The intention was to do a few posts in the same vein as the Firefox extensions ones detailing the software I can’t live without installed on my (various) personal computers. Then I realised that there isn’t any…

Well, almost none. Aside from a few heavy hitting graphics applications that I keep around for design work, there is surprisingly little that I need.

MP3 Player - pretty much a given for computer users everywhere.

Graphics tools - one bit-map based, one vector based. The Gimp and Inkscape respectively. (Or occasionally CorelDraw X3 now I’ve got access to it again.)

And now I’m really struggling… Surely there must be more than three software packages that I need. After much thought I realised there was another.

Open Office - as a matter of principle. The only thing I use this for now is to knock a GoogleDoc into shape for printing, which is something I rarely do. (I think I’ve printed two sheets of A4 since Christmas) I hate printing reams of useless tat out even more than I hate Microsoft. So I try to have as little to do with either as I can.

Anything you can’t live without? Drop in a comment and we’ll try and guess how long it’ll be before you can do that thru a browser window…