Recommendations for software set up for travelling with a netbook

wanderlust

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I've picked up a few things since I bought my Acer One, A150 120gb last year, (upgraded RAM to 1.5gb and HDD to a 500gb WD Scorpio Blue) but had to do a clean install of XP SP3 after the dreaded black screen of death, so I'm deciding what should go back on and what other options there are out there. I'm looking to go out to SE Asia for a few months and want to get set up before I go - I don't want stuff that's gonna give up the ghost on me half way through as I've no idea how far from civilisation I'll be at any point in time.

I'm running;

Avast 5.0
Zonealarm pro firewall
Spybot search and destroy
Ad-aware
Revo unistaller

Lightroom 2.0
Irfanview
Instantjpegfromraw

Google chrome

utorrent


I'm looking to sort out my itunes and so I guess I'll have to install the dreaded itunes. It vanished off my desktop, taking with it all the metadata I'd added and when I did a new install, it produced around 75gb's of duplicates from a 160gb folder which I had to sift through. So I'm not averse to trying something else if there are any suggestions?

I need a media player for my movie collection, so there'll be a fair few divx files. I'm guessing this would mean 2 stand alone media players? I had VLC on my netbook last time along with windows media player, but not sure which to go for this time. Also read some positive feedback for Media Monkey.

At some point I'll need either Adobe or something similar as a reader. Again, a name that came up was Foxit - how's this worked on netbooks?

I've got a copy of Nero 7, but wasn't overly happy with it when I tried using it last year, I had quite a few disks that came up with errors right at the very end of the burning process. I'd be happy for some suggestions of either good freeware or something that if I had to pay for, would last me a while (this goes for most of the software I'm looking for actually).

Eboostr - It's been a pretty mixed bag with feedback on that. I'm undecided.

Has anyone tried using their netbook for watching Skyplayer/on demand tv? I'd be intregued to hear any suggestions as to how to get around having to a UK IP address to view them as I'll be in Asia.

What about hard drive encription? And I'm a little wary of jumping on all these unsecured wireless networks, though I think Zonealarm has some protection for that, but I'd err on the side of caution. I've never us password protection software, is it worth getting hold of? Any other security that would be advisable?

So, if you can suggest things that you use that would be great. If it's something you've heard of then that's a start and I can always do a bit of reading up on it.

Sorry for the long, rambling request but I figured it's better to ask the advice of people who have similar equipment and have first hand experience than going through the many review sites. :D

Cheers guys.
 
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I like PDFXChange reader at the moment, it's much nicer than foxit but I don't know how it scales to lower end systems.

What are you planning to burn? Files? Movies? Music? ISOs?
 
I like PDFXChange reader at the moment, it's much nicer than foxit but I don't know how it scales to lower end systems.

What are you planning to burn? Files? Movies? Music? ISOs?

Cheers, I'll have a look at PDFXChange. As for burning, it's mainly going to be files (RAW camera files), but would also like to change the burning progs on my desktop, so also movies and maybe a bit of music. But mainly for burning copies of my photo's with an external burner on my netbook.
 
when I went travelling I built all the must have software then imaged the windows installation and apps which ended up around 8 Gig and stuck it on a DVD, which was also the bootable disc with the restore software on it. So if I needed it I could stick that DVD in and reboot and restore everything. I also took a 8GB usb key to backup any photo etc I had and it didnt add much to my backpack in size or weight. Must admit I didnt use it though in the 7 months I was away but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
 
when I went travelling I built all the must have software then imaged the windows installation and apps which ended up around 8 Gig and stuck it on a DVD, which was also the bootable disc with the restore software on it.

Sounds like a good idea, I've never tried doing anything like that so I guess I'll have to try and find some info on here and see if I can suss out how to do it.
 

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