Some of the incredibly useful stuff I can’t live without in a (new) computer. I always carry the installation files with me (thanks to Yahoo Briefcase)

Whenever I move to a new computer or buy a new laptop (not that I buy a new lappie every year) I immediately customize my comp by loading these tiny softwares to make me feel home.

Task bar utility - 1st Clock Lite:
How many times have u glanced at your task bar looking for todays DATE or DAY ? Version after version since Windows 95 - I always tell myself “MS will smarten up and provide this simple common sense information in the task bar” But no, Win 98 came, Win XP, Media Center - alas my prayer went un-answered - In an elaborate conspiracy ‘Date and Day’ information was always withheld from me - I never knew where I am.. whether it is a Monday or a Friday, showing up to work on a Sunday and taking Monday off - total mess, partially total amnesia! Till I met a Green Parrot, which whispered the name of a software it wrote - “1st Clock koo koo”. Now, Not only I can tell where and when I am - but I can do it in style in different timezones! - now with a wave of the mouse I can precisely tell the time in Sumo land to Switzerland - Now, I can full understand why it is yesterday in Australia and tomorrow in India!

Instant Messenger - Trillian:
A Ding in Yahoo, Blink in MSN and an offline message in ICQ - all fight for my attention from the same spot in my taskbar whose real estate is already sparse - each behaving like an ever blinking traffic light. As an early entrant to WWW, I was exposed to ICQ much before any of these IMs existed, so I have a bunch of my friends in ICQ, AOL IM, and a whole list of friends in Yahoo, and a library of friends in MSN. Not that I am extremely popular - usually it is the same ‘Paul’ or ‘Shanx’ in different avatars, and some friends who are so loyal to their IMs, that in order to be in touch with them, I have to use all IMs all the time - MSN and Yahoo and ICQ and AOL and so on.

Enter Trillian - the oldest and most popular IM aggregator - Now, I can load up all my cahoots in one IM - it aggregates my buddy list from Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL and IRC into one single UI, one single window. Now I can talk with all my buddies by logging into one single application. Talk about convenience!
Trillain does have its dark sides - it is ugly, it is painful to send or receive files/images - but on top of the convenience it offers - it leaves a very tiny footprint, it doesn’t hog my system resources. That by itself is a big advantage.

Browser - Maxthon:
If you think Firefox is da-bomb, you should try Maxthon. The most intuitive and user friendly software I have come across which is FREE. No strings attached (yet). Unlink Firefox, Maxthon comes with so many thoughtful utilities as a default package.

Mouse Gestures - I cannot live without it. Back in IIT days, I got spoilt with Alias Wavefront (a powerful special effects software - now called Maya) and its wonderful Gesture based Menu Selections. Browsing is never the same again - I can refresh a page by holding rightclick and moving the mouse up and down, to go back I can move the mouse to left, to move forward I move my mouse to right

Tabs - Bottom tabs, I usually work with 10 websites open - now with tabbed browsing I can organize everything in a single window.

No Ads - Nada - no single ad - I have never seen an advertisement or orbitz popup window for the last 2 years. Even Timesofindia and rediff is clean and readable. No flash ads, no popups, it strips the page clean.

Apart from that it has so many thoughtful applications like a scribble pad to copy paste stuff (no long u need to open Notepad to store a Phone Number or jot down a link), IP address in status bar, Weather, News mode, Group Mode everything just a click away. And No fancy Pirate themed default Skins!

Firewall - Zone Alarm:
A silent killer - it works. It kills off malicious pings and renders any trojans or spywares useless. Each and every time your internet is (ab)used you will know. You can preset permissions to all your frequently used software like Outlook, IMs etc - and ZoneAlarm will never bother you again - but when “eShophelper.exe” asks permission to access the internet, you can just kill it, and use the software below to root it out totally.

Spyware Killer - Spybot:
You can run on every startup but you can’t hide. This can get bad guys from the streets of brooklyn to the dark dungeons of your windows folders
C:/DocumentsandSettings/~tmp/O78731/MS/[hidden]/systemfiles/%2318OFL/ocm/install/root/[temp]
it will find you and unlike Vijaykanth - it will kill you without any dialogues popping up. Very effective without melodrama.