Useful Software

Developing and maintaining a website is never as simple as we'd like and usually not as complicated and difficult as we might imagine. Between those two extremes we need some tools to ease our tasks.

Before going into individual products I should explain that I develop website resources, images, audio files, control files, etc., using PCs running under various versions of Windows; my current desktop system runs Windows XP, my laptop runs Windows Vista. I have no qualms with others that prefer to use either Mac or Linux based products. While all of the products listed below run on Windows, many are also available for use on other platforms.

It used to be, and sometimes still is, that commercial products did/do a better job and offered more capabilities than "shareware." Over the years shareware has frequently evolved into Open Source projects. The very nature of Open Source means that these products are available for use, and modification if you're interested, by anyone. I now routinely look for Open Source software first when I need a new tool to solve a particular need.

If one aspires to the title "Webmaster" then they will probably find that they need to become a modern Ranaissance Man (or woman) because there are many individual tasks and skills necessary to produce a good website. Day to day maintenance of the contents of a website generally requires a much more limited set of skills and tools.

Here's the list of products. All are Open Source/shareware/freeware except those with one or more "$"s after their name. The number of "$" indicates relative price. Don't be too affraid of multiple "$"s, I tend to be pretty frugal.

Audio Editing

• Audacity
  

Image Editing

• Paint Shop Pro $$
  
• GIMP
• Irfanview
• Inkscape
  

Text Editing

• Windows Notepad
• Notepad++
  

More to come

I'll be adding to this list from time to time. Check back soon!