10+ IT Pros Share the Utilities & Tools They Can't Live Without

10+ IT pros share the utilities and
tools they can't live without
By Susan Sales Harkins
IT professionals are unique, like snowflakes. Degrees, training, intelligence, creativity, and experience all matter,
but they combine to craft distinctly specific skill sets. Perhaps that's one reason there are so many utilities and
tools driving the support industry. In fact, there are so many that shopping for just the right tool can be
overwhelming. So I asked several IT pros to list the tools they depend on -- and I received some surprising
results. Their lists are (almost) as unique as they are. Try matching the following IT pros to your job role and skills.
Perhaps their lists will help you narrow your search for useful tools and utilities. The good news for all of us is that
most of these tools are freeware. Note: Comments in quotes belong to the IT professional.

#1: John Bartow, consultant
John Bartow's areas of expertise are network and PC security, which he provides via his consulting firm,
WinHaven Computer Consulting Services. Because he's onsite so much, he carries the following tools with him at
all times:
RoboForm Pro and Portable: Password manager, form filler, and password management.
CCleaner: File system and registry cleaner.
Autoruns: Startup process manager; shows programs configured to run during system bootup or login.
Process Explorer: Lets you see which handles and DLL processes are open.
Vipre: Antivirus, malware, and rootkit software.
Spybot S&D: Suite of PC security products.
SIW: Software Information for Windows; gathers and displays detailed information about system
properties and settings.
DotNet cleanup tool (dotnetfx_cleanup_tool): Aaron Stebner's tool Automated cleanup tool for removing
the .NET Framework.
Auslogics Disk Defrag: Hard drive defragmenting software.
Auslogics Registry Defrag: Registry defragmenting software.

#2: Sterling Camden, consultant
Camden Software Consulting, in Bainbridge Island, WA, specializes in migrating existing applications to new
technologies. (Its owner, Sterling Camden, also hosts TechRepublic's IT Consultant blog.) Vim and Ruby
products are his favorite tools, but Camden relies on several others, which he keeps on a laptop that goes
everywhere he goes:
Vim: "Powerful" text editor.
Google Chrome: Windows browser that's getting a lot of good reviews.
Ruby: "One of the most popular scripting languages."
Synergy/DE: Suite of advanced cross-platform software tools for Windows, UNIX, and OpenVMS.
(Camden consults for Synergex, the vendor.)
PVCS Configuration Builder: Automates and accelerates software builds across multiple platforms.
PVCS Version Manager: Source control.
PuTTY: Telnet and SSH for Windows and UNIX.
FileZilla: Open source FTP client and server.
VMware: Virtualization technology products.
Visual Studio 2008: Suite of development tools.

#3: John W. Colby, consultant
John W. Colby specializes in business analysis, database design, and programming. He is a past president and a
current board member of Database Advisors, Inc., an online technical support group. Currently living in North
Carolina, Colby uses various remote access tools to provide consulting services to clients around the country:
C2DbFW3G: Custom framework for Access.
MZ-Tools: Enhanced programming tools for VB and VBA programmers.
LogMeIn Hamachi: VPN service.
VNC: Integrated security.
VMware Infrastructure: Virtualization for individual machines and servers.
Comodo Internet Security: Firewall and Antivirus suite.
ThreatFire: Antivirus software.

#4: Donna Cook, applications analyst
An analyst in the medical industry, Donna Cook uses the following tools to work through the myriad projects she
manages:
CSVed: Manipulate Excel files (.xls). "…great tool for anyone who hates Excel."
Copernic Desktop Search: Windows Desktop Search tool.
Irfanview: Fast graphic viewer/conversion tool for Windows.
eCleaner: Strips HTML symbols, formatting codes, and so on.
CoreFTP: Free, user-friendly, secure FTP application for Windows.
SiSoft Sandra: Gathers information about a machine.
Lan Monitor: Displays information about every network adapter on your computer.
SendToAny: Extends the Windows Send To menu to include anything on your Programs menu.
ns, Deborah Elam

#5: Deborah Elam, consultant
Specializing in SQL and VB.NET applicatio
recommends two administrative tools:
Auto FE Updater: Updates front-end applications in a multi-user environment. "It's a lifesaver!"
DNS source script: Creates DSNs from code. "…moving computers and new users requires much less
maintenance."

#6: Steve Erbach, software development
Steve Erbach supplies custom software for the printing industry. With a lot of responsibilities, Erbach uses a lot of
tools:
NoteTab: Award-winning text and HTML editor.
HardCopy: Screen capture utility. "…relaxed shareware license…"
Paint.NET: Image and photo editing software.
ColorPic: "Superb" pop-up color picker control for Web pages.
Irfanview: Fast graphic viewer for Windows.
Windows Grep: Graphical text search and replace tool.
CPU-Z: Quickly review information about system's devices.
FireBug: Web debugging tool. "… absolutely outstanding…nothing beats the DOM information and
JavaScript debugging…"
SpinRite: Data recovery.
AutoHotKey: Automate keystrokes and mouse clicks. "…full-featured for recording mouse movements
and keystrokes."
Process Explorer: Lets you see which handles and DLL processes are open. "Excellent and detailed
information…"
FileMon and Process Monitor: Monitor Windows.
r
RootkitReveale : Rootkit detection utility.
Belarc Advisor: Profile system -- iInstalled software, hardware, missing hotfixes, antivirus status, security
benchmarks, and more.
WinPatrol: Improve system performance.
Win2PDF: Install PDF functionality as a printer.
XML Notepad 2007: Browse and edit XML documents.
MZ-Tools: Enhanced more than a million driver update files.
Disktective: Disk-space reporting.
KeePass: Password manager.
ToDoList: NET-based to-do list.
TreePad: Personal Information Manager (PIM).

#7: r
alyst
Arth F
A thur Fuller, business an
ur uller specializes in MS-SQL development and do
butor to TechRepublic). He's the author of four books on d
ubles as a database administrator (and frequent
contri
atabase development and numerous articles.
t) in Bermuda for a hedge fund. The following utilities help him
Fuller spent most of last year working (yeah… righ
keep his clients happy:
NoteTab: Award-winning text and HTML editor. "Try this and you will never again load NotePad."
xPlorer2: Trouble-free desktop file management. "…fabulous for copying data between directories or hard
disk or memory stick."
#8: Stuart McLachlan, information services
Stua M
rt cLachlan, president of Lexacorp Ltd., in Papua New Guinea, manages the development of information
. Since he's living in par
systems
adise, he tries not to waste time. He uses the following tools to keep him efficient:
Irfanview: Fast graphic viewer/conversion tool for Windows.
Polestar Virtual Printer: Virtual PDF and image printer.
Foxit Reader: "Fast" PDF reader with "neat" capabilities.
AutoIt: "BASIC-like" scripting language for automating Windows GUI and more.
PowerBASIC: A Windows compiler. "…small, fast, no dependencies…"
ZTree: "The best file/directory manager out there."
VirtualBox: Virtualization products for x86 systems. "Great for developin
testing in others."
g in one environment and then
FireFTP: FTP client plug for Firefox.
NetSetManPro: Network settings manager. "I can go to any of my clients' sites and hook my laptop into
their network without changing all sorts of settings."

#9: a
per
Kar
R
K ren Rosenstiel, Web develo
en osenstiel designs and develops Web sites for small businesses and nonprofit organizations, with an
e in accessibility features. Her list is short, but specif
expertis
ic to her detailed work:
UltraEdit: "…an excellent all-around programming editor."
UltraCompare: Compare and merge files, directors, documents, zip archives, and so on.
#10: Francisco Tapia, database administrator
Fra sc
nci o Tapia maintains and monitors 26 SQL Server systems in a manufacturing environment in California. As
you can ima
cations and
run ec
ommercial
ith code and currently relies on a number of
gine, performance is a huge issue for Tapia, who likes to develop his own monitoring appli
s s urity policies for system applications and products (SAP) systems. Tapia also markets a c
product that monitors SQL Server systems. Tapia is a magician w
Red-Gate products:
SQL Backup: Compresses and encrypts SQL Server backups; "… fairly inexpensive and it just works."
SQL Prompt: Intelligent code completion and layout for SQL Server. "Accelerates all my programming."
SQL Response: Tapia is currently beta testing this SQL Server monitor tool and he likes it.
SQL Compare: Moves SQL Server data from development to production.
SQL Diagnostic Manager: Monitors SQL Server.

#11 J
Wit
o
Jon Tydda now provides his
expertise to pharm
so spends an extraordinary
amo t
's "can't live without" tools are:
: on Tydda, IT technician
h m re than a decade of experience in first-, second-, and third-line IT support,
aceutical research and development in the United Kingdom. He al
un of time fixing his friends' broken computers. Tydda
Ad-Aware: The original anti-spyware company, so LavaSoft says.
Spybot-S&D: Detects and removes spyware.
ZoneAlarm: A suite of security products.
AVG Anti-Virus: Antivirus and Internet security.
Startup Control Panel: A simple user interface
start your computer.
that lets you choose which programs launch when you
Process Explorer: Lets you see which handles and DLL processes are open or loaded.
Trojan Hunter: Protects system from Trojans.
MalwareBytes Anti-Malware: Detects and removes malware "where others fail."

#12 D
Dan Waters
: an Waters, business systems
' company, ProMation Systems, Inc., develops
pa ies that want to be more competitive and effect
business process management systems (BPMS) for
com n
ive by automating their internal business processes. His
tool
f
s o choice:
MZ-Tools: Enhanced programming tools for VB and VBA programmers.
Find & Replace: Add-in for Microsoft Access that lets you quickly rename design objects.
Access Analyzer: Provides extensive documentation and analysis of Microsoft Access databases.
SimplyVBA Global Error Handler: Sophisticated add-in for recording a great deal of information about
#1 D
Dre
errors.
3: rew Wutka, network administrator
w Wutka is a network systems administrator with database and programming skills. Currently, he provides IT
skills for the d
tool
u
efense, space, photonics, telecommunications, and medical industries. When he can't find just the right
, W tka sometimes writes his own (such as MoveWindows, in his list below). Here are some of his favorites:
Virtual PC: Create and run virtual machines on a single computer.
Virtual Server: Run every Microsoft operating system from one platform.
Remote Administrator (radmin): "Great tool for administrating your network."
MoveWindows: Custom application that captures all of the open windows on your machine. "Handy for
multiple monitor issues when an application gets lost."
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10+ essential (and free) Windows applications
10 free security tools you should already be using
10 tools to help your remote workers stay in touch
Versi
Version
P li
on history
: 1.0
ub shed: February 4, 2009

10+ Free Windows Apps

10+ essential (and free) Windows applications
By George Ou
Every time I build a new Windows computer, I install a dozen free applications for other people. These
applications all seem to fill essential functions, and they all seem to be well-behaved installers and uninstallers. In
other words, they won’t crash the computer or drag it down with gunk. Since they’ve served me so well, I thought
I’d compile the list here and share them with you. Without spending a dime of your hard-earned money on
software, you can now make the most of your computer.

#1: uTorrent
uTorrent is the BitTorrent client that is a must-have for anyone who wants an effective file-sharing application that
can download large files. It was developed by a lone old-school programmer, Ludvig Strigeus, who wrote a
BitTorrent client in a few hundred kilobytes (yes, that’s not a typo), which is a real pleasant surprise in this age of
bloated Java applications with 100-MB memory footprints. It was bought out by BitTorrent Corporation, which
raised some concerns among the user base. But the client has retained all of its functionality and the new owners
have done a good job of maintaining it.

#2: Skype
Skype is another killer app for the modern personal computer. If you haven’t already heard of it and installed it, go
get it. It’s the first and one of the few VoIP applications on the market that “just works.” Couple it with a good
analog microphone or something like the Polycom Communicator, and you’ll be able to send superb wideband
audio—which is amazing compared to the normal narrowband audio you get on a telephone. If you add
Whiteboard Meeting, which has a free limited version, you now have a mission critical business collaboration
application.
Add a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, Quickcam Pro for Notebooks, or Quickcam Orbit AF for as little at $80 for the
first two models, and you have yourself a very high-quality 640×480 video conferencing solution. Skype’s HQ
(High Quality) video conferencing is something you just have to see to believe. The only downside to the HQ
mode is that Skype does not support IEEE 1394 camcorders, so you have to buy those Logitech webcams if you
want the HQ mode. The
camcorder support would have
allowed much longer zoom for
use in the living room, but
unfortunately, it doesn’t have
that feature yet. Also note that
you need a minimal of 384
kbps uploads to maintain HQ
mode.

#3: Paint.NET
Paint.NET is just a nice free
replacement for Windows
Paint. It requires .NET
Framework 2.0, but that’s
included in Windows Vista. For
a managed programming
language, it’s not that bloated
and loads relatively quickly. I
would love to see RAW image
file support, along with
Lanczos3 image resizing
algorithm, but they aren’t
supported. That softens my
enthusiasm for Paint.NET, but
it’s still a simple image editing
application that is very useful.

#4: Infra recorder
If you don’t have a Nero (OEM or retail) for your CD or DVD burner or some other burner application, Infra
recorder is a good free alternative. Not only that, it’s a lot less bloated and it has a small memory footprint. While
Nero has some great functionality, it comes with too many applications and extra features that gunk up the
system, though you don’t have to install them all. It won’t let you do simultaneous DVD or CD burning or other
advanced things that Nero lets you do, but it does what it does well, and it’s a lot better than what comes with
Windows XP or Vista.

#5: Dr. Divx
For those who want to take their movies on the go or back up their DVDs to a smaller format, Dr. Divx is an
excellent free solution. Unlike the commercial Divx encoder (which I bought and can’t use), Dr. Divx actually
works in Windows Vista. A really cool feature is the ability to handle .dvr-ms files, including HD footage from HDV
cameras as input. The Divx output can be played in something like this $40 up-converting Philips DVD player on
your TV set or it can be played back on any computer. The down side to Dr. Divx is that it is single threaded,
which means it can’t take advantage of both CPU cores, nor can it take advantage of SSE4 on the new Intel
45nm processors, which can have a huge impact on performance. Hopefully this will be addressed in future
versions. For now, I’m just happy that I finally found something to encode my .dvr-ms HD content. Note that you
do need to download and install the Divx codec for Dr. Divx to work.

#6: FastStone Photo Resizer
FastStone Photo Resizer is an absolute killer application for anyone who deals with images. It can batch resize,
rename, and convert images of all formats and sizes. Unlike Paint.NET, it does support Lanczos3 image resizing,
which is a superior algorithm for maintaining as much image fidelity as possible. It installs simply and operates
quickly. If you’ve ever taken a load of 2- to 4-MB digital images and you need to distribute them via e-mail or Web,
you don’t want to spend hours uploading and making your family and friends mad when you make them wait for
100 MB of downloads. FastStone is the perfect mate for digital photographers and bloggers. The only criticism I
have is that it doesn’t support RAW files as an image source.

#7: K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
If you (or someone you know) is the kind of person who likes to
download videos (especially from questionable sources
promising adult content) and you don’t want to end up with
malware, K-Lite Mega Codec pack plus QuickTime Alternative
is for you. This is CRITICAL security advice that everyone
needs to know about. If you can’t play whatever you
downloaded with K-Lite’s included codecs and QuickTime
Alternative, trust me: DELETE that file immediately and DO
NOT run it. Malware pushers will give you these video files that
need special video codecs to play, or so they claim. You
download those special codecs and install them, and I can
assure you it is no longer your computer.

#8: IZArc
As good as the built-in CAB and ZIP utility is in Windows XP
and Vista, it isn’t enough, because you need compatibility with
all the other compression formats out there. IZArc will open any
compression format under the sun and it’s free, unlike a lot of
other utilities on the Internet. Get it, install it, and never worry
about some compression format again. If you download
something from BitTorrent that claims to be some special compression format and you need another one of those
special utilities to open it, the safe bet is to delete that file because there is a good chance that the utility to
decompress the file is malware. Don’t fall for it!

#9: CCleaner
CCleaner stands for Crap Cleaner. It is a great registry cleaner and temp file cleaner. (Note that the built-in Disk
Cleanup utility in Windows XP and Vista will also do a lot of this.) I’ve used this application to clear out gigabytes
of trash on PCs. It also has an excellent uninstaller, and you’d be surprised to see how much junk you can find
with it. One note of caution: It does come bundled with Web toolbars, so be sure you uncheck that option if you
don’t want them.

#10: Autoruns
Autoruns is an essential
tool from Sysinternals (now
owned by Microsoft) in the
war against crapware. For
more on how to use this
tool, see "How to fully
degunk a PC to get rid of
crapware." (Experts only:
Don’t try it unless you know
how to recover Windows.)

#11: Process Explorer
Process Explorer is another essential tool from Sysinternals for diagnosing computer problems and finding
potential malware on your computer. It shows you exactly what’s going on in your computer in an easy-to-read
tree view.

#12: AVG Antivirus Free Edition
Most people who read my blogs know that I am not a fan of antivirus. To me, the only good antivirus application is
no antivirus, but I realize that most consumers need some kind of protection from the hostile Internet and often
themselves. So a nice compromise is AVG Antivirus Free Edition, which has a really small footprint and doesn’t
slow your computer down to the point where your dual-core PC feels like an 80286 computer circa 1982. Best of
all, it won’t hold you hostage for another $80 to renew your annual antivirus signature subscription, since this is
FREE. If you bought a new computer, be sure to remove all of the demo AV software first.

Additional resources
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How to fully degunk a PC to get rid of crapware
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Version history
Version: 1.0
Published: February 7, 2008

Copyright ©2008 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit
http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html

HTML 4 In a Weekend (HTML 4.01, CSS, XHTML)

HTML 4 In a Weekend (HTML 4.01, CSS, XHTML)

Saw a posting that Camille applied for @ MSU that asked for knowledge in HTML, so I found this book on the www.MEL.org website and had it shipped to my office for her. She didn't get the call back so I figured what the heck I update a website for the Dept. of Community Health so why not learn about the code that I am letting the browser write for me. Always wanted to learn more about web design and could help if I get in a pinch while updating a page that I just can't seem to get to work right.

Has a lot of interesting attributes and commands but going to be hard to remember them all. I am sure looking @ the code of other pages will bring back what they are and are used for. Some interesting stuff and if you aren't familiar already seems to be a pretty comprehensive book. Hey if it can teach me its got to be idiot proof ;-).