I recently bought myself a new laptop, It’s a Lenovo E16 with 1TB SSD and 32Gb RAM (for those who like that sort of info)…
It will not be my main computer I have a desktop for that but it is mainly for travelling and visiting when the desktop is not available - Having said that I am actually using it now mainly to get used to it and find its shortcomings now rather than when I need to use it.
Before it arrived I made a list of all the programs/Apps that I wanted to install on it all are free or open source though I have made donations to some that I am particularly fond of…
Open Live Writer (for my blog)
Shotcut (video editor)
Notepad++ (favourite text editor)
Paint dot Net (simple image editor - might go back to Paintshop Pro V7)
Firefox (browser)
VLC (Video viewer)
Thunderbird (mail reader)
Dropbox (cloud storage used only for phone photos)
Bulk Rename (rename photos to something sensible)
Picasa 3 (old Google photo manager)
Keepass (password manager)
M$ Office 2021 (Word, Excel etc)
I did consider installing OBS Studio but don’t use it enough on a travel laptop.
BTW before installing anything I ran “Debloater” to get rid of most of the junk that new computers come loaded with, then went through the remaining programs and deleted stuff like OneDrive, Xbox, Office 365 etc.
What are your favourite “go to” programs that you always install?
It’s a while since I did a clean installation of anything but when rebuilding the system, these are the programs that got installed first.
1 - Xara Photo & Graphic Designer.
2- Paintshop Pro
3 - CorelDraw Suite
4 - Mailbird
5 - RealDraw Pro
6 - Irfanview
7 - Privazer
8 - Firefox
9 - Photoshop Elements
10 - Inkscape
11 - Microsoft Office 2007
There are other programs but they aren’t essential or used so much. I used to prefer a Notepad replacement called ‘Jarte’ but it doesn’t work so well with Windows 11 (not updated or supported since 2020). I use the Notepad included with Windows 11 now that it incorporates a spell checker.
Just as a matter of interest what do you use Irfanview for exactly?
I have it on my desktop but only use it to control my two scanners purely because it can use the both the 32 bit and 64 bit drivers each use. I can’t even remember what I used before it.
Also can’t remember why I originally tried irfanview but I suspect it was to try to replace the picture manager Picasa 3 (which I am still using) However for some reason decided against it and I don’t think I am making the most of the program.
I find Irfanview quick to use as a default image viewer. Also, I originally installed it because it can preview .cdr (CorelDraw) files. Maybe not so much needed for that now because there’s a utility called ‘Romcat Viewer’ that does this better. Even so, I still use it for opening images quickly.
Regarding a Notepad replacement. Having written about Jarte yesterday, I thought I’d give it another try. It seems to work OK this time so I’ll revert to that for a while. It is really a WordPad enhancer but it can be used as a simple plain text editor too (with a spellchecker). It is a Windows only program so wouldn’t work with a phone.
I recently switched to Linux since Windows 10 isn’t going to be supported much longer, but then switched back. My main application these days is Reaper DAW, which runs on Linux, but some of the VST plugins I use with it, don’t… at least not as good as they do in Windows. I wasted two days installing “bridges” to make them work, and trying to find workarounds. Finally, I got fed up and went back to Windows with a fresh install. Yeah, yeah… I should have gone with a dual boot system to try out Linux… blah, blah, blah…
Since re-installing Windows, I’ve installed
Google Chrome
IrfanView
FBackup
Reaper DAW
Sandboxie
… just the essentials for now. I’m just doing fun stuff.
I have LibreOffice on my other computer and a bunch of other software, but that’s on my computer in my basement office.
I quite often install programs people write about just to see what they are like. This does mean some programs hang about on the computer that may not be used. I used to uninstall any rarely/unused ones but I’m not so fussy now. There is so much room on a 1TB SSD that I often allow them to just hang about. Perhaps not so much need to be careful these days.
You know, when you’re rushed, don’t have time to position yourself.
Open GIMP … Shift+P … paste Jpeg, stretch and copy/paste back into wherever you were.
I use a couple of cameras, Panasonic and Ricoh, that do basic processing in-camera, exposure, WB, Shadow Correction etc, then convert to one of their jpeg recipes. Then tweak the jpeg, if necessary.
There used to be lots of computer chat in forums, starting from Windows 95 right through to Windows 10. With the release of W.10, the computer sections of general forums started to go quiet. I think this happened when Microsoft finally took a pause in development because Windows 10 is (arguably) a good operating system. They’d got it about right. It’s the same with Windows 11. Both operating systems work pretty well without many glitches to report, so people don’t feel the need to post in the computer section …well not so much anyway.
Your pick looks like a good choice. If you use it for travelling , a non-glare screen might also be helpful. A 16" display is quite rare or do you mean a 15.6?
I made a point of mainly using on-board apps and haven’t regretted it. The most important programme is MS Word. I’ve used LibreOffice and the like but realised that no text processing app beats Word. I wrote a 45-page text with pics from various sources and got frustrated with LibreOffice Writer. Since I had to be uncompromising here, I bought an old 2013 version of Word only, not the whole package, and everything fell into place nicely as it had always been the case. I also use Paint and MS Photos but often notice that I’d have done the same or even better with Word. Since I haven’t got Powerpoint and Excel any more, I use LibreOffice Impress and Calc. The latter is fine but Impress let me down when I wanted to give a presentation.
I’m surprised that you still got Notepad because it had been phased out over here some time ago. There’s no need for VLC , Dropbox, and Paint dot Net but I use Thunderbird and Firefox. I still have quite a clean system that has been running smoothly for three years now which I enjoy.
heic files are “processed.” It’s just a file format that is highly compressed, so the file itself is much smaller than jpg, but it’s a format that’s not as widely used as jpg or gif.
They can be viewed in IrfanView with a plugin, but if you wanted to post one in this forum, you’d need to convert it to jpg or some other format. So it all depends on what you’re doing. GIMP can read them. I don’t know about Photoshop or any other graphics programs.
I actually changed my camera to the jpg format so I wouldn’t have to convert them any more. As cheap as storage is these days, there’s really no reason to use the heic format unless you take a lot of photos.
