Software for my new laptop 2

Time for a new laptop, and to replace software. Here’s my new list.

A lot has changed in the last 5 years. Mainly, I use the browser, cygwin and Portable Apps a lot more. (The last is to escape jailers, not registry bloat.)

Media

Chrome [new]: For browsing and development. Fast, light, and stays out of the way.
Firefox: I keep it just for printing. Chrome sucks at printing.
Media Player Classic: Nothing against it, but I decided to stick to just one app, which is…
VLC: Continues to be the best media player, IMHO.
WinAmp: I just manage my playlists as M3U files, using Python programs.
Audacity: Still the easiest way to record audio.
Camstudio: The simplest free portable screen capture software I know.
PicPick [new]: Lightweight, powerful screenshot grabber
VirtualDub: Not the simplest, but still good for what I need: cropping and joining video.
MediaCoder [new]: Good for video/audio conversions. Maybe I’ll install this later.
Foxit Reader: The simples free portable PDF reader I know, better than…
NitroPDF Reader [new]: … which is good for Printing PDFs – better than…
Primo PDF: … which has trouble on rare occasions.
Microsoft Reader: I have a lot of ebooks in .LIT.
Kindle for PC [new]: I don’t own a Kindle, but I’ve bought a few ebooks.
Paint.NET: Good enough for cropping and adjusting colours on images.
Windows Live Writer [new]: The best way to write this blog WYSIWYG
Inkscape [new]: I occasionally edit vector graphics.
Google Earth. Google Maps is good enough.
ImgBurn: I no longer use CDs/DVDs. Just flash drives and external hard disks.
Picasa: I’ve stopped browsing pictures. No time.

Sharing

Dropbox [new]: Simplest way of sharing files.
Skype: I use it more than my phone.
Google Talk: For those friends who have chat enabled on Gmail.
TeamViewer [new]: Pretty efficient screen sharing. Works better than Skype, I think.
Google Calendar Sync: To keep Outlook in sync with Google Calendar.

Utilities

7-Zip [new]: Covers all compressed formats, and has the best compression ratio.
WinRAR: 7-Zip has it covered.
AutoHotKey [new]: Shockingly powerful macro functionality. Shockingly underused.
Clip [new]: Command line clipboard. dir | clip copies the directory to the clipboard.
ClipX [new]: Stores multiple clipboard entries and history. Invaluable.
DiskTT [new]: I’m paranoid about disk speed. I keep measuring it.
WinDirStat [new]: Best way to find what’s taking up space on disk.
ProcessExplorer [new]: Just in case Task Manager doesn’t show you everything.
Google Desktop: Well, it’s dead.
mDesktop [new]: A Virtual Desktop Manager (multiple screens) for Windows 7.
PowerToys: doesn’t work on Windows 7, but I got X-Mouse working.
Teracopy: I don’t worry too much about copying files any more. Maybe later.
Junction Link Magic [new]: To map folders. But I now use Cygwin, and symlinks rock.
uTorrent [new]: For bittorrent.
ntlmaps [new]: proxies requiring a password to a proxy not requiring a password
Putty [new]: SSH for Windows, but can also act as an SSH tunnel
TrueCrypt [new]: To securely back up my bank details on the cloud.

Development

Cygwin: UNIX on Windows. I also install make, curl, lynx, wget, tidy, mercurial, git, openssh, rsync, optipng, pdftk, sqlite3, imagemagick and sgrep. Also cacert.pem.
ActivePython: My primary programming language. I also install NumPy, SciPy, ipython, tornado, tabular, lxml and eyeD3.
ActivePerl: … isn’t as readable.
node.js: Soon becoming my favourite programming language. Fast, popular.
XAMPP [new]: Fastest way of getting Apache + MySQL + PHP running
nginx [new]: Faster than Apache, but no CGI, and I like CGI.
Google AppEngine [new]: To maintain sites like 250.
redis [new]: My new favourite database. In-memory, and fast.
CouchDB [new]: Simple, persistent JSON store. (Or MongoDB. Both’re fine.)
Fiddler2 [new]: To see where traffic is really coming from.
IETester [new]: I’ve stopped developing for Internet Explorer 6 or 7.
JDK: Sadly, some apps require a Java compiler. (I like the JRE. Can’t stand Java.)
Notepad++ [new]: Excellent editor. I’ll probably go back to it some time, but…
Sublime Text 2 [new]: … is just a little bit cooler.
Crimson Editor: Didn’t have Unicode support a long time ago, so I switched.
Subversion. I’ve switched to Mercurial and git.

Data Visualisation

R [new]. The God of all statistical packages. Install reshape and ggplot2.
Gephi [new]: Does network visualisations quite well.
GraphViz [new]: Does network visualisations not quite as well.
Google Refine [new]: Helps clean up messy data.
qhull [new]: For voronoi treemaps. Don’t ask.
wkhtml2pdf [new]: To print web pages as PDF.

What am I missing that you really like?

Comments

Scraping for a laptop | s-anand.net 14 Jan 2012 4:01 am (pingback): […] for a laptop January 14th, 2012 How I do things S Anand I’ve returned my laptop, and it’s time to buy a new one. For the first time in my life, I’m buying a laptop for […]

shiva 10 Dec 2011 11:45 am: Wat abt notepad ++

408wij 28 Sep 2011 11:56 pm: Evernote Zipeg (available on both Mac and Win, better UI than 7zip) Keepass Switcher (Expose-like feature on Win. A bit flaky and not supported.) Erunt (registry backup) I’m trialing Xplorer2.

Arun 13 Oct 2011 6:11 pm: I tried to do something similar and then got lazy and simply installed VirtualBox ;)

Rajasekar 4 Nov 2011 11:35 am: Good One.

bhavesh 4 Jan 2012 5:24 pm: What about CClener and Unlocker?

Naveen 28 Sep 2011 6:26 am: Finally :-)

Ravi Atluri (@sonnes) 28 Sep 2011 7:14 am: One more thing, I wanted to know from you is - How do you organize your work, specifically code and how do you handle repository and workspaces (if you use an IDE) ? In case you don’t use an IDE, what kind of coding environment? I got a new laptop a few months back and have been trying to figure out how to start organizing my work, repositories of things I work or experiment on and the IDE. Currently, I am trying to put in Java, Python and Scala into eclipse by using it’s plugins, hoping eclipse would help me to organize the code and repos.

Mohit 30 Sep 2011 8:37 am: At least some of this could be automated :) check out “ninite dot com”

Shankar V 30 Sep 2011 3:06 pm: Excellent list. Thanks for sharing :) I agree about Eclipse - too heavy. But if you code in Java, I dont see a better alternative. Anyone remember NetBeans? Google Desktop - I find this amazingly useful and I am sad Google is retiring this. Wish there is a good alternative. I hate windows search.

Venu 7 Oct 2011 7:22 am: Thanks for excellent compilation. Can you point to any free utility to optimize the performance of our computers

TD 28 Sep 2011 8:32 am: Wordweb and Evernote

TD 28 Sep 2011 8:38 am: Also, iTunes…. Not that I like it but for Ipod.

S Anand 28 Sep 2011 3:13 pm: @Ravi: I don’t use an IDE. Just Sublime Text + bash/Command Prompt + git/hg. Since I don’t use Java, I can stay away from Eclipse (which I think is way too heavy for my liking).

Karen 17 May 2012 5:23 am: Very nice list! I would add JV 16 Power Tools to the Utilities list. They have a free 30 day fully functional trial to try them out. It’s not limited like most trial software.

Vinu 11 Aug 2012 11:06 am: If you spend any time in Excel, ASAP Utilities is an absolute joy!… get it and I’m pretty sure, you’ll swear by it in no time.. the Sparklines add-in by Fabrice Rimlinger is also excellent.. a bit raw, but powerful nevertheless.

Vinayak 23 Jan 2013 7:40 am: Nice list. You should really try out: Xplorer2 (get the professional version if you can - it is $30 and worth every penny and more) from http://zabkat.com Wikidpad - for organizing information in an offline desktop wiki - from http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/ Sublime Text - the best text editor - http://www.sublimetext.com/ Everything - the perfect replacement for Google Desktop - actually it is better since it does not hog memory - from http://www.voidtools.com/ Slickrun - the perfect program launcher - http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/ MindManager - for Mindmapping - from http://www.mindjet.com/ Irfanview - basic image viewer and editor - http://irfanview.com/ SumatraPDF - Single portable program for reading ebooks (ePub & Mobi), comics (CBR and CBZ) and PDFs - from http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html

Software I currently use | s-anand.net 9 May 2014 6:19 pm (pingback): […] few years, I review the software I use. Here are some of my earlier […]

Perl, 1994-2011 - S Anand 28 Sep 2024 10:21 pm (pingback): […] 2011, I stopped installing Perl on my […]

Scraping for a laptop | s-anand.net 14 Jan 2012 4:01 am (pingback): […] for a laptop January 14th, 2012 How I do things S Anand I’ve returned my laptop, and it’s time to buy a new one. For the first time in my life, I’m buying a laptop for […]
shiva 10 Dec 2011 11:45 am: Wat abt notepad ++
408wij 28 Sep 2011 11:56 pm: Evernote Zipeg (available on both Mac and Win, better UI than 7zip) Keepass Switcher (Expose-like feature on Win. A bit flaky and not supported.) Erunt (registry backup) I’m trialing Xplorer2.
Arun 13 Oct 2011 6:11 pm: I tried to do something similar and then got lazy and simply installed VirtualBox ;)
Rajasekar 4 Nov 2011 11:35 am: Good One.
bhavesh 4 Jan 2012 5:24 pm: What about CClener and Unlocker?
Naveen 28 Sep 2011 6:26 am: Finally :-)
Ravi Atluri (@sonnes) 28 Sep 2011 7:14 am: One more thing, I wanted to know from you is - How do you organize your work, specifically code and how do you handle repository and workspaces (if you use an IDE) ? In case you don’t use an IDE, what kind of coding environment? I got a new laptop a few months back and have been trying to figure out how to start organizing my work, repositories of things I work or experiment on and the IDE. Currently, I am trying to put in Java, Python and Scala into eclipse by using it’s plugins, hoping eclipse would help me to organize the code and repos.
Mohit 30 Sep 2011 8:37 am: At least some of this could be automated :) check out “ninite dot com”
Shankar V 30 Sep 2011 3:06 pm: Excellent list. Thanks for sharing :) I agree about Eclipse - too heavy. But if you code in Java, I dont see a better alternative. Anyone remember NetBeans? Google Desktop - I find this amazingly useful and I am sad Google is retiring this. Wish there is a good alternative. I hate windows search.
Venu 7 Oct 2011 7:22 am: Thanks for excellent compilation. Can you point to any free utility to optimize the performance of our computers
TD 28 Sep 2011 8:32 am: Wordweb and Evernote
TD 28 Sep 2011 8:38 am: Also, iTunes…. Not that I like it but for Ipod.
S Anand 28 Sep 2011 3:13 pm: @Ravi: I don’t use an IDE. Just Sublime Text + bash/Command Prompt + git/hg. Since I don’t use Java, I can stay away from Eclipse (which I think is way too heavy for my liking).
Karen 17 May 2012 5:23 am: Very nice list! I would add JV 16 Power Tools to the Utilities list. They have a free 30 day fully functional trial to try them out. It’s not limited like most trial software.
Vinu 11 Aug 2012 11:06 am: If you spend any time in Excel, ASAP Utilities is an absolute joy!… get it and I’m pretty sure, you’ll swear by it in no time.. the Sparklines add-in by Fabrice Rimlinger is also excellent.. a bit raw, but powerful nevertheless.
Vinayak 23 Jan 2013 7:40 am: Nice list. You should really try out: Xplorer2 (get the professional version if you can - it is $30 and worth every penny and more) from http://zabkat.com Wikidpad - for organizing information in an offline desktop wiki - from http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/ Sublime Text - the best text editor - http://www.sublimetext.com/ Everything - the perfect replacement for Google Desktop - actually it is better since it does not hog memory - from http://www.voidtools.com/ Slickrun - the perfect program launcher - http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/ MindManager - for Mindmapping - from http://www.mindjet.com/ Irfanview - basic image viewer and editor - http://irfanview.com/ SumatraPDF - Single portable program for reading ebooks (ePub & Mobi), comics (CBR and CBZ) and PDFs - from http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html
Software I currently use | s-anand.net 9 May 2014 6:19 pm (pingback): […] few years, I review the software I use. Here are some of my earlier […]
Perl, 1994-2011 - S Anand 28 Sep 2024 10:21 pm (pingback): […] 2011, I stopped installing Perl on my […]