Briefly, I am Scottish and old enough to remember times before PCs/Macs made their appearance so I’ve seen first hand what a real difference tech is making to our daily lives. I got my first PC in 1988: a 286 with I think a 20MB hard drive and a 5.25-inch floppy drive and DOS 3.2. I’m using Windows XP at the moment on my desktop PC although I’m in the process of installing Windows 7 on a new 1TB hard drive. My second desktop runs Ubuntu and I have an Acer Aspire One netbook running Easy Peasy Linux.
I’m aiming this blog at the beginner or intermediate PC user, rather than the PC enthusiast, techie or geek. I’ll be blogging about PC tips and troubleshooting, my essential PC software and pointing out useful and interesting internet sites, blogs and services. I’m also learning Linux Ubuntu so join me on my journey with this OS. I’m enjoying working with WordPress so I’ll blog tips on using WordPress and the plugins I have installed. Occasionally, I’ll blog about life in general, the funny side, the philosophical side… and the occasional rant.
I’m happily married with two children. My daughter has just started university and we keep in touch with her through Skype.
I have far too many apps installed on my desktop PC but here’s a list of my essential software:
Browsers
Firefox
Google Chrome
Security
AVG Free
ZoneAlarm Free
Trend Micro RUBotted
SUPERAntiSpyware
WinPatrol
File management
VCOM PowerDesk Pro
Folder Marker
Notes organizer
InfoMagic Extra
Word Processing
Microsoft Word
Spreadsheets
Microsoft Excel
Email client
Eudora
Spam Filter
MailWasher 1.33 (and GMail)
Utilities
Skype
CCleaner
RocketDock
PhraseExpress
AusLogics Disk Defrag
Acronis TrueImage
Belarc Adviser
PC Wizard 2008
SIW
Revo Uninstaller
Pure Text (convert clipboard contents to text)
DoubleKiller
CD Burner XP
Foxit Reader
PDF-XChange Viewer
Notepad++
WS_FTP
Copernic Desktop Search
Abbyy FineReader
USB Safely Remove
MyFreeWeather
Image organization/editing
FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Photo Resizer
FastStone Image Capture
Bug Shooting (screen shots)
Serif PhotoPlus
Serif PagePlus
IrfanView (also used for batch renaming files)
Media player
VLC
Podcast catching software
Ziepod
Password Manager/Online Form Filling
Last Pass
File encryption
AxCrypt
Blog writing
Windows Live Writer
Twitter clients
TweetDeck
Tweetree
Desktop Calendar/organizer/to-do lists
Rainlendar
Notable
Stickies
And here’s my essential online services at the moment:
Google Search
GMail
GReader
LazyFeed
Guzzle.it
Google Calendar
Foxmarks
BigTweet
ReadTwit
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Evernote
Doris (task management)
I’ll try and keep all these PC apps and online services updated. I’m also looking out for Linux equivalents of my Windows desktop apps as I transition to Ubuntu.
techandlife – born analogue…living digital
Twitter
Flickr
Tumblr blog
