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Finally I got a new laptop, brand new one; it is lightweight 13” NEC which is Intel-based. Yeah it’s the time back to Windows now. I am definitely going to miss my Mac though it is still sitting on my desk. If you bought Mac, you will get a genuine OSX and bunch of applications in a package without separate purchase. All in one I can say.

However it’s still quite difficult to find Mac applications especially most of them need latest specification which my Mac can’t do. I heavily rely on free software which sometime expects higher requirements. It’s the time to switch back to the common platform here (although Mac becomes well-known nowadays not like 5 years ago).

My new laptop is equipped with a genuine OEM Windows XP Home Edition (SP2). Previously NEC offered me bundled with Windows Vista Home Premium but I guess it was too costly. And I was not sure enough about the compatibility of my existing applications with Vista. Instead I picked XP Home OEM bundle that later may be upgraded to Vista. Due to copy protection mechanism, my XP has been activated effortlessly in the shop.

So what’s the catch? It is about licensed software being used in my first Windows-based laptop, with less or maybe no cost at all. I am using a genuine OS and legitimate applications to support my daily activities.

For word processor and spreadsheet application, I use freely downloadable Open Office 2.2 instead of Microsoft Office. I have not enough bucks to purchase Office 2007 at the moment. Open Office which is now acquired by Sun Microsystem offers the same basic features as the Microsoft Office. What about email client? A licensed Microsoft Outlook 2002 is the chosen one as it is bundled with my XDA Mini. I selected this coz I need to synchronize my PocketPC (I missed Thunderbird).

Rather than using WinZip which is a shareware and has annoying pop-up for free version one, I use 7-Zip which offers greater compression and definitely free. For web browser, still, Firefox is still the number one. After I applied updates to my genuine Windows, I got IE7 installed which becomes my second web browser.

Because I often do coding in PHP, I installed XAMPP package. Eclipse is my primary IDE for doing this thus the latest Java 6 SDK is also installed inside the computer. Due to my .NET curiosity, Visual Studio .NET 2005 Express Edition is installed; it is the first free pro-like IDE solution from Microsoft that allows you to create an application for commercial use.

What’s next? I’m still finding bunch of good multimedia applications. My first candidate is going to be Gimp and followed by Blender.

As you can see, all applications being used are free and licensed with the exception of the genuine OS itself which is not free. There are some applications out there that will not cost you any dime but powerful enough to replace the commercial ones. What about yours?

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