Software
- Firefox, and the following plug-in:
- Zotero, take control of your digital library, can be used with both BibTeX and Microsoft Word.
- DOM Inspector, view the structure of pages
- Firebug, debug a pages JavaScript
- HTML Validator, visually check the validity of pages
- IE View, see how the page will appear in IE (if you have IE installed)
- Web Developer, to get a host of tools for developing web pages
- Eclipse is my Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of choice.
- TextPad is a nice advanced text editor with a simple interface for Windows.
- WinSCP for general FTP/sFTP/etc server access in Windows, and ExpanDrive is also useful for mounting sFTP servers as a local drive.
- MySQL, if for no reason other than being free.
- Virtual Box is a good piece of virtualisation software, great for running small environments for testing new websites and applications.
- LaTeX, because its just so good once you've learned to play with it. Specifically I use the MiKTeX distribution with LyX or TeXnicCenter. Scientific Word is also very good, but it's not free and is fast being replaced by LyX.
- 34sp.com host this page, and I highly recommend them. They're always quick to respond to queries, helpful, and have a good uptime track record!
Fonts and Icons
- The Stix (Scientific and Technical Information eXchange) Font project aims to standardise scientific fonts across several leading publishing groups.
-
The League of Moveable
Type, a collection of open source fonts designed to be used with the
new
@font-faceCSS style. - Open Icon Library, a very wide selection of icons, released under various licenses.
- Tango Icon Gallery, a good selection of icons, released under the Creative Commons Share-Alike license.
- Java Look and Feel Graphics Repository, some basic icons for simple desktop applications, released under a very relaxed bespoke license.
Misc
- The Register is a great little source for current events, always an interesting read.
- Guide to Grammar and Style, by Jack Lynch. I highly recommend buying his much updated book, it's cheap and a great resource.
- I read a few webcomics and the such, in no particular order: XKCD, Dilbert, Cyanide and Happiness, Penny Arcade, and Zero Punctuation.
- Some shameless plugging of my friends blogs, in no particular order:
- No Operation Performed, a developers blog.
- The Villager, erratic and random musings.
- Bad Gamerscore Whore, a (mainly Xbox) games and achievements blog.
- What Carly Thinks, TV and film reviews.
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