[help]whats important (in terms of software) for a brandnew laptop

hey everyone. my girlfriend needed to update her computer, and after looking at a lot of desktops she finally decided that she liked laptops,(i guess there cuter). so we decided on this , with the most power processor, with made it a 2.8!, and 512 ram. its alot better than my pc

we just got it last night, and i was trying to think of what we need to put on it... the only think i could think of was aim...

so if you guys could help, and remeber this is for this laptop, if that means anything.

just list what ever u thinks is important or vital or just what would be better than whatever.

and please try to read the post before you so as not to repeat something.

thanks guys

oh and we didn't get an ibook or a power book cuase she hates apples

#260755

My suggestions:

Firefox for web browsing

Thunderbird for mail

Miranda for chatting

MS Works or Office for some office stuff - or maybe Open Office? It's free, check it out, good alternative

Foobar or Winamp 2.95 for music - very light and good players

vlc/bsplayer for movies (i love both, vlc comes with all needed codecs tho)

irfanview - for image viewing (picasa is nice but too heavy)

and of course......

DOOM 3 :cool:

#260759

My Suggestions:

Get a new girlfriend that loves apple! hehe j/k

Pe8er sums it up quite nicely for me, so i'll try to think of things that run under the hood.

Spy Bot Search and Destroy (incase she defaults to IE from time to time)

SpywareBlaster (for active x control for reason above)

AntiVir (freeware, if you don't already have a better payware)

And get all the availiable windows updates and SP2 asap so they do not cause conflicts later.

and those girly icons from Foueddy-F

#260763

My suggestion is....first off, get rid of that ugly-ass windows default, so style XP or windowblinds....windowblinds does take up more space though, but not a lot, i have both running on my system which is also a laptop, and pretty much the same specs as ur girls.

Get Microsoft Office 2003

PowerDVD for playing them dvd's ( or downloaded material..lol)...ESPECIALLY if her laptop is WIDESCREEN, trust me, she's gonna wanna view whats being watched in widescreen.....I LOVE MY WIDESCREEN

ummm, roxio's media creator 7 for editing photo's, music, video files, etc, etc...i find it quite handy

MSN of course, or something like trillian if she uses a lot of different chat thingy's

In terms of protection, be sure to get Mcafee Antivirus software....works great for me, im loving it

Also, Giant Antispyware.....this is a really good one, far better than the ones i've tried b4

Just remember.....make sure she says NO...to windows default...

#260847

Hehe... give her a nice theme as a present (use uxtheme patcher so she doesn't get confuzled by the buttons being on the "wrong side" à la Mac/WindowBlinds).

Office 2003

Firefox

Ad-Aware SE (it is well worth the purchase for the full version)

Norton Virus Scanner is really good, but McAfee works well too. It's a preference thing.

#260866