It's challenging to work in an IT department for a non IT company when there's no proper software development process. "Best practices" would be listed as a low priority item in the list.
The first thing that I would look for before I start coding is a source control. Without it, we're in a risk of loosing the code or spending more time to undo changes that we did which had caused the application to broke.
Since it's a non IT company, requesting budget for software purchase might not take you to the smooth path journey. So, with only 3 options I have in hand and mind which is:
1) Visual SourceSafe 6.0d - unreliable and an obsolete product
2) Perforce - love it, unfortunately the license fee is damn expensive
3) Subversion - it's free but never use it, learning curve needed
Since Subversion is the only option left for me, did some googling and I was overwhelmed with the information. There are so many tools can be use to work with Subversion. To make my life easier, I've listed the best free 4 (at least for me) tools.
VisualSVN Server Standard Edition
Server side tool which is available freely for commercial use. Check out the difference between Standard and Enterprise editions here.
TortoiseSVN
A windows shell extension for Subversion. It is not integrated to any specific IDE and can be use with whatever development tools you like.
AnkhSVN
A Subversion Source Control Provider for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008 and 2010.
SVNMonitor
A tool to monitor changes made to the repository.
Update (27/07/2010)
I've tried SVNMonitor and it's a great tool for monitoring changes made to the repository. Unfortunately all the svn action will be disable if you monitor the source via URL.
