In any professional trade position, there is a standard set of tools that each craftsman needs to be able to complete their work. The carpenter, the plumber, the home chef.
In today’s business and technology climate, in order to get any work done, this list of tools is ever growing and ever changing.
How many tools does it take to build cutting edge web-applications?
To successfully manage a project?
How many do you need to be successful?
Which ones are “the best”?
These are all answers that I am not sure anyone truly knows. At Bootstrap, we are always on the lookout for the next best tool; we try many flavors & competing products to try and improve efficiency. When we can’t find one we like, we build our own. Here is a recent sample list of tools that get the job done on a daily basis around here:
PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS:
- MS Word
- MS Excel
- MS Project
- MS Powerpoint
- MS Outlook / Mozilla Thunderbird
- Open Office
- Instant Messaging
COLLABORATION:
- Google Wave (and assorted tools Waveboard, Waver)
- Basecamp
- Custom Installation of Mantis
- Custom Use Case Management system “EnCase”
- Custom Time Tracking tools
- Axure for prototyping
- Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator
- Version Control
- Build Managment
TESTING:
- Selenium
- Junit
- HTMLUnit
- MS Web Capacity Analytics Tool
- Paessler Web Stress
- Browser Plugins
This list is literally the tip of the iceberg, and doesn’t even begin to encompass all the tools running at our offices. In order to be a productive member of the Bootstrap team, you will likely use, run, review, edit, love, hate, any and all of these tool sets.
Michael Stineman VP of Service Delivery