Tools
Themes for Looks:-
XPize 4.7 Full – This is what I use and is the only thing I’ve been using for a long time.
Browsers:-
Opera 9.60 – The best I’ve seen, there are some compatibility issues but I like to live with that when it comes to performance.
Backup Browsers:- I use this for testing all the time
Firefox 3.1
IE 8.2
Chrome (latest addition!)
System Cleaners:-
CCleaner – An Amazing tool to clean crap files and manage the startup items especially.
Cleanup – Another one but gets some more (backup).
Readers:-
Foxit Reader – This is what I use for PDF documents (Adobe Acrobat Reader is getting heavier and heavier, lot of hanging processes & enhancements which adds no value to me; but that’s just me)
Mails:-
Mozilla Thunderbird – A pretty lightweight for my pop3 multiple mail accounts
Microsoft Outlook – Mails @ Work
Music & Video:-
VLC Player – This is the only player I need, ranging from real-media to wma virtually any format (Personally I do not like Real Player, again a lot of additional stuff attached to it make me not like it).
Format Conversion:-
Format Factory – Pretty much converts any music/video format from any that I could think of (Read it as I need) to the formats I need.
QLC Media Converter:- This is another one for the same (backup)
Blogs:-
Windows Live Writer – I blog using WordPress on my own domain, and use Windows Live Writer to blog.
FeedReader – For the exhaustive list of blogs I read, I like RSS aggregator to be simple and CPU friendly
Compression/Decompression:-
7-zip – Open source and can pretty much decompress/compress into any format, broadly classify as Windows formats & Linux formats
Update Management:-
FileHippo Update Checker – An Awesome tool, was in beta and recently stable. Lets me update a lot of software installed on my machine, once in a while and in one shot
FTP Client:-
Filezilla – Again open source, a great tool
Photo Management for Web:-
JAlbum – I have a 3 year old daughter and I’ve been keeping all her monthly snaps at http://rose.rsivanandan.com This tool does a great deal of photo management when it comes to web.
File Sync Software:-
SyncToy 2.0 – Simple tool but suits the purpose
Phone Management:-
Motorola Phone Tools – I have a Motorokr E6
Microsoft Active Sync – I have an HTC Touch as well
AntiVirus/AntiMalware:-
AVG – Free and continued support from grisoft
Lavasoft Adaware – For AntiSpyware
Hijacthis – Once in a while quick Check
Instant Messaging:-
Yahoo Messenger – Occasional, I’m not a great IM person
Office Messenger – For office Use
Project Management:-
Microsoft Project – Still the best
Microsoft Visio – Looking at alternatives as of now
Text Files:-
Notepad++ – An excellent tool, no words to describe.
CD/DVD Authoring Software:-
CDBurnerXP – The name says it all
ImageBurn – For burning images onto CD