What's in a RIA Software Engineer's Tool Chest

Major Power Tools

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Adobe Flex Builder, Flash Builder
  
• Adobe Coldfusion Builder
• SQL Server Management Studio

Browsers

• IE
  
• FireFox
• Google Chrome
  

Eclipse Plugins

• Subclipse: SVN client
  
• Flex Formatter: auto indent and format Flex code
  
• Aptana: excellen JS, HTML, CSS editors
  
• CFEclipse: Coldfusion editor
  

Firefox Plugins

• Firebug
• Html Validator
• Screengrab: take screenshots of browser content (including Flash)
  
• YSlow
• Web Developer

Free or really affordable utilities

• Data Dictionary Creator: manage and generate data dictionary
  
• Service Capture: capture HTTP traffic in/out of local computer, with built-in parser of Flash Remoting content
  
• Fiddler: capture HTTP traffic, well known in .NET community
  
• JSON Viewer: all you can ask for to navigate, search, format JSON data string
  
• VNC: remote desktop
  
• Tortois SVN, CVS, GIT: version control with Windows Explorer integration
  
• Tour De Flex: Air application showcasing Flex controls and sample code
• Skype: IM, talk, video conference, share desktop, ...
  
• Google Desktop: search code, design document with ease
  
• GIMP: free replacement for Photoshop
  
• Sysinternals: a group of Windows Utilities now owned by Microsoft. Here are a few of my favorites:
  
• Process Explorer: advance task manager, mostly used to search for locked resources
  
• Port Mon: serial port traffic analyzer
  
• Autoruns: manage autorun programs that can start through various mechanisms
  
• Depends: Dependency Walker
• WinMerge: graphical diff, can be easily integrated with Tortoise clients
  

Online Resources in Browser Bookmarks

• Google Code Search: search open source code
  
• Google Analytics: keep tab on web site usage
  
• Stackoverflow: ask questions, search for answers, and answer some questions. Occasionally get job offers due to your answers here
  
• EETimes: resource on embedded, semiconductor development
• TechCrunch
  
• DZONE: daily digest of tech blogs similar to TechCrunch
  
• ScottGu's Blog: MSFT VP of several .NET products
  
• MIX: Video, PPT of past conference
  
• PDC: Video, PPT of past conference
  
• GOOGLE IO: Video of past conference
  
• BeanStalk: online SVN server
• Github: onlien GIT server
  
• Gist: code snippet management
  
• CFLib.org: Coldfusion library
  

Open Source Software

• FlexLib: Flex controls
  
• AS3Core: Actionscript 3 utilities
  
• PureMVC: MVC framework, popular in Flex community
  
• Cairngorm: official MVC framework in Flex community
  
• Report.NET: .NET PDF library
  
• ZedGraph: .NET chart library
  
• SQLite: light-weight database, popular in embedded community
  
• NUnit: .NET unit testing framework
• FlexUnit: Flex unit testing framework

Icons

• Java Look and Feel Graphics Repository: official JAVA icon set
  
• Visual Studio Image Library: came with Visual Studio Installation
• Web Application Icons from WebAppers.com
• famfamfam.com