The essentials

I’m coming off the back of another Windows install, so I now have a directory containing about a CD’s worth of software – the essentials for installation on a clean system. In alphabetical order (from my folder listing):

• 7-zip – for dealing with .zip, .rar, and all other archives.
• nVidia drivers – I ditched ATI a while back because their Linux driver support is poor.
• Ad-Aware SE Personal edition – but I seldom get many hits with it.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader – I figure under Windows it’s a decent choice.
• Free-AV Antivirus Software – one of the few AV programs I’ve used that treats me like an adult.
• Bittorrent – yeah I’ve heard of Azureus and other clients but plain old BT does everything for me.
• CDBurnerXP Pro 3 – good free alternative to Nero/Roxio or some sort of bundled-with-the-drive software.
• DirectX SDK – because I’m a games programmer.
• Firefox – I’m tempted to try Opera 9, but not sure what it adds to my average browsing experience.
• Gaim – nice free multi-protocol IM client.
• GIMP – my alternative to Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
• Ghostscript & Ghostview – for viewing postscript files (such as papers from the web).
• Inform 7 – I’m playing with it.
• MSN Messenger – only because Gaim’s support for video conversations is still poor (MSN Messenger seems to have been replaced with Windows Live Messenger).
• Java Runtime Environment – for all sorts of stuff (e.g. OpenOffice).
• Lisp in a Box – another thing I’m playing with.
• nForce drivers – for my motherboard.
• Notepad2 – everything that Notepad should have been.
• OpenOffice.org – although I can get MS Office for $20 from work, I use OOo.
• Putty – because the Windows telnet client pushes the lameness envelope.
• SB Live! Drivers – it’s on my MB; I didn’t buy Creative by choice.
• Spybot Search & Destroy – a counterpart to Ad-Aware SE.
• Vidalia bundle – which encompasses Tor and Privoxy for anonymous web browsing.
• Creative webcam driver – just because I have that kind of webcam.

Paid-for software (but in most cases, I didn’t pay for it) that makes the list:

• MS Visual Studio – I’m a C++ programmer.
• Cisco VPN Client – for working from home.
• Anapod Explorer – who needs iTunes?