T-SQL Tuesday #135: The Tools of My Trade

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Mikey Bronowski (b|t), and asks us to share the tools of the trade that make our job awesome.

I feel that this topic (again) links back to similar T-SQL Tuesdays about productivity where I also participated (see T-SQL Tuesday #123, T-SQL Tuesday #127, and T-SQL Tuesday #130).

While I do feel that the tools that make my job the most awesome are those that help me with productivity, this month’s topic is a bit broader. Most of these, though, are widely known, so I’m not going to go into much detail about them.

So, without further ado and without too much fluff, here are the tools that I love using daily:

For blogging and other community activities:

• WordPress (hosted) – This is where I blog and it’s awesome and easy to use. It’s where you are reading this right now!
• Canva – For designing nice looking blog cover images and banners.
• Pixabay – Royalty free photos and images.
• Feedly – I use it as my RSS reader.
• Buffer – I use it to schedule posts on social media.
• OBS Studio – Free software to record and stream online sessions.
• GitHub – Free source control platform.
• CoSchedule – Very useful blog and tools for bloggers. Their Headline Analyzer tool is amazing.
• Greenshot – Screen capture and editing utility.
• ZoomIt – Screen zooming and annotation tool.
• Draw.io – Free online diagraming tool.

For productivity and work:

• Microsoft To-Do – Task management and reminder (cleanly integrates with other Office apps as well).
• Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) – For automating repeating tasks, pushing notifications about various events, RSS feeds, etc.
• KeePass – Password management. And also CKP as an accompanying Chrome extension.
• Authenticator.cc – Chrome extension for managing Time-Based One-Time-Passwords for 2FA needs. Don’t forget to lock this one with a strong password!
• Remote Desktop Manager (by Devolutions) – We use this for our work, and it’s by far the best remote desktop manager that I’ve ever used. I especially love its built-in support for multiple VPN providers, macros, and shared credential entries. This one should be well locked as well (you can use a 2FA code authenticator too).
• Microsoft Teams – For online discussions, meetings, and webinars, both inside your organization and with external contacts.
• Slack – Same (almost) as Teams but with a cleaner UI and a cheaper price tag.
• Trello – Kanban-based task management and organization.
• Notepad++ – I’m betting most everyone have already heard and/or used this cool tool. But most people are not aware of the extensive selection of plug-ins that it has. That also includes various formatters for SQL, XML, JSON, etc. And also a compare plug-in. All of which I use frequently.

Most of the tools listed above are free, or have a free plan available. All of them help me tremendously in my work and make my life awesome! 😄 Maybe they can help you too!