Must Have Applications
Posted on April 16, 2007 9:37 AM
I recently reinstalled Windows on my primary workstation. I probably reload the operating system more than the average computer user, for various reasons. This time it was because I was running out of space because I had installed onto a 20GB hard drive. Here's a quick list of the first programs I installed after the Windows install was complete.Mozilla Firefox
Web browser of choice. I really wonder how many times people go from the initial Internet Explorer page right to Mozilla.com and then never use IE again.
StartupMonitor
A service that monitors when a program tries to make itself start up when windows starts.
Symantec Antivirus v9
This is the antivirus software that my company uses.
PuTTy
Preferred program for connecting to remote systems via ssh/telnet.
Slickrun
A free floating command line utility for Windows. Essentially, a little floating box that I type commands into and other programs start up.
Lotus Notes
The company that I work for requires this for email.
Java Runtime Environment
Needed for a other programs to run, especially jEdit.
jEdit
My favorite multipurpose text editor. Favorite functions are ftp editing and column editing, among other things.
TortoiseCVS
A shell interface to CVS
WinRar
My preferred Zip/Archive creator/extractor.
Privoxy
A proxy that removes ads from web pages.
TaskswitchXP
An improved alt-tab task switching utility, with screen shots of windows.
XnView
A photo viewer. I use this to look at pictures and to rename them using Exif information.
I should note that some programs that I would have installed in the past are missing from this list because of my use of PortableApps software. Basically, portable apps is a suite of programs that will run off of a flash memory drive. Here are some of the programs that are on my PortableApps drive right now:
Gaim - Instant messaging
Audacity - Sound/music editor
Gimp - Photo editor
VLC Media Player
Open Office - freeware MS Office replacement
Sumatra - Non-Adobe PDF Viewer
There are a couple other programs that I usually install, but they are not free so I didn't include them here.
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