So I have spent some time over the past few days building a new(ish) machine for myself and I thought that I’d take a few moments to get techy on you guys and talk about the apps that I need to survive. these are programs that I install on any machine that I will use for any purpose. Even on this machine will will not be my primary internet and entertainment box, there are certain tools that I never want to be without.

Bear in mind, people, that I’m a PC user… I haven’t gone Apple yet. (Sorry, Mr. Jobs!)

1) Firefox: Yep. I use it and I love it. Of course it’s not the same without a couple critical addons:
a) Adblock Plus: It’s a must.
b) Tab Mix Plus: Tab browsing on steroids, people. This helps you make the most of the tabbed interface.

2) Open Office: Documents of any format that I’ll have to worry about; All of the features that I need from an office suite; PDF creation; Free…

3) Acrobat Reader: Did someone say “PDF”? Gotta have it.

4) Gimp: You can do anything with this product. Why buy Photoshop?

5) Foobar2000: Plays any audio file. Handles conversions and so much more… Oh! It has a tiny memory footprint, taboot. Free.

6) VideoLan Player (VLC): Also plays most audio files and most video files… for free. I only use it for video, though (see #5)

7) WinRar: This app will compress/uncompress pretty much any file (.zip, .rar, .tar, .cab, etc…)

Seriously. These apps are my life’s blood. What’d I miss?