So I decided to take make the jump from Windows XPÂ to Windows 7. I spent almost an entire night going through my files making sure the important ones were backed up. I also went ahead and made a list of useful apps that I use constantly and would need to re-download.
This is that list with a description of what it does and what I think of it. ALL of these applications are FREE (some of them you can pay to upgrade for more features). I have also provided a link to the application’s website.
- Notepad++ – Great lightweight text editor that I use to do most of my coding in.
- DisplayFusion - Probably one of the most essential applications I use. I have a 2 monitor setup, a 19″ and a 17″. This application allows for me to shuffle separate wallpapers for each monitor, and since they are different resolutions it automatically re-sizes them to my specifications. It also adds another task bar to the other monitor so that applications that are monitor 1 are only on that task bar and the same goes for monitor 2. It also looks just like the windows task bar and has the same position.
- Ultra-Mon – I used this program in XP for the task bar for monitor 2 but now I exclusively use DisplayFusion.
- Rainlendar - Lightweight calendar application that I basically live my life by. It also has a nice To-Do list feature that I occasionally use.
- GCALDaemon – Syncs my Rainlendar with my google calendar, which in turn syncs to my phone.
- Spybot Search & Destroy – Spyware detection and removal tool.
- Ad-Aware – Adware detection and removal tool.
- Peer Guardian 2 – Blocks IPs of things like banner Ad’s. I use this application very rarely as it tends to just make web pages hang. On a side note, logitech devices want to phone home a lot.
- AVG – Great FREE anti-virus.
- iTunes - Music player. I don’t really like iTunes for many reasons. Mainly because it’s bloatware in both senses of the word. Meaning, it hogs a bunch of resources that a music player really shouldn’t. For example, right now it is running and taking 466,280K of memory!! That’s using more than 7.5 times more memory than the next highest process! The other reason, is that it comes with stuff, that I think, is unnecessary. Namely, the extra updater. This updater tries to install crap you don’t need like Safari, MobileMe, and Bonjour. Normally this doesn’t bug me because all you do is uncheck the box and you don’t have to worry about it; however, I find installations of Bonjour on my machine constantly even though I don’t ask for it. So, after that small rant on iTunes you might be asking yourself, why not use something else like songbird? The answer, I have an iPhone, so I am basically forced to use it. Don’t get me wrong iTunes has some great features like album flow view, automatically organizing and copying music, among other things, but overall I think the cons outweigh the pros.
- last.fm – “scrobbles” (logs) my music so I can look at what I listened to the most and what not. This is also what I use to find similar artists that I might like based on what I listen to. (Look at my last.fm profile here)
- Xfire - This is a handy little program that logs the time I play on games. While the logging is a nice little side-effect, I use it mainly to keep in touch with people from games I have played in the past and become friends with. Being that we are all “gamers,” we hop from game to game so it is nice to have a universal chat client that I can use to talk to them without having the same game, and being on the same server, etc. I would link you my profile but I’m embarrassed lol.
- DropBox – The most essential program I use, and should be used by everyone! It syncs up to 2 gigs for free and you can pay for more storage. Essentially this program keeps your files online, but better. If you have the dropbox application on your computer it uploads and downloads changes on the fly to your dropbox. This is great if you have more than 1 computer. Personally I use it for all of my school stuff. This way, while I’m writing a paper or program or whatever I can pick up where I left off on my desktop or laptop without losing anything. Even more, if I’m on a computer that isn’t mine I can just hop onto the website and download anything from my dropbox manually without having to install the application. I just have to make sure to upload it after the changes are made.
- Beyond Compare – Lightweight tool that compares files and directories. I used to use this on my flash drive to make sure my files were up to date on various computers before I got DropBox. Now, I use it for file comparisons while coding.
- TortoiseSVN - (Sub)Version control for my big coding projects. Great for working with a team.
- FasterPing - Turns off Nagle’s Alogrithm. Nagle’s Algorithm waits for a certain number of packets to send before actually sending them out. This is better for efficiently sending out packets; however, when playing an online game, every millisecond counts. This being said, disabling this algorithm allows for packets to be sent as soon as possible, whether its by itself, or with a bunch, allowing for immediate response.
- Space Monger – A visual disk space evaluator. This tool helps me find sink holes of disk space that I can do without.
- Task Bar Shuffle – Used in XP. Task Bar Shuffle allowed me to rearrange items on my task bar. This application is no longer needed in 7 as the functionality is built into the OS.
- VLC Player – A great media player. If nothing seems to be able to play a file, VLC can. It comes with a bunch of codecs allowing for play of all types of media files. It also can repair corrupted media files to an extent.
- Firefox - Internet browser. Much better than IE (there is a reason they call it IIIEEEEEEEEEEE). Personally I like chrome better, due to it being more lightweight and tabs running as separate processes among other things. However, chrome does not re-size correctly when moving it to my other monitor, so I stick with FireFox. You will notice, most of my add-ons just make me feel like I’m using chrome while I’m using FireFox.
- Chromifox - FireFox theme that makes it look like chrome
- Adblock Plus – blocks well known ads
- Better Gmail 2 – adds more functionality to Gmail
- Better YouTube - adds more functionality to YouTube. Namely, remove all ads and comments.
- Customize Google – removes ads from google search results and displays quick links to try the same search on alternate search engines.
- Download Statusbar – Chrome-esque download bar
- Fission - Safari-esque load bar displayed in address bar
- Stylish - Facebook: Hide Highlights Sidebar – This is a script that hides that annoying new “Highlights” sidebar on Facebook
- Tiny Menu – Compresses whole menu bar into a drop down menu to reduce clutter.
- Xmarks - Bookmark and stored password synchronizer. Allows me to access my bookmarks and stored passwords on different computers
Have some application you couldn’t live without? Tell us about it in the comments.
