Support: The Tools of the Trade

We recently posted a blog post that outlined some of the tools our design team uses to design your website. This got me thinking, perhaps I could write a blog about some of the tools I use to manage my delivery of support.

If I was to put together a comprehensive list of software/tools I use, it would probably be the equivalent of about 20 blog posts, so I’ll stick to covering some of my most used ones here.

Whatsmydns.net

Anyone who has walked past my desk, ever, at least once, has definitely seen me with this page open at one point or another.Whatsmydns is a site that lets me check the DNS records for a domain name. There are many, many different things DNS is responsible for (hey, that would be a good blog post idea…), and as part of my job in managing systems, I look after servers and domains, and this all requires a lot of DNS configuration.  I think I access this site, realistically, about 10-15 times per day.

Sublime Text

A very familiar piece of software amongst the “nerdy side” of WDL.  Sublime Text is my go to text editor.  I use Sublime to write new code, edit existing code, check errors logs, and even find myself using it just to take quick notes.  Sublime has many powerful features that make it much easier for me to get stuff done.  My favourites of which are probably autocompletion, search in a folder, and syntax highlighting.

Terminal/Hyper.js

I was introduced to Hyper.js by a former colleague, and what a difference it has made.  Hyper.js is a replacement terminal that’s built as a web app. Beyond making me look like the typical cliche movie hacker, Hyper.js makes my working days just that little bit better. A terminal (also called a command line/CLI) is used for a wide variety of things, but in my job, I mostly use it for setting up development sites, adjusting host files, using Git (version control software), and crucially, I use it to access our servers to get real-time statistics about usage.

Mostly, I opt to use Hyper.js instead of the default terminal as it looks nicer. When you spend 7 hours a day staring at a small black box, if you can make that black box look exactly as you want, you’re golden.

This post covers only a few of the many, many tools I use, but having that wide toolset is part of what makes it possible for me to keep on top of things and keep our clients happy. If you’re interested in how our support works, please get in touch.