Suggestion time

[billazilla]

So I have the new machine. I've loaded a lot games and a little software on it. But I'm unfamiliar with the world of next-gen computers, and also, I've really fallen behind on my software knowledge. I've discovered that a lot of the things I used to keep on my harddrive are now either redundant, incompatible, or simply without use

Comments

[megarandom]

Look for TweakUI. It has a lot of the things it used to have and more. It's under microsoft, now, though. Found under the powertoys site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

I get a lot of music from http://www.gomusic.ru/ It's the most reasonably priced mp3 source I have found. And all theirs are actual mp3s that you don't have to use with certain services and gizmos, like that iPod crap.

If you're looking for a groovy office clone, there's open office (http://www.openoffice.org/). It's free and less of a resource hog than the original. For photoshop clones there's Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/), I am pretty sure you'd like that one.

For regular image viewing I like Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/). It's small and useful for minor image manipulation. It also has a thumbnails mode.

Of course you know about Winamp, I guess. You probably have some ideas what kinds of sound stuff you might like, but I am a fan of Winamp. I actually ran a sort of internet radio station for a bit with it and Shoutcast.

I guess you already know about spyware stuff and protection like ZoneAlarm, Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, and AdAware. But it doesn't hurt to mention those, too.

For antivirus, I like avast! It updates itself, it's free, and it's pretty damned thorough. I have yet to have anything get by it.

And there's always Azureus for torrents.
You have seen http://www.myspleen.net/index.php I would imagine. There's also a bunch listed here:
http://community.livejournal.com/_bittorrent/profile

Zip Program:
http://www.filzip.com/
It opens almost any zip-type file, but you can leave windows with its .zip files extension so that you can use the folder function that XP has built in for it.

I can't think of anything else right off.

As before, you probably know about most of these, but it's worth mentioning.