Computer Setup

Since a few friends have been going around posting rather long lists of applications that they seem to find essential, I have decided to list the majority of things on my system (the Windows part of it for now, the rest is just for scientific work).


OS: Windows XP (also Debian and Solaris)
Mozilla Firefox
7-Zip (seems to compresspress just about anything I ever need)
GIMP (for image editing)
InfraRecorder
Notepad++
OpenOffice.org
Microsoft Office
Picasa
Adobe Acrobat
Mathematica
JabRef
RealPlayer
Quicktime
Google Earth

and a few plug-ins, such as AudioScrobbler

Can't imagine having left anything major out?.....

Bizarre Technology

Modern technology has some bizarre behaviour. Consider for example my old (and old) mobile phone. The battery is dying, so it has two things to do:

1. Notify me
2. Make the remaining charge last as long as possible.

So perhaps it would beep or vibrate once or twice, dim the screen, not beep so loudly on messages, etc?

Well, no. The mighty people at Samsung instead decided it should beep and vibrate every couple of minutes, to further waste the battery life. And, by vibrate, I mean it caused a mini earthquake and sent the phone spinning on its axis on anything resembling a smooth surface.

Poor design!