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Technology
Family
Must
have software for a Windows™ PC
If you are setting up a new
PC there are several useful programs worth downloading and installing.
With the exception of the anti-virus software, all my suggestions here
are free of cost, and some are both free of cost as well as being 'open
source' software.
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Anti-Virus Software |
Sadly, any computer that connects to the net or receives e-mail must have a good anti-virus program on it. I recommend either McAfee or Norton, both are good. I prefer the retail boxed versions as opposed to the on-line services. Both products can be found on sale for about $40 with a $20 mail in rebate and a $20 upgrade rebate. If you send in the rebate its $20 the first year and free thereafter. |
| Firfox | This is a great web browser amd should be used whenever possible instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firefox is more secure and superior features. Firefox is free/open source software with no licensing costs. |
| EnZip | Many of the programs available from the Internet for download are in the .zip file format. A .zip file is any type of file - programs, images, whatever that has been compressed for faster downloading. EnZip, is a freeware zip compression utility for MS Windows. While WinZip is better known, it is not freeware (even though most people use it that way. You will need to download EnZip and install it before you can install other programs in this list. Windows XP has this function built in. |
| WS_FTP LE | FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a standard used on the internet to transfer files between computers. While Windows comes with a command line version of FTP, this program is easy to use and good to have. You may never need an FTP program as most files can be downloaded using your web browser but its a good idea to include it on your machine. WS_FTP LE (limited edition) is a standard FTP client for Winsock. It has an easy-to-use graphical interface and advanced features. This version is available free to government employees, noncommercial home users, and students and staff of educational institutions. Corporate users or those who do not qualify for free use of WS_FTP LE must use WS_FTP Pro. |
| Google Toolbar | The Google Toolbar is a browser 'plug-in' that adds a Google search bar to your browser window. In addition to making Google easy to access, it also includes a very nice pop-up window blocker. |
| Adobe Reader | Adobe Reader is a free program that displays, prints and saves files in the PDF format. PDFor Portable Document File is a proprietary standard that has become widely adopted. A PDF file preserves the exact look and layout of a document so files can be viewed and printed on a variety of platforms. Although the reader is free, programs from Adobe to create PDFs are not. However, programs such as Open Office (see below) can produce PDF files without the need for an additional program. |
| Mozilla | Mozilla is an open-source web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. It has some excellent features such as a solid e-mail client, news reader, pop-up controls etc. You will still need Microsoft Internet Explorer for some sites but Mozilla is worth the download. The latest release is 1.6 and it is excellent. |
| Open Office | Open Office is a comprehensive proffessional office suite of software including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs. Open Office easily replaces Microsoft Office for akmostb any individual or small business. Open Office is free/open source software with no licensing costs. |
| Quicktime Player | Quicktime by Apple Computer is a must have audio video player with a clean and simple interface that Apple is known for. Quicktime also supports MPEG4 - a newer video format. |
| Real player | Real Player is a free media player that supports most audio and video formats. Although it has anoying ads it is a must for streaming audio and video. |
| Ad-aware | Ad-aware is a program that scans your computer for programs know as spyware. Spyware programs secretly report information such as web viewing or program use to a third party. Most spyware is embedded in small utility programs. Ad-aware lets you know which programs on you computer are spying on you and lets you easily remove them. I recommend treating Ad-aware just like virus scanning software and rid your machine of spyware at least once a month. The free version works great, no need to pay unless you want to deploy on a large number of machines and want some automation. |
| Spy Bot | Another Spyware removal tool - very well done. I recommend that both Ad-aware and Spybot be used as each finds things the other misses. |