Buying a new laptop - Must have Software?

[ATV]

I'm buying a new netbook (HP 210 mini) with Windows 7 starter and want to know what's essential software to put on it? What do you guys always have?

For me it would be:

PAID FOR

1) Windows Office
2) Adobe Acrobat Standard

FREE

1) Firefox (but might change to Chrome as a lot of my colleagues recommend it)
2) Free Anti Virus (possibly AVG?). Hate Norton Utilities and Zone Alarms, so buggy and invasive. Anything better?
3) CCleaner (brilliant 1 click removal)
4) Lavasoft Ad Aware
5) MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (picked up loads of crap on my last laptop)
6) Itunes
7) Sybot Search and Destroy
8) Skype

HARDWARE

1) Logitech Anywhere MX (never used it but might be good for traveling without a mouse mat)
2) Chargepod V2 (not released yet, very expensive but looks very handy for traveling http://www.callpod.com/products/chargepodv2)

Edited by ATV on Monday 15th March 17:41

[Silver993tt]

I'd definitely have the Kapersky AV & Security suite. I've been using that for nearly a year and it's fantastic, totally non-intrusive and very conservative with regards to resource use. It's around £30 a year so a no brainer compared to others such as Norton/McAfee - both of which I had before and were rubbish.

[amir_j]

Backup software/manual process in place
Truecrypt and/or PGP
MagicISO (on a netbook especially).
Two fingers (can scroll down using two fingers on touchpad, tap with two fingers as middle mouse button etc)

Firefox extensions- Adblock plus, Noscripts, WOT, better privacy, flashblock.

Edited by amir_j on Monday 15th March 17:50

[amir_j]

ATV said:

2) Adobe Acrobat Standard
[/footnote]

would suggest you get another pdf maker solution (will be cheaper too), currently Adobe software is recognised by the industry as the no 1 target for hackers as its so commonly used. (Google got hacked allegedly via a Adobe pdf backdoor).

[amir_j]

Silver993tt said:

I'd definitely have the Kapersky AV & Security suite. I've been using that for nearly a year and it's fantastic, totally non-intrusive and very conservative with regards to resource use. It's around £30 a year so a no brainer compared to others such as Norton/McAfee - both of which I had before and were rubbish.

Barclays give the Kaspersky antivirus free to all its online banking users- havent used as the free microsoft one is fine.

Edited by amir_j on Monday 15th March 17:54

[The_Jackal]

Dont go paying for AV, just install Microsoft Security Essentials for free.
There is no need to use AVG to make a stand against Norton anymore lol

[Puggit]

Why pay for MS Office? Open Office is just as good (I know, I have to use it at work!)

[Stu R]

my list of essentials is:

Malwarebytes and spybot S&D. Used to use adaware but it went a bit rubbish. No other AV programs and touch wood I've never needed them. I do check once in a while with something like avast but it seems arbitrary, I've not had a virus or other nasties in years and anything more than these two seems overkill as nothing else ever finds anything once they've ran

Firefox with ABP and WOT addons, and fission (puts the progress bar in the address bar like safari) and forecastfox (weather forecast at the bottom - fed by accuweather, always handy), as well as stumbleupon and a fairly hefty toolbar full of my links and favourites. Still all nice and neat at the top of the page and makes navigating great.

OpenOffice - cheapo version of MS Office which does most of the things office does, certainly more than I need to.
iTunes
Logitech touch mouse server - use iPhone as a mouse, handy when in bed or from across the room
Skype - probably my most used program
MSN Live messenger
TVersity and Transcode 360 - for media streaming to xbox360 with most vid formats, amongst other things
loads of creative stuff for AV work - adobe master suite (photoshop, premiere, flash, illustrator etc etc etc), sony vegas, 3Dmaya, 3DSmax and so on.
AutoCAD

and that's about it really. Everything else software wise that's important to me is either very work specific or contained within firefox in terms of bookmarks and so on.


Hardware wise, I always have a cardreader, USB hub and at least a 1TB external HDD with me, but other than that not a lot else.

[blank]

Depends what kind of things you do but here are some suggestions.


You might not need Acrobat if you get the free PDF add ins for Office 2007


Songbird - Like iTunes

Inkscape - Like Adobe Illustrator

Camstudio - Record your screen activity

VLC - media player that will play anything

InfraRecorder - CD Burning

7 Zip - RAR compatible zip archiver

SyncToy - File synchronisation

Audacity - Audio editing

GIMP - Like Adobe Photoshop

VirtualDub - Video editing

DAEMON tools lite - mount ISO files as virtual drives


All of the above are free. Most can be found on Sourceforge.net