Favorite Tools

Personal Development

• FullRecall is an electronic flash card program that employs Spaced Repetition. I have countless 3x5 cards for Greek, Spanish, Bible verses, work-related topics, etc. However, it is logistically impossible to carry them all with me to review whenever I have a spare minute. I wanted an electronic solution since my Windows Mobile phone is my constant companion.

  There are many flash card programs available and I tried several (as of July 2010: Mnemosyne, Pauker, SuperMemo, Flash Card Manager by Vendant) before settling on FullRecall. My requirements included:

  • Run on my HTC Tilt v2 running Windows Mobile v6.5
  • Sync with a Windows desktop flash card app
  • Support Unicode (for Greek)
  • Robust import / export function
  • Support for graphics / audio embedded in a flash card

  I really liked Mnemosyne, but the mobile version is Java-based and wouldn't run due to security errors that I was unable to resolve even with assistance from the developer. FullRecall is the only program I found that met all my requirements.

  The mobile and desktop versions of FullRecall are free, however, the database size is limited to 500 cards. For $35, the licensed version offers unlimited database size.

  Here are some of the databases I use (as Tab Separated Value, TSV, text files). Most I created from scratch but a couple I modified from existing databases I found on the FullRecall and Mnemosyne web sites:

  Language:
  • Greek_Grammar-TSV.txt (work in progress)
  • Ancient_Greek_Core_Vocab-TSV.txt
  • Koine_Greek_Vocab-TSV.txt
  • Greek_Vocab_Matthew-TSV.txt (work in progress)
  • Greek_Vocab_Ephesians-TSV.txt (work in progress)
  • Spanish_Grammar-TSV.txt (work in progress)

    Bible:

  • Gods_Big_Picture-TSV.txt (book by Vaughn Roberts)

    Professional:

  • IT_Governance-TSV.txt (work in progress)
  • ITIL_V3-TSV.txt (work in progress)
  • PMI-TSV.txt (work in progress)

Multi-Media

• AVS Video Converter. Extremely easy to use. Converts digital video files between all the common formats including: AVI, MP4 (inc. Sony PSP and Apple iPod), WMV, QuickTime (MOV, QT), SWF, DVD, MPG, MPEG 1/2/4). MS Windows. Normally $130, I paid $60 by taking advantage of a promotional offer on their web site.

• Goldwave. Digital audio file editor. MS Windows. $45.

• imageN. JPEG editor. MS Windows. Free.

• MusEdit. Music notation software. MS Windows. $79.

• N-Track Studio. Digital audio multitrack recording software. MS Windows. $42.

• SnagIt. Screen capture utility. MS Windows. $40.

Networking

Protocol Servers

• 3CDaemon (file name 3cdv2r10.zip). Integrated tftp, ftp and syslog server. MS Windows. Free.

Protocol Clients

• Absolute FTP. FTP client. Recursive transfers. Passive mode. Windows Explorer-type interface. MS Windows. $30.

• cURL. Command line URL retriever. UNIX and MS Windows. Free.

• SamSpade. dig and zone transfer (and other tools similar to CyberKit and getif). MS Windows. Free.

• Tera Term. Telnet client and terminal emulator (IP and serial). MS Windows. Free.

Monitoring/Management

• CyberKit. Ping, traceroute, finger, whois, nslookup, QoD, time, NetScanner (ping sweep/port scan), Winsock DB scanner. MS Windows. Free.

• Ethereal. Packet analyzer. UNIX and MS Windows. Free.

• getif. MIB browser (and other tools similar to CyberKit and SamSpade). MS Windows. Free.

• NET-SNMP. Command-line SNMP get/set/trap. UNIX and MS Windows. Free.

• ntop. Modeled after the UNIX 'top' program, it displays network statistics similar to RMON. UNIX and MS Windows. Free.

Productivity

MS Windows

• pdf995 and pdfedit. pdf995 is a special printer driver that enables the creation of PDF files from any application. pdfedit enables the addition and removal of pages from a PDF file. MS Windows. Free with multiple pop-up ads in separate browser windows or $20 with no pop-up ads.

Windows Mobile

• eWallet. More than just a password management application, it's a flexible, easy to use, generic encrypted (256-bit AES FIPS) database. It offers unlimited hierarchical organization of data. It provides a CSV import utility for data migration, and comes with both MS Windows and WinMobile 6 applications which synchronize with each other. Free 30-day trial (full-function). $30 for license. I spent a couple days figuring out how to migrate my Palm Desktop Contacts to eWallet.

Palm OS

• QMate. Quicken-like transaction recorder. When sync'd, creates a .qif file that Quicken can import. PalmOS. $20.

• QuickOffice. MS Word/Excel-like apps. PalmOS. $40.

• DIMEX (Datebook IMport EXport). Exports Palm Desktop Datebook entries to .xls file. MS Windows. $10.

System

• Cygwin (Cygnus' GNU UNIX for Windows). bash, gunzip, tar, many other UNIX tools. MS Windows. Free.

• Disk Data. Shows disk usage on a per-directory basis. Windows Explorer-like interface. MS Windows. $45.

• VNC (Virtual Network Computing). Workstation remote control server and client. UNIX and MS Windows. Free.

Web

• Readability Extracts just the text and images from a web page (removing flashing ads). Free.