1. Firefox - hands down, the best internet browser available today. Add-ons and how they are managed make this browser the gold standard. Favorite add-ons include: Google Browser Sync, Tab Mix Plus, Answers, and IE Tab.
2. Microsoft's Windows Search - I can't tell you how much I use this. It is for your PC what Google is to the internet. Consider using Google Desktop if you don't need to index network drives. However, I find the Microsoft interface to be very slick and useful. If you're running Windows XP and Outlook 2003, use Microsoft's Windows Desktop Search 2.6.6 version since it will index network drives right out of the box. If using Outlook 2007, use Windows Search 4.0 . Don't forget to install iFilters that you may need for indexing files like PDF. The Foxit iFilter is a good one to install.
3. Google Earth - Just download it and install it. You'll catch on quick and be amazed.
4. Microsoft's Virtual Earth - A formidable alternative to Google Earth. Sometimes the satellite imagery will favor one of the other; worth installing both as a comparison.
5. TrueCrypt - Need to encrypt files? TrueCrypt is what you need.
6. Launchy - My PC became too cluttered with programs to deal with the Start Menu -> All Programs. Launchy fixes that issue by allowing you to search for program quickly and easily. Download Version 1.25 or later (prior versions were buggy).
7. ThunderBird - For the limited time I've played with ThunderBird, I'm impressed. A great substitute for Outlook POP3 e-mail client. There are some deficiencies, but, each release chips away at Outlook and ThunderBird appears to be more stable and certainly better architeched than Outlook's PST file format which constantly needs repairing.
8. Yahoo Widgets - Pretty cool stuff; check out the WiFi widget, calendar widget, and weather widget.
9. SyncBack - If you have precious data files like pictures, word documents, and etc, remember all hard drives will eventually go bad. Solution:
- Buy a network area storage (NAS) device and hang it off of your network. The Linksys NAS200 for about $100 works very well. It requires you to install two internal SATA 3.5" drives. Get them and configure them so they are mirrored.
- On your PC, map a drive to the NAS that you just set up above.
- Now, download SyncBack (free from download.com). Configure the software to schedule a process each night that will back up your important files to your NAS. The software is quite good and you'll likely thank it some day.
