2009/11/8
What I installed on my home Windows 7 PC
As someone who works in the software industry (see
disclaimer), I often get asked questions like "Do you recommend Windows 7" (Heck YES!) or "What is your favorite web browser?" (tie: IE8 and Flock.) One of the things I've learned from volunteering in politics is not to ask for a candidate's opinion, but to ask what the candidate actually does (ex: NOT "Do you support public schools?" but "Do your kids go to public schools?")
Now that Windows 7 is out, I've decided to expand on my December 2008 blog entry
Recommendations for a Clean PC. Here's what I recommended (and installed on my wife's laptop):
This past week, I finally got sick of all of the pre-installed crap on H’s laptop so I reformatted the hard drive and did a complete re-install. Here’s what I installed to get a base PC configuration that she could use for her professional and volunteer work as well as something I could do the occasional web development on when she is on my desktop PC:
Now that we bought a new desktop PC, here are the additions or substitutions that I've made now that some new software or versions (including Windows 7) are available:
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Windows Vista -> Windows 7 (included with most new PC's) - Windows 7 is just straight-up awesome. My favorite feature is the window docking so I can easily dock one window on the left side of my monitor and another window on the right side. Thus, a single widescreen monitor can be used as if it was two.
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Firefox --> Flock (free) + Chrome (free) - Since Windows 7 already comes with the the (IMHO) best productivity browse in IE8, I like to also install Flock which has great social features like a "People" column that connects to Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. (Hey Flockers, please add Windows Live.) Flock also uses the mozilla engine so it renders web pages like Firefox. I also installed Chrome because I've annecdotally noticed that it seems to render JavaScript games like Mafia Wars slightly faster than the IE or Mozilla engines and I've become slightly addicted to Mafia Wars after doing some research on online gaming. :)
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Microsoft Security Essentials (free) - I always hate how some of the pre-installed anti-virus software seems to be overly cautious and constantly trying to up-sell me to some paid version. I like that Microsoft came-out with a basic, free anti-virus / anti-spyware program that doesn't try to up-sell you to a paid version. When Microsoft Security Essentials came-out, I installed it on H's laptop and it was part of what I added when setting-up my Win7 PC (and removing the free but up-sell laden included anti-virus program.)
Happy computing--
--Rob
Updated ~6pm PST on 11/8: Added a mention of Microsoft Security Essentials
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