Casey Stengel, a famous baseball player, once said that "The trick is growing up without growing old".  Is he saying here that somehow we should learn how not to age? Well... plastic surgery has its uses.  But I don't think that's what he had in mind.

Mr. Stengel hit a home run here, so to speak.  As a software developer, it is always a conscience effort to take this quote seriously or you could find yourself in 2009 still programming in COBOL with no skill at any newer technologies.  Did I just say that out loud? My apologies to the 4 of you.  

Technology is always evolving, we all know that.  But this quote is really just stating the obvious.  It is a fact that we grow or die; that we take action in our own careers to help keep us as close to the top rung of the ladder as we can get.  It doesn't help that they keep adding rungs to the ladder every time you think you've made it one notch closer to the top, but that's just how it is.  The road is long, and can be tiresome.  But there are plenty of tools and resources available to keep us inspired and fill us with the energy to get to that next rung.  And that's why on October 17th 2009 I will be in Jacksonville, Florida... attending the LessConf.  

I hope to see you there.

Unfuddle

What is it? Unfuddle is by far the best and easiest project management tool I have used to this point.  It allows you to track the project conversation, tickets for bugs, new enhancements, or just things to do; milestones (and the progress made towards their completion); as well as project documentation.  One of the greatest points though that many other similar sites do not offer, is that Unfuddle gives you an SVN repository along with your project and can send notifications to team members when updates are checked in.  The dashboard gives you a quick glance at everything going on with the project and the whole system is very usable.

What does it cost? At the time of this post, plans range from free to $99 per month.  Your choice depending on the needs of you and/or your team.

StackOverflow

What is it? I'd be surprised if you've not had a development question you've googled and not ran across it on StackOverflow.  This is an excellent resource for asking questions to other developers (and helping to answer them) to get your issues resolved.  What I believe is the best feature of the site is the ranking system.  For well answered questions you receive points.  What this means to the asker of the question is that those users out there attempting to gain "karma" on the site are going to answer your question to the best of their ability.  

What does it cost? Totally and utterly free!

Freshbooks

What is it? For consultants like myself, this is the best time tracking and invoicing application there is. Period.  There is even an app on the iphone that you can use to track hours for your clients which is very useful.  The site itself is easy to use.  It allows you to brand your logo on the invoices, send them via snail mail or email, share documents, and there are many reporting options to see where you are financially.

What does it cost? Plans range from free to $149 per month.

buckleFISH

What is it? There are many times when I need to send a large file to a client or colleague and email servers can often times limit the size of attachments. BuckleFish allows you to send any file to anyone, anytime. It is currently in beta and limited to 1Gb per file, but I can't remember ever needing to send a file that large.

What does it cost? Absolutely free!

Mikogo

What is it? Ever heard of GotoMeeting? Well, this is it's free counterpart. Maybe not as full featured, but also not as pricey. The functionality is almost identical minus a few bells and whistles.  This product is an absolute must have for remote meetings, customer support, and other web conferencing needs.

What does it cost? Like I said... nada!

Final Thoughts... I use each of these products multiple times a week, sometimes more.  I cannot say enough about how they help me through my days.  A huge thanks to all the developers that put these products out there for us.