Programming Applications
If you do any development work on the side, you know that tools are costly and good tools are difficult to come by. My development tends to be more on the web side of things, writing scripts and some HTML design. Therefore the tools I present here are geared towards that arena, but the editor that I put up here can be used in traditional development projects too. If you need good, free development tools, these applications will surely hit the mark.
XAMPP is an integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Everything is pre-configured for easy development for the LAMP platform on your Windows box. Just download and install and you're set. You can install XAMPP to one folder and run it as a portable application if you wish. This is a godsend for Windows folks who need to develop or test projects developed for LAMP. Enable XAMPP, do your thing, and then turn it off when you're done. Nothing can be simpler.
PSPad is a freeware editor that supports a variety of languages including HTML, PHP, Perl, CSS, C++, Java, Javascript, and a TON of other languages. It has project support and a built in FTP client so you can edit web pages directly on your server. There are so many great things about this editor that I can't even begin to list all the things I love about it. The whole program can be run from one folder as a portable app so if you don't like it, you can just delete it. I use PSPad for all of my development and it's my favorite editor by far. In fact, this site was programmed using PSPad! For such a small app, it's so powerful. The author deserves all the accolades we can muster - PSPad is that good.
Kompozer is the unofficial bug-fix of Nvu version 1.0. Rather than link Nvu with its bug, I'd rather provide the Kompozer download and you can Google for Nvu if you're so inclined. Kompozer is a WYSIWYG web editor similar to Microsoft Frontpage. Edit your pages in straight code or in a visual environment. Kompozer provides a color picker, compliant mark ups, spell checker, FTP site manager, and more. If you need a visual web editor, this is a good choice.
PortableApps.com has packaged Kompozer into a portable app so you can run everything from one folder. A portable app runs everything from 1 folder, making it easy to take with you on a USB drive or to test drive a new piece of software. Uninstalling is just a matter of deleting the entire application folder, leaving nothing behind.