Following the lead of my man James Archer on his latest post “Powering a Professional Web Firm” here’s a run-down of the technology we’re using inside Grid7. Colorcoded by opensource, Freeware/shareware and commercial products.
Software
Communication/Collaboration
- Email: Gmail
- IM – Trillian
- Listserv – Google Groups
- VoIP – Skype
- Fax – MyFax
- Shared Desktop – VNC
- Shared web-based Visio – Gliffy
- Audio capture – Griffin iTalk peripheral
Environment
- Server platform (Grid7) – Apache FastCGI serving Ruby on Rails 1.1, Python
- Server platform (Lights Out, G7 website) – IIS 6 serving ColdFusion MX 6.1, BlueDragon, PHP 4, ASP.NET, Perl
Frameworks
- Framework for Grid7 Projects – Rails
- CMS for Lights Out Projects – Joomla
- This blog – BlogCFC
- The new G7 site and blog (soon)- WordPress
Development
- IDE – Eclipse
- Source control – Subversion
- Database – MySQL
- Database ER diagramming – Aquadata studio
- Regex Help – Regex coach
- FTP – Filezilla
- Wireframing – Adalon
- Prototyping – Flex
- Deployment – Capistrano
Design
Reporting
- Traffic Analysis – Awstats
- Network Monitoring – Cacti
- SEO – Webposition 4
- Link checking – Xenu
- Usability analysis – Clicktracks
Productivity / Administrative
- Strategic Project Mgmt / Calendar – Basecamp
- Tactical Project Mgmt – Trac (integrated w/ Subversion)
- Mindmapping – Visual Mind
- Accounting – MSMoney
- CRM – Trac
- Backups – Acronis True Image
Miscellaneous Apps
- Disk space management – Sequoiaview
- Contact capture – Anagram
- File Recovery – PC Inspector
- Desktop search – Google Desktop
- Offline Wifi map viewer – JiGLE
- Diff Utility – Beyond Compare
- Packet Sniffer – Ethereal
Miscellaneous Services
- Blog aggregator – Bloglines
- Bookmarking – Del.icio.us
- Music – Pandora
- Domain registration – GoDaddy
- Hosting – Deru
- Mapping – Google maps
- Route planning – Yahoo maps
- Offline News reader – Avantgo
- Dashboard for multiple POP email – Netvibes
- Podcasting – Odeo
Hardware
- Production Server – Colo’d Dell Poweredge 750 1RU server (Win2k3)
- Production Server – Colo’d Server (RedHat Linux)
- Dev Server – in-houe Dell Poweredge 1800 dev Win server
- Notebook – Inspiron 9300
- Notebook – 15″ Mac Powerbook
- Workstation – PowerMac G5
- Dictaphone & Player – iPod
- Router – Linksys WRT54G
- Hotspot detector – Linksys WUSBF54G wifi finder
- Phone – Treo 650 and Razr
- EVDO – Verizon PC 5740
Future Plans
- Notebooks – Macbook Pro 17″
- Production Servers – Mac Mini cluster
- Email / Calendaring – Zimbra
- IM – Jabber server
- Telephony – Asterisk
What’s interesting is how central the iPod device has become as far as a platform for communication for us. We use it for capturing and syndicating the audio from meetings and I use it personally along with the Griffin iTrip to stay ontop of the latest conferences and interviews with industry experts via ITconversations and Venture Voice. I can’t comment on all the Mac applications as that’s Kimbro’s realm (hopefully my realm eventually). If you have any critical pieces of infrastructure you’re using in your company that aren’t on this list, do tell.
© 2005 Lights Out Production – All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Thanks, Sean. This is quite useful.
Any reason why you are leaving BlogCFC for WordPress?
Ray,
yea, it’s purely due to the fact that all our efforts right now are centered around microcontent and wordpress has a plugin that supports the creation of this format. It’s one of those "eat our own dogfood" type of choices – if we’re touting the structured blogging stuff and developing a bunch of apps around it, we had better be posting our own content in that format as well.
BlogCFC is a great tool as evidenced by it’s wide adoption amongst the cf developer community. No qualms with it at all. The new version looks slick w/ all the CSS formatting stuff.
Sean
No worries – just wondering if it was something I could address.
Nice, except for your choice of Dell. Dell servers and laptops have cost us dearly in the past. Poor performance, and unreliable (both the hardware and the company).