[v12]

Hi guys,
I dont know how i am supposed to feel now when i'm gettin a new PC. I should be feeling very happy cos finally I am getting rid of my OLD one. Well the present one is just around *2 years old. Served me good. HD been formatted "God knows how" many times. CD ROM, Floppy drive is conked off. My old 4.3 GB HD stopped working all of a sudden. So i'm using a friends 800 MB hard disk for the past 3 months. Imagine no games, no softwares...............nothing. The Keyboard has also conked off [no not entirely, otherwise i wudnt be typing all this]. The number keys [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0] have conked off. Only the Num Pad keys work. Function keys have also conked off. Mouse too is gone. Have to bang it hard to click. Speaker covers are hanging on for dear life.

Present state Config *:
PIII 700 MHz
48X CD ROM [Conked off]
800 MB HD
1.44 MB Floppy Drive [Conked Off]
64 MB RAM
i810 Motherboard
15 in Samsung Monitor
Speakers : Elephant Speakers [sizewise as small as a mouse]


New PC Config :
PIV GHz
52X CDRW
80 GB HD
512 MB RAM
17 in MOnitor
900 Watts Speakers + Woofer
Optical *Mouse

Well now, shudnt I be happy that I will be getting a Supercomp [compared to my vintage PC] But I am not??? Why, u ask?? Because now my plans of buying a digital camera has been postponed. Imagine planning for atleast 2-3 months in advance for a digicam and cancelling it at the last moment. Arrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.................... ......................

Anyways its no use cribbing now. Shud be happy with what I get. Whats the use of a digicam if I dont have a Comp, right?? ...... lol...lol.......

Anyways guys, i need to give a list of softwares to the guy to install. Have already listed a few :

Office XP
Adobe Photoshop CS
Adobe Photoshop Album
Windows Media Player 9 Series
MSN Messenger 6.2
Quicktime Player
Real Player
Winamp 3
Cakewalk
norton or mcafee anti virus
Macromedia Flash
IE 6

Can you guys please help me in some more useful softwares [especially imaging s/w].

Thanks,
V12

[Dippy]

Put in the Macromedia Mx 2004 package as well. Should help you a lot. The package includes Dreamweaver, Flash fireworks and cold fusion..

Dippy

P.S : Put in some car games as well....

[aadix]

not to forget
yahoo messenger
netscape explorer
winzip

[Tom]

if ur into 24/7 downloading then:
soulseek
DAP

[Rehaan]

Hey V12,

Well congrats, and im sorry!.. lol
If theres still room to change your mind your current config isnt so bad.... you just need more RAM and a better HDD (+new keyboard mouse etc) Right now i am running on a PII 400Mhz... and if i hadnt blown up 2 RAM sticks i would have 384mb ram and it was running fine....but right now i have 128 so it sucks.

Anyway, about the softwares -
I think you should only ask for these as all the others listed are small programs and u may as well download the latest installers and do it youself... will give u that "new PC" feeling.

Office XP
Adobe Photoshop CS
Adobe Photoshop Album
Cakewalk
norton or mcafee anti virus (I would suggest Norton..)

Everything else that you or anyone else has mentioned is either part of the operating system (XP) or is a small program that can be dloaded (provided u have cable?)

Also i'd add "ACDSee" to the downloads list.....its an awesome image viewer...but contact me and ill tell u the best (older) version to get.....
cheers
R

[ravi_28_8]

hey hardware config is good. u better take SATA 80 gb hard disk. u can see the performance difference as it can read n write fast.
As u r going for p4 hyper tread, its better to split the ram into 2, that only allows u to actually use hyper tread tech. go for 256*2 or 512*2 ddr rams acc to budget.

S/w, they r all mensioned above which would be enough.

[jesal]

windows media player 10 now
and also winamp 5

[GTO]

V12,

The configs look spot on. However just dont go by the numbers. Look at the manufacturer of the hardware and go with the reputed ones.

I just checked my laptop. In addition to what is already there in your software list you need:

1. Winzip
2. *DivX Codecs
3. Lavasoft Ad-aware (Awesome little software that cleans your comp of spyware & trackers by these ad people)
4. Opera browser - I dont even use I.E. Use Opera for a week and you will know why. Revvmaster is already an addict.
5. Panicware Popup stopper (wont need this with opera though. Only with I.E.)
6. Tweak UI (Allows you to customize XP.)
7. Sygate personal firewall. A must if you are on cable internet. Very non-interfering firewall.

All of these downloads are available free on download.com

GTO

[Rehaan]

Hey guys,

Support for.zip files comes inbuilt to windowsXP.
Divx codec, skip it...its FULL of adware, just dload a 3rd party codec that can play divx's (eg.xVid) OR get a cleaned/cracked version of divx.
Ad-aware.... i agree thats a must! And when installing new programs on ur new comp please make sure there is no mention of GAIN (gator advertising something network) basically spyware. Also, try and dload as much as possible from download.com and read the editor views and the negative reviews and make sure none of the programs ur dloading have any spyware or adware.
Opera.... ihave it, its cool... but i still stick with IE... maybe just coz it has better compatability with all the plugins on the net
popup stopper - you wont need this if u keep ur comp clean of adware and run adAware once in a while
tweakUI - an absolute MUST!!! if ur into computers... u can tweak ur OS to make it seem to work much faster. It comes on the winxp cd in powertoys, or its a tiny dload.

and i totally agree with GTO, that on paper a lot of comps look good, but its the quality of components used and the shape in which u keep your comp that really makes it fast and last long!

cya
R

[GTO]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
popup stopper - you wont need this if u keep ur comp clean of adware and run adAware once in a while

Most pop-up windows are independent of adware presence on your system. Some sites have it inbuilt into them for marketing/other purposes. Visit timesofindia.com and see the "thought of the day" pop-up window come on your screen without any adware on your system.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
Divx codec, skip it...its FULL of adware, just dload a 3rd party codec that can play divx's (eg.xVid) OR get a cleaned/cracked version of divx.

Download only the codec and not the player. As the divx website mentions, the free version is adsupported while the subscriber version isnt. After downloading the codec, an adaware scan will instantly erase all the gain software. In addition, the sygate firewall will block the gain software (and any other adware from other programs) from accessing the internet.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
Opera.... ihave it, its cool... but i still stick with IE... maybe just coz it has better compatability with all the plugins on the net

Opera is compatible with 99% of the websites I visit. Plus its got an option of zooming/enlarging the webpage which is just so useful in case of webpages with tiny characters and graphics. All I.E. can do is enlarge the fonts. I find the remember username/password feature much superior. You can export the saved usernames/passwords in a file, and restore it after a clean install. Also, the look is so much more customizable through the standard menus itself.

But the main reason of atleast trying out Opera is having a choice, just like Netscape. Every computer comes loaded with I.E. and most users arent even aware of other options availabe.

GTO

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Quote

popup stopper - you wont need this if u keep ur comp clean of adware and run adAware once in a while


Most pop-up windows are independent of adware presence on your system. Some sites have it inbuilt into them for marketing/other purposes. Visit timesofindia.com and see the "thought of the day" pop-up window come on your screen without any adware on your system.

True, but then some sites have popups as part of their interface, especailly the new ones. So just keeping that in mind.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Quote

Divx codec, skip it...its FULL of adware, just dload a 3rd party codec that can play divx's (eg.xVid) OR get a cleaned/cracked version of divx.


Download only the codec and not the player. As the divx website mentions, the free version is adsupported while the subscriber version isnt. After downloading the codec, an adaware scan will instantly erase all the gain software. In addition, the sygate firewall will block the gain software (and any other adware from other programs) from accessing the internet.

Divx keeps updating its package, and it takes a month or more for adaware to update their adware database so u cant always be guaranteed a cleanup by adaware. There are lots of other codecs available that play divx, so personally i think its a safer bet to get one of those straight off the bat.
And sygate firewall might block the GAIN software, but keep in mind its still attempting to access the net, ie using your computers rescourses -memory and processor power.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Quote

Opera.... ihave it, its cool... but i still stick with IE... maybe just coz it has better compatability with all the plugins on the net


Opera is compatible with 99% of the websites I visit. Plus its got an option of zooming/enlarging the webpage which is just so useful in case of webpages with tiny characters and graphics. All I.E. can do is enlarge the fonts. I find the remember username/password feature much superior. You can export the saved usernames/passwords in a file, and restore it after a clean install. Also, the look is so much more customizable through the standard menus itself.

But the main reason of atleast trying out Opera is having a choice, just like Netscape. Every computer comes loaded with I.E. and most users arent even aware of other options availabe.

I agree with you on this one. Infact i do have opera on my desktop. I have just noticed slight issues with it, like the fact that my customized buttons on my mouse sometimes dont work etc etc..... but its still a great browser, and definitely worth having that choice!

cya
R

[v12]

whoa. thanks a lot guys. it was really useful. have made a note of them.

P.S : any s/w to convert mp3 to CD format???

[Dippy]

Use Nero which u might get installed with your write. The software itself does the job of converting mp3 to Audio cd when you choose to create a music cd.

I got the Nero pack with my new burner

Dippy

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (v12 @ July 02 2004,13:57)]P.S : any s/w to convert mp3 to CD format???

Takes me back to the good old days when noone even knew what mp3s were and i had to convert MP3s to WAVs using this program Mp32Wav. It used to take more than a minute for each song.
But very soon after the popularity of mp3s just boomed, and nowadays ANY decent audio cd writing software will convert mp3s into cda format, that too "on the fly".

cya
R

[zen]

Would also recommend Firefox for browser.

And for antivirus, AVG (www.grisoft.com) works well.

Its still winamp 2.8 for me.. none of the other players or newer versions give me the quality it does.

For movies, you might want to get MPlayer (http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/rel...32-1.0pre4.zip) which is a windows port for Linux's media player. You will (almost) never have to download plugins/codecs. Downside, the gui is still an alpha release.. so it may/may not work for you.

Lavasoft ad-aware is a must now.. ya everybody else has pretty much covered everything!

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
Also i'd add "ACDSee" to the downloads list.....its an awesome image viewer...but contact me and ill tell u the best (older) version to get.....

2.41 by any chance?