Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Freeware, Browsers
New machine installs: the story so far
Way back in January I wrote about my corporate-sanctioned machine, complete with a few pieces of bloatware (sorry kids!). I appreciate the awesome suggestions, although since I need this thing for work purposes, I'm opting to go light and lean whenever possible to begin with. Yes, I realize Microsoft Office is the antithesis of "light and lean" but the suite is required to stay on the machine. For everything else, I want a small footprint.Case in point: I needed a screenshot app. I chose MWSnap because it was small and unobtrusive, and didn't require an installation. It isn't perfect, but it does the job and I remember using it years ago. Unfortunately, my next series of application downloads wouldn't be so lean.
Note that a collection of applications says a lot about the primary user and what they will be doing day-to-day. A few months ago I ran a Twitter straw poll for TUAW and found a large portion of followers were web designers and developers, judging from the software they were using at that time. My use case is simple: I'm using this machine to test software for DownloadSquad, learn some programming, and take basic screenshots and possibly screen video. So far, I'm almost where I want to be with the base set of applications. To see what I've installed so far, keep reading.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
