New Computer Blues

M0ose · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:35 pm Post subject: New Computer Blues

Ok. I'm getting a new computer. And when I get it, I don't want to have to search the net for everything. So, lets make a thread of the programs that you think are necessary for a new computer. That way, I won't have to search far when I get it, and others will be able to use this too.

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Name - Type - Reason
Link

Firefox - Web Browser - Needs no explanation.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/f.....getfirefox

VLC - Media Player - Best video viewer around.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Last.FM - Radio/Monitor Thingy - Because I like it
http://www.last.fm/download/

Aim Lite - Instant Messenger - Best working AIM device.
http://x.aim.com/laim/

CCleaner - Cleaner Thing - It cleans stuff.
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Ad-Aware - Cleaner Thing - Everyone needs it.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

PSPad - Coding Utility - It works great.
http://www.pspad.com/

AbiWord - Word Editor - It is wonderful!
http://www.abisource.com/

mIRC - Chatting Service - No explanation needed.
http://www.mirc.com/

Well, thats all I can think of now. Any other suggestions, just put them up!
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Pie32 · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject:

Combined Community Codec Pack - Codec Pack - Be able to play practically all videos in existence (besides QuickTime and RealMedia). Also comes with Media Player Classic, the true best video player.
http://www.cccp-project.net/

QuickTime Alternative - Codecs - Play QuickTime videos without downloading QuickTime Player and all that extra junk.
http://www.free-codecs.com/dow.....native.htm

Real Alternative - Codecs - Play RealMedia without having to download RealPlayer.
http://www.free-codecs.com/dow.....native.htm

WinRAR - Uncompressor - Able to uncompress pretty much any compressed file
http://www.rarlabs.com

BitComet - Torrent Downloader - If you're going to be downloading torrents, this is the application I use. Version 0.62 is better than the newer versions.
http://www.bitcomet.com/
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krt · ... Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 4669 Location: Down Under

I'm already forgetting what I used on Windows so I'll focus on criticising the list Very Happy

Aim Lite: if you are going to use a third party IM, at least use one that can combine accounts from different networkssuch as Trillian, unless everyone you talk to is on AIM

PSPad: it's fine for some things, but falls short in many other areas. NotePad++ is more complete in my opinion. You could also go full out with something like Eclipse which is great. Plugins available for PHP, web dev, FTP sync, SVN etc.

AbiWord: Personal preference I guess but OpenOffice seems more complete.

WinRAR: Get something like 7Zip. Not only does it handle the better compression of .7z files, it also handles almost every archiving format, and isn't shareware or whatever WinRAR is.

BitComet: Personal preference again but Azureus 2.5 and uTorrent seem the better options. uTorrent being basically a less resource intensive version og Azureus.

Some recommendations:
- ZoneAlarm or Jetico for a more advanced firewall
- AVG, Avast or some other free AV software
- Opera
- Eclipse IDE, NetBeans, Visual Studio Express for dev work
- FileZilla for quick FTP use
- GIMP / Photoshop Elements (not free)

M0ose · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject:

M0ose · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject:

Question. For windows Vista. What program is needed to make it look different and crazy? One of those should be on the list.

Also, anything can be added to the list really. It gives a good start to the software half of any computer.
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Pie32 · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:42 am Post subject:

ClickFanatic · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:58 am Post subject:

7-zip - Compressed archive manager - Supports many formats in addition to its own 7z format and it's free.
http://www.7-zip.org/

You don't really need WinRAR if you have this, by the way.

Avast! - Anti-virus - Free, effective, unobtrusive and complete.
http://www.avast.com/

Filezilla 3 - FTP client - Powerful yet easy.
http://filezilla-project.org/

Windows Defender - Anti-spyware - It's a Microsoft tool
http://www.microsoft.com/athom.....fault.mspx

Opera - Web browser - It's fast and awesome. Not as extensible as Firefox, though.
http://www.opera.com/

IrfanView - Image viewer - Not an ordinary image viewer, it supports batch conversion of files
http://www.irfanview.com/
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M0ose · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject:

Azureus - Torrent Client - My favorite torrenter.
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
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drath · D Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1696 Location: Canada

At the risk of sounding repetitive my additions for your original list would be:

OpenOffice. I would definately use this over Abiword anyday. Abiword is good and everything, but it will never match the features found in the OpenOffice package.

µTorrent - The most lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows. I use this now over BitComet and Azureus.

If you do anything web related you're also going to want the latest versions of Internet Explorer, an older version of Internet Explorer, Safari (for Windows), Opera, and Firefox to test how your website renders in each.
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M0ose · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject:

martinz · Grandmaster Poster Joined: 01 Oct 2007 Posts: 287

Get Google Pack at http://pack.google.com/intl/en.....&gl=us. They have all the following softwares all in one convenient pack.

Google Earth
Norton Security Scan
Google Desktop
Firefox with Google Toolbar
Adobe Reader
Skype
StarOffice (includes Java™)
Google Toolbar for IE
Spyware Doctor
Picasa
Google Photos Screensaver
Google Talk
RealPlayer

LP-SolidRaven · Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:49 am Post subject:

You just don't want norton, staroffice and realplayer on your computer. Adobe Reader is slow as hell.

As PDF reader you better use Foxit Reader. It uses less memory and works just fine.

Unix Tools for Windows:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
(Things like ls, cat, dd, ... useful in other words Smile

)

SUPER: http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
It's not very memory efficient but it can convert pretty any video or audio file to the most common formats.
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Jacky · intel inside Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 3764

If you need RealPlayer just to play RealMedia files, you can use Real Alternative.

I am using it at the moment and it allows me to open RealMedia files in Windows Media Player without having to install RealPlayer at all.

Almost the whole world hates Norton. Google must be sleeping when they chose Norton.
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jthomsonmain · Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

VLC Media Player. One of the best media players I have found. Plays everything from .flv to dvds!
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Rashy · Lifeless Person Joined: 25 Sep 2006 Posts: 659

Pidgin: I use it for all of my chat needs (IRC to AIM to Yahoo to MSN, and so on). It doesn't seem to be very customizable, but I like having everything all combined into one (and it isn't Trillian!)

Google Desktop: I close it when using more memory intensive programs, but otherwise (like now) its nice to have stuff like RSS reader, photos, and a system monitor in view all the time.

Daemon Tools: For all the ISOs I have on my computer. I guess you don't need it if you don't use disk images much. Don't get the newest version, the adware they attach to it is stupid. (I'm running 4.08 ).

Thunderbird: E-mail client is a necessity for me, I have too many e-mail accounts. Evolution Mail was pretty sweet too, but I think that is just for *nix operating systems.

iTunes: I think that this is the best music player for Windows right now. That or WinAmp, but I haven't used WinAmp.

Microsoft OneNote: I just started using this program (got it as part of a package from my University) and it is amazing for writing research papers and stuff. I hate to say it, but the entire MS Office 2007 is kinda required to keep up if you are in a professional or student environment. OpenOffice is nice, and I used it for a while, but as of right now it can't handle .docx files and I deal with those a lot.
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