Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

In a discussion on a private IRC server a while back, codepope and I were talking about the sort of thing we load on a freshly OSed machine. Let's face it, we all have our ways of working, and whatever we use, be it Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, just won't give us what we want out of the box or off the ISO. So what are the tools I tend to install on my Windows boxen - apart from Office?

• Mozilla - it's an excelent IMAP mail client and newsreader, even if you don't use it as a web browser


• Google Toolbar - plug it into IE and you don't need any other search tools


• SmartFTP - a rather nice (and free) FTP client


• SmartDraw - cheaper than Visio, and much better at network diagrams


• Trillian - all my IM clients in one tool


• Musicmatch Jukebox - MP3, CD and streaming media player


• Paintshop Pro - Image editing and screen capture


• OrangeCD - Tray CD player


• Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser - Keep on top of the hotfixes and security patches


• Languard Network Scanner - Free network analysis and scanning tool


• Spamnet - Spam blocker for Outlook


• Clipmate - Clipboard extender


• AVG Antivirus - Free virus scanner


• Cygwin - UNIX command line for Windows, along with UNIX utilities.


• Feedreader - RSS feed reader and browser


• Adaware - Spyware deletion tool


• Undisker - ISO CD image creator and reader


• Winzip - Archive manager

There are other tools I'll add, too, depending on use - Sun's JRE for Java, Web Matrix and the .NET framework, Macromedia Studio MX and of course LiveJournal tools...