2011 1

Software update

Time for the annual update on software I use. This time, I’ve got Wakoopa to help me with the relative usage as well. Here’s the top 100 software / web apps I’ve used recently, and how long I spent on them. Gmail 186361 seconds Notepad++ 130641 seconds Google Chrome 79879 seconds GitHub 43780 seconds Windows Command Prompt 40967 seconds Microsoft Excel 32578 seconds Microsoft Word 27067 seconds Microsoft PowerPoint 27059 seconds Windows Explorer 20902 seconds Google Docs 17989 seconds Foxit Reader 17001 seconds Microsoft Outlook 15855 seconds Internet Explorer 15830 seconds Google Search 15616 seconds Skype 14423 seconds Media Player Classic 14159 seconds Google Groups 7061 seconds Google Calendar 5531 seconds Wesabe 2814 seconds Google Analytics 2665 seconds TeamViewer 1985 seconds RGui 1875 seconds LinkedIn 1528 seconds YouTube 1400 seconds Stack Overflow 1167 seconds Acrobat Connect 964 seconds Kongregate 914 seconds HTML Help 871 seconds PicPick 790 seconds Zoundry Raven 684 seconds Mockingbird 657 seconds Twitter 655 seconds iStockphoto 590 seconds 7-Zip 584 seconds Buzznet 552 seconds Inkscape 516 seconds Bitbucket 499 seconds Microsoft Visio 496 seconds Paint.NET 474 seconds IrfanView 461 seconds Tableau Public 436 seconds µTorrent 435 seconds HandBrake 422 seconds Check Point Endpoint Security 411 seconds Windows Task Manager 385 seconds Microsoft Project 372 seconds IETester 347 seconds Google Maps 340 seconds eBay 310 seconds Spokn 270 seconds Firefox 269 seconds Google Calendar Sync 259 seconds Windows Calculator 247 seconds PayPal 246 seconds JsonView 220 seconds Windows Live Writer 184 seconds Junction Link Magic 152 seconds WinDirStat 142 seconds Kindle 139 seconds XAMPP 127 seconds Wakoopa 105 seconds Dropbox 100 seconds Office Help Viewer 99 seconds PrimoPDF 94 seconds PuTTY 84 seconds Python 80 seconds Flavors.me 75 seconds Google Sites 71 seconds Process Explorer 70 seconds Windows Volume Control 63 seconds Wikipedia 58 seconds Nitro PDF Reader 57 seconds Management Console 47 seconds PythonWin 45 seconds Windows Based Script Host 45 seconds WinDiff 45 seconds VLC Media Player 39 seconds ClipX 35 seconds Windows Installer 35 seconds The Internet Movie Database 32 seconds ImageShack 31 seconds WordPad 25 seconds TeraCopy 22 seconds Skype Portable 22 seconds Picasa Web Albums 20 seconds Syncplicity 17 seconds Google Reader 16 seconds Google Talk 15 seconds VirtualDub 12 seconds Adobe Manager 10 seconds FreeCall 10 seconds Notepad 8 seconds Codebase 5 seconds eTrust ITM 5 seconds Google Checkout 5 seconds GDI++ Tray Notifier 5 seconds ImgBurn 2 seconds Virtual Desktop Manager 2 seconds Tesseract201 2 seconds TortoiseHg 0 seconds Comments Somnath 1 Mar 2011 4:38 pm: More time on Gmail than browsers - how are you accessing Gmail then? S Anand 6 Mar 2011 8:51 pm: @Somnath, mostly breaking through proxies – see http://goo.gl/6wyg0 and http://goo.gl/DNtui. @Thej, no idea I’m afraid, but before I used Wakoopa, I was using https://gist.github.com/857652 which worked just fine, except that it wasn’t social and didn’t have the pretty charts. You might want to tweak that for Linux. Thejesh GN 5 Mar 2011 5:29 pm: It doesnt run on Linux (only PC n MAC). Anything for me? Shankar V 28 Feb 2011 3:10 am: hi Anand how do you generate this list? Wakoopa is blocked at Infy. So could not check that one out. Also, surprised to note that you are a Chrome user against FF. I have used both and my preference is still FF. S Anand 28 Feb 2011 6:38 am: I work out of client sites – so sites aren’t blocked. Plus, it includes software from my home laptop. I shifted to Chrome a while ago, even for development, mostly because it’s faster than FF. The only thing I miss is Firebug, really.

2010 1

Portable Apps

I’m totally hooked to portable apps now. You don’t need admin rights to install them. You can run them off a USB stick. They won’t make your machine slower. All the reasons not to install an application vanish. PortableApps.com is a good starting point. For what it’s worth, here are my portable apps by category (most used on top). Platforms Firefox. If you’re using IE6, please die. Lack of admin access is no longer an excuse. Cygwin brings you UNIX commands to Windows. Portable Ubuntu run Ubuntu as a window in Windows. Tiny utilities ...

2008 1

In search of a good editor

It's amazing how hard it is to get a good programming editor. I've played around with more editors/IDEs than I care to remember: e Notepad++ NoteTab SciTE Crimson Editor Komodo Eclipse Aptana ... There are four features that are critical to me. Syntax highlighting. Over time, I've found this to increase readability dramatically. Look at this piece of code with and without syntax highlighting: Doesn't the structure of the document just jump out with syntax highlighting? Anyway, I've gotten used to that. Column editing. I want to be able to do this: Being able to type across rows is incredibly useful. I use it both for programming as well as to complement data-processing on Excel. Unicode support. I often work with non-ASCII files, particularly in Tamil. Unicode support comes in handy when debugging pages for my songs site. Auto-completion. This is 10 times more productive than having to look up the manual for each function. (Oh, and it's got to be free too. Except for e Text Editor, all the others qualify.) ...