The Post I Thought I Posted

Originally my goal for this blog was to have a place where I save my tech tips, advice, photos, and rants so when I wanted to refer to them I could email someone a link.. One such opportunity arose, and I searched unsucessfully for my TOP 10 things I need on my computer. As it turns out, I think I have emailed it before but never posted it here. Without further delay, here it is:

Ben's TOP 10 PC Must Haves

10 - Deep Burner

A free CD/DVD writing utility that makes creating data CD's really quick and easy. Just drag, drop, click burn, and your done. Most PC's these days come with this type of sofware but DeepBurner leaves out all the fancy stuff and will help you just Git-R-Done.

9 - Froogle

Ever wonder what the going price is of something you want? Just Froogle it, yes Froogle, not Google. Froogle is googles search engine for everthing that is for sale, so you can get a listing of what, where, and how much.

8 - Google Earth & Google Maps

Like most of my favorite Google goodies, google mapping makes finding places quick, easy, and without all the banner ads or pop-ups. For just quick online mapping or simple directions use Google Maps, but for a really cool experience, install Google Earth, and tour the globe in style. Really get some use, and lookup some Google Earth Keyhole Files, (KML) and you can get live content like weather maps, or WiFi hotspots right on your maps so you know where the next coffee stop should be on your road trip. It takes some reading to figure it out but you can get a wealth of info from the Google Earth Community

7 - Google Personalized Desktop

Making my hompage more useful by placing live content, email notification, and a calendar is helpful, but having it all work so well with my other Google Goodies made this an easy choice. Since the Google Personalized Desktop can read RSS news feeds, my home page is always fresh with the latest news and information I am interested in. You can even add a feed from a blog like Ben's Viewpoint if you want by using the atom XML feed on the lower right of this page.

6 - SpyBot Search & Destroy

To eliminate potential spyware threats, download, update, and run SpyBot regularly. Enough Said.

5 - Firefox Mozilla Browser

The best thing I have done to keep my home computer free of problems was stop using Internet Explorer to surf the web, and install Firefox. Firefox introduced Tabbed browsing to me, and it makes great sense when you need to multi-task. For example posting this I had to open new tabs so I could visit the sites I am linking to and cut/past the links from them. Then I just click back on the tab I need and get back to what I was doing. Ever since installing Firefox my scans for spyware have been clean or nearly clean every time. The only drawback is some websites don't work properly so I still need to use Internet Explorer on occaision, but that is the exception and well outweighs the benefits I get, especially when all my kids share one computer.

4 - MusicMatch Jukebox

For organizing my huge music collection, MusicMatch has been on my computer for years. Although there might be better solutions out there, for me, MusicMatch helps me sort, search, copy from CD, Create CD's, and organize my over 6000 song music collection. This is one of the few software items that I have paid for the premium edition license and felt like I really got my moneys worth. My only complaint is it does not work well with the Ipods, other Mp3 players seem to work great by the Ipod Nano we have I ended up using Itunes.

3 - AVG Free Edition Anti-Virus

When you are as cheap as me, you can't get any better than FREE. Get it while it lasts, as long as it is just for personal use, you can download a well respected and reliable computer virus protection program that will update all by it's self and keep your computer running smooth. Did I mention it is FREE! AVG Antivirus by Grisoft

2 - GMAIL Google's Free Email

I am still loving GMail! I can quickly search my email, never have to delete anything cause I get loads of free storage space, it interacts flawlessly with all of my other goodies, has built in chat, contacts, tagging, filtering, and best of all, I rarely get spam! When I do.. I click the Report Spam button and never see that message again! On the downside, does anyone know where I can find male enhancement products?

1 - Picasa

Yeah, you guessed it.. If you read my posts, you already know how in love I am with Picasa. It is always open on my PC, and whenever a coworker askes if I have a picture of something, they now expect me to deliver in under 30 seconds. Now even better, I can upload my albums to the new Google Web Albums, and share all the stuff I have on my Picasa with you.