Newer technologies for the

Some recent libraries and products that are making today’s development task easy (this is an ongoing effort…this list will be updated periodically)

Background Task Processing

http://hangfire.io/

Caching and Messaging

Redis is basically a key value (in-memory) storage. Redis clusters are being used for everything from caching to messaging systems.

http://redis.io/

NoSQL

OrientDB versus neo4J versus Mongo.  Apparently, OrientDB scales better than the rest- and handles far more complex use cases (Graph based data in addition to document data)

http://orientdb.com/orientdb-vs-mongodb/

Quick, Lightweight backends for your mobile apps

Say you have a mobile app – and suddenly realize that you need a backend for it. Instead of building an entire web application, you can use parse.com to provide you with just the pieces needed by your app (session storage, db storage etc.)

Cloud (Mainly for VMs in the cloud)

Azure for ease of use , AWS for cost effectiveness. (AWS Linux T1 micro instances  suffice for various processing tasks). 

 

Prototyping UIs

Proto.io

Tag Cloud Generator

Tagul worked well for me when I needed a spiffy looking tag cloud for my blog. Change color options, shape (container shape for tag cloud) etc. – and also provide animation effects.