Bonetree Blog

5 Tools That Make My Life and Work Easier

In the past year I’ve been spending more and more time being productive online and along the way I’ve come across some pretty awesome tools. I always enjoy talking about stuff like this and I thought it would be interesting to do a proper write up on some of them. I tend to be pretty fickle when it comes to these things, so when I use an application consistently for a significant length of time it’s because I really like it.

Productivity

I’ve been using Gmail for about 4 years now and it’s been absolutely great. It’s got a light, clean interface, tons of storage space (6489mb for me right now) and is ultra accessible via POP or IMAP if you need it to be. I use a combination of filters and labels to sort out my e-mail and I’m quite happy with the spam detection and handling. I’ve recently played around with Google Apps and was very impressed with how easy it was to set up Gmail on my own domain. For a small-medium sized business Google Apps can make a lot of things simple and cost-effective. One feature that is lacking (surprisingly) is a shared address book - something that I think is quite important in any groupware. For the curious, check out Lifehacker’s gmail section for some awesome tips, tweaks and extras.

One of the most useful web apps I’ve ever come across, Google Docs makes my life a whole lot simpler when it comes to creating, updating and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Not having to sync multiple copies of a spreadsheet between my desktop and notebook at home or at work is a great relief, and being able to access my documents from anywhere I can get online is great. For times when I won’t be online, I can easily export my data to a variety of formats and then simply upload my changes when I get back online. Google Docs supports practically all the features that I needed from Excel and Word in a free and more convenient format! I haven’t touched Office on my PC ever since.

I always considered myself too disorganized to be able to use a calendar effectively. Google Calendar changed my mind about all that. I can easily create events, add important details, invite participants and set up reminders (via e-mail, SMS or a pop-up). The standard views are supported, as well as a neat “agenda” view where I spend most of my time. Your calendars can be shared or exported individually in a variety of formats (XML, iCal or HTML) or even embedded in a webpage. They’ve even added support for syncing with your Outlook calendar recently.

Development

For all my source control needs I use the excellent open-source Subversion. The project was started to address several flaws in CVS and has quickly caught on. I’ve found it incredibly easy to install, use and maintain. Setting up a basic repository takes seconds and if you’re not a *NIX guru or a master of the command-line, there are several GUI clients such as RapidSVN or the awesome (but Windows only) TortoiseSVN. I use the command line client quite a bit but do most of my work using TortoiseSVN on Windows - it has an excellent diff/merge tool and it’s shell integration kicks some serious ass. I’ve recently started lurking in the Subversion developer mailing list and it looks like I’ll be helping out with the release notes for Subversion 1.5, so I’m pretty excited about that. If you’re looking to get started with Subversion, check out the great SVN Book.

Smarty is one of those things like microwaves or cellphones - I don’t know how I managed without it. Using a template engine allows me to completely separate PHP code from the presentation (HTML). This makes it easier for everyone involved - as a coder I don’t care what the pages look like or how they are laid out, and a web designer doesn’t need to sift through any code. My code only needs to process input, prepare the data requested and then display the template. Smarty takes the data and using a very simple set of “template tags”, allows the web designer to control the way it’s all presented. Smarty is also easy to extend using a very straightforward plugin mechanism. Even when I’m working alone without a web designer, Smarty lets me concentrate on the backend logic first and then modify the presentation at a later time with no chance of messing things up. For anyone that’s starting to get serious with PHP, I highly recommend this software.

Looking at the list now it seems pretty Google-heavy, but I guess there’s a reason for that. I don’t really consider myself a fan boy but Google’s stuff really helps me out and I like the consistent and simple interfaces found in practically all their offerings. I haven’t even mentioned Analytics or AdSense, but those are great as well. Maybe I should’ve titled this post “My favourite Google tools” instead?

What tools do you use? Let me know!

Posted in Development, Web |
Tags: google, smarty, subversion |