New laptop, what should I put on it

Greg

Okay. Have a new laptop running XP Professional.

What do I put on it?

I have Photoshop whatever.

I have WSFTPro

I have WinZIP and WinRAR set

I have MSN Messenger and AIM fully updated

I have Office 2003

I have Windows Media Player

I have a shitty version of Nero

I have McAfee.

That's about it.

I want to put on some useful programs that WON'T clog up the system, run at half efficiency for being shareware, allow me to watch all kinds of video formats, p2p programs, help me edit/compress movies from a camcorder and just overall help my PC work better for/with me.

Any suggestions? I can't stress enough I'm not looking for things that will eat memory like a depraved ardvark in an ant colony. Since it's all fresh and new and running like greased lightning, I'd like to keep it that way as long as I can before it inevitably turns shitty over the next 4 years.

Your advice is MUCH appreciated.

Bounty1Berry

I like foobar2000 for an audio player; it's far less a resource hog than WMP9, and IMO easier to do some tasks in.

wanderer-zero

winamp 2 does just as well as foobar if you ask me as far as resource usage goes.

To watch videos, I highly recommend Media Player Classic, it's what I've used for a long long time, and I've never had to use any other, no codecs to install, nothing. and honestly, there's no reason for both winzip and winrar…just winrar would do fine.

Greg

Winrar works with both Zip and Rar files, is that the case? If so I'll be sure to do that.

Now, Winamp. I had that YEARS ago, even before making Winamp skins was the thing to do. But I lost it somewhere along the line. What exactly does it do now and what version do you suggest I download?

wanderer-zero

yes that is the case, useful winrar ^^

as for winamp, they are on version 5, but it's VERY bloated with too many extra features, they do offer winamp 2 still for download which is what I suggest, strictly for listening to music, nothing extra.

Greg

Ah~~ Yeah, it's that kind of stuff I'm looking to keep out of my system so I don't get this lovely message that my tower comp now shoots out whenever I open something like, say, AIM:

"System Resources Low"

-_-

Ok, sounds great. Anyone else have any other useful programs??

wanderer-zero

well, things are only useful if you have a need for them. anything else in particular you intend to use your notebook for?

Greg

Yes, I'm looking for some kind of p2p program.

See, although it's great to have something to play my library of media, I haven't been able to download anything in months because everything I used to use is either shut down or too complex for me.

I mentioned above I'm also looking for some useful video editting/DVD burning software specifically for home movies. I have some sample versions of programs and they work nicely but I can only fit 58 minutes of video on a DVD from a 62 minute tape. I guess just even a guide or FAQ on proper capturing would be useful.

wanderer-zero

I don't know much about DVD burning/editing so I can't help much, but I imagine www.doom9.org could be helpful.

as for p2p…BitTorrent, the best places to actually find torrents would be sites that require you to register. sites like tvtorrents.com for TV shows, filemp3.com for music etc.

Greg

Okay, sites like filemp3.com, are they good for international files? Part of the problem isn't that I can't track down popular files, it's that there's no longer a way for me to find stuff like Hanawa - Saga Ken and other obscure/random Japanese stuff [crap] I listen to. I've heard a program named Winny brought up but that's way beyond my level of handling a computer.

And I appreciate the link, I'll get looking into that now.

wanderer-zero

winny to my knowledge is the japanese limewire…so actually that would prob be your best bet =\

I'll ask some jap friends of mine as to where they get their music.