Software You Need

Anti-Virus Software

  • Avast Software The Home edition is free. This is the anti-virus I use
  • eSet Nod 32 This is an excellent anti-virus program. there is a free 30 day trial and the full version is $40/year for a single user
  • AVG anti-virus This is a link to the free version of AVG. A very good anti-virus and I used to use it but I got sick of the continuing pop-ups asking me to buy the full version. If you want the full version it is about $40.
  • PC Tools anti virus This is a link to the free version. Their full version is about $30 for up to 3 computers. I use the PC Tools firewall and find it very effective.

Firewall Programs

    Make sure you turn off the Windows Firewall before installing any third party firewalls. Also before replacing one third party firewall with another. completely uninstall the first.
  • PC Tools Firewall This is a free download and is the firewall that I'm currently using on my computers.
  • Zone Alarm - The Basic firewall is free and does a very good job. For more protection choose one of their premium packages.
  • Comodo Firewall and Antivirus. Free download. I haven't used this program but it did win the PC Magazine Editors Choice award for December 2007. Also included in The Best Freeware.

Spyware Protection

  • Ad Aware is a very good spyware removeal program. There are free and premium versions available
  • Spybot Search & Destroy is another excellent spyware removal program. This is freeware but they do accept donations. If you like this program please support it.
  • Spyware Doctor by PC Tools has won several awards and is in use on my wife's PC.

PC Tune-up Utilities

    There are many, many tools available to help tune or speed up your PC. I'm only going to list the few that I've actually used.
  • Advanced System Care 3 by IO Bit is an excellent program. I use it at work and on all of the computers we have at home. I also recommend downloading Smart Defrag from the IO Bit website.
  • Speed Up My PC by Uniblue is another excellent clean up tool for your PC. There is a free trial but no free version.
  • System Mechanic by Iolo Technologies is registry cleaner I've used with great success. It is not free but it works.

Web Development Software

  • Aptana Studio Whether your developing a simple web site with straight HTML or your developing complex database driven sites with ajax, rails, php, or whatever, Aptana is a great tool. And it's free!
  • Apache The Apache web server is probably the most widely used in the industry. Whether your hosting a huge server farm or a single computer for development purposes the Apache server will work for you.
  • MySQL is an open source database program that you will more than likely run in to as you develop websites. The Community version is available for free and the Enterprise edition is $598. Make sure you thoroughly read and follow the instructions for installation.
  • PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

Other Software

    OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.
    Adobe Reader 9.1 is used for viewing PDF or Portable Data Format files. PDF is used to authentically replicate complex printed documents.
    Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
    Winamp is a great media player with low overhead and it is free.

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