My lazy checklist for new laptop - anything I'm not remembering?

So, yesterday I got to bring home my new hp nw8440. Nice machine, but extremely non-flashy - I'm certain I made a very *sensible* choice, lol.

Yesterday I did the recovery-disk thingy, a few winXP and HP updates and uninstalled the Norton that came with it.

Today I thought I'd start getting it ready for use. But I'm uncharacteristically "blah" and bored about it - must be spring depression or something. So I thought I'd make an "idiot post" here just to get myself started and make a list of what I need/want to install.

First, a few notes so everyone won't drown me in "get some PROTECTION ASAP!!!":
1. I have a wlan router and until I get a firewall installed on the new machine I'm not venturing out except from behind my NAT.
2. I have never used Outhouse Excuse for mail, and I don't plan to start. I avoid using Internet Exploder as much as I can. I have a slightly paranoid tendency not to allow stuff to communicate outward in general.

So, where to start? (damn, this should be fun! why I am feeling so bored with it?)

OK, firewall. I've used Kerio since it was Tiny, and I'm ok with that. Unfortunately I don't think I have the installer package from when I last installed it. So I'll have to hunt for it somewhere. Which brings me to web-browser. Opera has been my choice for long, but lately I've been getting a bit more acquinted with Firefox - best to just put them both on there - the only quandary is whether to get the latest versions or stick to the familiar ones I'm currently using.

So then we come to email. I've been using calypso/courier for several years, and been somewhat content with it. But some things are really annoying, so I think I'll give Thunderbird a whirl.

And so we come to the dilemma of anti-virus. I've now been AV-free for ~8 months, and I find I like it. Just to be prudent I guess I should try one of those on-line scanners to see if something got past my NAT yesterday. And maybe the windoze shell for ClamAV is improved and actually nice to use nowadays? One can hope...
And anti-spyware and all that jazz. Is ad-aware still the thing to get?

Then there's Office. Time to dig-out those overpriced CDs. And since I definitely have the space now Open Office, too.
And then the graphic apps. Photoshop, GIMP and most importantly Irfanview (quickest viewer/resizer there is - and free, highly recommend it.). InDesign.
And some small, nice PDF-viewer (OK, Acrobat reader was pre-installed, so I could really skip this one), Foxit is nice.

Now we come to the point were it always gets sticky and my paranoia about apps "phoning home" hits it's high/low point: media players and codecs. A freaking jungle of shiny resource-hogs (not that I need to care about that anymore, haha!) and weird codec-packs that is always missing something and creating conflicts with something else.
Here I could really use some help, besides VLC and MediaPlayer Classic, what should get?
I hope I still have a package of "the last good one", winamp v. <3 somewhere...

And tweaks and utils! Must have those, or my control-freakish nature will not be satisfied. I need something nice that tells me all the basic things, StatBar is a nice thingy, I'll stick to that.
But what to do about power-management, stepping the processor and all those pesky details that allow you to fry your machine through sheer stupidity? Recommendations needed!

Thanks for providing the space to let me rant and chatter.

 

You can download the older versions of kerio here.

Thunderbird is an excellent email client, highly recommended.

ClamAV still sucks, don't bother.

I prefer XnView to Infranview, but they're both very good.

VLC + MPC + Winamp should cover all your media needs; you don't really need a codec pack if you have VLC; just play anything you can in MPC, since it's a little nicer I find, and if it doesn't work use VLC. Oh yeah and get Quicktime/Real Alternative with MPC too, for streaming vids on the web.

I use RMclock for power-management, Notebook Hardware Control is good too.

 

My basic programs:

antivirus/firewall: Avast antivirus Pro
calendar/email: Chaos Software Intellect, MS Outlook
players: Windows Media Player 11, WinAmp, Real Player, Quicktime
graphics/multimedia: Nero, Easy Media Creator, Adobe Photoshop
system cleaner: Iolo System Mechanic 6, CrapCleaner
word processor: MS Office Pro 2003
misc: Adobe Acrobat Reader, FlexWallet, MusicMatch Jukebox
browsers: MS Explorer 7, Maxthon, Firefox, Opera
newgroup reader: Agent