NetBeans – my web development career (if you can call it that) began with Microsoft Frontpage, before moving onto Dreamweaver and finally settling on NotePad. By this stage my ego had quadrupled in size yet quickly popped when I dived into dynamic programming languages such as PHP and Ruby on Rails. I quickly realised that with NotePad – less is not always more.

So I grabbed NetBeans and have never looked back. It contains all your regular IDE benefits such as code colouring, file management, is open source, powerful search, task lists etc. But what makes NetBeans stand out for me is its Ruby on Rails support – being able to carry out all your command line activities from within the IDE saves me a lot of time. With Ruby on Rails being the speedy framework that it is, I feel it a necessity to meet it half way.

NotePad++ - As described above, I once had feelings for the NotePad that comes with Windows, I saw a future for us and on more than one occasion gave it a little squeeze when the opportunity arose. Yet NotePad++ proved to me that there are better fish in the sea – a quick look at the feature list will show you why this is an application every developer should have installed.

There are many occasions where opening a full-blown IDE is overkill for the task at hand (editing a single file or putting together a short script) and this is where NotePad++ will enter the room and apply just enough pressure to gently soothe that ache. Give it a go.

Photoshop CS3 – The tool of choice for the majority of Web and Graphic designers, Photoshop has a long history and a new version seems to see its release almost yearly – which occasionally confuses me as I can’t tell the difference to Photoshop 7. None the less, I use Photoshop for almost all of the graphical work I do and couldn’t recommend it enough.

NaviCat – This application may be the least known out of those mentioned here but is a powerful database management tool, with different versions supporting either MySQL, Oracle and PortgreSQL. I manage many different databases online nothing compares to the speed and efficiency of Navicat for tasks such as: Import/Export of data, updating, deleting, inserting records, generating reports, handling users etc. A notable feature here is Navicat's own backup and restore system which has been a life saver on occasions where I’ve had to switch servers and transfer large database files – reliably and in a short time.

Leave a comment with the programs you use most often, not that such a task requires a launch party or anything...

The issue I had here is that I did not want an audio alert when an RSS feed was updated, or when one of my Admin email address for a website of mine received an enquiry via a contact form. Far too many times I heard the Thunderbird audio alert, ran into my room, each step being like a journey up the stairs to heaven as I anticipate hearing from a loved one – only to trip and fall to the depths of below as I realise it was a mere ‘undelivered email’ notification from my server.

An issue which I had always wanted a solution for but never solved, I browsed through the Thunderbird options, surprised and disappointed at the lack of control. With nothing but a global setting for sound/visual alerts – I then hit the Thunderbird Add-ons site and came across the ‘Mailbox Alert’ extension. Not updated in years yet it’s assumed the developer adopts a ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it approach’ and the simple yet powerful add-on solves the problem beautifully.

Setting up a unique sound for each folder / email account

You should have little trouble setting this up but I did get caught out so here’s one approach.

1) Firstly grab the extension from the Thunderbird Add-ons website

2) Right click the email (or Blog) account that you want to customise the alert for and select ‘Mailbox Alert’ from the menu that appears

Mailbox Alert Preferences

3) From here, simply tick the checkbox for ‘Play a Sound’ and select your custom .wav file (as annoyingly the ‘System Default’ is near useless – certainly doesn’t use the Thunderbird default sound).  A quick Google search for ‘Email Notification Wav Sounds’ should provide all you need here.

4) A final step that I took was to go into Thunderbird options and untick the ‘Play a Sound’ box under the General tab, otherwise you’ll find both sounds play when an email arrives.

This is a simple guide on setting a sound to play for a single account (and not others) but the extension is flexible in you set folder alert settings individually and also configure the child/parent relationship inheritance. Do play about with the options to get it working in a way that’s best for you – the ‘Test these settings’ button will demonstrate the alert in action, which is useful for me as I haven’t received an email from a loved one since my February, and even that was a mistake.

The last 21 years are irrelevant.

Welcome to a blog of software, internet and life lessons.

As a computer science graduate who is about to start a masters in Web Technology, I'll be writing guides of computing and web development. As a fitness freak I'll be posting about my workouts and progress. As a lover of all things music I'll be posting on my findings and thoughts. But most importantly, as a person, I'll document events that we all go through - maybe my accounts will aid you in some way, at least to help you realise that life could be so much worse.  Hah, lets see where this takes us...

"sometimes life isn't the party we hoped for
but since we're here, we should dance"

I have just decided to learn a new language. Wanting to give myself a tough time, it's not a common one.  More info to follow!

Update:  With Software and Web Develop to be such a large focus of this blog, I've decided to focus on those topics - and have launched my personal blog which will cover other aspects of my life such as fitness and music.