A couple of months ago I decided to re-build the Windows XP Pro OS my Shuttle PC, as had been a long time, and I was having trouble sync-ing with my AppleTV. I kept a list of the things I had to do, especially the s/w that I use on an almost daily basis. I thought this list would come in handy the next time I install… I recently ordered an iMac, and I plan on installing Parallels with XP Home, mainly so I can run Quicken natively, but it’s also nice to have a windows box around to tinker with. So much of what is in the following list won’t be needed in that install, since I’ll have most of it native on OS X….
New XP SP2 build
—————-
1) Install all current drivers for the hardware that XP
did not have
Shuttle specific:
– graphics card (on MB)
– usb 2.0 host controller
– sound card
Other hardware
– Canon Scanner
– Logitech video cam
– Epson Printer
2) AVG Free anti-virus
3) Firefox for web browsing
a) Extensions
Fasterfox
Forecastfox Enhanced
TabMixPlus
b) PlugIns
flash
4) Thunderbird for email
a) Extensions
QuickQuote
5) Apple Software
a) AirPort utility for AirPort Extreme Base Station
b) Bonjour for printing to network printer
c) AirPort Disk Agent for access to network Air disk
d) iTunes for music
+ ilike sidebar to keep my stats up to date on ilike
6) Sharpcast for unlimited (paid) photo backup and cross
PC/platform photo sync’ing and sharing
7) Mozy Free for up to 2GB of free backup
8 ) EfaxPlus for fax viewing
9) trillian for instant messenging (aol, yahoo, msn, google, irc)
10) synergy for virtual keyboard and mouse sharing between two or
more computers
11) quicken for finances
12) Password Safe (pws.exe) for safe storage of all my passwords
13) skype
14) adobe reader
15) WinSCP
– and set up script to sync my internet server ( just
certain directories)
16) folderclone pro for backups
17) MS Office — tried to use google apps, but the track changes of
MS is a requirement… Maybe one of the open office packages
is compatible, but I did not have time to test…
18) GIMP — a free photoshop replacement that does all I need
and more
19) CutePDF, a free print to pdf driver
20 ) Picassa, for those things Sharpcast is not as good at… Such as direct email from the app.
Update: Forgot PUTTY and WinRAR…
2sparrows 
Hi,
I am a developer at Sharpcast, always interested in feedback about our products. What do you mean when you say that we don’t have direct email from the app?
When you share albums to your contacts, they do receive an email (unless you specify otherwise.) And if you add photos to an album that is already shared, then a link “Send new photo notification” appears in the blue bar at the top of the album in thumbnails view. Clicking it will send a new email to all your contacts in the share list of this album.
Where else would you like to send emails from the app?
Thanks!
Jean-Gab
jgmorard [at] sharpcast [dot] com
Hi and thanks for the fast response… I never really expected it here on my blog. And I should say that I have been happy with SharpCast support via official channels when I’ve needed it. Always very responsive!
Anyway, here all I mean is that I can’t email a single photo to someone. I have a method set up using flickr to automatically post photo’s to my blog, but say I just want to email a single, email size photo from sharpcast to someone. That feature is not implemented, at least as far as I know. What would be nice, in addition to the email alerts you mention, and the email to a person I’d like, is a post to blog option…
Thanks again,
Sean
Thanks a lot for the great feedback Sean! Emailing a single photo is not indeed supported yet, although you could email a link to the photo. I’ll talk about emailing single photos to the right persons at Sharpcast.
If you look at the “Properties” panel in the app, in the image tab, you should see a “Url” and a “Tag” field that you can copy and post on your blog. The Url would just put a link to a photo, while the Tag would include the photo in the blog. It looks like this:
And of course you can use the widget to post a whole album, but I noticed that you do that.
Cheers,
Jean-Gab