B. For techies
These are for those who are quite familiar with computers and would like
to discover and play with all kinds of programs. Some developer tools are
also included. They are all free (freedom to use, and 0 cost)!
1.
Virtual Machines
Virtual machine is a virtualization program on top of a host machine. You can use it to
simulate multiple operating systems inside your current operating system. So, if your
computer is powerful enough, you can have multiple systems installed
and running at the same time on the same computer. This is very helpful for
development and testing purposes. For example, I currently have about 10
different versions of Windows systems and another 10 different versions of
Linux/Unix on my three
computers! Recommended!
2. XML/XSLT Editors
- Recommended comprehensive
- XMLPad:
a pretty powerful XML/XSD/XSLT editor; providing multiple views
for XML content. But sometimes there is ad.
- XMLFox: a nice tool
to view and edit XML schemas (and XML content) with multiple views; requires .Net 2.0.
- Recommended unique
- XPath
Visualizer: great tool to test XPath expressions.
- Treebeard:
a open source XML/XSLT editor, based on Java. easy for
transformation (side by side view); but lack of visual mode and
advanced features.
- XML Marker:
XML editor, very unique in visualizing XML data using tables, which
is very helpful for editing structured relational data.
- Others
- Notepad++: a general editor for many languages including XML.
- EditiX Lite:
very nice visual (diagram style) editor; it's good to get XPath
information for any nodes; based on Java. limitation on the free
edition (cannot generate schema).
- XML Notepad
2007: a basic XML editing tool
downloadable from Microsoft; requires .Net 2.0.
This tool is coming with Windows. You can use it to remotely operate
other computers running Windows, just like using a local computer. It is
very useful if you have multiple computers in different locations and
connected to the internet (or a home network). I even help my father (who is
on the other side of the earth, China) to configure his computer using this
tool. Strongly recommended!
This is a FTP tool. If you are managing files on a remote hosted server,
this one is good. Or, you can use a browser (e.g. IE) as a FTP interface.
5. Computer information utilities
- CPU-Z is a small utility program to display information about CPU, memory
and motherboard.
-
PC-Wizard is information and benchmarking utility for major computer
components.
-
HWMonitor is a PC health monitoring program.
6.
Network monitoring tools
- Shrew Soft VPN client is a free VPN client, compatibal with Windows
7 64 bit system. It also can import Cisco VPN profiles.
8. Hash tools