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Software I Use on My Laptop

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I’ve just reset my laptop and I thought it might be helpful to write down all the programs in case I need to do this again. I’ll try to keep this up to date.

General Software

  • Browser Extensions
    • uBlock Origin which is about to be useless, but a necessity given all the webcrap.
    • Bitwarden for passwords.
    • Enhancer for YouTube which adds a lot of useful features to YouTube.The extension isn’t online for some reason.
    • Squoosh for fast image encoding
    • Snapdrop as a cross-platform version of AirDrop.
  • Exif Glass—a GUI for viewing image EXIF using the underlying exiftool.
  • exiftool to extract metadata from images.
  • Firefox which I used to use but it got annoying to use and Edge isn’t so bad. I still have it around for testing.
  • Google Chrome. I use Microsoft Edge since it’s not so bad but I got Chrome in case I need to test something.
  • iCloud/Apple Devices for cloud storage and device sync (although Apple Devices kinda sucks). There’s also Google Drive and Dropbox but I rarely use those.
  • Microsoft Office which I wouldn’t use were it not for work and for the fact that my mom pays for it. I should learn to use it properly.
  • OBS for screen recording. I also used the virtual camera once.
  • I’m trying to find a free PDF editor so I’m trying out PDF24 (which is also online) and PDF Gear
  • SumatraPDF as my PDF reader. It does one thing and does it very well.
  • Thunderbird is the mail client I’m trying out. I would have used Outlook but they insist on syncing my account with the cloud.
  • WhatsApp—I’d never install this but I need it for work.
  • Zoom for video conferencing. I prefer Google Meet

Media Creation

  • Adobe CC—I’m trying to move away from Adobe CC (look at all these open source creation tools I don’t use) but I still need it for work sometimes.
  • Audacity for audio manipulation. Haven’t used this a lot.
  • Davinci Resolve which I’ve never used but it’s free and feature rich so why not?
  • GIMP for image manipulation.
  • Inkscape for vector graphics manipulation.
  • kdenlive for video editing. Again, I’ve never used it.
  • Krita also for graphics manipulation.
  • Natron Haven’t used this but it’s for video composting.
  • OpenShot I’ve never used it but I wanna try it out since it’s open source.

Utilities

  • 7Zip isn’t just to use the .7z archive format (which Microsoft now supports). It also lets me hash a file quickly.
  • AutoHotKey—I used to use it to support alt keys, but I now use Quick Accent from PowerToys. I really should learn it though. I’m embarrased that I’ve only used this to show the emdash —.
  • Bing Wallpaper since I like the wallpapers. It would be cool if it supported dark mode.
  • CopyTrans to copy files to and from my iPad and iPhone since Apple Devices sucks and I couldn’t be bothered with SMB shares. I’d use a flash drive but I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
  • CrystalDiskMark to test storage media speeds. I installed a new SSD and I’m suprised at how the speed is actually close to what they’re marketing.
  • Direct Folders is supposedly a faster way to navigate the file dialog to jump to favorite folders.
  • Duet Display to connect my iPad to my Windows laptop. They’ve changed the business model some months back but if you got it before then you can download the Windows version from https://www.duetdisplay.com/windows.
  • Epocam—to pipe video from your phone into your Windows computer. Needs the iOS app.
  • Everything is what I use to search for files on Windows since Explorer is so slow as it insists on searching every file’s contents which is sometimes handy but not usually what I want.
  • Microsoft Media Extensions:
    • HEVC needs a bit of work if you don’t want to spend $1. Must have if you want to view HEIC/HEIF images and HEVC from Apple devices.
    • AV1/AVIF
  • ImageMagick—for quick image conversions.
  • Logi Options+ for my MX Master mouse. It lets me customize my mouse but I don’t use it much.
  • NAPS2 for a better scanning experience.
  • Netspot fow WiFi network mapping.
  • NVDA for screen reader testing.
  • PowerToys adds a lot of useful features to Windows from keeping your computer awake to a Mac Spotlight like interface and even a fast way to use my favorite punctuation mark— the emdash —. I really should write about this sometime.
  • qBittorrent as a perfectly legitimate digital asset distribution medium.
  • ShareX to take screenshots.
  • Teracopy for faster file transfers
  • VLC for media playback.
  • Winaero Tweaker to modify pesky Windows settings.
  • WinDirStat to map out storage in Windows.
  • Wintoys—Not sure what this is for. It supposedly keeps Windows clean?

Programming and Development

  • DB Browser for SQLite if I need to work with SQLite databases.
  • DevToys—the “Swiss army knive for developers” with useful tools like encoding/decoding base64, hashing strings, formatting JSON, Regex testing and much more.
  • Docker Desktop for when I start using Docker, which isn’t anytime soon.
  • FileZilla for FTP
  • Git for version control.
  • Go for Hugo Modules and nothing else.
  • Node
  • Nodepad++ as a faster, lighter code editor.
  • Python with the py.exe to handle multiple versions.
  • SQL Server is the server we use at work. I also got SQL Servers’s Reporting Services (that I’ve never used) and the Management Studio.
  • VS Code for Code Editing. Would love to use Fleets but I’m poor.
    • vscode-pdf to view PDFs in VS Code.
    • GitLens for Git
    • Hex Editor which I’ve only used once as an ill-fated attempt to generate WAV files in Hugo.
    • WSL, Docker, Python, YAML and whatever other programming specific tools that look helpful.
  • WinGet (via Winstall)—It’s already installed, but I’m using this now:
    • Hugo is the static site generator which powers this very website.
    • yt-dlp to download videos from the web.
    • Also includes ffmpeg and teracopy
  • WSL with Ubuntu

Yet to Install

  • VIPS—a faster image processing tool. I manually compiled it once but I’ve rarely used it.
  • ffmpeg—for image processing. I’ve installed it but I want to compile my own version just to use the better AAC codec.
  • XAAMP—I need to get in the right mental space to learn WordPress development before I get this.
  • NVM for Windows—I haven’t run into any problems yet so it doesn’t make sense to mess up my node yet.

Settings I Like To Disable

  • Explorer
    • Show File Extensions—Explorer>Folder Options>View>Advanced Settings>(Uncheck)Hide Extensions for known file types.
    • Showing dot drives—Explorer>Folder Options>View>Advanced Settings>Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
  • Winaero tweak settings
    • Return classic context menu
    • Remove the Copilot bullshit (though I should figure that shit out at some point)
  • Enable the Clipboard Manager (Win+V)