I’m a typical nerdy kid that works in three different operating systems across three laptops, five desktops and who-knows-how-many virtual machines. As such, I have a plethora of files, utilities and applications that I absolutely need to stay productive (Firefox, OneNote, Process Explorer and Process Monitor, Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, ToDoList and custom batch files and scripts). It is also absolutely essential that these be configured as similar as possible else life gets miserable really quickly.

Ever since I heard about DropBox, I’ve been astonished by how simple and easy it is to use. Frankly, it just works! Run the little installer on your operating system of choice, setup your account and off you go! Store files into the folder it creates and they magically sync with your other DropBox installs. You can access these files in any system. Plus, the web site keeps track of all changes to your files, including retaining deleted files. It also comes with a nice interface for the iPhone. The DropBox folder appears to Windows like a local folder so none of that network shared folder security interference happens. The backend is Amazon S3 so it’s redundant, scalable, extensible, fungible and FAST!

So far, I’ve created a OneNote notebook within DropBox and use that as my primary file. I’ve stored all my SysInternals tools into a Tools subdirectory and added it to my Windows PATH. I store common SQL scripts and shared keys there. I’ve even taken to working on documents that are still in draft phase from my DropBox. Slowly but surely, it’s turning out to be what the My Documents folder was originally intended for, albeit without the local network.

The DropBox app claims that it auto-updates silently without interrupting anything you are doing. I haven’t seen that yet. I hope it’s not some unhappy process like Live Mesh; Live Mesh used to download megabytes of data from the internets, then prompt me to update it, and then completely blow away my Quick Launch bar. Dude, I’ve laid out the icons on that task bar just the way I want and like and here you come along and destroy it every time? I don’t think I’m a fan of Live Mesh till they fix that bug.

I need to figure out how to migrate my Firefox profile into DropBox and reload Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio from the DropBox folder. Oh, and any other utility that I can put there. I figure that most apps that run as PortableApps can be migrated to a common DropBox.

Yay — I’m actually excited about an application!

Const SCRIPT_FILE = "SetupACLs.bat"
Const FLDR_WWW = "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot"

Sub Main
    Call SaveScript(SCRIPT_FILE, GenerateScript)
    Call RunScript(SCRIPT_FILE)
End Sub

Function GenerateScript
    Dim sScript

    sScript = "REM " & SCRIPT_FILE & " generated on " & Now & vbCrLf
    sScript = sScript & SetupWwwRootACLs(FLDR_WWW) & vbCrLf

    GenerateScript = sScript
End Function

Function SetupWwwRootACLs(sPath)
    Dim sScript

    sScript = "REM SetupWwwRootACLs" & vbCrLf

    sScript = sScript & Perms(sPath, "Network Service", "r") & vbCrLf
    sScript = sScript & Perms(sPath, "IIS_WPG", "r") & vbCrLf
    sScript = sScript & Perms(sPath, "ASPNET", "r") & vbCrLf

    SetupWwwRootACLs = sScript
End Function

Sub SaveScript(sPath, sScript)
    Dim oFSO
    Dim oFile

    Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set oFile = oFSO.CreateTextFile(sPath, True)

    oFile.WriteLine (sScript)

    oFile.Close

    Set oFSO = Nothing
End Sub

Sub RunScript(sPath)
    Dim WshShell
    Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

    WshShell.Run sPath, 1, True
End Sub

Function Perms(sPath, sUser, sPermission)
    Perms = "cacls """ & sPath & """ /e /g """ & sUser & """:" & sPermission
End Function

• 8 GB RAM
• 500 GB SATA primary drive
• 1 TB RAID-1 data drive
• Three 22″ monitors
• Windows Server 2008

Of these items, I need to acquire another 22″ monitor and a display card capable of supporting upto four monitors. I’m looking at the ATI FireMV 2400 PCIe graphics card and a Dell 2208WFP 22″ monitor.

• Gmail for email. I have it setup so that email from other addresses either forwards to one account, or Gmail connects via POP and retrieves from the other accounts.
• Google Reader to manage and stay on top of my feed subscriptions.
• Google Calendar for scheduling.
• Google Docs for my documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
• Facebook for keeping in touch with my friends and family.
• Delicious for managing links.
• Remember the Milk for managing task lists.
• Backpack for my personal intranet.
• Basecamp to manage client projects.
• Flickr for photos.
• Wordpress for my blog.
• Windows Live SkyDrive for more documents. I like that it lets me upload and share any kind of document.
• Self-hosted Subversion with S3 storage and a Trac front-end for my projects.

Most of these applications work really well through Firefox or on the iPhone. In fact, iPhone support has become a must-have feature for me.

The minimum hardware configuration for the typical development systems that I setup usually includes a 64-bit capable dual-core system with at least 2 GB of RAM and a 256 MB graphics chip. It should be able to run Aero without any tweaking. I try and acquire two physical disks for the system.

Software

I setup the following software on a development system:

• Windows Vista Enterprise SP1
• Office 2007 Enterprise SP1 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, OneNote, Outlook)
• Office Project 2007 Professional
• Office Visio 2007 Professional
• Paint.NET
• WinMerge
• WinRAR
• JDK
• SmartFTP
• Ultra-Edit
• Enterprise Architect
• Eclipse
• Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite SP1
• Windows SDK
• SQL Server 2008 Management Studio
• Windows Live Writer
• Acronis
• Firefox
• CamStudio
• Reflector
• PsTools from SysInternals
• Process Explorer from SysInternals
• Process Monitor from SysInternals
• ShellRunAs from SysInternals
• BgInfo from SysInternals
• PowerShell
• TortoiseSVN

File System

I have the following additional folders on my SystemDrive:

• Volatile for temporary or downloaded files.
• Tools for self-contained applications. This folder is added to the SystemPath.
• Scripts for batch or Windows scripts. This folder is added to the SystemPath.
• Machines for any virtual machines.
• Work for all the source code that I create or analyze.
• Work\Libraries for shared third-party libraries like AntiXSS, CAPICOM, YUI, jQuery, GData etc.

Quirks

I always enable line numbers in any applications that support this feature - this means you Mr. Visual Studio and Mr. SQL Server Management Studio and Mr. Ultra-Edit. I also enable Display Symbols for White Space, set Spaces to Replace Tabs and set the Tab Indent to 4 spaces. In Visual Studio and Ultra-Edit, I enable displaying Column Markers at columns 80 and 120. I tweak my Command Prompt to open at SystemRoot as Administrator. I open a shared notebook on my server within OneNote and continue using it. I add my blog, flickr, facebook, gmail, gdocs, gfinance, greader, gcalendar and delicious to the Links toolbar in IE and Firefox. I make my Start Bar two rows tall - the upper row is reserved for open windows and the lower row is for the Quick Launch bar and collapsed toolbars for the Desktop, Work and Volatile.

I’ll keep this post live as I update the minimum specifications for my typical development system.

Must sleep.

UPDATE: apparently, all I had to do was plop my head onto a pillow and close my eyes. Got a decent six hours of sleep.

I’m using these extensions:

• Adblock Plus
• Adblock Filterset.G Updater
• Delicious Bookmarks
• Firebug
• IE Tab
• NoScript
• Remember the Milk for Gmail
• Web Developer toolbar
• YSlow

Also, while I appreciate the hard work that went into making Firefox look and feel like a native application in Windows, Linux and Macs, I prefer the Whitehart theme because it gives me a consistent experience on any platform.