[new tech guy]

lets see here, apart from security apps which are:
avg free
comodo firewall
ad-aware
spyware blaster
In terms of photo editing, photoshop. Nuff said.
Web browsing, well i use firefox for that and ietab addon with ad block plus was the smartest idea ever.
I have more but need to go now. will post them later and add links

[sharky]

MUST HAVE ON MY COMPUTER:
CCleaner
Free Zone Alarm
FreeRam XP Pro
the 3-month trial version of NortonAntivirus that came with my computer(which renews itself when i co-incidently do a routine computer reformat every 3 months)

SLEEPER SOFTWARE:
Advanced Windows Care V2 Personal
Spybot

Always good to go to PCPISTOP every so often for the full tests.


Just "one"?...Toss up between CCleaner and Zone Alarm

PS Since Ad-aware changed their software interface, i kinda lost interest in using it.

[new tech guy]

Ok i have returned.
Another app i added was AIM 5.9 with aim ad hack which takes out the garbage that aim typically comes with and makes the app very small. Can be found here: http://www.aimadhack.net/
Ccleaner by piriform, very handy in cleaning up cookies in a system: http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/
By the way, spywareblaster which i mentioned earlier is passive anti malware protection which can be found here: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

That is about all i can think of right now. .

[Tacocaster]

Originally Posted by new tech guy

Ok i have returned.
Another app i added was AIM 5.9 with aim ad hack which takes out the garbage that aim typically comes with and makes the app very small. Can be found here: http://www.aimadhack.net/

I hated all the garbage that AIM came with so I refused to even update the program until I was introduced to Pidgin.

Check it out: http://www.pidgin.im/

[LilyNBlue]

A tiny little program that every programmer/designer -- or anyone who works a lot with graphics/photos -- should have is a multi-purpose color picker called Color Cop. So easy to use... and you'll wonder how you ever got along without it!

[LilyNBlue]

Because I have a lot of images/photos on my hard drive, I count Xentient Thumbnails as one on my short list of MUST-HAVES!

Description: Xentient Thumbnails changes the default icons for image files in Windows explorer and replaces them with thumbnails of the images themselves. It works automatically on all image files within the Windows environment without user intervention.

Every Windows user knows that setting "thumbnails" in the folder view options results in a thumbnail view of the pictures within it. Xentient Thumbnails goes a step further by replacing all image icons on-the-fly with thumbnails that are visible in all folder views (icons, tiles, list and details views, and even images placed on the Desktop).

The utility automatically generates thumbnail icons for most popular image types including JPG, JPE, JPEG, JP2, J2K, GIF, PNG, BMP, WBMP, EMF, WMF, PCX, PBM, PGM, PNM, PPM, RAS, TIF, TIFF, and TGA.


I no longer have to set all my image folders to view "thumbnails". Every image icon is a tiny version of the image itself (instead of the standard icon for the imaging/paint software applications I use for them).

LOVE IT!

[new tech guy]

I do run aim 5.9 on the vista unit. Doesnt work fully seemlessly, every now and then it gets bogged up and needs a reinstall but it is rare. I have aim running at around 12mb of ram right now and 00 cpu. So that is not bad at all. usually the little ad at the top absolutely kills it in terms of performance.

[LilyNBlue]

If you've been living under a rock and are unaware of NOTEPAD++, it's a free source code editor and Notepad replacement. It supports several programming languages and runs under the MS Windows environment.

Features include:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback

I've never looked back!

[LilyNBlue]

What good is doing productive work if you have no way of backing it up? Mozy is a backup software package that offers two gigabytes of free remote storage. Simply create an account with them, install the software, choose which directories you would like to keep archived, then forget about it. For Home Users, you can get UNLIMITED storage for under $5/month... but most people can get by with the 2 FREE GIGS!!

Check out Mozy Online BackUp. I use it... and love it. (Of course, I use a few methods of backing up for my really important files. This is just one.)

[LilyNBlue]

A couple more that I like:

Stickies for Windows: Customizable Post-Its!;
(Source Code for Stickies)

DateInTray : No more hovering over the clock in my taskbar!

[LilyNBlue]

And finally... the MOST practical, useful, necessary tool:
WinAudit by Parmavex

I can't believe it's FREE!

Audit your computer to find out anything/everything you need to know. Reports are incredibly thorough and user-friendly. Just a small sampling of what I learn anytime I audit:

All drivers, processes and running programs (including PID and memory usage);
All Startup Programs (including settings/registry folders and startup commands);
All communication ports and what's using them;
All Hardware, BIOS and Network info I could possibly want;
System Management, Environment Variables, Error Logs, Scheduled Tasks;
Permissions, Privileges, Security Settings and Logs... AND SO MUCH MORE.

Whenever asked, THIS IS THE ONE I urge everyone to check out!

[aarhus2004]

"Little" and "...not do without"? This:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...download.html#

Ben.

[ekim68]

Thanks Ben...Looks good..Gonna check it out..And, I've always liked this one:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/IrfanView_d4253.html

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by aarhus2004

"Little" and "...not do without"? This:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...download.html#

Ben.

Next time can you post a link to the program's page, not the download page?

[Stoner]

I'll second that.