Malphurs

Article 3 of 4 in a series covering utilities are a “must-have” for any web developer.
(Read Part 1 and Part 2)

Introduction

In part one of this series, we covered System Utilities… The items we use every day at Malphurs Interactive that both increase our productivity and improve our work.

In part two, we looked at browser-related utilities, including plug-ins, extensions, and bookmarklets.

In part three, we will look at specific applications that help us day in and day out. Note that these are mainly Mac-based applications, though many are available on the PC as well.

Part Three: Applications

DEVICE CENTRAL CS5 | $NA (Part of the Adobe Creative Suite)
www.adobe.com

Device Central is one off the most overlooked of Adobe’s products… Yet, it should be included in every developer’s toolbox. Device Central is simply an incredible tool for simplifying the production and testing of your mobile-based projects. By creating an environment where you can download libraries of device profiles and then test how your content will appear, it takes quite a bit of guesswork out of the mobile content production process.

Features include:

• Hundreds of device profiles, all of which you can download and organize into sets for testing purposes.
• Support for Flash (though we all hate it
• Dynamic testing environments that include display conditions (i.e. – backlight timeouts, sunlight reflections)
• Performance simulation, such as wireless network lag time and variable network speeds

EVERNOTE | $45 per year (FREE up to 60MB of storage)
www.evernote.com

Its developers say Evernote is a tool to help you “remember everything”, though I like to describe it as a replacement for your digital “junk closet”. Everything I want to remember – from websites, meeting notes, scans, recipes, memos, and more – I simply throw into Evernote. Instead of bookmarking a page (that may eventually change anyway), I “clip” it into Evernote. Instead of searching through meeting notes to no avail, I scan them in and let Evernote’s OCR do the work. Instead of looking in vain for that old, but good blog idea, I search – and find – it quickly in Evernote. If that is not enough, it even works with many of your favorite apps such as InstaPaper.

Better yet, by using categories and tags, the program allows you to quickly find and sort through all this information. So, your digital “junk closet” will actually tun into an organized Container Store set-up!

As the website says, Evernote allows you to:

• Capture anything
• Access it from anywhere
• And find all of it FAST

Plug-ins are also available that offer even more functionality to this capable application. Visit “The Trunk” for additions such as:

• Skitch: A screen capture and sharing tool
• Quickoffice Pro integration: Create and edit the Microsoft Office documents you save in Evernote
• DocScanner: Transform all those paper documents into digital items within Evernote

JING | $14.95 per year (FREE for standard edition)
www.techsmith.com

Simply invaluable! Jing is a funny name for a fantastic application that allows you take a picture or video of anything on your computer screen. You can then share them with others in such ways as email, IM, Twitter, a blog, the web, or even FTP.

We have found this tool most helpful in:

• project collaboration (a picture is truly worth a thousand words!)
• providing project edits and changes to contractors
• delivering tutorials to clients
• providing tech support to family members and friends (“This is how you buy a song in iTunes, dad!”)

MAMP | $59.00 (FREE for standard edition)
www.mamp.info

There are many personal web server applications out there, but MAMP is the one that serves Malphurs Interactive best. MAMP – which stands for Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP – allows you to install Apache, PHP and MYSQL onto your computer and set-up a local server environment within minutes. No more lag time when connecting to that external hosting server during development. Just develop your sites (think WordPress) locally and then transfer them when done!

If you go with the Pro version, MAMP will even allow you to set-up such things as a virtual hosts, dynamic DNSs, mail servers, and more.

PARALLELS | $79.99
www.parallels.com

Of all the products listed in this article, Parallels will probably be your biggest money saver. If you love working on a Mac (which we all do, right?), gone are the days of buying PC laptops just to test your websites or apps. And gone are the days of having to reboot into Apple’s Boot Camp just to run Windows for a few minutes of testing.

By allowing you to run Windows side-by-side with your Mac OS, you can develop on the computer you love and still test on other operating systems. Wether it be Vista, Windows 7, or XP, Parallels allows you to install multiple versions of the Windows OS and run their applications with no worries. Though we use it mainly for testing purposes, Parallels does allow you to run Windows just like anyone else with a PC laptop. So, need a Windows-only application for a project? Well, you are in luck. Want to play that latest game? Have fun! Just pop open Parallels and you are all set.

TRANSMIT | $34.99
www.panic.com

Touted as the #1 desktop Mac FTP client, Transmit is worthy of its praise. Supporting multiple transfer types, this application is both functional and great looking. With an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, the pains of FTP transfers are a thing of the past.

Transmit’s features include:

• Support for FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, WebDAV and more
• Multi-Connection transfers
• Editing of files within the application
• Mac-like view options (yes, even cover flow!)
• Quick access to favorites, history and file-transfer queues
• A handy menu-bar widget to access favorites and more

WALLET | $19.99
www.acrylicapps.com

Wallet is a great little application that does big things. By storing, securing, and syncing your “digital life”, Wallet saves your FTP info, site passwords, serial numbers, and even such things as credit card and bank account information.

With its “military-grade” security, Wallet gives you the power to store almost any kind of data you want. You can attach files to entries within the application and also access data within your browser. By simply clicking an icon, Wallet will auto-fill forms and log you into your favorite (or not so favorite) websites. Add Wallet’s iPhone app and secure DropBox back-up functionality and owning Wallet is a no brainer.

Have a useful application to add to the list? Let us know by commenting below!

Check back soon for part four, focusing on the top frameworks for web developers!