Noah Coad

What's better than free bits to make life better?  As in life I'm refering to a developer's life in code.  I was just digging around and found these golden nugets to share.  The last two are non-Microsoft apps I've used for awhile.

• XML Notepad 2007
  A little app for working w/ XML
   
• ASP.NET AJAX
  Add AJAX power super easily to your ASP.NET apps.  Also great for calling Web Services from JavaScript, using a full type system, and more.
   
• Virtual PC 2007
  Just released to web!
   
• Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)
  Inject WWF into VS05 for kickass apps.
   
• Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1
  If you've got VS05, you should be running the latest service pack.  Tons of bug fixes.
   
• Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
  A free reference poster!  Just print & go.
   
• Visual Studio 2005 SDK v3.0
  Build plugins for Visual Studio.  Yum
   
• RegEx Buddy
  Easily build & test regular expressions.  Shareware  Worth it.
   
• XPathMania
  Visual Studio plugin for executing XPath statements on XML.  Freeware
   
• VSWindowManager PowerToy
  Get Eclipse like "Perspectives" in VS.  Save & load window/toolbox layouts.

More tools at these lists:

• MSDN Magazine's Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Know
• Scott Hanselman's 2006 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
• Microsoft Visual Studio Extensibility Contest Winners
• Wikipedia on List of Microsoft Visual Studio Add-ins
• Free VS Addins on DotNet Spider