Category: Dev Tools


Replace WinZip with 7-Zip

7-Zip is simply the best zip management tool out there, paid or unpaid.  It handles ALL zip formats, not just some.  It compresses zip files more efficiently than WinZip, and 7-Zip’s “.7z” format is even more compressed and performs faster than its .zip format.  7-Zip has a wonderful user interface: colorful, simple and intuitive.  Opening a zip in 7-Zip defaults to folder view, so you always see the folder format (or lack thereof) and you’re never surprised by a hundred files dumped onto your desktop.

image

Still not convinced?  Try it for yourself, it’s also free and open source.

UPDATE: the commercial license of the Kinect For Windows SDK has been released

You can finally write cool apps using your Kinect for your Windows 7 PC, but if you use them at work (even for in-house development), Microsoft will come at you with everything they have.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/

Long list of ways using your expensive Kinect system is actually illegal:  http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/faq.aspx

Replace cmd with Console2

Scott Hanselman has a great post on how to set up a better cmd, powershell, and vscommand all-in-one console with separate tabs.  The upgraded console lets you copy & paste like a normal person, let’s you set default directories, and even resizes in both directions! Here’s my setup in retro green-on-black. (Notice the cmd, Powershell, and VSCommand icons in the tabs)

image

Here’s how you do it:

View full article »

Replace Photoshop with GIMP

GIMP is a free open source image editing tool.  It has all the features I need from Adobe Photoshop and I’ve found it to be more intuitive to use.  For quick edits such as cropping screenshots + circle/arrow/look-at-this, I use Paint.NET.  For everything else, I use GIMP.  You can download the Windows installer from SourceForge here:  gimp-win.sourceforge.net

Replace Notepad with Notepad2

Notepad2 launches instantly, just like Notepad but it has tabbing and line wrap…it even has code syntax highlighting for all the major languages and scripts.  Download the Setup for version 4.2.25 (or higher) and it will replace all calls to Notepad with Notepad2 (e.g. typing “notepad” in Run launches Notepad2).

http://code.google.com/p/notepad2-mod/

© 2012 Robert Corvus