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What's in Your Toolbox?
Embedded Geek asks: "I am a software developer with access to (conservatively) $100K worth of emulators, protocol analyzers, and debugging equipment at work. Nevertheless, as in every lab since Frankenstein's, I can never find a meter or screwdriver when I need one - and God help you if you need electrical tape! Over the years I have accumulated a personal toolkit to fill the gaps between what my employer provides and what I need to get my job done. In addition to the basics (a meter, screwdrivers, cable ties, boxcutter, extra power cables, duct tape) I have a number of oddball items that have come in handy (serial cable gender changers & converters, a dental mirror, dental picks). I'm curious what other items slashdotters doing hardware/software development have found useful that their bosses never provide. What about those in the IT/support world?"
YES! I am not the only one who finds these usefull. I get some strange looks when I pull them out to fix a problem. Event the local geeks think it is a little odd.
As a software development consultant, I have been sent off to quite a few different companies. Being paid by the hour, and as a matter of personal pride, I try to be efficient in solving a customers needs. But if I were to rely on the software tools provided to me by my clients, I would never get anything done. This is why my laptop, which is filled with useful software, never leaves my side. It is almost inevitable that during the initial stages of a project, everything from the workstations to the servers for a system will be in a complete state of dissaray. I have been in /very/ large companies where the systems are all locked down, and you need to file paper requests for software to be installed on your workstation (god forbit it's not in their catalog), or to have a database created - these requests could take from days to months.
A laptop running:
- Windows XP Pro or 2000 Server. Gives me drivers for everything. I can plug in floppies, my Jazz drive or portable burners or whatever I need to get Data and backups around. Good luck using the NT4 the client gives me.
- MS Office Suite w Access - this gets used for everything, from tracking meetings in Outlook to calculations in Excel.
- IDE: JBuilder, Netbeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio, Emacs, EditPad, JEdit, etc, etc.
- Database: As if I want to twiddle my thumbs for a week while Systems dept creats a table and gives me access. I can have half the prototype done by then. Access ships with a stripped down version of SQL Server - great for getting started on the basic SQL no matter what DB it's eventually targetted for.
- Photophop/Corel Graphics Suite: Handy for creating icons for your UI - or at least sensible place holders till graphic artist can get around to it - and gives them an idea what you need too.
- Steinberg Wavelab: same as previous, sounds for your app, etc.
- Cygwin! Bash. Never leave home without it. Perl, Python, XFree86, GCC, Make, and and endless list of every reason I love Linux all available for your convenience. Great for connectivity with Unix systems too.
- Mozilla, IE6, etc: Current browsers for testing web sites. God knows what the client has installed. I always code for the latest and most bug free platform I can find, and then backport and fix later - that way I know it's the software that's broken rather than some error in my coding which could kill time looking for. Can throw on SP - JC's SGML/XML parser for validation. Mozilla includes javascript debugger and DOM viewer tools as well!
- Latest JDK from Sun, WSFTP, JBoss, PHP, Apache - HTTP server, Ant, Xalan, Xerces, Tomcat, etc, etc, Boost, ACE, Loki, etc C++ libraries.
- A Documentation folder with EVERYTHING - from RFC's and JavaDoc to most all the latest W3C Rec's, to MSDN stuff, to whatever.
Loads of other stuff I forget, but you get the idea, the Swiss Army Knife laptop. I would die without it. Or at least be 1/5 as productive.