Purely for selfish reasons I'm compiling a list of programs I add when setting up a windows machine. I say selfish because this is the second time in a month or so that I've had to set one up from scratch and i don't want to have remember again. I have so many programs that I need to survive, and I figure others may be interested, so it may not be so selfish. Here is the list, in roughly the order of importance and order they should be installed in. In case you're wondering, I have a different list for setting up Mac's and Linux machines and will try to get out posts with those lists.
- Google Chrome
- Firefox
- Java
- Open Office
- JDK (If you use Netbeans, I recommend getting this distribution, which includes Netbeans and is much easier to set up)
- Netbeans
- MiKTeX (or whatever LaTeX distribution you prefer)
- Xemacs (or whater text editor you prefer for LaTeX, right now I'm actually trying out TeXMaker)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- SSH Client
- AVG Free
- Dropbox
- logmein
- iTunes (I know it's heavy but if you have an iPod it's still the best way to go, and even without an iPod I've found it to be one of the easiest ways to make an mp3 cd)
- Windows Live Writer (The only Microsoft product on this list, it's the best blogging software I've found so far for Windows, very useful for updating your blog when you're not near the internet, which is often the case when you're travelling)
- VLC (Plays pretty much any kind of file you can imagine)
- Skype
- Inkscape (Wonderful for making diagrams, definitely comparable to Adobe Illustrator, and it's free!)
- Audacity
- Google Gears
- eMusic
- Amazon mp3 store installer
- last.fm scrobbler (I'm maybe a bit too obssessed with analysing my music listening patterns)
- Handbrake
I think this is just about everything I installed. Is there something you think I've overlooked? Let me know!
