With it being December 25th, many of you have received a new pc or laptop as a present.  Here are 2 simple steps you should do to set up your pc or laptop before you do anything else on your machine.

Step#1 -

    Visit The PC Decrapifier (LINK: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/home (http://www NULL.pcdecrapifier NULL.com/home)), there you will find a download to help and simplify the removal of all the extra junk that came pre-installed on your pc.  These days most builders load gigs worth of “Trials and Demos” or even their own version of software (Most often toolbars and vendor software).  Have you seen the 60-day trial of Microsoft Office and the 90 day trial of Norton Internet Securities, or the Google toolbar or Yahoo toolbar, or the Dell URL assist (which will route you to pre-determined Dell selected sites if you type in a web address wrong) or …..well you get the idea.  

     What PC Decrapifier does is in a simple way help you remove all the “crap” from your pc, that you don’t want.  What is great about PC Decrapifier is that it will let you pick the items from their list that you want removed, so it is specific to your wishes. You can get rid of all of it or just 1 item you don’t want. PC Decrapifier has a list on its site if you would like to see all that it can remove (LINK: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/apps (http://www NULL.pcdecrapifier NULL.com/apps)).

How it Works (From the PC Decrapifier site)

Simply download (http://www NULL.pcdecrapifier NULL.com/download) the file and run the EXE. There is no installer. If you have anti-virus software installed, it may complain about this program because it is written with a scripting language. These warnings can be safely ignored. Please see the FAQ (http://www NULL.pcdecrapifier NULL.com/faq) for more details.

Running the Program

After you run the EXE you will be guided through the process with a "wizard" style series of questions. You will have the choice to pick and choose what you want to remove. It will not begin removing anything without prompting you first!

Click the images below to see a screen shot of various parts of the process.

Welcome

Create a Restore Point

Select Items

     That’s all there is to it.  With that you can clean your machine of all those things that you don’t want.

Now for Step  #2 -

     There is now a way you can speed up the process of installing programs you do want and eliminate most of the work as well.  If you visit Ninite (LINK: http://ninite.com/ (http://ninite NULL.com/)) you will be able to make the installation of some of the most common programs a simple 1 step process. 

The following is from the Ninite site showing the programs you can choose from (as of 11/24/09)

     All you need to do is pick all the programs that you would like to install, then click at the bottom where it says Get Installer. You will get a single file to download.  Once you have it downloaded, double click it and the remaining work will be taken care of for you. 

-Ninite installs apps with default settings and says "no" to browser toolbars and other junk*.

-Ninite checks your PC’s language and 64-bit support to install the latest, best version of each app.

-Ninite runs on Windows XP/Vista/7 and works in the background 100% hands-free.

-All Ninite does is install the apps you choose.

(*The only thing to keep in mind is that the installer will install to your C:\ drive, I point that out to those with more than one drive, in case you prefer to install to another drive.)

     With those simple 2 steps, you can get your pc cleaned and configured to your liking very easily. 

Here is the list of programs from Ninite** that TechGeekandMore uses –

Browser – Firefox

Messaging – Skype (without the web service http://techgeekandmore.com/2009/12/12/software-skype-extension-for-firefox-causing-slow-firefox-with-some-websites-post-from-www-techandlife-com/ (http://techgeekandmore NULL.com/2009/12/12/software-skype-extension-for-firefox-causing-slow-firefox-with-some-websites-post-from-www-techandlife-com/) and http://techgeekandmore.com/2009/12/12/software-skype-error-skype-plug-in-causes-browser-crash/ (http://techgeekandmore NULL.com/2009/12/12/software-skype-error-skype-plug-in-causes-browser-crash/))

Messaging – Windows Live Messenger

Messaging – Yahoo Messenger

Media – Hulu

Media – VLC

Imaging – Paint.NET

Documents – Foxit Reader (For opening PDF / Acrobat files)

Security – Microsoft
Essentials (For Anti-Virus – Make sure you uninstall an existing AV program before installing this.)

Runtimes – Flash and Flash (IE) (you may not be using IE but for security you want to keep it up to date)

Runtimes – Java

Runtimes – .NET

Runtimes – Sliverlight

Utilities – ImgBurn

**This isn’t anything against any of the other programs on the Ninite list that are not listed here, however, this list is just the list of programs used daily at TGM.