My favorite software

As of May 8th 2024, my favorite software (besides from Simple DNS Plus) is:

Software Development tools

• esbuild - https://esbuild.github.io
  Build tool / bundler for JavaScript, CSS, etc.

• Dart Sass - https://sass-lang.com/dart-sass ⭐2024
  Compile Sass to CSS.

• Visual Studio 2022 - https://www.visualstudio.com
  Integrated development environment (IDE) for everything.

• Fork - https://git-fork.com
  Nice GUI Git client.

• WinMerge - http://winmerge.org
  Great tool for comparing text files.

• SQLite Studio - http://sqlitestudio.pl
  For managing SQLite databases.

• Fiddler Classic - https://www.telerik.com/fiddler/fiddler-classic ⭐2023
  Analyze HTTP(S) traffic.

• Instant C# - https://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/product_details/vb-to-csharp-converter.html ⭐2024
  Convert VB.NET to C# (see blog post)

• Advanced Installer - http://www.caphyon.com
  Nice MSI installer builder.

Software development components / libraries

• Frappe Charts - https://frappe.io/charts ⭐2023
  Very nice and small JavaScript charting library.

• EPPlus Free - https://github.com/rimland/EPPlus
  .NET library for creating Excel spreadsheets.

• SQLite - https://www.sqlite.org
  The best local / embedded database.

• HiQPdf - http://www.hiqpdf.com
  .NET library for creating PDF files.

• MarkDig - https://github.com/lunet-io/markdig
  .NET library for converting markdown to HTML.

• ClearScript - https://github.com/microsoft/ClearScript
  .NET library for running JavaScript.

• Swagger UI - https://swagger.io/tools/swagger-ui
  For web API documentation.

Server software

• Seq - https://datalust.co ⭐2024
  For logging and error reporting.

• Certify SSL Manager - https://certifytheweb.com
  Software to automate installation and renewal of free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates on IIS / Windows Server.
  Of course, it has an option to authenticate via DNS by updating DNS records in Simple DNS Plus :-)

• Syncthing - https://syncthing.net
  For backup and syncing files between devices.

Desktop software / Utilities

• Libre Office - https://www.libreoffice.org ⭐2024
  Free desktop programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and more.

• Notion - https://notion.so
  Notes, kanban boards, etc.

• Discord - https://discord.com
  Nice (free) service for internal chat / communication (replaced Slack).

• KeePass Password Safe - http://keepass.info
  Great (free) program for storing passwords.
  Storing the (encrypted) password database on DropBox or similar makes it easy to sync between computers and my (Android) phone.

• 7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org
  Great for working with zip files and other compressed file archives.
  I primarily use this because the built-in function for creating zip files in Windows 10 doesn't work with file names containing non-english characters.

• CutePDF Professional - http://www.cutepdf.com
  I mostly use it for scanning to PDF files, and for merging multiple PDF files into one.

• TreeSize Free - https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free
  Figure out what is using all that hard disk space.

• pCloud - https://my.pcloud.com ⭐2023
  File synchronization, backup, sharing, etc.

• ZeroTier - https://www.zerotier.com
  Pier-to-pier VPN solution.

Image / Video editing

• PhotoShop - https://adobe.com
  Edit images.

• Lightroom Classic - https://adobe.com
  Organize, cull, raw processing of images.

• Filmora - https://filmora.wondershare.com ⭐2023
  Edit videos.

Software that I do not currently use - but highly recommend

• Gitea - https://gitea.com
  Fantastic self hosted Git server.
  If I were to run my own Git server, I would absolutely use this.
  But GitHub is free for all my use cases, so there isn't any reason for me spend time and resources on self hosting.

• Rider - https://www.jetbrains.com/rider
  Amazing alternative to Visual Studio - for newer C# code. Actually a lot better in many ways.
  Only problem is that it doesn't work well with VB.Net - and I maintain a lot of old VB.Net code. And I don't want to use multiple IDEs.

• Apache Answer - https://answer.apache.org
  Amazing free forum / Q&A website software.
  Will be implementing soon.

• Deno - https://deno.com
  Runs JavaScript like Node - but also supports running TypeScript directly and many other nice features.
  I don't currently run any JavaScript/TypeScript anywhere but in the browser. But if I ever do - it will be with Deno.

• SyncBackPro / SyncBack Touch - https://www.2brightsparks.com
  Great file synchronization software.
  Have used it a lot for many different tasks in the past. Don't currently have a use case for it.

• SoftEther - https://www.softether.org
  Great VPN software.

• CouchDB - https://couchdb.apache.org
  Amazing NoSQL database server.
  Simple, lightweight, HTTP REST based interface (no client libraries needed), map/reduce, live continuous replication/backup, free / open-source.