Your computer necessities

Bjam · Post by **Bjam** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:34 pm

I just reinstalled windows. So far I've downloaded:

Firefox
Picasa
Spybot
Open Office
Gmail Notifier

So what are your computer basics? What are handy little programs you use all the time? Etc.

Post by jb » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:46 pm

Cubase
Photoshop
Illustrator
Office
Robohelp

Hah, I kid. I mean, yes really those, but I know what you're lookin' for. My suggestions wouldn't be that useful to you I think:

Cygwin
WinCVS
SmartFTP

Although hey, you need a chat program right? Can't really go wrong with Trillian.

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:02 pm

My 'must have' apps:

Irfanview (simple picture viewer)
AVG Antivirus (free edition)
Xnews (newsreader that handles binaries so well)
Xchat (IRC)
Maxthon browser (sorry, firefox people, this one is way better)
Bitcomet (bittorrent app, with search and trackerless functionality)

Of course, bjam, you'll be installing Windows updates for the next few days. Last time I did a clean install (with SP2 slipstreamed, BTW) there was almost 150MB of updates to download.

Post by **Spud** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:17 am

putty

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:48 am

On the iBook...

Firefox
Word
Garageband
Seashore (a souped up mac version of ms paint)
iChat and iTunes, of course

Nothing complicated.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 2:00 am

GoogleEarth

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:28 am

For the Windows machine:
GimpShop (open source PhotoShop)
CoreFTP (free FTP client)

For the Mac:
GimpShop
CyberDuck (free FTP client)
AirFoil (wireless connection to the stereo to play audio from any app)

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:17 am

bitcomet's banned by some trackers. i use azureus, or utorrent.

i saw this once: http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/04/ ... ml?tid=185

personally, i install winzip, winlame, exact audio copy, dvd shrink, winamp/ipod software/itunes, nero, tag&rename, winscp, thunderbird, firefox, xchat, irfanview... that's about it, i guess.

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:26 am

Madonote, which lets you conveniently tweak a lot of little things about Windows. Plus, it's poorly translated from Japanese, which is always good for a few laughs.

That, Opera, and a bunch of stuff that's already been listed.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:00 pm

What exactly does Madonote do? Their website doesn't really say anything but "Download here."

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:11 pm

I think you have to read the Japanese part of the site, which has more detail. Loosely translated, it says that the program "lets you conveniently tweak a lot of little things about windows." Bear in mind, I don't speak Japanese.

Some specific things I've done with it:
- Auto logon: skip the "pick a user" screen when you start up XP
- Icons: can change all the basic windows things, including hiding that little arrow on shortcuts
- In My Computer, hide all the memory stick drives that I never use
- Unknown file types default to open with a text editor instead of that "What program should Windows use to open this?" thing
- Removes useless stuff from New-> on the right click menu
- Num Lock automatically on when starting up

You know, little tweaks. Nothing really vital, and it's not like there's no other way to do some of that stuff, but it's convenient. And it's stuff that irritates me if I can't change it, so when my computer died a few weeks ago, this was the first thing I downloaded after I got it working again.

Mostess · Post by **Mostess** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:26 pm

bzl wrote:You know, little tweaks. Nothing really vital, and it's not like there's no other way to do some of that stuff, but it's convenient. And it's stuff that irritates me if I can't change it, so when my computer died a few weeks ago, this was the first thing I downloaded after I got it working again.

I used to use TweakUI when I was a Windows guy. Does all that stuff, except for the poor translation entertainment.

I like to work from the command line, so in Windows I used to download all sorts of silly .exe's to do UNIX-like stuff (grep, tr, etc.). And a statistics package called |STAT that you can still get online from the author, but my 3.5" floppy from 1994 still works fine.