I use a lot of software, much of it open source and free (in several
senses of the word). Since something made at least one Windows XP
ThinkPad I set up unstable, it seems useful for me to list what’s installed
now on a stable T40:
- ActiveState Perl 5.8.1, build 508
- Apache Web Server 2.0.46
- Cygwin tools (full install of a very dynamic package; right now
I have everything as of July 5, 2003) - GWD Text Editor 3.2. I can’t
recommend this enough to programmers working in Windows. It’s not free,
but it’s very reasonably priced to register (something like $20), and
it’s very nice. I don’t like IDEs, I prefer a good text editor and
command line tools. - Eudora Pro 4.2. It’s an old version, but it does all I need or
want, and once the “Use Microsoft’s Viewer” option is turned off, it’s
an extremly secure mail client. - Norton Antivirus Corporate version 8. It’s a shame it’s needed. I’d
probably never actually run an infected attachment deliberately, but it’s
far too risky to leave them sitting on the machine. - Mozilla 1.4 (final release). Much
better (and safer) than Internet Explorer, and a little better than my
old favorite, Opera. - AT&T Global Network dialer. I installed version 5.08, but the online
update moved it to 5.08.1. - Cisco VPN client 3.6.3
- Cisco Aeronet Card Utility version 5.005.01
- Delorme Street Atlas USA 2003 plus Earthmate GPS drivers
- putty ssh client
- Adobe Reader 6.0
- Intervideo WinDVD (I can’t figure out the version number)
- Microsoft Reader (once again, I can’t find a version number, but it’s
a brand new download). This is only for the free books they’re offering
this summer. The files are so locked up that I wouldn’t pay a dime for one
because I have no confidence that I could maintain access to them. - Palm Desktop 4.1
- TimePALm time synchronization Palm conduit
Pretty soon I’ll be adding a bit more:
- Microsoft XP Professional (everything but Outlook)
- ZoneAlarm version 4.0.123.012 (our VPN has a good policy that you can’t see the
Internet at the same time as the Intranet unless you run this) - Sun’s J2SE JDK 1.4.2
- MySQL server (probably)
- PGP desktop security 7 (just waiting for the next encrypted message
to install) - Groove
- Adobe Acrobat Standard 6.0, maybe. I need to be able to create PDF
files. I can do that now for free, but it’s clumsier than Acrobat. On
the other hand, Acrobat seems to keep getting more expensive, and I haven’t
decided if it’s worth getting the new version.
Charles Engelke's Blog 