This entry was prompted by a survey up on a popular site (makeuseof, which I've blogged about before.) The survey asks people what toolbars, if any, they use in their browsers.

In the current voting most say they use none, and some commenters are dismissing them as "wastes of space". I thought that odd, as I use the google toolbar every day. I offered up the following as a comment, and then thought I'd share it here for my readers (have done only a slight bit of editing from my original comment there):

It's a shame to see some call toolbars a waste of space. OK, so many you've lamented them getting auto-installed on an unsuspecting user's computer, or hated when one tries to do that on yours. But not everyone who has one is an idiot.

For instance, I love the google toolbar and have for years. Sure, I realize that FF (and now IE7) offers a search box, but that's not all that the google toolbar does for you. Unfortunately, some of its best jewels are hidden gems, in that you may need to enable them with the "settings".

I use the "site" button every day (type in a search word and click the button to search what Google knows only about the current site). Sure, you can do it yourself with the "site:" keyword in any google search box you may have, but this is much less typing over the course of a day.

Same with doing a google image or froogle/products search, both buttons you can easily add.

There's also the "up" button that's worth adding, which lets you traverse up a site, whereby it removes whatever's at the end of the currently used URL. Often quite handy. Again, all things you could do yourself manually, but one click is nicer, and makes the toolbar very much worth the space to me.

These and a few other things are tips I first shared back in 2003.

Some features don't use any "space" at all, as the toolbar also enables a context menu on each page you visit. You can right-click the whitespace of any page you visit to see (under "page info" in FF2 and IE7):

• backward links
• cached snapshot of page
• similar pages
• translate page

Again, all these are things you can do without the toolbar as long as you have a quick google search bar of some sort and know the corresponding google keywords (link:, cache:, etc.). But again I use some of these every day, so I love not having to type those--plus some users would learn this way of these valuable Google features: they might not ever think to learn the keywords (or use the "advanced search" at google.com).

If I have one complaint, it's that I don't understand why these last 4 features aren't enabled as toolbar buttons (that can be added, optionally). I'd give up the space occupied by "send to" and "autolink" (though some may love those), and certainly "check" (the spell check) since that's built into FF. Anyone from Google (or others who might know more about this) care to comment?

Anyway, don't dismiss toolbars (and the google toolbar especially) so readily. You may be missing out on more than you know.

Hope that helps someone. (Actually, for some reason I still don't see my comment posted on the makeuseof blog entry. I suppose they may have some verification process. If I don't see it in a couple of hours, I'll post the above there again.)

Following is the text of this category as it stands on the tools/resources list, as I write this blog entry. As always, check the list to see the latest version. I'll use people's comments below to update that list (not this entry).

CFML Frameworks/Methodologies

There are far more CFML frameworks or methodologies than many may realize, and of course some will debate whether something should be called a framework or a methodology. I don't want to get into that debate, so I've just listed them here all together.

I provide whatever brief description may be found on the respective web site (so if you don't like the description, talk to the site owner and let me know if it changes...and framework owners, you'd do well to have a nice succinct description to help visitors get a quick understanding of the frameworks purpose, goals, intended use, etc.)

Similarly, if there's a name associated with the project on the site, or if a name is commonly known as being responsible for the framework, I list that. As always, I'm open to updates. Finally, I also don't for now order them by "type" of framework, since again some may debate what kind each is. For now, I'm just looking to help people realize the wide range of alternatives available. Check each out for yourself.

Note as well that some of these may be defunct. As long as there was a working site (or some relatively recent site talking about it, even if a third party), I list it. At the end I list some frameworks whose sites seem defunct. Again, updates are welcomed.

• Blackbox "ColdFusion Development Methodology", from Dan Chick
• CFObjects, "object-oriented ColdFusion development framework", from Steve Brownlee and Orbwave
• COOP, "a framework that separates mark-up from processing logic", from John Farrar
• cfrails, (couldn't find any brief description), from Sammy Larbi
• COAL (Coldfusion Open Application Library), from Ryan Guill
• ColdBox "event-driven CFC based ColdFusion Framework", from Luis Majano
• ColdSpring "framework for CFCs", from Chris Scott
• FarCry, "a cutting edge ColdFusion MX application framework for web based content management", from Geoff Bowers and Daemon Consulting
• Fusebox, "the most popular framework for building ColdFusion and PHP web applications", from Team Fusebox
• HomePortals, "especially tailored for building portals and other highly modular sites", from Oscar Arevalo
• iiFramework, "manages many aspects of e-business development so that the programmer doesn't have to", from Infranet
• Lightwire, "a very lightweight Direct Injection/IoC engine for directly injecting dependencies into singletons AND transient business object", from Peter Bell
• Mach-ii, "a powerful, object-oriented, open source MVC framework for ColdFusion that focuses on easing software development and maintenance", from Team Mach-II
• Model-Glue, "a family of frameworks [that] support Web application developers by making the construction of Object-Oriented Web and Rich Internet Applications a straightforward process", from the Model-Glue Team
• onAir, "a 'Smart Connection Framework': Connect backend business logic written in CFCs with different clients (e.g. AJAX, Laszlo) via XML, XML-RPC, JSON, etc.", from Jan Jannek
• OnTap, "shares some similarities with Ruby on Rails", from Isaac Dealey
• Plum, "stands for Practical Lightweight Universal Methodology, and it incorporates a rich code generator, a development methodology, a comprehensive application framework that does just about everything you'll ever need to do with a ColdFusion application, a unit test generator, and stored procedure generator, a component generator, and much more.", from Productivity Enhancement
• PureMVC, a CF port of PureMVC, "a lightweight framework for creating applications based upon the classic Model, View and Controller concept", from Cliff Hall (other ports include Flex [AS2, 3], PHP, Java, and .NET [c#])
• Reactor, "an Object-Relational Modeling tool which generates database abstractions on the fly, as needed. Reactor is sometimes called an "Inline Dynamic Database Abstraction" API", from Alagad
• SOS, "stands for Servant Oriented Software...uses the technology in a way that matches your developing style and needs", from John Farrar
• Switchbox, "a programming technique and coding style used to develop flexible and scalable applications", from Joseph Flanigan
• Tardis, "Model-View-Controller Framework for ColdFusion", from Shawn Gorrell
• Tartan, "a command-driven service framework for ColdFusion", from Paul Kenney
• TheHUB, "homegrown application development framework", from Neil Ross
• Transfer, "ColdFusion Object Relational Mapping Library...to automate the repetitive tasks of creating the SQL and custom CFCs that are often required when developing a ColdFusion application", from Mark Mandel
• ColdFusion on Wheels, "provides fast application development, a great organization system for your code, and is just plain fun to use", from the CFWheels Team
• Some that seem defunct include cfoo.org, cfoop.com, fusionscript.com, MXF, MVCF, objectbreeze.com, underscoreframework.com
• Some folks also see CMSs as frameworks, so see my list of them.
• See also
  • Brian Rinaldi's Open Source CF list of frameworks
  • CFFrameworks.com list of frameworks.
  • CFPetmarket.com, a repository of implementations of the CF Petmarket app in various frameworks
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry, to give the list more exposure and to make sure I'm not missing anything. For now I'm offering each day one list from the resources and then another from the tools categories. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page. Please try to remember to point the list out to people you see asking for these kind of tools and resources. Thanks.

Additions/Corrections

The tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

Next up will be a category from the Resources section, CFML Hosting Alternatives. BTW, I had previously listed the "CFML Frameworks/Methodologies" category under "Resources", but have decided just now to move it to "Tools". Having done that, there are tool categories before it which I will indeed soon blog, as I go back and forth between blogging categories in each list.

CFML Caching Tools

• CF_Accelerate, free, from Brandon Purcell's (Inspired by older CF_SuperCache). There's also a variant based on that, by Tom Dyson, to support file-based caching
• CF_CacheOMatic, free, from Eric Jansson (as discussed in and downloadable from a devX article)
• CF_TurboCache, free, from HotFusion
• cfmemcached, open source, from Jon Hirschi
• JohnnyCache, open source, from Andy Powell
• ScopeCache, open source, from Ray Camden
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry, to give the list more exposure and to make sure I'm not missing anything. For now I'm offering each day one list from the resources and then another from the tools categories. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page. Please try to remember to point the list out to people you see asking for these kind of tools and resources. Thanks.

Additions/Corrections

The tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

Next up will be a category from the Resources section, CFML Frameworks/Methodologies. There are a lot more than you may think.

CFMAIL Replacements/Enhancements

• ActivMail, once commercial, now to be open source, from Zrinity (formerly from CFDev)
• InFusion Mail Server (IMS) and FusionMail, commercial (with free Developer edition), from CoolFusion
• Spoolmail, open source, from Ray Camden
  • Nice review of/introduction to it by Sam Farmer
• See also the Adobe Developer's exchange on tags/functions/apps related to CFMAIL, though it may contain very old variants that no longer work or are supported
• See also Brian Rinaldi's Open Source CF list of Email tools
• Note, as well, that the CFMAIL tag itself has evolved significantly over the years, so some of the various alternatives may not always be needed. 6.1 added replyto/failto/username/password/wraptext attributes, support for multiple mail servers in the server attribute, and several configuration options to the ColdFusion Administrator Mail Settings page. 6.1 also added support for HTML email via CFMAILPARAM and multipart email with CFMAILPART. You can even optionally not use the spooling process via an optional SpoolEnable as of 6. Finally CF 8 added priority, useSSL, and useTLS attributes.
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry, to give the list more exposure and to make sure I'm not missing anything. For now I'm offering each day one list from the resources and then another from the tools categories. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page. Please try to remember to point the list out to people you see asking for these kind of tools and resources. Thanks.

Additions/Corrections

The tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

Next up tomorrow will be CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources and CFML Caching Tools.

Returning to the tools section, and continuing in alphabetical order, the next category is Bug/Defect Tracking Tools.

Bug/Defect Tracking Tools

I've split this list into those written in CFML, and the rest, both open source and commercial.

Written in CFML

• cfdefect open source, from Qasim Rasheed (also at http://code.google.com/p/cfdefect/)
• Lighthouse Pro, open source, from Ray Camden
• Project Tracker, open source, from Joe Danziger
• Skweegee, open source, from Russ Johnson
• See also Brian Rinaldi's Open Source CF list of bug tracking tools
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

Written in other than CFML (some downloadable, others as services; some open source, others commercial)

• Bugzilla, open source, from Mozilla
• Eventum, open source, from MySQL
• Fogbugz, commercial, from Fog Creek Software
• Gemini (for .NET, commercial, with free 5-user license), from Countersoft
• Jira, commercial, from Atlassian
• Mantis, open source, from MantisBT
• OnTime, commercial, with free single-user license, from Axosoft
• Rational BuildForge, commercial, from IBM
• Scarab, open source
• TestTrack Pro, commercial, from SeaPine
• Trac, open source
• Also, note that Mylyn, free, for Eclipse, offers intergration to popular defect tracking tools
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

Additions/Corrections

This tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

Someone may ask why I'm blogging each of these categories, when they're available online anyway. It's just that, through aggregation and feeds, blogs present a way to reach a wider (and new) audience who may not otherwise come across the list of tools and resources. This also widens the pool of eyes for possible updates to the list. I want it to be as accurate and up to date as possible. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page.

Today I'll jump from the resources section of the list to the tools section. It's just coincidental (well, alphabetical) that the first items in each list is about blogging (Part 2 was on CF-oriented blog aggregators.)

This entry is about CFML-based blogging tools, both downloadable and hosted.

Blogging Tools

The following are blogging tools (tools for creating a blog) that are written in CFML. Of course, you can find blogging tools written in many other languages that you may choose to use on your site (as well as hosted solutions, where the code platform doesn't matter to you). I don't want to try to keep here a list of all such CMSes, so this focuses on those that are written in CFML and that you can download. I list, after that, hosted solutions written in CFML.

• 1ssBlog, open source, from Ed Tabara
• AVBlog, open source, from Andrea Veggiani
• BlogCFC, open source, from Ray Camden
• BlogCFM, open source, from Rick Root
• CFBloggy, open source, from John Ramon (see also his blog)
• Fuseblog, open source, from James Husum (not updated in some time)
• KoldKast, free for download, and also available as a fee-based hosted solution, from Rick Smith
• MachBlog, a blogging package from Matt Woodward and Peter Farrell, and based on Mach-ii
• Mango, "a sweet ColdFusion blog engine" from Laura Arguello of asfusion
• See also Brian Rinaldi's Open Source CF list of blog tools
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

There are also a few blogging solutions that, while written in CFML, are not available for download but instead are available as hosted solutions:

• Blog-City, fee-based hosted solution
• BlogFusion, free and fee-based hosted solutions, from Jake McKee
• CFBlog, free hosted solution for the CF community, powered by BlogFusion
• InstantSpot, free hosted solution, from Aaron Lynch and Dave Shuck
• KoldKast, free for download, and also available as a fee-based hosted solution, from Rick Smith
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

• Amazoner, a tool to help a blogger easily recommend books that they like, using their Amazon associate ID
• LiveWriter, a desktop application from Microsoft that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog
• Post2Blog, an alternative to LiveWriter
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

Additions/Corrections

This is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to this list. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on the site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

Someone may ask why I'm blogging each of these categories, when they're available online anyway. It's just that, through aggregation and feeds, blogs present a way to reach a wider (and new) audience who may not otherwise come across the list of tools and resources. This also widens the pool of eyes for possible updates to the list. I want it to be as accurate and up to date as possible. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page.

It lets you package a set of files into an EXE which when run will show customized text prompts at the start and end, let the user pick the directory into which to extract, run a selected command at the start or end, and even optionally show a license they must agree to.

It turns out it's a feature that was implemented as part of the IE 6 Administration Kit (thus the IE part of the IExpress name), but I just tried it on Vista (with only IE 7 installed) and it worked just fine. Pretty nifty.

For more, see this blog entry at the awesome "Confessions of a Freeware Junkie" site. He also links there to a MS page that discusses the tool in more detail.

The Categories

I've split the list into Resources and Tools. Sometimes it's not clear how best to categories some subjects, such as CFML Frameworks, CFML Engine Alternatives, Monitoring Tools/Services, Testing Tools/Services, Time Tracking/Invoicing Tools/Services, and Web Site Design Repositories, to name a few.

• CFML-Oriented Resources
  • CFML Blog Aggregators (and bloggers)
  • CFML Certification Prep Resources
  • CFML Conferences
  • CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources
  • CFML Frameworks/Methodologies
  • CFML Hosting Alternatives
  • CFML Job Resources (Hire/Be Hired)
  • CFML Lists and Forums (finding help)
  • CFML Podcasts
    • Active CFML Podcasts
    • Seemingly Inactive CFML Podcasts
  • CFML-powered Web Sites
  • CFML Resource Sites
  • CFML-specific Search Resources
  • CFML Tuning/Troubleshooting Resources
  • CFML Tutorial/Article Sites
• Tools (CFML and other)
  • Blogging Tools
  • Bug/Defect Tracking Tools
    • Written in CFML
    • Written in other than CFML
  • Captcha Tools/Alternatives
  • CFMAIL Replacement/Enhancement Tools
  • CFML Caching Tools
  • CFML Debugging Tools
  • CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources
  • CFML Engine Alternatives
  • Code Generators
    • CFML Code Generators
    • Flex Code Generators
  • Comparison Tools
    • File/Dir Comparison Tools
    • Database Comparison Tools
  • Content Management Systems
  • Database Engines
    • Name brand DBMS's
    • Alternative Databases
  • Database Tools
    • Database Coding Tools
    • Database Comparison Tools
    • Database Monitoring Tools
    • Database Query/Explore Tools
    • Database Testing Tools
  • E-commerce Enabling Solutions
  • Editors/IDEs
    • CFML Editors
    • Other Editors
  • Excel File Processing Tools
    • COM
    • CSV
    • HTML Table
    • Java
    • .NET
    • Office Automation
    • ODBC/JDBC
    • Report Builder
    • WebQueries
    • XML
  • File Upload Tools
  • Forums/Bulletin Board Tools
  • Graphing/Charting Tools
  • HTTP Debugging Proxy Tools
    • Free, General-purpose HTTP Debugging Proxies
    • Free, Firefox-only Proxies
    • Free, IE-only Proxies
  • Image Processing Tools
  • Log Analysis Tools
    • Generic Log Analysis Tools
    • Intrusion Detection
    • SQL Server Log Analysis
    • Web Server Log Analysis
  • Monitoring Tools/Services
    • Application Monitoring Tools
    • ColdFusion Monitoring Tools
    • Database Monitoring Tools
    • Event Log Monitoring
    • Site Monitoring Tools
    • System Monitoring Tools
  • Project Management Tools
  • Regular Expression Generation/Testing Tools
  • Remote Presentation/Assistance/Web Conferencing Tools
  • RSS to Email Tools
  • Server-side Spell Checkers
  • Source Code Control Tools
  • Testing Tools/Services
    • CFML Code Testing Tools
    • CFML Unit Testing Tools
    • Database Testing Tools
    • Load and Application Testing Tools
    • Page Testing Tools
    • Regex Testing Tools
    • Site Security Testing Tools
    • Web Services Testing Tools
  • Screen Capture Tools
    • Still Image Capture Tools
    • A/V Capture Tools
  • Time Tracking/Invoicing Tools
  • Web Services Browsing/Testing Tools
  • Web Site Design Repositories
  • Wiki Tools
  • Wireframing/Prototyping Tools
  • WYSIWYG/Rich Text Editors

Again, I'll be offering here a blog entry on each of the lists as part of this series.

I definitely want to hear of any possible editions or changes. Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists.

PS Of course, don't miss Brian Rinaldi's excellent list of open source CFML products and projects. I don't limit mine to just things written in CFML (nor indeed just open source), and of course I show more than just tools but also resources. For those interested, I discuss the differences, and indeed how I link to his list often from within mine, in a section of my list. They complement, rather than compete with, each other.

http://www.carehart.org/resourcelists/tools_to_consider/

Actually, it's a list I started back in 2002 and hosted until recently at my old systemanage.com site. While the info there ranges from a couple to several years old (though still nearly all useful), this list was one thing I continued to update.

I just decided this weekend to pull it out to my Carehart.org site. Bookmark it and point others to it when you need to find such tools.

Not competing with Brian Rinaldi's list

I know some will say, "don't you know about Brian Rinaldi's list?", and of course I do and I reference it there. The lists really are different, as I don't limit myself to only open-source tools. In fact, I don't limit it only to tools written in CF. Rather, I list them and tools (and services) written in other languages, but that may be useful to CFML developers. (And while there's some cross-over between my list and his, I'm not interested in just sucking out things he has that I don't. Instead, I point to his matching categories in each of mine, so you can check that out for still more alternatives.)

My categories

• Blog Aggregators
• Blogging Tools
• CFMAIL Replacement/Enhancement
• Code Generators
• CFML Engines
• Content Management Systems
• Database Engines
• Database Query Tools
• E-commerce Enabling Solutions
• Editors/IDEs
• File Upload tools
• Forums/Bulletin Boards
• HTTP Debugging Proxy
• Image Processing
• Load Testing Tools
• Regular Expression Generation/Testing Tools
• Graphing/Charting Tools
• Server-side Spell Checkers
• Source Code Control
• WYSIWYG/Rich Text Editors

Additions Welcomed

I don't claim that it's the ultimate list of all tools in each category. I may even have some glaring ommissions. I welcome additions there, as I repeat several times on the page. I will also be glad to add new categories if suitable.

One of many resource lists I've created

In moving it here, I've placed it in a new Resource Lists page, where I also now point to other such resource lists and compendium-style blog entries that I've long kept (and others still to come). More about them in another entry to come.

AdventNet ManageEngine and other tools

• Network Monitoring
• Application Monitoring
• Password Management
• Help Desk Management
• Storage Management Software
• Network Configuration Management
• EventLog Analyzer
• Wifi Manager
• and much more

Some of these are useful on just a single computer, like the EventLog Analyzer, Wifi Manager, and Bandwidth Monitoring. Also, their application monitoring tools can be a great solution for those not yet doing any monitoring of their CF and other servers (yes, of course, there are many others out there that do that).

Their password management tool is to help multiple folks share passwords to central systems, a common need for groups of folks managing CF and other servers, and naturally their help desk and service center tools, among others, can also benefit a group of CF developers/admins.

SQL tools, for multiple database engines

• Compare and Synchronize SQL Server
• SQLOne Database Search Engine
• Table and Data Migration
• Oracle Migration
• SQL Server Migration
• and more

They have tools for SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and Sybase, and some of their tools, like the multidatabase search engine and migration tools also support MySQL, Informix, and others.

Testing Tools

Finding the Free Versions

Best of all, and the point of this entry, is that they offer free versions of nearly all these (and other) tools. And just as with the Quest tools I mentioned in the previous entry, these are not trials (though they offer them) but are really freeware editions. Yes, they may be limited in some way, but usually not in ways that will affect nearly all who would try to use them for evaluation or small-scale use.

You can find a list of all the freeware editions of their products here: http://www.adventnet.com/free-softwares-download.html . (And even though the ManageEngine and SwisQL tools have branded URLs, they all lead to the same adventnet.com site, and many of them are offered as freeware on this page.)

When you take a link for any of the products (using any of the links above), look for a link on each product page at the top right labeled "free edition/trial edition", where the link to the free edition will explain its limitations.

Certainly for CF developers who work alone or on small teams, you may find that all the free versions serve your needs just fine. Yes, there may well be open source solutions to each of the problems above, and I'm not discouraging their use.

It's just nice to see yet another company who makes enterprise-class software offering small-scale freeware versions for the kind of audience that seems typical of CF developers.

Certainly, as your needs grow, or for those in larger shops, the commercial versions of these tools then scale up to serve those larger needs. That's what they hope, of course. :-)

If anyone has used any of these tools, please share your experiences. So far I've used the Eventlog Analyzer and Wifi Manager and they were easy to install and use and were quite helpful. I look forward to exploring more of their tools.

"Free Tool Friday"?

Oh, and as for why I labeled this entry "Free Tool Friday", I hope to make this a regular kind of entry. In fact, I'd like to start talking about some of the individual tools that I mention above and in the previous entry, as well as others I have used or may find. It's always tough to set up a periodic contribution like that, meeting expectations, but let's see how I do. :-) If you want to tell me about other tools of this sort that you think others would appreciate, feel free.