Tools, tools and lots of them

We all know that world would be a different place without Internet. I remember the days where communication was costly and slow. Internet has changed all that with email and then with a lot of other possibilities like chatting , Internet phone - Skype etc.

Let us come to programming (the one I am always concerned with). Ever since Open Source model emerged, programming talent could not be suppressed. There are lots of good programmers out there and they all are getting a chance to write quality programs and world at large is able to enjoy those programs.

If that is one side of the coin, the other side is, to compete with those open source projects, even companies like Oracle, Microsoft and others are providing some good tools for free. In fact, both Oracle and Microsoft provide a database engine free of cost.

I have started using a couple of such tools in the recent past and found them to be good. I want reader of this blog to use them and enjoy these quality but free tools.

ZoomIt

It is a great tool for any trainer like me. It allows you to zoom the picture on the screen to whatever size you want. It also allows you to draw things in different colors. Of course you can even get into text mode and write some text while you are in zoom mode. You can simple convert your screen into sketch pad.

Now-a-days I am using this tool in my training programmes and found it extremely simple and useful.

This tool was developed by Mark Russinovich and I am very grateful to him for that. You can download this tool from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/zoomit.mspx.

Oracle SQL Developer

This is a free tool from Oracle Corp. It allow you to connect to Oracle (or even other databases) and use existing objects or create new objects. This is an application developed using Java. So, it needs JDK to be installed in your system. You also need JDBC driver of the database that you want to access.

You can download this from http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer/index.html.

Oracle has already provided Oracle Application Express - a web based tool and good old Sql*Plus. It adds one more to existing tool kit. I hope you know that Oracle is already providing a cut-short version of Oracle10g database called Oracle 10g

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express

This is another free tool from Microsoft to manager Sql Server Express Edition, which is a free database management system from Microsoft.

This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c243a5ae-4bd1-4e3d-94b8-5a0f62bf7796&DisplayLang=en.

This allows you to create database objects like tables, stored procedures etc. This tools is very useful with Sql Server Express edition as Sql Server Express edition is only a database engine and does not come with any tools of its own.

In fact there are too many tools to mention here. I mentioned a few of the tools that I started using in the recent past and found them useful.

If you have any idea of a tool that is free and useful, do let me know by sending a mail to me at srikanthpragada@yahoo.com.