So I just got a new laptop (my last one was appropriated by the Enemy - I'm not sure who the Enemy is but I know they are out there) and I'm going through the process of setting it up to my liking. As I'm totally bored this morning and haven't blogged anything worthwhile in a few days, I thought I'd share what I have installed so far.

  • Google Chrome. The very first thing I installed. Basically I turned the machine on, clicked on the IE shortcut, and installed Chrome. I'd love to say this is the last I'll use IE, but I've got a VPN that makes use of a IE plugin for tokens.
  • Apache - apparently Microsoft finally got a clue and allowed you to have multiple IIS sites but it's too late for me.
  • ColdFusion, ColdFusion 901, and the Cumulative Hot Fix. I've said this a few times at the last presentation, but if you aren't running 901+CHF, then your ColdFusion server is waaaaay out of date. 901 added some significant new features and the last CHF had critical fixes, especially to JSON serialization.
  • TweetDeck - because I like to tweet. A lot. Still can't believe that they don't allow you to increase the font size. That must be crazy hard code to support since I think there has been a ticket open for it since the 1940s. Oh - I used the Adobe AIR version of course.
  • ColdFusion Builder - because I think it's the best CFML editor available. Luckily that's not a controversial opinion.
  • Evernote - because I love notes. This is an incredible product.
  • Dropbox - because it's a life saver. If you haven't tried it yet - please follow the link and I get a little kick back in the form of additional free storage.
  • Warcraft - not because I'm addicted. Honest. I swear. Actually, let me just say, I fracking love how Blizzard implements their software. They don't care if you download for Mac or Windows. When you buy their product, you own their product. You can install it on 100 machines if you want. You can - obviously - only run it one at a time - but I love that I don't need multiple licenses for multiple clients. Hey - Adobe - I'm looking at you there. Oh - I also recently started using the Curse client to help me manage my add ons.
  • Launchy - a Windows clone of Quicksilver. I almost never use the Start menu - although it's pretty nice in Windows 7.
  • Aptana - while ColdFusion Builder includes Aptana, I prefer to do my HTML-based AIR work separately.
  • Flash Builder - for Flex development.
  • Filezilla - super excellent free FTP client and server too.
  • Notepad++ - best simple text editor.
  • TortoiseSVN - best (imho) Windows based Subversion client. I'm also going to get Subclipse and GIT as well.
  • Pidgin - a multi-client IM client. It isn't nearly as nice as Adium on the Mac, but it's good enough. I've also "cut" two of my IM networks, MSN and Yahoo. I'm now down to GTalk and AIM. I'm very tempted to just pick GTalk to simplify things.

So - that's it. I need to get Mozy installed this week as well as my mobile editors (Burrito, Playbook SDKs, etc) installed. I suppose I should install iTunes - but to be honest, I don't play much music when I'm on my laptop so I'm going to try to avoid that. I'll need to get VLC as well for video playback.

For folks who are curious - the new laptop is a Dell XPS. It's pretty good so far. The keyboard has some odd choices - like the Delete/Home/PgUp and Dwn buttons being in a vertical line on the right side. The ctrl key is also a bit oddly placed. But I'm nearly properly "muscle memory" trained already.