Romey’s Ramblings

My new work laptop arrived at work today, so now I’m in the midst of getting everything set up and running.  I’ve posted in the past about the applications I install by default. But I wanted to offer an updated listed, as things are always changing.

Personal Productivity Apps (covered by work)

• Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise (Students can get Ultimate for Cheap at MS’s TheUltimateSteal.com)
• Microsoft Visio 2007
• Microsoft Project 2007
• Microsoft Expression 2 Suite
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (Students can get both Expression and VS from MS DreamSpark)

I’ve included the list from last time, and updated what I’ve stopped/started using:

Internet:

• Mozilla FireFox and the following extensions:
  • Del.icio.us Bookmarks
  • AdBlock Plus
  • ForecastFox
  • Web Developer
  • FasterFox
• Mozilla Thunderbird (for personal email)
• Pidgin (for IM)
• Digsby - Awesome client, new test version uses 1/2 the memory Filezilla FTP client
• Office Communicator
• Feed Demon an outstanding desktop RSS reader which recently became free (I was paying for it prior)

Apps & Utilities:

• MS Office 2007
• FoxIt Reader a PDF alternative to the bloated Adobe Reader
• PDF Creator
• Primo PDF
• UltraVNC - The viewer on my work desktop, VNC installed on my home desktop
• Burnaware
• Totally Free Burner
• Launchy - Perfect application launcher for keyboard junkies
• ObjectDock - “Sidebar” application launching
• Windows Live Writer - What I use for blogging
• MRemote - To manage multiple MS Remote Desktops/Terminal Servies, I haven’t had great results with VNC though
• MS LiveMesh
• Evernote

Scripting:

• NotePad++ - Best general purpose editor hands-down

Photos & Multimedia:

• MediaMonkey - Incredible media manager, especially if you have a large library (I paid for this one, but there is a free version).
• Last.fm - Scrobble and track what I listen to (my profile)
• TagScanner - For updating ID3 Tags
• SharePod - Managing my iPod without iTunes
• VLC Media Player - For videos, DVD’s and single-file playing
• Windows Live Photo Gallery - Easy way to manage, edit, tag and share photos (there is Flickr integration as well)
• FastStone Image Viewer - On-the-fly image preview & browsing
• FastStone MaxView
• Paint.NET - More in-depth photo editing

System Utilities:

• Defraggler - Disk Defragmenting
• AutoRuns - eliminate annoying startup programs
• CCleaner - Get rid of crap, cookies and temp files
• Unlocker - Gets you out of those “access denied” binds during deletions
• Process Explorer - Task manager on steroids
• Java Runtime Environment
• Tugzip - Great alternative to Winzip, not quite WinRar, but free and open-source
• Synctoy - to synchronize files between my work desktop and laptop, works great if you’re on the same network

Security:

• Windows Vista Firewall works pretty well, but at home I use Comodo
• AVG Anti-Virus (for the home computer, we use a separate solution at work)