7 Software Programs to Have on Your Computer ...

No, no, gah! No! First off, I am not familiar with windows firewall and antivirus stuff beyond the whole, "typically THAT is the software targeted by anybody attacking a system.". It has happened a few times, that by simply targeting Nortan, MacAffee and likely Zone Alarm, you get greater control of the system enough to use it as drone than any other security exploit that those typically end up being the first target. I mostly opt to use Linux myself, as well--it is easier for me to figure out how to hunker down than have a Windows computer on my network, that I can only imagine will be the most spyware and virus infected stuff out there--as in Windows case, reliance is entirely on one or two vendors for what I need to do. Not just some simple additions to SELinux and Iptables/Ipchains. Now, onto the software. Most of the choices are fine. Except a few: Microsoft Front Page. NO! NO! A million times NO! That is probably the single worst WYSI(not)WYG editor out there in existence. If you want a real WYSIWYG editor might I suggest KDE's Quanta, Gnome's Screem or busting out the big dollars and getting Adobe Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver, while expensive is at the same time one of the best tools out there for doing WYSIWYG web editing. Though, if you do not have the funds, Quanta comes very close in the FlOSS area of things. And, I am going to hope you mean Microsoft Visual Studios. Rather than Microsoft Visual Basic. Visual Basic is probably one of the most irritating languages to work with with most programmers opting to use C# instead (or Perl 6, Perl 5, Python 2, C, C++, Clojure/Lisp, Ruby, Delphi, etc.). Microsoft Visual Studios is not horrible as far as IDEs go (well to my understanding. I do my stuff in Vim--so I am obviously crazy here). Though it may pay to heck out Eclipse as well. I would also point out that based on the other stuff in this article, I'd be careful with accepting PHP code. While the language itself is a fine language to code stuff in--most of the people coding in it, tend to have no idea what they are doing, that any project in PHP may need to find that in order to get anywhere, they will need to reinvent the wheel... a lot. Compared to Pylons, Catalyst, Other Enlightened Perl 5 frameworks, Rails (if it were to be documented in any real way), and JSP based frameworks. So fairly decent list with the exception of putting Frontpage and "Microsoft Visual Basics" into it--and possible wariness around Zone Alarm. Typically, your router in between your internet connection and any computers in your network should handle most of that anyways, with anything on your computer being, at most, a backup defense.

I LOVE Nero! I don't know what I'd do without it! Also, although I agree MS Word is a must-have, if you don't have the money for it, or the need for the full program, there's always Open Office, which is free and does just about everything that MS Word does, just not necessarily in the same exact way. I would add Photoshop Elements to this list. It's a cheaper version of Photoshop, only lacking a few things like the pen tool, layer masks (which can be done with a free plugin, actually) and complete control of curves. Anyway, you can easily add a professional look to things without spending a fortune. I even use it for professional web design!