Dell Mini 10 Journal

July 5, 2010. Received my Dell Mini 1012 today. Delivery took about 3 weeks, possibly delayed because I ordered a non-standard configuration (I included a Bluetooth adapter). It’s nice and small, a good thing, but it’s taking me some time to get used to the keyboard.
Here's a quick rundown of what I did to get it ready:
  • Registered Mcafee anti-virus software. Not my usual anti-virus program, but heck, it came free with the computer.
  • Installed Google Chrome, and the extensions I use the most (Lastpass, Shareaholic, Google Voice, Adblock, Forecastfox Weather, ScribeFire).
  • Installed Picasa for managing my photos.
  • Installed VLC media player for watching my TV shows and movies.
  • Installed PDFCreator for, ahem, creating PDFs. I have a license for Adobe Acrobat Professional, but I don't see a reason to install it at this time. If I ever start using my Mini 10 to scan documents, I may change my mind.
  • Installed Eraser for erasing sensitive data.
  • Installed Bulk Rename Utility for renaming my photographs when I download them from my cameras.
  • Installed TrueCrypt for on-the-fly disk encryption. I'm not normally paranoid about my files getting into the wild, but I plan to get in the habit of encrypting any work-related files I carry to and from work or home.
  • Installed uTorrent for managing my BitTorrent files, and for downloading Open Office (below) because it refused to download via HTTP!
  • Installed Open Office for word processing, etc. I wasn't going to install this as most of my document creation is in the cloud (using Google Docs), but I could find myself without internet access one day and need to word process something or open a Word or Word Perfect file.
  • Installed Portable Python, which is an editor I use my Computer Studies classes.
  • Installed TinyGrab for uploading screenshots to my website.
  • Configured, then updated Skype for making phone calls. The setup file for this was already installed in the start menu (handy!).
  • Installed Winbar to let me monitor my memory and CPU usage.
I notice that everything I have installed is free, so perhaps I'll make it my goal to keep it that way. I also notice, that even after installing everything above, creating this blog entry, and doing a little web surfing, that the battery still has over 4-1/2 hours remaining. Not too shabby.
I think I'm going to like this little computer, as long as I keep a mouse attached to it (the trackpad is awful!), much to the detriment of my MacBook Pro.
For those of you that are using netbooks, what other "essential" programs are you using?

Update
  • Installed 7-Zip to manage zip and other archive file formats.





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