• 23 OCT 2011

    Some new shiny tools

    Posted under: software 1 comment

    I've been using a few new bits of software lately that deserve some love so I thought I'd share a few links (sorry Windows fans, they're for mac)

    Sublime Text 2
    After being an avid Textmate user for a while now, a bunch of us at work recently switched over to using Sublime Text 2 instead, and so far it's doing the job perfectly. A few features I like: split column views, 'distraction-free' mode, the autocomplete addon which scans your JS library to autocomplete your own objects, and generally it seems more stable when dealing with large files and projects.

    Sublime text 2 screenshot

    Sequel Pro
    For a long time I used web-based MySQL admin systems - PHPMyAdmin at first, then SQL Buddy - but recently I've switched to using a native application - Sequel Pro - and it has some very nice features, and also has the nice addition of being free to download. It does everything you'd expect in a database admin tool so I won't list the obvious features, but it's a very polished app and well worth a look.

    Sequel Pro screenshot

    Crashplan
    Not quite a dev tool, but I bought a Crashplan subscription quite a while back now, and although I've (thankfully) never had to restore a dead computer, it's been doing a great job of silently backing up all my worldy digital possessions onto their remote servers, ready for the day when my Mac Pro has had enough. Sure, Time Machine is good, and it'll give you a simple way to restore a dead drive, but I get very paranoid about my data, and if the Time Machine drive got stolen, or broke, then it's gone. Crashplan gives you a way to backup everything remotely without that worry. They do a 10GB plan as well as Unlimited (yes, actually unlimited).

    At some point I'll add commenting to this blog so anyone reading can actually contribute, as there's probably a whole lot of apps I've never even heard of that some of you can't live without.

Comments

S.H. said:

Yeah, I do wonder why all the prettiest text editors are never available for Windows. :( Notepad++ serves me well, though.

Crashplan is a great back-up tool, and services Windows users too. The pay-per-month makes it very affordable as well. It seems to back up files significantly faster than most back-up systems. As long as you have speedy internet, you can back-up tens of gigs in just days.

With a big name competitor software back-up demo I managed to backup only about 2 megas in the first day or few (!). I am not kidding. It wasn't because of my internet either.

Crashplan also has options to back-up onto an external hard drive or another computer, but I prefer backing up to their own servers. If something happened to my computer (or that little external hard drive next to it), that's the most secure place to retrieve files from.