The years went by fast and things changed so much along the way. Nowadays one does not talk much about what kind of hardware one owns. Software makes the tools.
I use X1 Technologies, Inc. (which recently sold to Yahoo, I believe) for local Windows machine searches. It is a superior tool compared to Google Desktop which can not search inside many file types including PDF. The Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard is another tool that I absolutely need. It allows me to convert and shrink large scanned images of magazine, newspaper articles which cannot be readily found/downloaded into PDF [which is universally readable on many platforms].
Norton SystemWorks allows me to keep Windows happy; it scans the registry, checks for lost links, shortcuts, scans and repairs disks, ... Norton Internet Security is the tool to keep the bad buys from my local machines. Quicken Premier and Home system keeps my business and personal finance straight. Roxio Easy Media Creator is another software program that I can not do without. It is a bit cumbersome but has so many utilities to organize, create CD's and DVD's. I also use Microsoft Office Suite including Outlook and PowerPoint every day.
I also use my Google gmail account and its other tools daily.
The MKS Unix commands and tool set package for Windows machines is also one of my daily favorite tools. I use 'tar' instead of 'WinZip' to consolidate files to be 'ftp'ed to various machines including to the Linux boxes.
Of course the Treo650 with built-in Palm organizer software is my constant companion. I put it on the night stand before going to bed every night and carry it with me as soon as I wake up.
At my office I have the D-Link Wireless router setup and it helps to connect all my computers and printers wirelessly.
The 2-Gigabyte Mini Cruzer thumb drive has a nice little built-in encrypter protecting my critical data from casual hackers.
I have a couple of digital cameras: a Nikon with 8 Mega pixels and a physically much smaller Olympus with 6 Mega pixels. They both are very nice cameras with movie capability.
I run several web sites using a local Linux server. NetworkSolutions registers all my domain and supports URL forwarding. I recently purchased an Apple's Mac machine.
Its 'Spotlight' search engine is quite amazing.
These tools have made my work a bit easier, more organized and my life richer with better information, wider contacts and reach. The tools allow me to explore, search and learn things which I could never be able to do without them and to realize one of my assertions at my PhD interview that data at a sufficient quantity can yield intrinsic qualitative information.
