Access Tools of the Trade

Note from Kevin Anderson’s talk

CAUG, Sep. 2011

Inspiration - Mike Gunderloy's blog: http://afreshcup.com/home/2009/10/11/my-tools-of-the-trade-2009.html

Hardware

Primary development PC: moving to HP DV7 core i5 laptop with 6MB RAM, plus 4GB SD card for ReadyBoost. Has extra bay for a second hard drive, plan to use for Solid State Drive (SSD).

Backup

• Maxtor external drive for weekly local backups.

• Bare external hard drive with USB/SATA adapter for quarterly drive image backup using Gparted Live CD and rotated off-site.

• Cloud backup: JungleDisk, have used Microsoft Live Mesh.

Software

• OS: Windows7 Home Premium 64-bit. Trying to get by with having to upgrade to Ultimate/Professional. Was using Ultimate before.

• Access/Office: MS Office XP thru Office 2010, but mostly use Access 2003 – oldest version supported in Windows7 that has code signing.

• Virtual Machine: Virtualbox (free from Oracle). Faster, more reliable than Microsoft XP Mode/Virtual PC, plus is cross-platform.

• Install builder: Inno Setup (free).

• Code signing: komodo – cheapest I’ve found, works fine.

• Text editor: Notepad++, but still have Notepad as my default.

• FTP: Filezilla

• Terminal shell: putty. Use to setup SSH for secure Internet at public wifi sites.

• Graphics: Photoshop Elements – can create icons, stitch images together. Still use MS Paint for screenshots.

• Accounting: Quickbooks 2002

• Source code control – WinZip ;)

• Project management/issue tracker – various text files and spreadsheets

Web

• Browser: Chrome/Firefox. Use Firebug add-in in some web development. Google Reader for RSS feeds.

• Web-based office – Google Docs – great for sharing simple files.

• Webmail: Yahoo! Mail, looking for alternative that’s not gmail.

• Large file transfer: dropbox.com but shopping for alternative.

• Hosting: affordable Linux-based reseller: site5.com. Have Windows hosting at DiscountASP.net

Miscellaneous

• ImgBurn
• Virtual Clone Drive
• Fileshredder
• 7-zip