Trac

Over the years, I've developed a number of software tools to make my life easier: little scripts here and there that start up my computers in exactly the way I want or remind me when bills are due or backup my email database.

Recently, though, I've found the mother of all free, customizable project management tools, and it turns out to be, through the use of plug-ins, an exceptionally good way to manage and track household projects, bills, and so forth.

The software is called Trac, and it's written in Python and supports SQLite and PostgreSQL back-ends. It can run through Apache or under its own HTTP server.

Trac comes stock with a wiki, a ticket tracking system, a Subversion repository integration tools, and a bunch of other neat, little bits. A long list of plugins is available, too, covering concepts ranging from code documentation to a guest-book. Incidentally, it's also totally painless to wrap Trac in custom CSS to give it your own, personal look-and-feel.

If you're Linux-savvy and need something to help collect the bits of your life that seem to fall away once in a while, give Trac a shot. Using the SQLite back-end, setup is only a matter of about 10 minutes.