Of course, back in those days, you had 9600 baud modems, unless you were a bleeding-edge person with a whopping 28.8 kbps one. However, even in today’s world of widely-available and affordable broadband connections, I still carry the flame for Lynx’s simplicity.

Google home page

Sure, because it doesn’t support graphics, JavaScript, Flash, and all the other fancy stuff, a lot of today’s popular sites don’t work at all with it. But if you’re just reading primarily text-only articles, it’s quite nice to be able to read without flashing banners, pop-up ads, and all those other things distracting you from the information you’re trying to digest.

Apropos mnmlist.com article

Obviously, Lynx isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a heavy article reader, maybe you should consider using this classic program again.

Mozilla Firefox — People have been gushing over Chrome lately, but its lack of extension support (mainly AdBlock Plus) keeps Firefox as my default browser.

Crimson Editor — This is still my default code editor. The built-in FTP support is great since I currently work in text-based Unix development.

CLCL — This keeps a history of the last X number of items you copied into your clipboard (the number is configurable), so you can reuse them later. I don’t know how developers can work without using this or a similar utility. I wouldn’t be able to count the number of hours this has probably saved me in development time.

FreeCommander — Windows Explorer is fine for basic tasks, but this dual-paned, feature-filled replacement keeps a lot of useful functions at a single button click or a single menu level.

FileZilla — This open-source FTP client gets better with each new version. Everything you could possibly want to do with FTP is supported, as is SFTP, and the multi-thread transfer mode makes uploading entire web sites a breeze.

CCleaner — Help keep your PC in tip-top shape by cleaning the Registry and unused temporary files left over from your applications. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates over time. This is especially good to run before defragmenting your hard drive, which brings us to…

Defraggler — While it uses a lot of the same libraries as the built-in Windows Defragmenter, Defraggler puts it in a much friendlier interface, and it gives a few extra run options for advanced users.

PDF X-Change Viewer — Adobe Reader has turned into a bloated security risk waiting to happen. PXCV gives you all the features you really need, plus additional options for annotating and saving PDF files. Foxit isn’t a bad choice either, but it doesn’t have as many features as PXCV.

7-Zip — This has been my default archiving tool for a while now. It gets great compression ratios without sacrificing speed. People who need a more user-friendly interface might want to give jZip a look since it repackages 7-Zip to make it work more like WinZip.

Panda Cloud Antivirus — Because I’m on broadband, have firewalls built into both my DSL modem and my router, keep Windows and other software updated, and practice safe surfing, Panda is more than sufficient for my needs. People on dial-up or those who do a lot of P2P transfers may want something like AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE is not recommended for computers with single-core processors) for the extra protection they offer.

VLC — Sure, it’s not as flashy as some of the other media players, but this program opens every media format I’ve thrown at it without having to install additional codec packs.

CutePDF — This is a simple print-to-PDF driver, which is handy when you want to print off invoices and receipts, but don’t want to waste paper unless it’s absolutely necessary. There are tons of these out there, but what I like about CutePDF is that it doesn’t open the document after you print it out.

KeePass — Because, really, who can remember all of their passwords?

IrfanView — An image viewer on steroids. View and do low-level editing of pictures. This has been a great piece of software for well over a decade now.

jStrip — You’d be surprised on how much wasted space is eaten up by your pictures. If you don’t need the internal EXIF data (which lists time the picture was taken and other info), just run this against a directory of photos and be amazed at how much space you get back.

Launchy — This is a program launcher, which may not sound overly useful, but just typing the first few characters of a program name is for me a lot quicker than trying to find it in the Start Menu.

ImgBurn — While it’s not quite ready for the general populace yet due to a somewhat non-intuitive user interface (especially if you’re used to Nero or Roxio), this free disc authoring and burning software has an impressive list of features and capabilities.

AutoIt — Whenever I need a quick program to do something or I just want to automate a few tasks, this comes in real handy. If you’re not a programmer or have no interest in programming, this won’t be of any real use to you, but I can’t imagine life without it.

SharpDevelop — Speaking of programming, I’ve just started using this as a replacement for Visual Studio .NET. So far, it’s done everything I needed it to do, and you can’t beat the price.

Those should keep you busy for a while. Enjoy!

From this pop-up, you can have it open your browser to read the message, or just ignore it if it isn’t important.

While this doesn’t offer as many features as the similar application GMail Notifier, it uses a small fraction of the memory, and is perfectly suited to my needs.

Note that Spiffy only runs on Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 with the .NET Framework 2.0 or later installed.

The trick to defragmenting these files is actually quite simple: Just move the file(s) off the drive you’re trying to defragment, then defragment the drive. Once it finishes, move the file back to the drive and defragment it again. Nine times out of ten, this will do the trick.

If it doesn’t work, it’s generally because either you’re running low on space, so it has to store the file any way it can, or the file is entirely too huge to be in one fragment. These are usually files greater than 1 GB.

Neil then improved the software and relaunched it as a free download.

Actually, Neil’s a good guy. He says he’s “offering the software to help people grow their online businesses in these tough economic times.”

Neil says that all businesses have to leverage people’s assets to succeed and be profitable in a recession, and that’s exactly what his Internet Success Spider software does — it helps you to easily find potential joint venture partners, super affiliates, and link partners.

It makes sense that the guy who started one of the first consumer protection sites online, the ScamFreeZone back in 1997, and has sold over a million dollars of his own products, would want to continue helping other people succeed online.

Although, I strongly suggest you go and grab a copy of the Internet Success Spider right now — before Neil comes to his senses.

Download it here.

Unlike similar software, mine supports five different redirection methods, instead of only HTML or only PHP. It’s also modestly priced, unlike some $40-and-up scripts I’ve seen tossed around.

Additionally, you’re in control of the redirection, so you don’t have to worry about TinyURL (or related sites) disappearing and/or deleting your links.

Check it out…

If you like to read, but hate paying for books, you should find it useful. More information and download links at the link.

What I do then is fix them up, set them up with software, and then turn around and sell them. Because they were free, I can take pretty much anything for them, often undercutting other sellers. All I need to be conscious of is any money I spent fixing them, and what other equivalent PCs are selling for.

Here are the steps I take:

Assess the Situation

Primarily, the systems I get were just replaced with newer models or got so spyware- or virus-ridden the owner thought they were broken. As much as I try to explain this, the owner typically doesn’t care and just wants rid of it. Hey, I explained the situation, so my conscience is clear.

On the rare occasion a piece of hardware is bad (usually the power supply or hard drive), I’ll just replace it with one of the ones I have lying around from old systems that were unfixable due to blown motherboards, etc.

I may also upgrade the system if I have the extra equipment. Typically this just adding more RAM, adding a network card, or replacing the CD drive with a CD-RW. I try to use equipment I already have, but occasionally I’ll spend a few bucks if the part is cheap and I can find a deal somewhere.

Occasionally, people will just drop off the box, so I’ll need to make a trip to Big Lots to get a mouse and keyboard for around $10.

Get Original System Information

Download and install PC Wizard. Print out the Hardware and Configuration settings along with the driver information. When we reinstall Windows, we’ll need the Product Key, and we’ll probably need to go out and find the drivers online, especially since the original owner probably never bothered to keep them current.

I recommend using a PDF print driver (such as doPDF or CutePDF) for this since it can be quite long. Plus, you can use the Search feature in your PDF reader to find what you’re looking for. If using this option, be sure to copy the PDFs to a flash drive or another PC since you’ll be wiping the drive in a few minutes.

Wipe the Drive

I’ve always got a copy of Darik’s Boot and Nuke on hand, so I just boot with this and wipe the entire system.

Then, I boot again with the GParted LiveCD to drop any partitions and recreate them. Typically for resale, I only create one partition using the entire disk. Yes, I understand good practice is to partition into several drives, and I do that with my own PCs. However, the average home user gets confused when you do this, so I leave it as one.

Reinstall Windows

Before the Linux advocates jump down my throat, let me just say that I’ve tried selling PCs with Linux on them, and no one buys them. Average home users are scared of learning something new, and my fellow geeks already have old PCs lying around and don’t need another. So for right now, Windows is the way to go.

After years of owning multiple PCs, I’ve got nearly every version of Windows on CD, so I do a fresh Windows install. I use the Product Key and driver information I got from PC Wizard to help identify everything quickly.

This, of course, is followed by one or more visits to Windows Update to get all the security patches, etc.

At this point, defragment the hard drive.

Optimize Windows

Once I’ve got Windows installed, I’ll head over to Black Viper’s Web Site and use his OS recommendations to speed up the PC.

Then, I’ll download the appropriate version of TweakUI and turn off crap like window animations and the like to further improve performance.

At this point, it’s time to start installing software. I’m going to present three lists here: one for 9x/ME systems, another for XP/2k, and a common list for either. Which version of Windows depends on what was on the PC originally and how much horsepower the PC has.

9x/ME Software

• Web browser: Opera — Although I prefer Firefox, Opera has a much lighter memory footprint, and if the old machine only has 64 MB of RAM, I’ll take any advantage I can get.
• E-mail client: Many folks are using an online e-mail site these days, but if they want a local software, I’ll just set up Opera’s e-mail client as the default since it’s already installed.
• Word processor: AbiWord — I’m always tempted just to make them use WordPad, but most folks want something a little more robust, and AbiWord seems to do the trick without too much overhead.
• PDF reader: Foxit PDF Reader — I find most people that are buying my older systems are usually going to be on dial-up. Since Adobe Reader’s updates tend to be in the 20MB range, this is a near-impossibility. Foxit weighs in at around 1.5MB, which makes it the clear choice.
• Notepad replacement: TheGUN — 9x/ME’s version of Notepad is abysmally weak on functionality, and I just replace notepad.exe entirely with TheGUN. If anyone’s ever noticed, they haven’t said anything.

XP/2k Software

• Web browser: Mozilla Firefox — If I’ve got the resources, I think Firefox is the way to go. The customizability alone is worth any overhead. If I know enough about the end user(s), I’ll often go ahead and add various extensions to suit their particular needs.
• E-mail client: Again, I’ll check if they use online e-mail or not. If they want a desktop client, I’ll usually go with Mozilla Thunderbird for most of the same reasons as Firefox.
• Office Suite: OpenOffice.org — While most people are familiar with Microsoft Office from their day jobs, OOo makes a good free substitute.
• PDF reader: Adobe Reader — Yeah, Adobe is getting to be real bloatware, but it also has the best-looking text and graphics, so again, if I’ve got the horsepower and bandwidth, I’m going to use it.
• Multimedia: K-Lite Codec Pack — I install the full version of this so the user can open nearly every video/audio format they’ll come across.

Common Software

• Compression utility: TUGZip — TUGZip supports all the compression formats the average person is going to encounter. It’s interface is similar enough to WinZip’s to not require much of a learning curve.
• Anti-virus: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition — I used to recommend AntiVir, and that’s what I use on my home system because of its low footprint. However, AntiVir now throws a pop-up every time it updates, which annoys a lot of users and makes them think their PCs are spyware-infected. AVG currently doesn’t do this, plus it still supports 9x/ME.
• Anti-spyware: Spybot — Search & Destroy — Since the PC is “new” it’s not spyware-infected yet. However, it’s a good idea to use Spybot’s “Immunize” tool to prevent at least some spyware infections from even happening.
• CD Burner: DeepBurner — If the computer has a CD-RW, I’ll add this on since the Nero or Roxio CDs were most likely lost by the original owner.
• System Cleaner: CCleaner — This is more for me, as I’ll clean up the system once everything’s installed.

Final Steps

That covers nearly every piece of software the average user is going to use, with the exception of an instant messaging client. I used to put Miranda or Trillian on, but most people typically only use one network and end up downloading and installing that specific client anyway, so I no longer bother.

Once everything has been installed, I’ll run CCleaner to clean out the temporary folders. Then I’ll reboot and defrag the hard drive again.

At this point, I’ll take a few pictures, create an ad on craigslist (nope, not mine), and usually get an offer inside of a day or two.