A boring list of tools for Windows

  • \o/

A boring list of tools for Windows

Sat Jul 19 2014
3 minute read

Part two of a draft I had stashed away and forgotten. Here is part 1: A boring list of tools for Linux Desktops

I've been writing lists like these for years (oldest I can find is from late 2005), but I've never gone into that much detail like this one, for example - he seems to have a specialized thing (GUI tool) for almost every task. Maybe that's the way to be productive on Windows, I have mostly given up to do any meaningful work. For what I call work I take a laptop with Linux and only in extreme cases work with PuTTY for ssh. Well, and a browser, of course.

My workstation playstation

  • OS: Windows 7 64 bit
  • Browsers:
    • Chrome - default browser, nearly everything
    • Firefox - mostly gaming websites and stuff
    • IronPortable - yes, I have a dedicated Facebook browser
    • ChromePortable - and one for work email and logins
  • E-Mail: Thunderbird (extensions see below)
  • IRC: Quassel
  • Audio/Video: foobar2000, vlc, MP3Tag
  • Editors: Notepad2, LightTable, MarkdownPad, testing Atom atm (unimpressed)
  • Jabber: PidginPortable
  • Voice: TS3, Mumble
  • Misc: BTSync, f.lux, ClipX, PuTTY, IrfanView, KeyTweak, SumatraPDFPortable, 7-Zip, TrueCrypt and WinSplit Revolution
  • Programming stuff I actually use sometimes: leiningen, eclipse, msysgit
  • Some rarely used PortableApps: Audacity, CDEx, FileZilla, InfraRecorder
  • Random stuff: python, sbt, Racket, VirtualBox, Julia (all in mint condition)
  • Finally stuff that's more or less cool but I don't need: AutoHotKey, ConEmu, chocolatey, GitHub for Windows, Synergy

After many years of a totally clean desktop I've began using it again. For Games.

To conclude, a list of Thunderbird addons:

  • Enigmail - GPG
  • Lightning - Calendar
  • Sieve - Mail filter
  • ConfirmFolderMove - avoid fatfingering stupid actions
  • Quote Highlight - improve readability
  • Flexible Identity - don't reply as bozo@bogusdomain if it was sent to krusty@bogusdomain

and Chromium addons:

  • Enhanced Steam
  • Facebook Disconnect
  • FlashBlock
  • Privacy Badger
  • TweetDeck

Oh, and just for fun here's the tools that were on my 2005 list already :)

  • Notepad2
  • IrfanView
  • Firefox (I know I used Phoenix already)
  • FileZilla
  • CDEx
  • 7-Zip
  • MP3Tag
  • Audacity
  • eclipse
  • vlc (but not as default)

Damn, seems it's hard for me to break habits. Extra thanks for the developers of those tools I am still using after nearly 9 years.