Ted's List o' Stuff You Can't Live Without
It seems that I don't often go more than a couple of weeks without someone bringing me laptop to rebuild, or asking me to setup a new computer for them. One of the most useful tools that I have when doing this type of work is my list of favorite software. I'll bet you are just dying to know what is on it. Almost as much as I am dying to put it up online so that I can access it whenever and wherever I need to. Without further adieu I present:
Ted's List o' Stuff You Can't Live Without
Operating System:
Windows XP ProI haven't taken the Vista plunge yet. Mostly because I just haven't seen the need. I'm sure in the next few months I'll upgrade, there are a few bells and whistles I'd like to have.
The other major option here is Ubuntu.Ubuntu is a very popular version of Linux. It is very easy to use, and does a few things better than Windows. It comes with all of the other software that you will need already installed, and best of all you don't have to steal it, because it's free.
Internet Browser:The real power of Firefox is in it's add-ons. I'll be writing my list of add-ons (aka extensions) shortly. Free (as in beer and speech), extensible (very extensible), faster, more secure. I'm sure it has been months since the last time I actually started Internet Explorer.
Office:
Open OfficeI used to install Microsoft Office on every computer that I setup. But recently I've stopped doing that. If you really really need Office then you are using it for work, and you are going to be getting Office from your employer anyway. Don't get me wrong, I love Office. I recently upgraded to Office 2007, and I absolutely love it, but for home use M$ Office is just overkill. Go get Open Office, it's free (as in both beer and speech) and it will do everything you need it to do.
Personal Finance:
MS Money 2007There is a reason that Microsoft is so large. There are some things that they just do right. MS Money is one of them. This is one of the few programs on here that I am recommending that is not free, but I haven't yet found a free program out there that does as good of a job as MS Money.
Instant Messaging:There are a lot of IM networks out there, and I'm on them all. GAIM let's me use a single free (speech and beer again) client to log into all of the networks that I use (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google, ICQ). No ads, stable, simple, and completely extensible and customizable. That's pretty much everything I look for in software.
P2P (Peer-to-Peer):
AzureusAzureus is huge. About half of all the traffic on the intarweb is bittorrent traffic, and most of that is flowing through Azureus clients. If everything I just said is meaningless to you, don't worry, I am working on a "How to use BitTorrent" article. And yes, Azureus is FOSS (free open source software).
Photo Editing:
PicasaPicasa is Google's photo organizing and editing program. It is great at what it does, but it doesn't do everything. If you want to adjust color, crop, or straighten your photos, Picasa has you covered. If you want to share you pics, Picasa does a great job here too. If you want to add an alpha blended layer and remove that tourist from you picture of the Eifel Tower, look elsewhere.
Paint.NETPicasa will do just fine for about 90% of the amateur photographers out there. Paint.NET will satisfy about 90% of what is left. Paint.NET is of course free, and does just about everything you could want in photo editing software. It's not Photoshop, but how many PS users out there actually use 1/10th of the power that PS has?
GIMPShopFor the few of you that still aren't happy with the functionality of the first two photo programs, GIMPShop will take care of your needs. If there is something that you want to do with your pics and GIMPShop doesn't do it, then you are a professional photog and you need PhotoShop.
Web Publishing:I don't do enough coding to be competent at it using Notepad, so I need a WYSIWYG editor. Expression writes good code (I'm using it for this article), and if you are familiar with FrontPage, then you will find yourself right at home here. I know that Dreamweaver has a much larger market share, but I think that that is because FrontPage sucked so bad for so long. Expression Web is a superior product, and unless Adobe does some major work on DW I think you will see MS picking up the lead again in HTML editors.
Anti-Virus:
Avast!Avast! is free (beer, not speech) for home and personal use, and it works just as well, if not better, than what you would pay $50 for from one of the other companies.
Anti-Spyware:Free software from Microsoft? Maybe it's because they realize that Windows shouldn't need anti-spyware protection. There are tools out there that some say are more robust, but Defender is free (beer, not speech), and easy to use.Remote Access:
LogMeIn is of course free (beer), it is somewhat limited in that unless you pay for the pro version you can't do file transfers (don't worry, we are getting to that one), but it is very easy to setup and use.
Remote File Access:
HamachiHamachi lets you access the files on one PC from another PC, across the internet. Free of course. Hamachi was recently bought by LogMeIn. I am yet to see any integration between the two products, but I am hopeful that LogMeIn has something in mind here.
Free Utilities:I am pretty anal about my mp3 collection. Files must be named and stored in a very standard manner. I use AntRenamer to rename dozens or even hundreds of files at once, just the way that I like them.
Did you ever wish that when you right click on stuff in Windows you could do more? With FileMenu Tools you can. You can do a lot more.
ImgBurn
ImgBurn gives you the ability to read, write, create, and verify CD image files. And of course you can burn them too.
I hate Adobe Acrobat Reader. You just want to open a pdf file. Why do you need such a huge program that takes forever to open just to look at a pdf? You don't have to. Use FoxIt instead. Watch pdf files open instantly.
Now that you can open pdf files quickly, how about a way to create them just as well? Install CutePDF and you will see a new printer on your printer list. When you print to this printer CutePDF will instantly create a pdf file of what you wanted to print, from any program.
How Windows XP shipped without this feature I'll never understand. I like my taskbar to show my programs in a specific order. Outlook first, Firefox second, SAP third, everything else after. Taskbar Shuffle lets me rearrange the taskbar buttons to be in any order I like.
You do have a Gmail account right? If not you really should switch. This little program tells you when you have new mail. Simple stuff.
Google Pack
Select the software that you want off of the list, and let Google Pack install it for you, and Google will automatically keep it up to date.
Google EarthOK, not really all that useful, but very, very cool.
So that's it. Is there something missing? Do you have a better idea? Leave a comment and tell me your idea.-Ted
