Recommendations for software

[katster]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I got a new laptop coming, it'll be running XP Pro. That's rather non-negotiable at this point, there are reasons I want to run windows.

Anyway, that said, I have to install software on this thing. Is there anything particularly nifty, useful, or otherwise that I ought to install on this thing? All suggestions welcome.

In the meantime, I'm back in Sactown, but I'm going to take a nap.

Comments

[tangaroa.livejournal.com]

The standards: Gimp unless you can get Photoshop, OpenOffice unless you can get MSOffice, Firefoo or Opera for a second browser... I used to have a list of stuff that went good with Win98 but I lost it years ago and I think all of the features are in XP now anyways.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Firefox with fasterfox, adblock, Gmail manager, Forecastfox, Livejournal hook, reminderfox and Fire FTP extensions.

Thunderbird as mail client.

AVG from http://www.grisoft.com and spybot.

Trillian for IM

Wavepad for http://www.nch.au

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

oops that's http://www.nch.com.au

[gandalfgreyhame.livejournal.com]

I'd add SessionSaver to the list of Firefox extensions.

Not only does it save tabs (both for 'Open Firefox and open these tabs automatically' and 'Oh shit, Firefox just crashed') and allow you to reopen a tab that you've accidentally closed, but it also saves the contents of any text boxes should Firefox crash.

[phenyx.livejournal.com]

My standard Windows kit includes:

• PuTTY
  
• WinSCP
  
• FileZilla (good for bulk FTP)
  
• Firefox (with Adblock and Web Developer extensions)
  
• Thunderbird + Enigmail + GPG
  
• The Godfather (for MP3/OGG tagging)
  
• Winamp
  
• Gimp
  
• 7-Zip (for handling stuff like .tar.gz, etc)
  
• Picasa
  
• GAIM (in preference to siliconshaman's Trillian suggestion)
  
• Openoffice 2.0
  
• GIMP

[mrfnord.livejournal.com]

Not useful but nifty is Celestia, a real-time 3D space simulator.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

In the name of fun, I also suggest Chaoscope, a strange attractors rendering program.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Good point...added to my list and already proving useful.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

have you found the Motherlode yet?

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

download Zone Alarm, burn to CD, install on new machine before it ever goes online. Ditto Firefox (with extensions as above; I'm also using the Green Firecat theme, but that's just me being mildly silly). AdAware. Spybot S&D. oh! AVG anti-virus. (All of these in the free versions, of course...)

*Before* going online.

(*wry* am sure you know that, but just in case... I vaguely recall statistics something like ... under ten seconds online before a non-firewalled machine with 'doze is infected with something-or-other...)

[katster.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I actually bring the machine up behind a hardware firewall/router, and the rest of the machines behind said firewall are all clean, so I'm not horribly worried about viruses and such. (I just went through the installation tango with my sister's laptop, so...)

Most of what's been suggested is about what I would have done anyway, but it's nice to get the backup confirmation that I'm thinking right. :)

-kat

Zone Alarm

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I've been using the commercial version (5.5) of Zone Alarm for some years now, and have never had a problem. BUT I have heard that the versions starting from 6.0 are a real mess and more trouble than help.

What is your version/experience, because I've been thinking of an upgrade...

My addition to this list would be IrfanView. Best and fastest graphic file viewer around. Not to mention being able to batch-process images is awesome.

Re: Zone Alarm

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

will check that tonight, am out of town at the moment

--g, hastily

[neverupdated.livejournal.com]

May I steal your userpic?

Re: Zone Alarm

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

sorry for the late reply...

I'm using the free ZoneAlarm version:6.0.667.000, and it hasn't caused me any problems.

thanks for the info on irfanview, I'll give it a try!