I know, I should’ve purchased a Mac. But given my current cash flow situation, the Mac purchase really wasn’t an option for me. I spent about $500 on a Toshiba that came with a free HP Deskjet printer. I’ll stow away the $500 I saved and invest it towards buying a Mac in a few years. Below is a list of the programs I installed to get up and running.
Free Programs
- Google Chrome – currently has less than 5% of the browser market, but will likely be the leader in a few years
- Google Gears – can serve as an offline backup of your email, in case Gmail goes down again
- Google Earth – because I need to know what my house looks like from a satellite image
- WinRARÂ – takes care of both .zip and.rar files
- Mozilla Firefox – if you’re still using IE, you’re behind the times
- Apple Itunes – have Ipod, nuff said
- Primo PDF – allows you to print to PDF for free, no annoying watermark
- Skype - essentially gives you free long distance calling
- Spybot Search and Destroy
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Songbird
- Limewire
Pay Programs
What about the Kazaa Lite Codec pack?