This page gathers some of my personal notes concerning a few tools I have tried out or use regularly.
Articles
- OpenSSL is actually several things in one: a crypto library (see my article in MISC), an SSL stack and a crypto tool.
- GPG is the open source alternative to PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). It's used to encrypt/decrypt/sign/verify documents.
- Enigmail is Thunderbird's GPG plugin. It automatically encrypts/decrypts/signs/verifies your emails.
- DokuWiki is this wiki ! I like it very much :)
- DotClear is a blog. It's quite good too.
- Joomla is a CMS. My personal home page uses Joomla. But I tend to find it a bit too big, slow, buggy etc.
Links to my favorite tools (or the ones I hate the less !)
My favorite tools
| Agenda | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| Google Calendar |  | | |  | Web-based service |
| Kurlo | | | | Java-based address book. I haven't tried it . No synchronization with Plaxo, Thunderbird etc. | |
| Lightning | | | | Same as Sunbird, but integrated to Thunderbird | |
| Open Contacts | | Absolutely ugly interface, but it works pretty well. Imports Thunderbird address books + said to be usable with SyncML | |||
| Sunbird | | | | Standalone Mozilla application. There's a plugin to read/write to Google Calendars | |
| Backup | |||||
| Cobian Backup | | ||||
| hand made scripts using tar, rsync… | | | |||
| hand made scripts using xcopy… | | ||||
| Sprite Backup | | Performs an entire system backup. Commercial. | |||
| WM5torage | | Shows the storage card as an USB device. This device can then be parsed from Windows, Linux or Solaris. | |||
| Blog | |||||
| DotClear | Installs on a web server | ||||
| Bug Tracker | |||||
| Mantis | I've never installed it, only used it | ||||
| Bugzilla | I've never installed it, only used it | ||||
| CMS | |||||
| Joomla | Installs on a web server. Versions I have tried are heavy and bugged, but there's an active community and it's very customizable | ||||
| Compression | |||||
| 7Zip | | Supports .gz, .bz2 etc | |||
| bzip, gzip, zip | | | | ||
| Development in C | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| Visual Studio Express | | Actually quite handy | |||
| Eclipse | | | | Very heavy but powerful. There's an extension for C | |
Emacs | | | | On Windows, use Cygwin to get it. Of course, other text editors such as PSPad are possible too. | |
| ConTEXT | | ||||
| Development in Java | |||||
| Eclipse | | | | Very heavy but powerful | |
| jEdit | | Actually, I've never really used it for long. | |||
| Download Manager | |||||
| DownThemAll | | | | This is a Firefox add-on | |
| Disk encryption | |||||
| TrueCrypt | | | Supports full disk encryption. On Linux, requires a recent kernel. | ||
| EncFS | | Extremely handy to backup, but security level might not suit all situations + said to have issues concerning NFS | |||
| dm-crypt | | ||||
| Security Box Disk | | Commercial but nice | |||
| PGP Disk | | Commercial but nice | |||
| ZFS Encryption | | Not mature | |||
| Diagrams and flowcharts | |||||
| Dia | | | | ||
| Kivio | | | KDE's Visio | ||
| File encryption | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| GnuPG | | | | On Windows, the WinPT front-end is quite convenient (though buggy) + GPGee | |
| PGP Disk | | Commercial but nice | |||
| File Explorer | |||||
| Total Commander | | Allows edition of files in EEPROM. | |||
| FTP Client | |||||
| FileZilla | | | |||
| FireFTP | | | | Firefox add-on | |
| Gftp | | | |||
| Groupware | |||||
| OBM | | I haven't tried it yet | |||
| Image Editor | |||||
| The GIMP | | | | Supports Wacom Tablets. This is the alternative to Photoshop. | |
| Image Viewer | |||||
| XnView | | | | Light, and works well. | |
| NikonView | | Free with my camera. Quite good, and not too heavy. | |||
| Instant Messaging | |||||
| Google talk | | ||||
| Netvibes google talk widget | | | | A bit buggy | |
| Gmail's widget | | | | ||
| GoTalkMobile 3 | | Google Talk for Pocket PC | |||
| Pidgin | | | | Multi-protocol IM. Supports Google Talk. I've only tried it on Solaris, where it works fine. | |
| Mail Client | |||||
| Thunderbird | | | | On Linux, the name's Icedove (I'm not getting into the details, there is a slight difference with Thunderbird). | |
| Mail Encryption | |||||
| Enigmail | | | | This is a Thunderbird add-on. It requires GnuPG. | |
| Mobile synchronization | |||||
| ActiveSync | | | Actually, I hate it, but I haven't found any open source alternative… | ||
| FinchSync | | | | | Java/HTTP based. It will only synchronize a few things such as address books |
| GMobileSync | | Synchronizes Google Calendar ↔ Mobile | |||
| Music player | |||||
| Amarok | | | |||
| iTunes | | Honestly, I barely know how to use it. I don't play music on my PC very often. | |||
| Windows Media Player | | | I don't use it much either. Synchronization with mobile devices is a bit complicated. | ||
| Network sniffer | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| Wireshark | | | | Ex Ethereal | |
| Password safe | |||||
| Bruce Schneier's Password Safe | | The interface is very basic, but it works well. And it's safe : |
|||
| KeePass Password Safe | | | | It's possible to import/export Password Safe databases using an extension. | |
| KeePassX | | Actually, if you really try, there's a chance this works on Solaris too, but you have to compile it yourself, with Qt etc  |
|||
| Password Gorilla | | | The Tcl/Tk interface is just plain ugly, and the application is slow, but it reads/writes Password Safe databases without problem. | ||
| Password Safe | | A Password Safe port to Pocket PC | |||
| PDF Viewer | |||||
| Acrobat Reader | | | Heavy | ||
| evince | | Also able to view PS files | |||
| Foxit Reader | | Smaller than Acrobat Reader | |||
| gpdf | | | Basic. | ||
| Project Management | |||||
| Open Workbench | | I haven't tried it yet, but it's meant to be an open source alternative to Microsoft Project | |||
| Remote Desktop Control | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| Tight VNC | | | Free. A few lags. | ||
| Radmin | | Commercial, but good. | |||
| Social Network | |||||
| Plaxo | | | | | Web service. Integrates both personal and professional profiles. Synchronizes contacts with Gmail (free), Yahoo (free) and Pocket PCs (pay) |
| | | | Dedicated to professional contacts | ||
| VoIP | |||||
| Skype | | | | Free but closed source. | |
| GoSIP | | | Slow on my HTC Touch | ||
| Slides | |||||
| LaTeX | | | I've seen very nice results using the Prosper package | ||
| PowerPoint | | | PowerPoint Mobile for Pocket PCs | ||
| Open Office Impress | | | | The open source alternative to Power Point. Able to read/write .ppt | |
| Star Office | | Typically installed on Solaris. Able to read/write .ppt | |||
| SSH Client | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| PuTTY | | ||||
| ssh | | | | Use Cygwin to get ssh on Windows | |
| Pocket PuTTY | | A port of PuTTY for Pocket PC. | |||
| System cloning | |||||
| Clonezilla (LiveCD) | | | | A free alternative to Norton Ghost. I must be dumb: I never managed to re-use the clones |
|
| System rescue | |||||
| System Rescue CD (Live CD) | | | | Even offers a graphic environment. Useful to check, repair partitions. | |
| Text editors | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| PSPad | | Light, works well. I had a few crashes though. Usable for development. | |||
| Win32Pad | | A replacement to Windows' notepad. Light, works well, but not meant to be used for development | |||
| ConTEXT | | Okay. Usable for development. I was a bit disappointed. | |||
| Emacs | | | | Emacs really is more than a simple text editor. I it ! On Windows, use emacs over Cygwin |
|
| Versioning system | |||||
| Subversion | | | | An alternative to CVS. Simpler to use. The TortoiseSVN extension for Windows is great. |
|
| CVS | | | | Complicated but reliable | |
| Virtual machine | |||||
| VirtualBox | | | | Open source. Nice, but several limitations and bugs. | |
| VMWare | | | The reference. But commercial (yet, the VMWare Player is free) | ||
| Video Editor | |||||
| Video Spin | | Very intuitive, but crashes from time to time (fortunately, the recovery procedure works !) and commercial | |||
| Qemu | | I haven't tried it. | |||
| Web browser | |||||
| Firefox | | | | Firefox is certainly not perfect, but it's the best (to my opinion) ! For Linux, actually, it's Iceweasel. Crashes from time to time. Memory consuming. | |
| Internet Explorer | | | On Windows, I simply hate it  . On Pocket PC, it's okay. |
||
| Opera | | | Opera is a famous browser, but without any special reason, I'm not enthusiastic. Opera Mini is an adaptation of Opera for Pocket PC. There's a nice feature to zoom in/out of pages. | ||
| Lynx | | | This is a text-based browser. Handy when you don't have any windowing system. | ||
| Web editor | |||||
| Description | Windows | Linux | Solaris | WinCE | Comments |
| KompoZer | | | Ex N-Vu | ||
| Wiki | |||||
| DokuWiki | | | | Does not require a MySQL database | |
| Word editor | |||||
| Jarte | | I've just tried it, but it seems very promising, particularly if you just want to edit a few nicely set notes. It reads Word (.doc or .docx) documents if they're not too complicated (no embedded objects). It does not support the Open Office format. | |||
| Open Office Writer | | | | Open Source alternative to Word. Able to read/write .doc | |
| Word | | | On Pocket PC, it's called Word Mobile | ||
| X server | |||||
| Cygwin-X (open source) | | ||||
(c) A. Apvrille - 2009