Tools, tools, tools...

Being productive in programming means having the right tools to do the job. But development tools can be expensive. What are some more affordable options? Here's a few I've run across over the past couple of years (I'll update this list a bit more over the next couple of months):

• xSQL Object 2 and xSQL Data Compare 2 - These two tools are useful if you have more than one SQL database that you need to migrate/sync/compare/etc. The nice thing about these ones is that they are free, although you would need the commercial version for databases of any notable size.
  • xSQL Object is used "for comparing, generating scripts and synchronizing SQL Server databases."
  • xSQL Data Compare is used "for comparing and synchronizing the content (the data) of SQL Server databases."
• Beyond Compare - The trial version of this software is great, but it's also an inexpensive buy & worth the cost.
• EditPlus 2 - While there are lots of power tools that give you a color-coded editor, complete with intellisense, every once in a while it helps to have a low-end color-coded text editor.
  In truth, I wind up using EditPlus a lot for doing search/replace on individual or sets of files and for doing searches for text in a directory of source code (helpful, especially since a Windows search ignores scanning the contents of some text files, such as .aspx or .vb).
• Refactor! -
• Serif PhotoPlus - The free version of PhotoPlus can be found at www.freeSerifSoftware.com and is very full-featured for a free graphics editing program. Unless you are need the more esoteric features of the commercial PhotoPlus or of PhotoShop, this will probably do you quite well.