24 Nov
2005

Change is Good, Right?

I have just spent the prerequisite far-too-long time reformatting
my laptop, re-installing Windows, and re-installing a ton of software. The good news
is that I now have an amazing screen. I guess installing the right video drivers was
a good thing.

Also, I have both Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 Team Suite installed
side-by-side. We’ll be seeing how they play together.

Lastly, I am trying a few new tools instead of the old ones that
I am so used to.

Before the Rebuild Now I am Trying

TextPad

Ahh, my tried and true, trusty Textpad. TextPad, in the years that
I have used you, you have never let me down. You find in files, do regex replacements,
and allow me record macros to bulk process a bunch of files into HTML or something.
I love you, but you are yesterday’s news. Surely there is a more attractive alternative
out ther for me. You should also update your code once in a while.

NotePad2

Regular expressions, syntax highlighting, other stuff. Is it better
than TextPad? I dunno, but it is newer. I will give it a try for awhile. I am way
to old to care about the VI / Emacs debate, so this is really a low impact one.

BlogJet

BlogJet is a great application. I will never go back to solely managing
my blog through the HTML editor in a web page, but BlogJet has some serious flaws,
too. There is no table support without writing the HTML, the editor is kinda hokey
and non-standard.I could go on. That said, it works and works well. I just want something
more polished.

Anconia RocketPost

I am actually authoring this post with RocketPost.I haven’t bought
it yet, but I might. Notice anything different in this post? That’s right, a table.
Hey, BlogJet, get a clue.

I have already had an email exchange with the author behind this
software and he seems to be responsive to questions.

NewsGator

I have been using this for several years now and I am addicted to
getting my RSS feeds in Outlook. I am not addicted to this software not receiving
steady improvements and updates due to the company’s recent acquisition of Feed Demon.
I hope to see better action from NewsGator in the future.

Attensa

This is still an Outlook RSS aggregator. It is just that Attensa
doesn’t make me buy into the whole “centralized OPML” model. Frankly, I just don’t
want to read my blog feeds on a web page. Getting them in Outlook is just fine, thank
you. Attensa has better support for podcasting and it is free. Oh, and it is free.

Araxis Merge

This is a heck of a lot better tool that WinDiff or some other unusable
applications. I have used this for a couple of years and have no complaints. I just
want to see what else there is out there.

Beyond Compare

I installed it, but haven’t had much use for it yet. So far, so good.