Essential Software and Hardware Accessories

Productivity

Applications for generating work.

Office

OpenOffice.org	Microsoft Office
The open source office suite, designed for compatibility with the OpenDocument format. However, perfect compatibility has not been achieved with Microsoft Office.	The industry standard office suite.

Image Editing

IrfanView
Fast and powerful image view for Windows to replace the useless image previewer in Windows.
GIMP for Windows	Adobe Photoshop
This open-source image editor can do what most people want Photoshop for; however, its interface is not particularly intuitive.	The industry standard office suite.
autostitch
Autostitch can quickly and easily combine multiple images into panoramas; it does all the blending and perspective adjustments automatically.

Antivirus and Security

Free	Non-free
Microsoft Windows Update
Avira Antivir, Avast	Norton

Computer Management

Free	Non-free
SequoiaView (Graphical HDD viewer)
	Norton Partition Magic

Internet Browser

Free	Non-free
Firefox (with ad-blocker)
Opera

CD/DVD Utilities

Free	Non-free
DVD Decrypter
Alcohol 52% or 120%
Daemon Tools

Media Players

Free	Non-free
Media Player Classic (with one codec package from free-codecs.com)
VLC

Linux Live Distributions

Free	Non-free
Knoppix
Ubuntu
SLAX

Thunderbird Firefox (with ad-blocker plug-in)

VLC or Media Player Classic (with one codec package from free-codecs.com)

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Google Earth

DVD Decrypter

Alcohol 52% or 120%

IM Client (Trillian Pro, Gaim, etc.) (NOT AIM!)

Winrar or 7-zip

DVD burning software

Antivirus, spyware, spam, internet security

Xvid codec

Torrent Downloader

Encyclopedia/Dictionary

Itunes/Quicktime

Irfan View or XNView (image viewers)

Linux live distro (Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.)

Hardware Accessories:

Flash memory drive (at least 1GB)

External Hard Drive

Surefire (M6 Guardian)

H&K USP or Springfield XD .45 compact

CRKT M21

Required Software:

Firefox (with ad-blocker plug-in)

VLC or Media Player Classic