Useful Non-testing Tools

After writing two philosophic testing blog entries that smacked of a bourbon fogged night (I promise; I was sober!), I decided to give the people something with some meat.  I have compiled a list (no warnings or errors) of some of the best non-testing tools that testers can use.  These are tools that aren’t directly related to testing, but help make our job easier.  I have used continually these tools continually.  I could be a douche bag hipster and throw together a list of cutting edge tools that are cool to mention, but I won’t.  I find that kind of behavior disingenuous to promote tools I don’t really use so I’m only going to mention ones that I’ve actually found useful.    OH, AND THEY ARE ALL FREE! If any of the links don’t work, just Google the name of the tool.  You’ll find it.  Google knows all.  Here’s the meat:

Cropper  (Screen Capture Utility)
http://blogs.geekdojo.net/brian/articles/Cropper.aspx

Cropper is a transparent, floating screenshot utility.  You can make it big, small just by dragging the corner.  You can change the output format and resolution. Left Click or Press Enter to take a screenshot.  This is an absolute must have for anyone that has to take screenshots.  (Irony: in order to take a screenshot of Cropper itself, I had to use PrtScn.  Haha.)

Paint.NET (graphics editing program)
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Paint.NET is a great utility for editing photos.  This is especially true if you only have MS Paint that comes with windows.  (What a piece of garbage MS Paint is!)  The interface is nice and slick and easy to use.  If you’re currently using GIMP, give this one a try.  You may like it better.  I think it’s better.  One caveat: if you are a long time power user of Photoshop, you will probably turn your nose up at this program.  Photoshop is definitely better.  But this is free, SON!

Notepad++ (replacement for MS Notepad)
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

Notepad++ is a badass replacement for MS Notepad.  If you didn’t have any nice development tools, you could write your code from here, compile it from the command line, and not feel bad about yourself.  First off, it has color coding different file types (see XML above), and of course, you can add custom schemas.  You can do absolutely crazy find and replace string manipulations with this program.  You can write complex macros.  You can convert the character set from Windows to Mac to UNIX.  Whatever you want!  It accepts plug-ins.  People build tons of plug-ins for it.  I downloaded a plugin that allowed me to view and edit the Hex of a compiled *.exe.  If you like options, this program is chalked full of them without being a bloated piece of crap.  This is the Ivan Drago of Notepad replacements.  ”I must break you” from using MS Notepad

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Replacing Notepad with Notepad++ (Notepad sucks!)
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/commun/misc/NppLauncher.bin.zip

Now that you have Notepad++, why would you ever go back to stupid MS Notepad?    Let’s make it where Notepad++ completely replaces it.  Download the launcher from the above link.  Unzip it.  Copy the “notepad.exe” file into:

C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386\
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\
C:\WINDOWS\system32\
C:\WINDOWS\

You may get some messages popping up asking you if it’s okay to do this.  Don’t worry about it.  It’s fine.  Windows can be nervous, but don’t you get nervous.

For additional Info on replacement of Notepad go here: 
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm/

I have tons more tools to go. Return later to see Part II.