Blog :: Tools Tools

I've been using a few different pieces of software lately, and I thought I'd drop my observations here for future reference. One need I run into frequently, for instance, is to give non-technicals the ability to remotely manage files on boxes I have only ssh or RDP access to. The perfect job for a web based file manager, right? As it happens, the only perfect file manager (my criteria: written in php for easy install/modification, simple access controls, one file only, no mysql) is File Thingie. I swear I've at least twice tried installing all the simple file managers I could find on sourceforge, only to end up rediscovering File Thingie... I think there's space here for a prototype/scriptaculous/ajaxed interface to be better, but for simple functionality, File Thingie wins hands down over everything else...

I've also finally hit my annoyance point with various pieces of software that are inefficient in requiring a great deal of user interaction where none should exist. I've finally migrated to the venerable Midnight Commander for file/ftp managing needs and have started using pwsafe for password list management. Both usable from the shell, both not requiring me to take my hands away from the keyboard or even really look at my maximised console in the second monitor... The downside is that I'll probably be sucked into vim at some point now, but the gains I've made in productivity have been very helpful...

Posted on June 19th 2006, 03:01 PM