Q: It's not that in some letter, or somewhere in the Upgrade conference, the wish of one of the readers of the magazine to skip some sort of questioning among the editors - who really uses what software, that is, what programs are actually installed on the computers of the authors of Upgrade ? Apparently, you do not have a full time sociological survey of the time, but tell me, at least, what programs are there for such an advanced technical support service? I think it's not only I would be interested.

A: Of course, I will not speak for other authors and editors, but here's what I have now installed on my laptop (I'll try alphabetically), you probably know many programs yourself, I wrote about many in the magazine:

  • AC97 Mixer ( http://www.upsystems.com.ua/support/alexmina ) is a specific volume control of the built-in AC97 codec, extending the capabilities of a standard mixer and allowing you to set a higher playback volume, which is very useful when watching movies;
  • ACDSee 5.0 ( http://www.acdsystems.com/ ) - one of the most powerful graphic "watchers", everyone knows;
  • Ad-aware (http://www.lavasoft.nu) - a program to protect against spyware and adware;
  • Ashampoo Uninstaller ( http://www.ashampoo.com/ ) - one of the most useful programs of all ages and peoples - uninstaller, allows to maintain the system in a working state even with the constant installation and removal of various delusional programs;
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader ( http://www.adobe.com ) - a program for reading PDF files, should be for everyone;
  • AVSearch ( http://www.avtlab.ru/ ) is an unpretentious program for searching for given phrases inside documents of various formats, there are many shortcomings, but too lazy to look for the best;
  • Bred2 ( http://www.astonshell.com/rus/ ) - a small text editor, an excellent substitute for a miserable Notebook, has no limitations on the file size and document of any size, unlike WordPad, opens almost instantly;
  • Bridge to English ( http://www.intense.ru/ ) is an excellent English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary (the only licensed product on my PC, since the disk cost about 100 r :) );
  • The Broom! ( Http://www.snapshot.cjb.net ) - a simple program to clean the disk and search for temporary files on it; Apparently, there is something better, not looking for;
  • BSPlayer ( http://www.bsplay.com/ ) - one of the most popular and serious video players, for fans of DivX is almost indispensable;
  • Cacheman ( http://www.outertech.com ) - the program for setting up some hidden parameters of the operating system; Those with more than 512 megabytes of memory will limit the disk cache, which will save you from one known bug on Windows 9x systems;
  • Copernic Agent ( http://www.copernic.com/ ) is an outstanding program for searching the Internet! Must have! It's a pity, the Russian analogue - WebMachine - died ...
  • Dfx ( http://www.fxsound.com/ ) is a program for improving the sound of WinAmp. The word "improvements" should be written in inverted commas, but on cheap computer speakers the compressed sound becomes really richer and more pleasant for the ear;
  • Dial-Up Monitor ( http://www.dialmonitor.ro/ ) - the most powerful "dialer", on which I chose due to its great capabilities and reliable operation. The competitor at her, perhaps, only buggy FSDialer;
  • DivX ( http://www.divx.com/ ) - video codec for viewing relevant movies;
  • DrWeb ( http://www.drweb.ru/ ) - one of the best domestic antiviruses;
  • FlashFXP ( http://www.flashfxp.com/ ) - FTP-client, allows you to copy files from one server to another directly, bypassing your computer;
  • FlashGet ( http://www.amazesoft.com/ ) is definitely the best download manager;
  • Internet Tweak 2001 ( http://www.internettweak.com ) - the program for changing some hidden settings of Intenet Explorer, Outlook Express and Windows itself;
  • Kaspersky Anti-Virus ( http://www.avp.ru/ ) - the second domestic antivirus, claiming the title of the best. Of course, you should not run two antivirus programs at once - use them in turn;
  • Microangelo ( http://www.impactsoft.com/ ) is a program for searching for icons inside files, extracting them, creating and editing;
  • Microsoft Office XP (the same address ... the nearest tent ...) - where without it ...
  • NetMedic ( http://www.vitalsigns.com/netmedic/index.html ) - almost not working in modern OS, but it's a stunningly beautiful and convenient program for monitoring the Internet connection;
  • News Hunter ( http://www.slip.net/~rain/nh/ ) - utility to search for free public news servers, it will not be easy to find it, as the developer's site has sunk into oblivion;
  • Norton Internet Security 2003 ( http://www.symantec.com/ ) - firewall, a glorious continuer of the traditions of the unforgettable AtGuard;
  • Norton Utilities ( http://www.symantec.com/ ) - or rather - DiskDoctor + WinDoctor + Speed ​​Disk + Registry Editor, all much better than the analogues included in Windows;
  • Offline Explorer ( http://www.metaproducts.com/ ) is an offline browser with more advanced settings than the popular Teleport;
  • Paint Shop Pro ( http://www.jasc.com/ ) - graphic editor, simpler "Photoshop", and therefore more suitable for unprofessional use from case to case;
  • PowerArchiver ( http://www.powerarchiver.com ) - an archiver that supports almost all formats;
  • Punto Switcher ( http://www.punto.ru/ ) - automatic keyboard layout switch, very convenient thing, including allows you to voice keystrokes;
  • QuickTime ( www.apple.com/quicktime/buy ) - codec and player for playing MOV files;
  • RealPlayer ( http://www.real.com/ ) - player for playing real-audio and real-video files;
  • RegCompact ( http://talismanic.net/codeworld/regcompact/ ) - program to reduce the size of the Windows registry - sort of like it should slightly increase the speed of the system;
  • SBNews ( http://www.newsrobot.com/sbnews/sbnews.html ) - a fairly well-known news-grabber, perfectly filters spam in Usenet newsgroups;
  • Stirlitz ( http://www.shtirlitz.ru/ ) - a program for transcoding text messages, often helps to read the message sent incorrectly by the mail server;
  • SiSoft Sandra ( http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ ) is a popular program for testing the system and issuing all possible information about it;
  • Sokrat ( http://www.ars.ru/ ) - probably the easiest translator, what can it be - and I'm holding it? ..
  • FileMon , RegMon ( http://www.sysinternals.com/ ) - monitoring of file and registry accesses, are irreplaceable in diagnostics of failures;
  • TaskInfo ( http://www.iarsn.com/download.html ) - monitoring of running processes;
  • UltraEdit ( http://www.ultraedit.com ) - Hex editor;
  • VivoActive PowerPlayer ( http://www.vivo.com ) - VIVO file player;
  • WhereIsIt ( http://www.whereisit-soft.com/ ) - the cataloguer, possibly having no analogues in its capabilities, will help to find the right file or song among a heap of CDs;
  • WinAmp 2.81 ( http://www.winamp.com/ ) is a fast and high-quality audio player, in the third version it's simply incoherently zakabanel;
  • WinBoost 2001 ( http://www.magellass.com/ ) - the program for changing the undocumented settings of the operating system;
  • WinNavigator ( http://www.wnsoft.com/wn ) is a fairly common two-window file manager with some useful features.

This is a minimum installed on a portable PC, not counting the standard Windows utilities, utilities that come with drivers (such as a laptop touchpad software), some software for Siemens phones and some applications that I sometimes install for only a few hours or days for Perform some specific, not often occurring operation or task (for example, software for easy editing and compilation of WML-documents).
On the desktop programs a little more will be - only about 90, there is added software for the CD-RW drive and any useful and not very small change, everything is not listed, that's only the most essential: