Software installed on a new Windows 7 machine

I recently replaced my ThinkPad X61 laptop with a shiny new ThinkPad X220 running Windows 7 Professional and the ThinkVantage Tools. In order to be able to live with Windows 7, I had to do a bunch of customizations but that is a topic for another post. In this post, I brain dump in no particular order all the 3rd party software I had to download/install. By listing it all here, I will perhaps remember what I did next time I get a new laptop :). All software below is free except for the few packages labeled with ($$$).

1. 1by1 - nice lightweight music player
   
2. 7Zip - deal with compressed files
3. ActivePerl - most popular Perl environment for Windows
4. MiKTeX - excellent LaTeX environment for Windows, downloads CTAN packages on the fly as needed, includes TeXWorks which lets you edit side-by-side with a tracking PDF preview window
5. blunderdelay - imo an essential plugin for Thunderbird that periodically (every few minutes) sends out messages queued in your Outbox in the background. There is no way I am going to sit blocked while Thunderbird slowly sends outgoing messages in the foreground; this plugin gets around that. Another option is to set the mailnews.sendInBackground option to true in the Thunderbird about:config settings.
   
6. NoScript - plugin for Firefox that disables javascript by default, and provides an easy way to add sites into an allowed white-list. perhaps one of the best things you can do to avoid virus, keyloggers, etc, from getting onto your machine.
   
7. cmake - cross-platform software build and package tools, used to build Condor from source.
8. Git - revision control; the windows version also installs many essential Unix command-line tools (awk, bash, find, which, etc) which I add to my search path.
9. MozBackup - used to move Firefox and Thunderbird settings/bookmarks from old laptop to new laptop.
10. Console - if you use the command prompt, grab this from Sourceforge - it moves the old console window (cmd.exe) into the modern era with transparency, tabs, fast cut-n-paste, etc.
11. Process Explorer from Sysinternals.com - replace the default windows Task Manager with something actually really useful.
    
12. Firefox
13. Thunderbird
14. Flash Plugin
    
15. Java Plugin
    
16. Google Voice Plugin
    
17. Launchy - never use the silly Start Orb again! Must-have utility to launch apps, web sites, google searchers quickly from home-row on the keyboard. Brilliant. Use it for a day, you will never go back.
18. Miranda w/ Skype plugin - Miranda is my favorite multi-protocol instant messaging tool. Besides support for all the usual protols like Yahoo and Google, Miranda also handles Jabber, IRC, and Skype. It is also very lightweight and uses very little screen real-estate.
19. Skype
20. Virtual Clone Drive - mount a .iso file (cd-rom image). why Windows 7 cannot do this out of the box is a mystery (and pathetic).
21. Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition ($$$)
    
22. WiX - tool to create Windows .msi installation packages
23. VMware Player - run virtual machines (duh), required as I do a lot of development on Linux. allows me to simultaneously compile on Windows and Linux from the same source tree. happy to see that current versions also allow you to create new virtual machines and support vix command-line tools. needed to enable a bios setting to run 64bit VMs.
24. WordWeb - fantastic pop-up dictionary and thesaurus that you can use from inside any program (aka vim, email, texworks), just highlight the word and hit ctrl-alt-w.
25. Xming - finally a free X windows server for Windows that works, is small and easy to install.
26. Airfoil ($$$) - software to allow me to stream audio/music over WiFi from any Windows application (not just iTunes!) to an Airport Express hooked up to my house stereo system. once I found this I deleted the bloated/annoying iTunes software. Besides a wireless hookup to play MP3s, since it can stream audio from Firefox as well as anything else, allows an easy way to play Grooveshark / Pandora through the home audio system.
27. CutePDF Writer - a virtual printer that "prints" to a PDF file. any program that can print can now produce a PDF file. why Windows 7 cannot do this out of the box is a mystery (and pathetic).
28. Vim - most awesome text editor.
    
29. Calibre -great package to manage an ebook library; think of it like a decent iTunes for books. can convert ebooks from one format to another, understands dozens of different ebook devices like the Kindle, etc.
    
30. Microsoft Office 2010 ($$$)
    
31. Adobe Reader
32. Cisco Anyconnect VPN client
33. Secure CRT ($$$) -my favorite ssh client. putty is decent and free, but SecureCRT is better.
    
34. Gnuplot -graphing/charting software.
35. Microsoft Security Essentials - imo the best virus / spamware protection, and it is free. i switched to this after Avira failed me a few years ago.