Creating the proper development environment is a key to productivity. At Astrient, Java is the platform of choice for our server and mobile offerings. Wearing multiple hats, I often develop run Adobe Photoshop, Eclipse, MySQL, and one or more web browsers. Our production environment is Tomcat+MySQL on Linux. Leaving out mobile tools, here are the essential tools and service that I use in my environment.

Desktop Basics

Cygwin

Cygwin gives you the power of the Linux command prompt on your Windows machine.

Bitvise Tunnelier

We use the SSH and SFTP functionality of the client. Transferring WAR files to the server is simple with the explorer-like graphical interface.

XP Powertoys

Essentials from the Power Toys library are Open Command Window Here, Image Resizer, Tweak UI, and RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer.

Sysinternals

Essentials from the Sysinternals library are Process Monitor, Disk Usage (DU), and TCP View. One feature that we find helpful is the ability to find a close open file handles.

IDE

Eclipse

Eclipse is a free and open IDE that provides everything a Java developer needs to build applications. It provides integration for Tomcat and SVN. I do wish that there was a simple upgrade path between versions.

DataBase

MySQL

We also suggest that you install MySQL Query Browser and MySQL Administrator.

App Server

Tomcat

Source Control

SVN

We make use of the SVN support provided by Eclipse; checking-in code and performing other tasks directly from the Eclipse UI. We have an offsite SVN server, running in a CentOS Linux environment at our cloud provider. As an independent developer you may consider CVSDude as your source control solution. They provide both SVN and CVS and have free account plans.

Web Browsers

All web UIs must be tested in IE and Firefox at a minimum. In addition to IE, we have the following browsers installed.

FireFox

Firebug is an essential add-on. It allows developers to dynamically inspect and modify web pages. Screengrab is another good add-on to have. With Screengrab, you can take PNG image captures of web pages. This is helpful for creating screenshots for documentation or presentations. Lastly I would suggest installing Downloads in Tab. It offers the convenience of grouping your downloads in one tab.

Chrome
Opera

Graphics

Adobe Photoshop

Although we have the complete Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop is our most used graphics program.