The following programs are essential to my (nearly) everyday use. If seems often that I hear recommendations of other programs (e.g., Google toolbar) and I just think – you don’t need that if you have this other one, which is superior in all regards (e.g., Dave’s Quick Search Deskbar). So here is a short list of my favorite apps.
Free
1. Dave’s Quick Search Deskbar – I love this program. Yes, it’ll search Google (default). But type amaz before your search and it’ll pull up your book/product on Amazon.com. Or type fedex and the tracking number and you’ll know exactly where your package is. No need to find the fedex website, click the tracking button, etc. And it does that for hundreds of other functions. I love it and use it dozens of times daily.
2. IrfanView – picture viewer. There are millions of these kinds of programs, but none that I know of does it as fast and slick. I especially use the F6 (rename), F7 (move), and F8 (copy) functions – perfect for fast and easy sorting. I use several other graphics programs for other things, but nothing replaces this for basic viewing tasks.
3. CDex – rips mp3 files from CDs. Enables me to keep all of my music on my computer, without shuffling CDs.
4. Notetab Light – one of a number of replacements for Windows Notepad. There very well may be others equal or better than this one, but I’m happy with it and prefer it significantly over the MS default.
5. 1-4a Rename – for batch renaming of files. I do this frequently when working with my picture files.
Not Free (and probably not new to most)
MS Office
Paint Shop Pro – for graphics editing
WS_FTP Pro – for uploading files
Adobe Acrobat – for creation of pdf files
Nero – for burning CDs and DVDs