Just lately I’ve been thinking about what software would be “must-have” on my home PC (windows based), and I decided to compile a list.

1. CDex, which I’ve talked about previously for the purpose of converting your CDs into MP3 files. And it’s free.

2. Ahead Nero, for the burning of CD-R media. It’s cheap.

3. TMPGEnc, to convert multimedia into SVCD format. It’s pricey, but good.

4. G-Spot, which analyzes multimedia and reports on the required CODEC to play it. It’s free.

5. Virtual Dub, for editing of multimedia files. It’s free.

6. The Groupwise 6 client, for connecting to my IMAP email server. It’s free (for the client).

7. Internet Explorer, simply for it’s better Javascript support. (free with the OS)

8. Winzip (shareware)

9. Adobe Acrobat Reader (free)

10. CA EZAntivirus (cheap)

When you sit down and think about what software you actually need, compared to what you use your PC for, it’s usually quite a sparse list. I’d always thought that I’d need some kind of productivity software for my PC, like Microsoft Office, but since I’ve left home I haven’t had it installed on a PC, and haven’t missed it.

And, of course, this means that I can operate with a fully-licensed set of Apps on my PC quite cheaply.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 30th, 2003 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.