New computer setup

Editor’s note: this is a snapshot of life in 2013-08-04. My setup has changed substantially since then.

In case I ever have to get a new computer (or, indeed, in case anyone else is interested), I hereby present the (updating) list of applications and so forth that I would immediately install to get a computer up to usability.

  • Browser: Firefox with Ghostery, HTTPS Everywhere, and NoScript (and remember to turn on Do Not Track…)
  • Mail client: Thunderbird with Enigmail
  • Messaging client: Adium on Mac, and possibly Pidgin for others - I’ve never used a non-Mac chat client. Beware: as of this writing, Pidgin stores passwords in plain text, so don’t save passwords in Pidgin.
  • Encryption: GPG (Windows, Mac, Linux)
  • Text editor: Vim
  • Memory training: Anki
  • Movie viewing: VLC
  • Screen colour muter: f.lux
  • Backup software: CrashPlan - but I also keep local backups using whatever built-in automated backup utility the OS provides
  • FTP client: FileZilla, or Cyberduck on a Mac
  • Syncing: Dropbox (but I want to get rid of this, because of privacy concerns)
  • Computational software: Mathematica
  • Music: iTunes (but I want to switch this for something not-Apple, and it has no Linux version)
  • Gaming: Steam
  • RSS reader: Currently, my RSS feed is presented in-browser, at NewsBlur.