic and talk about something more everyday — work. More precisely, the software I use daily. This is an introductory post on the topic, and in the future, I plan to review the software I use in more detail.
Recently, I’ve become more critical of using pirated software, music, scanned books, etc. Why? — because it’s all theft 🙂 in one form or another.
Today, let’s talk about the first item — software. Fortunately, I use lUbuntu Linux, and under it, almost all software is free!
As I’ve written before, the main reason I chose lUbuntu was speed. I apply the same principle when selecting software. Still, I aim for a golden mean between simplicity, aesthetics, and performance. Yes, you can work in the terminal, but it’s not as convenient as using PeaZip for archiving.
Let’s review the programs by category with short descriptions:
Graphics
Dia — used for creating block diagrams, UML diagrams. I use it for database design (simple and convenient).
Gpick — a color picker. Helps you identify any color on the screen (+ lots of extras).
Inkscape — a vector graphics editor (used it maybe three times over several years).
Kruler — handy when you need to measure something on the screen.
LibreOffice Draw — a graphics editor (not sure why I have it).
Pencil — for designing website and app interfaces.
Pinta — a simple graphics editor (like MS Paint, if I’m not mistaken).
XnView — image and photo viewer (cross-platform!).
GIMP — a powerful raster graphics editor. Unfortunately, PSD files are displayed poorly: some layers are missing, fonts are not editable. Still, great for measuring layout elements. I use XnView to view PSDs.
Internet
FileZilla — FTP client. I use it only when Krusader lags on FTP connections.
Google Chrome — my main working browser.
Opera 12.17 — used for layout testing (less and less often).
Firefox — also used for layout testing.
PuTTY — SSH client.
Skype — what setup would be complete without it?
Pidgin — used for connecting to ICQ and JivoSite.
TeamViewer — used occasionally. Some clients are suspicious or just curious.
Thunderbird — my favorite email client.
Mail.ru Cloud — mostly used for screenshots and sharing completed work.
Office
FreeMind — used for mind mapping and planning. Very handy — highly recommended.
LibreOffice Calc — MS Excel alternative. I love automating calculations — saves time in the long run.
LibreOffice Writer — MS Word alternative.
MMEX — personal finance tracker. Great for those who want to know who owes them, what they owe, and where the money goes.
ReText — Markdown editor. Helpful in early stages of learning the syntax to avoid mistakes.
Development
Gitg — Git client. Funny story: I used to rely entirely on GUI when working with SVN and couldn’t switch to the terminal. But with Git, it’s the opposite — maybe I didn’t find a good GUI client, or maybe I got smarter. Now I use Git only via terminal.
SmartGit — a cross-platform Git client (rarely used).
RapidSVN — SVN client. I still haven’t learned the command line for SVN (and probably never will).
IDLE — come May, it’ll be a year since I started messing around with Python.
Meld — compares files/folders (i.e., finds differences).
MySQL Workbench — MySQL DB client (cross-platform as far as I remember). Rarely used — I prefer phpMyAdmin.
Sqliteman — SQLite DB client (rarely used).
NetBeans — still my favorite PHP/HTML/JS/CSS/etc. editor.
Sublime Text — alternative to NetBeans. I use it when I need to quickly edit something.
Poedit — editor for translation ".po" files.
Other
Krusader — file manager (very similar to Total Commander).
VLC — for watching videos and listening to music.
Leafpad — very simple text editor. Good for viewing large files. I used to use Gedit, but it was buggy (though it had syntax highlighting).
Oracle VM VirtualBox — virtual machine. I use it when I need to run a trial version of Windows. Thanks, Microsoft! And thanks to Adobe Photoshop for the trial versions too!
PeaZip — my favorite archiver with GUI. I can’t imagine anyone who prefers using the terminal to compress files.
Wine — lets you run Windows software on Linux (don’t remember the last time I used it).
That’s it for now! I’ll try to write individual reviews of the programs I use soon.
