One thing that I cannot live without is a text editor, namely VIM.  VIM was first released as free and extended version of the VI program found on all Unix machines.  I first cut my teeth on VI when I started my sysadmin career, and switched to VIM a couple of years later.  VIM by default works mostly like VI, but i’ts highly configurable, and has a lot of power, especially when you start working with your .vimrc.  Since starting with the editor, I’ve carried my .vimrc from machine to machine, and company to company.  I’m continually updating it, and while there’s not a ton of stuff here, I thought I’d share it in case someone gets some value:

" Ed Salisbury's .vimrc
" Last Modified: 11/17/11

" Make VIM act like VIM, not VI
set nocompatible

" Set up TABs
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set softtabstop=4
set expandtab
set smarttab
set autoindent
set smartindent

" Set up syntax highlighting
syntax on
filetype plugin on
filetype indent on
set formatoptions=qroc
set cindent

" Misc settings
set number       " Print line numbers
set background=dark
set pastetoggle=<F2>

I’d consider these settings a starting point for doing code/web development. Of course, there are tons of more complicated .vimrc files out there, but this should be good for starters. If you’re interested as to what each of these settings do, you can type :helpin VIM and it will display the help file.