So I installed a wp-db-backup plugin that will create a database backup for me. However, I don’t have a good way to restore from the backup.

I found a script that let’s you upload any sql file and have it executed, but that seems like a bad idea from a security standpoint.

So I borrowed from the script linked above and made a simple php script that runs a SQL script defined by a variable. You can download it here.

Text & Source Code

• SciTE - for editing text and source code files
• WinMerge – for comparing two versions of source code and merging differences
• Eclipse – with it’s PHP extension – writing killer php apps

Screenshot’s and Videocasts

• Jing – for taking screenshots and videocast’s with voice and either emailing them or automatically having them upload to screencast.com and just sending a link to clients, coworkers, friends
• Fireshot – a plugin for firefox

Web app diag/debug

• Firefox
  • Firebug add-on
  • Webdeveloper Toolbar add-on
• Safari
• Opera
• Chrome
• IE7Pro – Plugin for IE7 allowing for some sweet customizations
• Elinks for Windows – view your website similar to how a crawler would (just text)
• Google Analytics
• W3C’s HTML validator

Collaboration

• Basecamp – collaboration with clients, coworkers, bosses
• Yammer – internal, realtime, micro-bloggy collaboration with coworkers
• Twitter - (and Twhirl to communicate with it)
• Delicious.com – Social bookmarking
• GoToMeeting (not free) – professional conferencing tool with ability to share your screen with other participants
• FreeConference – free conference calling
• Google Docs – Share and collaborate with team mates on your spreadsheets and word documents
• Google Forms – Easily create a form and send out a link. Get output in a Google spreadsheet
• Crossloop – help someone with their computer without being there in person (screen share)

• Gantt Project – for creating Gantt Charts
• OpenProj – Gantt charts, resource planning, import from MS Project
• CDEx – for ripping CD’s into mp3′s 
• Freemind – mind and structure mapping tool
• GUUUI – a web proto-typing template for Visio
• KeePass – keep your passwords stored securely in on location
• PureText – paste pure text (no formatting attached) even when copying from MS Office programs or websites
• SharpReader - RSS reader that supports authenticated feeds (such as Basecamp)
• Total Commander – File management tool
• DiscScanner – free space on disk
• 7-Zip – Compress/decompress zip files and just about any other file type. Even open ISO’s.
• Gimp – GNU Image Manipulation Program
• Launchy – 1. press Alt-Space 2. type any part of a name of a program installed on your computer 3. Hit enter
• PDFCreator – create PDF’s out of any program. Even que up documents from multiple programs into on PDF
• Google Reader – Subscribe to RSS feeds and share them with friends
• Cygwin – UNIX emulator for windows – giving you access to your favorite linux/unix tools on your windows machine
• KMyMoney – (runs on Linux) personal finance manager application that imports from MS Money or Quicken
• Highrise – sweet CRM from 37signals (creators of Basecamp)
• Google Labs – stay up to date on what Google is experimenting with
• Slashdot.org – news for geeks
• Audacity – record music

• Evidence Based Scheduling by Joel Spolsky that has to do with estimating/planning/scheduling software development projects
• Educating Clients on Information Architecture

Tools I am trying out and liking so far:

• Yammer (corporate micro-blogging – “what are you working on?”, “what do you need help with”, “what did you just figure out”, “server issues/updates” etc.)
• Doodle (Easy Scheduling) – awesome and simple tool to find a time that works a group of people. 1. set up few alternative times, 2. send to your people 3. people vote on what works best)

This is my crappy script that I upload to the server on my shared hosting account:

<code>
    $link = mysql_connect($your_mysql_server, $your_mysql_user, $your_mysql_password);
    mysql_select_db($your_mysql_database);
    $domain = gethostbyname($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
    $query="INSERT INTO uptime (timestamp,ip) VALUES (NOW(),'$domain')";
    $result = mysql_query($query);
    mysql_close($link);</code>

This is my table structure (on the server at my shared hosting account):

<code>
    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `uptime` (
      `pkid` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
      `timestamp` timestamp NOT NULL default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
      `ip` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
      PRIMARY KEY  (`pkid`)
    ) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;</code>

This is in my crontab on my home computer (hits the script every 15 mins):

<code>    */15 * * * * wget http://example.com/path-to-my-script</code>

1. Download the extension instead of directly installing it. (You know, right-click and Save Link As…)
2. Rename the extension from filename.xpi to filename.zip.
3. Unzip the extension, and open install.rdf for editing.
4. Change the em:maxVersion parameter value to include your version of Firefox, better yet, change it to 4.0 just to be safe.
5. Save the file, zip up the folder and rename the new filename.zip to filename.xpi.
6. To install it, open the filename.xpi file with firefox.

Para-programming – Two programmers per computer

As counter-intuitive and counter-productive as this sounds, some research that assigned the same tasks to a group of individuals and to a group of pairs has shown that…

• The pairs completed the tasks in only 15% more man-hours than the individuals
• The individuals frequently requested additional time,
• The applications developed by pairs always worked unlike those of individuals,
• The solutions created by pairs were a lot more elegant.

Here’s how it works: There is always one person “driving” and one “navigating.” Benefits of this methodology include:

• Increased focus – no chatting or emailing
• Early detection of mistakes
• Brainstorming
• Less interruptions from outside – it’s always easier to walk up to a person working on a computer and just ask a question than it is to interrupt a conversation.

Some companies take this to an extreme and do “promiscuous pairing” – pairs change partners every 90 minutes. There is always one person that stays with the project and one that comes new. Benefits are threefold:

• Shared knowledge – Everyone knows the whole application so there isn’t that one person that always deals with such and such problem and when that person is sick, no one knows how to fix it…
• The new person coming to the pair brings what they call “Beginner’s Mind” – the ability to see problems in a new way, unbiased by “how things should be.”
• The person staying has to bring the new person up to speed and they say that you learn best by teaching…

Story-driven development

• All requests made by client are made into 2-3 sentence stories. E.g. Client needs to be able to log in to the system and see his/her information. Clients should not see each other’s information. These stories are quoted in hours and should be doable within 1 week.
• The development cycle is about 1 week, so there is no extremely long specification phase, then development phase, etc. Every week, the client gets to choose as many stories as fit into that week – that way client decides on priorities. In this methodology, at the weekly meeting, there is always something tangible you can show to the client – a story that you completed. Your client always knows what you are working on.
• This helps to stay on track with what the client wants even if he/she is unable to stick with the same idea throughout the process. It allows early detection of “client saying: oh, let’s not do it that way but instead this other way.” You’ll luckily find that out as you are about start working on it, not when the application is done and you hand it over as it is done in the standard development model.

There were many other good things presented, such as Test-driven development which doesn’t apply to outside Visual Studio (I think). I have not worked with Visual Studio much until this point, but that’s certainly changing so I may post about Test-driven development later.