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Minimum set of software tools (for webdesign and more).
I presume that you use Windows 98/NT/2000.
 
- browsers, 
- telnet/ftp,
- text editors - windows
- text editors - unix
- graphics
- HTML editing
- perl
- XML/XSL
- utilities
- servers
- OO design


 
browsers home - top of the page -

You need browsers:

* www.microsoft.com - Internet Explorer
* www.netscape.com - Netscape Composer - used to be my favorite html editor. Now I use Dreamweaver.


 
telnet_ftp home - top of the page -

You will need software to work with remote sources:

* ftp - I recommend CuteFTP www.cuteftp.com
* telnet/ssh - I recommend CRT telnet from www.vandyke.com
* email - usually MS Outlook (or Eudora Pro from www.eudora.com)


 
editors_windows home - top of the page -

You will also need a decent editor for programming (notepad is not good):

* www.ultraedit.com - UltraEdit - my favorite
* www.notetab.com - NoteTab Pro
* www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe - PFE
* www.textpad.com - TextPad
* sourceforge.net/projects/Leo/, http://personalpages.tds.net/~edream/front.html - LEO - editor which allows to edit conveniently and document atthe same time (see more at * www.literateprogramming.com/ - Literate Programming  )


 
editors_unix home - top of the page -

On unix people love other editors: vi, emacs or pico:

* vi: vi-lovers , vim.org , vi-ref , vi-ref.pdf , www.cs.wustl.edu/~jxh/vi.html -
* emacs: www.emacs.org/ , www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html -
* pico: www.pitt.edu/~document/pico/pico.html -


 
graphics home - top of the page -

You will need software to work with graphics:

* www.adobe.com - Photoshop
* www.alienskin.com - "Eye Candy" etc. - buttons, shadows, etc.
* www.extensis.com - PhotoTools (buttons, etc.)
* perso.club-internet.fr/gpl/html/alien_skin.html - this site has many reviews and tips
* www.ulead.com - GIF animator
* www.gifwizard.com
* www.efuse.com/Design/graphics_programs_for_windows.html - misc. graphics programs compared


 
HTML editors home - top of the page -

HTML editing (WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get):

* www.macromedia.com/software/ - Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash (dreamweaver shortcuts - my table of keyborard shortcuts).

I open pages in Dreamweaver from Internet Explorer by selecting "File > Edit with Dreamweaver MX" from IE File menu. Here is how to set it up:

For Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the following steps are required
to set Dreamweaver MX 2004 as a default editor in Internet Explorer:

  1. Launch Windows Explorer (typically, you can launch this by choosing Start > Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer).
  2. Select Tools > Folder Options...
  3. Select the File Types tab.
  4. Scroll to the HTM extension in the Registered File Types list.
  5. Click the Advanced button. You may have to restore the file association before you see the Advanced button.
  6. Select Edit from the actions list (not Edit within Dreamweaver), then click the Edit button.
  7. Browse to the Dreamweaver MX 2004 executable. The default location for the Dreamweaver.exe file is: C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX 2004\
  8. Click OK until you are back at the File Types list.
  9. Select the HTML extension and repeat steps 5 to 8.
  10. Click OK.
  11. Restart your system.
  12. Open the Internet Options tool from the Windows Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel).
  13. Select the Programs tab.
  14. Select Dreamweaver MX 2004 from the drop-down menu in the HTML Editor category.
  15. Click OK.

For more details:

* www.netscape.com - Netscape Composer used to be my main tool. It is primitive, but the code is creates will work on all browsers.  And it is easy to jump between editor and browser.  For complicated jobs it makes sense to use specialized tools:

* www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/ - Clean up your Web pages with HTML TIDY


 
perl home - top of the page -

You want to have Perl:

* www.activestate.com - Perl for windows
* www.perl.com - Perl for windows


 
XML tools home - top of the page -

You want to have and XML/XSLT tool:

* users.iclway.co.uk/mhkay/saxon - Michael Kay's SAXON


 
utilities home - top of the page -

There are several utilities which are really useful:

* www.releaseram.com/ - helps to release RAM on your Windows 95/98/NT computer (thus reducing system crashes by 95%).
* www.winzip.com/download.htm - WinZip
* www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html - Adobe Acrobat Reader
* www.acdsystems.com/products/acdsee/index.htm - ACDSee Image viewer
* www.hyperionics.com/ - Snap - capture images from screen, crop them - and save them in compressed formats (like GIF, for example)
* www.pingplotter.com - PingPlotter
* www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/content/17/04/ut1704.001.html - SiteSnagger (ssnag)


 
web servers home - top of the page -

I also recommend you to download one of web servers to play with it:

* www.apache.org - Apache server, free and open source, more than 50% of www
* perl.apache.org/ - mod_perl - integrating Perl with Apache
* www.fastcgi.com - www.fastengines.com - yet another way to make things faster
* field.netscape.com/~jpascual/webserver/  - Netscape Enterprise server - used by 70% of Fortune 100 companies, fast, multithreaded, not very good to work with databases
* www.aolserver.com/ - small, multithreaded, free, works under hard load, built in Tcl interpreter, drivers for all databases, database connection pooling - www.arsdigita.com/asj/
* www.oracle.com - see JSP pages to be shipped with Oracle 8.1.6


 
OO design home - top of the page -

Simple program to do state-transition diagrams:
* www.objectdomain.com - "Object Domain"
* /www.objectdomain.com/_downloads/dom119a.zip - download