--- title: Software for my new laptop 2 date: "2011-09-27T18:15:49Z" categories: - top-10-lists wp_id: 2688 description: I updated my essential software list for a new laptop, moving toward browser-based tools, Cygwin, and Portable Apps. I’ve replaced heavy IDEs with Sublime Text 2 and added power utilities like AutoHotKey, ClipX, and R. keywords: [portable apps, cygwin, sublime text, autohotkey, r, data visualization, python, windows utilities] --- Time for a new [laptop](http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/portege/r700/), and to [replace software](/blog/software-for-my-new-laptop/). Here’s my new list. A lot has changed in the last 5 years. Mainly, I use the [browser](http://chrome.google.com/), [cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com/) and [Portable Apps](http://portableapps.com/) a **lot** more. (The last is to escape [jailers](/blog/you-are-in-prison/), not [registry bloat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registry_cleaner#Metrics_of_performance_benefit).) **Media** - [Chrome](http://chrome.google.com/) [new]: For browsing **and** development. Fast, light, and stays out of the way. - [Firefox](http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable): I keep it just for printing. [Chrome sucks at printing](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=17a4ac343580c8d3&hl=en). - [Media Player Classic](http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm): Nothing against it, but I decided to stick to just one app, which is… - [VLC](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/): Continues to be the best media player, IMHO. - [WinAmp](http://www.winamp.com/): I just manage my playlists as M3U files, using Python programs. - [Audacity](http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/audacity_portable): Still the easiest way to record audio. - [Camstudio](http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/camstudio_portable): The simplest free portable screen capture software I know. - [PicPick](http://www.picpick.org/) [new]: Lightweight, powerful screenshot grabber - [VirtualDub](http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/virtualdub_portable): Not the simplest, but still good for what I need: cropping and joining video. - [MediaCoder](http://www.mediacoderhq.com/) [new]: Good for video/audio conversions. Maybe I’ll install this later. - [Foxit Reader](http://portableapps.com/apps/office/foxit_reader_portable): The simples free portable PDF reader I know, better than… - [NitroPDF Reader](http://www.nitropdf.com/) [new]: … which is good for Printing PDFs – better than… - [Primo PDF](http://www.primopdf.com/): … which has trouble on rare occasions. - [Microsoft Reader](http://www.microsoft.com/reader/): I have a lot of ebooks in .LIT. - [Kindle for PC](http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc) [new]: I don’t own a Kindle, but I’ve bought a few ebooks. - [Paint.NET](http://www.getpaint.net/): Good enough for cropping and adjusting colours on images. - [Windows Live Writer](http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer) [new]: The best way to write this blog [WYSIWYG](/blog/wordpress-themes-on-windows-live-writer/) - [Inkscape](http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/inkscape_portable) [new]: I occasionally [edit vector graphics](/blog/india-district-map/). - [Google Earth](http://earth.google.com/). Google Maps is good enough. - [ImgBurn](http://www.imgburn.com/): I no longer use CDs/DVDs. Just flash drives and external hard disks. - [Picasa](http://picasa.google.com/): I’ve stopped browsing pictures. No time. **Sharing** - [Dropbox](http://www.dropbox.com/) [new]: Simplest way of sharing files. - [Skype](http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/skype_portable): I use it more than my phone. - [Google Talk](http://www.google.com/talk/): For those friends who have chat enabled on Gmail. - [TeamViewer](http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/teamviewer_portable) [new]: Pretty efficient screen sharing. Works better than Skype, I think. - [Google Calendar Sync](http://www.google.com/sync/pc.html): To keep Outlook in sync with Google Calendar. **Utilities** - [7-Zip](http://www.7-zip.org/) [new]: Covers all compressed formats, and has the best compression ratio. - [WinRAR](http://www.rarlab.com/): 7-Zip has it covered. - [AutoHotKey](http://www.autohotkey.com/) [new]: Shockingly powerful macro functionality. Shockingly underused. - [Clip](http://www.petri.co.il/software/clip.zip) [new]: Command line clipboard. `dir | clip` copies the directory to the clipboard. - [ClipX](http://bluemars.org/clipx/) [new]: Stores multiple clipboard entries and history. Invaluable. - [DiskTT](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=disktt) [new]: I’m paranoid about disk speed. I keep measuring it. - [WinDirStat](http://windirstat.info/) [new]: Best way to find what’s taking up space on disk. - [ProcessExplorer](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653) [new]: Just in case Task Manager doesn’t show you everything. - [Google Desktop](http://googledesktop.blogspot.com/): Well, it’s dead. - [mDesktop](http://code.google.com/p/mdesktop/) [new]: A Virtual Desktop Manager (multiple screens) for Windows 7. - [PowerToys](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx): doesn’t work on Windows 7, but I got [X-Mouse](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/switch-windows-by-hovering-the-mouse-over-a-window-in-windows-vista/#comment-71339) working. - [Teracopy](http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php): I don’t worry too much about copying files any more. Maybe later. - [Junction Link Magic](http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm) [new]: To map folders. But I now use Cygwin, and symlinks rock. - [uTorrent](http://www.utorrent.com/) [new]: For bittorrent. - [ntlmaps](http://ntlmaps.sourceforge.net/) [new]: proxies requiring a password to a proxy **not** requiring a password - [Putty](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) [new]: SSH for Windows, but can also act as an [SSH tunnel](/blog/ssh-tunneling-through-web-filters/) - [TrueCrypt](http://www.truecrypt.org/) [new]: To securely back up my bank details on the cloud. **Development** - [Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com/): UNIX on Windows. I also install [make](http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html), [curl](http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html), [lynx](http://lynx.browser.org/), [wget](http://www.gnu.org/s/wget/), [tidy](http://tidy.sourceforge.net/), [mercurial](http://mercurial.selenic.com/), [git](http://git-scm.com/), [openssh](http://www.openssh.com/), [rsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync), [optipng](http://optipng.sourceforge.net/), [pdftk](http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/), [sqlite3](http://www.sqlite.org/), [imagemagick](http://www.imagemagick.org/) and [sgrep](http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jjaakkol/sgrep.html). Also [cacert.pem](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3777075/https-github-access/4454754#4454754). - [ActivePython](http://www.activestate.com/activepython/downloads): My primary programming language. I also install [NumPy](http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/), [SciPy](http://sourceforge.net/projects/scipy/files/scipy/), [ipython](http://ipython.org/), [tornado](http://www.tornadoweb.org/), [tabular](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tabular), [lxml](http://code.activestate.com/pypm/lxml/) and [eyeD3](http://eyed3.nicfit.net/). - [ActivePerl](http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/downloads): … isn’t as readable. - [node.js](https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Building-node.js-on-Cygwin-(Windows)): Soon becoming my favourite programming language. Fast, popular. - [XAMPP](http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html) [new]: Fastest way of getting Apache + MySQL + PHP running - [nginx](http://nginx.org/) [new]: Faster than Apache, but no CGI, and [I like CGI](http://www.mail-archive.com/fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org/msg02065.html). - [Google AppEngine](http://code.google.com/appengine/) [new]: To maintain sites like [250](http://250.s-anand.net/). - [redis](http://redis.io/) [new]: My new favourite database. In-memory, and fast. - [CouchDB](http://couchdb.apache.org/) [new]: Simple, persistent JSON store. (Or [MongoDB](http://www.mongodb.org/). Both’re fine.) - [Fiddler2](http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/) [new]: To see where traffic is **really** coming from. - [IETester](http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage) [new]: I’ve stopped developing for Internet Explorer 6 or 7. - [JDK](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html): Sadly, some apps require a Java compiler. (I like the JRE. Can’t stand Java.) - [Notepad++](http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable) [new]: Excellent editor. I’ll probably go back to it some time, but… - [Sublime Text 2](http://www.sublimetext.com/2) [new]: … is just a little bit **cooler**. - [Crimson Editor](http://www.crimsoneditor.com/): [Didn’t have Unicode](/blog/in-search-of-a-good-editor/) support a long time ago, so I switched. - [Subversion](http://subversion.tigris.org/). I’ve switched to Mercurial and git. **Data Visualisation** - [R](http://www.r-project.org/) [new]. The God of all statistical packages. Install [reshape](http://had.co.nz/reshape/) and [ggplot2](http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/). - [Gephi](http://gephi.org/) [new]: Does network visualisations quite well. - [GraphViz](http://www.graphviz.org/) [new]: Does network visualisations not quite as well. - [Google Refine](http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/) [new]: Helps clean up messy data. - [qhull](http://www.qhull.org/) [new]: For voronoi treemaps. Don’t ask. - [wkhtml2pdf](http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/) [new]: To print web pages as PDF. What am I missing that you really like? --- ## Comments - **[Scraping for a laptop | s-anand.net](http://www.s-anand.net/blog/scraping-for-a-laptop/)** _14 Jan 2012 4:01 am_ _(pingback)_: [...] for a laptop January 14th, 2012 How I do things S Anand I’ve returned my laptop, and it’s time to buy a new one. For the first time in my life, I’m buying a laptop for [...] - **shiva** _10 Dec 2011 11:45 am_: Wat abt notepad ++ - **408wij** _28 Sep 2011 11:56 pm_: Evernote Zipeg (available on both Mac and Win, better UI than 7zip) Keepass Switcher (Expose-like feature on Win. A bit flaky and not supported.) Erunt (registry backup) I'm trialing Xplorer2. - **[Arun](http://www.arunrocks.com)** _13 Oct 2011 6:11 pm_: I tried to do something similar and then got lazy and simply installed VirtualBox ;) - **Rajasekar** _4 Nov 2011 11:35 am_: Good One. - **bhavesh** _4 Jan 2012 5:24 pm_: What about CClener and Unlocker? - **Naveen** _28 Sep 2011 6:26 am_: Finally :-) - **[Ravi Atluri (@sonnes)](http://www.raviatluri.in)** _28 Sep 2011 7:14 am_: One more thing, I wanted to know from you is - How do you organize your work, specifically code and how do you handle repository and workspaces (if you use an IDE) ? In case you don't use an IDE, what kind of coding environment? I got a new laptop a few months back and have been trying to figure out how to start organizing my work, repositories of things I work or experiment on and the IDE. Currently, I am trying to put in Java, Python and Scala into eclipse by using it's plugins, hoping eclipse would help me to organize the code and repos. - **Mohit** _30 Sep 2011 8:37 am_: At least some of this could be automated :) check out "ninite dot com" - **Shankar V** _30 Sep 2011 3:06 pm_: Excellent list. Thanks for sharing :) I agree about Eclipse - too heavy. But if you code in Java, I dont see a better alternative. Anyone remember NetBeans? Google Desktop - I find this amazingly useful and I am sad Google is retiring this. Wish there is a good alternative. I hate windows search. - **Venu** _7 Oct 2011 7:22 am_: Thanks for excellent compilation. Can you point to any free utility to optimize the performance of our computers - **TD** _28 Sep 2011 8:32 am_: Wordweb and Evernote - **TD** _28 Sep 2011 8:38 am_: Also, iTunes.... Not that I like it but for Ipod. - **[S Anand](http://www.s-anand.net/)** _28 Sep 2011 3:13 pm_: @Ravi: I don't use an IDE. Just Sublime Text + bash/Command Prompt + git/hg. Since I don't use Java, I can stay away from Eclipse (which I think is way too heavy for my liking). - **[Karen](http://www.registrycleanersreviewed.com/)** _17 May 2012 5:23 am_: Very nice list! I would add JV 16 Power Tools to the Utilities list. They have a free 30 day fully functional trial to try them out. It's not limited like most trial software. - **Vinu** _11 Aug 2012 11:06 am_: If you spend any time in Excel, ASAP Utilities is an absolute joy!... get it and I'm pretty sure, you'll swear by it in no time.. the Sparklines add-in by Fabrice Rimlinger is also excellent.. a bit raw, but powerful nevertheless. - **[Vinayak](http://learningconcepts.in/)** _23 Jan 2013 7:40 am_: Nice list. You should really try out: Xplorer2 (get the professional version if you can - it is $30 and worth every penny and more) from http://zabkat.com Wikidpad - for organizing information in an offline desktop wiki - from http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/ Sublime Text - the best text editor - http://www.sublimetext.com/ Everything - the perfect replacement for Google Desktop - actually it is better since it does not hog memory - from http://www.voidtools.com/ Slickrun - the perfect program launcher - http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/ MindManager - for Mindmapping - from http://www.mindjet.com/ Irfanview - basic image viewer and editor - http://irfanview.com/ SumatraPDF - Single portable program for reading ebooks (ePub & Mobi), comics (CBR and CBZ) and PDFs - from http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html - **[Software I currently use | s-anand.net](http://www.s-anand.net/blog/software-i-currently-use/)** _9 May 2014 6:19 pm_ _(pingback)_: […] few years, I review the software I use. Here are some of my earlier […] - **[Perl, 1994-2011 - S Anand](/blog/perl-1994-2011/)** _28 Sep 2024 10:21 pm_ _(pingback)_: […] 2011, I stopped installing Perl on my […]