Advice on setting up this old/new computer for my Brother?

Dang, I hate TYPO erra's!

  Thanks MGH, I should have mentioned I've already got him covered on the Antivirus/Spyware stuff.  I went with Comodo Internet Securty, I know opinions vary on that.

Honestly speaking, there is a new program you can d/l from source forge called Hazard Shield and that thing works great IMO. It's found some things others haven't, although it's still in beta, for a simple on demand scanner it's helped me out a lot so far.

I'll keep that in mind about the Acmebargig, that's the first things I thought of for guitar.

I've got to be careful with what I add plug in wise, because too many can make things confusing.

My brother has no idea as to what you can do with recording and a PC yet, heck he's never even heard what I've done.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all works out either way.

Thanks,

Bobby

+1 Firefox, Openoffice, CCleaner.  Add Spybot as well!

 Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies. I am terrible at explanations on things, I should have listed most everything I have installed so far.

I'm going to list them here, and the title's will have a link if you haven't heard of this stuff before, maybe it will help someone else.

The goal for me with this computer is to make it to where all my brother has to do is leave the computer on overnight to have it take care of maintenance. More or less it will stay on all the time, but go into sleep mode when not in use until somebody moves the mouse or hits the keyboard. Very simple to do. Maintenance will be done automatically overnight with the programs I have installed. But I have installed some other things I think will be useful.

Here's what I've installed so far w/Links in the names , BTW All these PRGS are FREEWARE :

Firefox  - Very configurable web browser.

Comodo Free Internet Security Suite - A great Firewall/Virus/Spyware security suite. I should mention even thought the Sand box feature is nice, I keep it turned off because it's more trouble for me than it is useful. Nice to have the option though.

Thunderbird - A great email client.

Format Factory - I never heard of this until the other day, but it claims to be able to convert video to any format, pictures to any format, and audio to any format. From the reviews I've read it sounds like a great program.

CCleaner - This is a must for every PC IMO. I have it setup by command line to run every night automatically and clean this PC I'm working on every day.

Speccy - This saved me some time trying to figure out what the specs were on this PC. Very useful.

Auslogics Disk Defrag - I have this setup to run every night on schedule.

Emsisoft Emergency Kit - An Excellent tool kit to scan for viruses and more. THIS DOES NOT PROVIDE REAL TIME PROTECTION, it is a scanner and remove the virus/spyware program only. So if you already have real time protection it shouldn't cause problems. In the past I've used Malware Bytes - Mbam but this prgs. scanner always finds stuff in my experience that other things miss. And it's not always a false positive. But I'll leave that for another discussion. I think this is a must have for any online PC. JMO.

PDF-Xchange - Best of the PDF file viewers IMO, very low on resources. I like it better than Fox-it reader. JMO.

Wise Registry Cleaner Free - This seems like a great registry cleaner, the main thing I like about it is you can schedule it to run, so I have it setup to run daily on this PC. Seems safe so far.

Picpick - I haven't used this much, but from what little I have I can see it's great for screen capturing and more.

Photoscape - Great for making your own Animated Gifs, editing photo's and more. I just started using this one a short while ago, I don't do much with photo's but I can see the potential with this program, I think it's a must have. JMO.

Wavasaur - I like this better than Audacity, I guess it's a matter of personal opinion when it comes to audio editors. This isn't for me because I have Sound Forge commercial. But for a freebie I think this will be useful for my brother. The one thing that stood out with this audio editor was the small size of the program, and I really liked the volume editing options adding nodes and such when working with audio files. JMO. I know there's others, it's all a matter of choice I guess. I considered installing Audacity along with this, but it would take up more space on this weak small PC.

Revo Uninstaller Freeware - The best uninstall program I have found, Hunter mode is great. Lots of options. A must have IMO.

Object Dock - Free for personal use. It takes a little while to configure this to your uses, but this is one great prg., I plan on purchasing the pro. version soon. This is a very useful program, especially if your working in your daw and need to load up something outside of it. I have it setup to auto hide when not in use. Excellent PRG., I know there is Rocket dock, and a few others, I like this one the best. JMO.....

7Zip - A great free zip/unzip and other formats program. Very fast.

Sysinternals Individual Program Downloads Link - I recommend Zoom it "I have this setup to run on windows start, it makes it simple to zoom into anything using CTRL-1 or whatever Keys you choose. I set it up to auto run at windows start by copying it into the startup folder in windows. I also use Autoruns - It shows you pretty much everything, you'd be surprised at some of the stuff running on your PC that you don't know is there.

If you would rather download the entire Suite of programs here's the link for that -  Sysinternal Suite Download Link - Some of the programs in this suite I would recommend you don't use unless you know what you are doing because they can cause problems if you don't understand what they are to be used for.

Power Menu - I use this all the time, the download page should be self explanatory on how to use it. If you watch TV online, or just want to keep a window on top while doing other things it comes in real handy. I also like the priority change selection it has. Nice Prg IMO.

I do plan on installing the free Lame MP3 Encoder and setting it up to use with MC4, I haven't done it yet.

   Here are some thread's and article links that show you how to export files directly from Cakewalk software using the FREE Lame .Mp3 encoding software.      

I thought this might help so I figured I would post it.
 
This one is a bit old, but the pictures do help explain a lot :   Using Lame With Cakewalk Software

Also there's this info. that explains even more : Export .mp3 from Sonar   This is probably the best, it goes into detail.

Here's a thread link that has some interesting information on the subject that's here on these forums.

Thread Link for info. click here  

Edited : "I just realized the link in that thread for downloading Lame is broken, here's one that is working Lame Download for Windows ", I'm sure there are others, that's just the first one I found on the search list.


I am by NO MEANS an expert, this is just basically what I've installed so far. I'm just trying to make things as simple as possible for my brother to have his computer setup and ready to use when he get's his internet turned on in a week or so.

I've also installed some firefox add on's, Web of Trust, Adblock Plus, and Better Privacy. Which reminds me, I need to install FEBE for firefox because you can set it up to keep firefox settings etc... backed up. If you use Firefox you can find those from their addons section. NOTE : Those are not all available for the new Firefox Beta 4.X. I installed the latest stable version of Firefox which at this time is 3.6.13 to the best of my knowledge.

Todo-Backup - I almost forgot, probably the most important thing of all BACKUP SOFTWARE.  I'm going to back everything up to disc for him when I get finished setting this up. I'm going to use this freeware program. Scroll down on the page to read all the features. This one is free and basically does it all, from "IMAGE - Meaning Operating System and Everything Backup", to "Incremental - Meaning changes since the last backup" and lots more. Just read about it.  I know there's others, I've tried this one on my PC and it worked for me. Personally I use Acronis True Image, but it's not free, I'm seriously thinking of changing after looking at all the new features of this freeware program.

Anyway, If I missed something or messed up feel free to correct me. Keep in mind, FREE is the key word here.

Keep in mind, use these programs at your own risk, I don't endorse nor am I affiliated with the creators or programmers in anyway. I just feel they seem useful.  Some of them I just found a few days ago and haven't used much, YET.

I thought this might help someone, and thanks to everyone who has helped me in this thread and in the past.

Bobby

I just wanted to mention, I'm setting this PC up for my brother and not me. I know I mentioned that earlier, but I don't want the thought to get lost after so much reading in this thread. Freeware is the main thing.

Like I said, we ain't rich "If your living in the USA south" and "We are not well off, if you live in the USA north".  But our PC's run just as good or bad just the same.


Bobby