Broken
In the space of 2 weeks my personal laptpo has died twice, the first time due to installing some software whih knackered the registry rendering the machine completely 'kin useless, the second time I dropped it and it didnt work afterwards.

I work in IT, and have done for almost 10 years now, so I have to be my own (and my familys') IT guy. That also means I can't take my machine to someone and tell them

Not sure what's wrong, it just happened

...like everyone tells me,

Trust me, nobody working in IT believes people who say that. We may say "OK" but that's just so we can get on and fix the problem/s.

Death 1
I managed to use a piece of software called GetDataBack by Runtime Software. This software can read even the most dead of dead hard drives, and get hundreds of photos (of Leah) back. Just because I work in IT and tell everyone and their dog to back up their hard drive doesn't mean I do it.....

Death 2
I learned my lesson from death 1 and backed up my data, although admittedly, didn;t have that much time to put much on to lose in the first place.

So I am now on the 3rd install and have decided to;

A - Take a backup/clone of my laptop in it's current state
B - Save the applications I regard as essential on a USB Drive.
C - List them here for reference as well as


My Essential Apps.

1. MOST IMPORTANT - Drivers for your machine - remember you might not get internet access after a crash
2. Firefox Mozilla - Internet Browser
3. Smart Bookmarks Bar for Firefox (Hides text on the bookmarks toolbar thus allowing more bookmarks).
4. Media Players - Video Lan & K-Lite Codec Pack (Media Player Classic) (Free)
   
5. Burst Bit Torrent Client (Free) - Others available
   
6. Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) Free or Commercial
7. Winrar (Free - Nagscreen)
   
8. Quickpar - (Free) - Geek Alert
   
9. Foxit PDF Reader - Small file and doesn't take over your machine like Adobe Reader (Free)
   

I know I'm missing a lot, these are just the essentials I need to get me started, additionally I would also have. (Links are to free/opensource versions)

• Office Suite (MS Office or Open Office),
• Imaging Software (Photoshop, GIMP or Paint.net),
• Web suite (Dreamweaver or Nvu),
• Ipod Synchronisation (Anapod Explorer or YamIpod or iTunes if you must)

and many several others.

Links
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