I’m the proud owner of a brand new Dell Studio 1558; a system powered by Windows 7 64bit and the current Ubuntu 10.4 beta. I’m extremely pleased with my purchase; an i3, full HD system.

While many of my fellow web developers are balking that I dived back into the Linux and Windows worlds of computing, I enjoy each operating system for its pros and try to minimize the cons with additional software.

Afterall, once you immerse yourself in your work applications—Photoshop, Office, FireFox, etc—the differences in the actual operating systems often fade into obscurity.

Windows 7 Recommended Software

This is non-comprehensive list of the current Windows software installed on my Dell Studio laptop. I hope this list will help new and old Windows 7 users discover at least one or two useful applications. Most of the applications are free downloads; yet, the paid applications are worth the asking prices.

Enjoy.

• Google Chrome – a better web browser than FireFox in my honest opinion
• Spybot Search & Destroy – adware and spyware removal tool
• HWMonitor – a hardware monitoring program that reads PC systems’ voltages, temperatures, fan speeds
• Acronis True Image Home – an excellent full backup solution for your data
• Truecrypt – file encryption utility
• Keypass - password utility
• PowerISO – iso loader
• Universal Theme Patcher – used to enable 3rd party Windows 7 themes (ie Soft 1.8 or APPOWS2010)
• uTorrent – you know what this app does
• FocusBuilder – a 25 minute timer for the Pomodoro Technique
• Adobe Reader – pdf reader
• 7zip – file archiver for .rar, .7z, etc
• Microsoft Office 2007 - the .docx file format is the only reason this application is on the list
• Filezilla – ftp app for the web developers
• Notepad++ – the best text editor, yes better than even OSX’s mighty Coda and Textmate
• Adobe Photoshop – image editor
• Adobe Illustrator – vector based image editor
• Adobe Indesign – print and publication editor
• Adobe Lightroom – the beta of the 3rd version is a smashing app for batch photography editing
• Skype – voice and video calling
• Pidgin – the universal chat client
• Tweetdeck – desktop Twitter application
• VLC – a jack-of-all-trades media player
• iTunes - your ipod has to be synced eventually, enough said (install mmkeys.dll for out of app use of your media keys with iTunes)
• Heroes of Newerth – a fun DoTa inspired game, grab this while it’s in free open beta stages
• Starcraft 2 Beta – if the word “Starcraft” rings a bell chances are you already have this game installed and have played dozens of competitive matches
• Rosetta Stone – expensive, but a great investment if you are learning a new language (Korean level 1 has taught me well so far…)

If you are curious, I usually take a full day to customize a brand new system. First, reinstalling Windows to remove all the preinstalled crapware (ie MacAfee.. haha). Secound, making a system restore point with Acronis True Image. Third, installing applications. Forth, making another system restore point. Fifth, customizing my desktop with wallpapers and themes from Deviantart.com, MacThemes.net, and Customize.org.