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

[djkim]

megarandom basically suggested everything i would suggest.

I'm using 7zip as my archiving utility. it opens zip/rar and whatever else and it has a pretty damn small memory footprint (its GUI uses the run command line in your start menu). it compresses really well and is freeware.

http://www.7-zip.org/

the VLC media player is also really good. it opens just about anything, provided you've got the codecs (i think it actually has a codec pack).

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

also, don't install divx, install xvid. it'll play anything divx plays and it compresses well, too. divx is pretty goddamn annoying with gator and all that crap on it.

http://www.xvid.org/

also, DAEMONtools is good. it is a drive emulation program, which is handy when you are installing software off of disc images or you need to emulate a key disc or something.

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/

google earth is awesome just to have.

http://earth.google.com/

AC3filter is a must have for playing back dolby digital encoded streams if your computer isn't hooked up to a dolby digital decoder.

http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/

I also like gaim for instant messaging. it emulates AIM and all the other protocols.

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

Also, instead of using windows file sharing to move big files around (for some reason, it never ever works right with big files) I just use ftp. it's a hell of a lot goddamn faster.

warftpd is good, but it can be hard to get going with it. there's a fuckload of options.

http://www.jgaa.com/