Software Tools

I’m primarily a Windows user and do the bulk of my work in Windows 11. Here’s a list of free and licensed/subscription software programs I have used over the years.

Development

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft Visual Studio Code
• Sourcetree or Fork $
• Postman

Productivity

• Screenpresso Pro (screenshot and screen video recording) $
• Notepad++
• 7-zip (zip/archive management)
• Draw.io (architecture/flow diagrams)
• Beyond Compare (file compare) $
• Joplin
• Thunderbird (Outlook substitute)
• Quikflow $
• Caffeine – a Citrix Workspace remote desktop keep-alive tool
• mRemoteNG

Architecture

• https://docs.structurizr.com/lite (docker image)
• Draw IO (web & download)

Communications

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• MicroSIP (requires a voip phone line)
• Google Meet
• Signal
• WhatsApp

Web Browsers

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Firefox Developer Edition
• Brave
• Vivaldi

Validators

• w3.org maintained list of WCAG/Accessibility testers
• Structured data validator –
  • Google’s Richtext (webpage tester), or
  • Schema validator

Last review & update: December 23, 2025