Essential Netbook Utilities for Mini-Notebooks
Since we haven’t yet received a Cease & Desist for using the netbook term, I’m celebrating with another post on the devices. Have to get them while I still can, I guess. 
For your pre-holiday pleasure, Mobile Computer offers up their list of eight essential netbook utilities. We’ve already put together one of these lists but there’s only a little overlap on the best software for netbooks… er, mini-notebooks… or whatever you want to call ‘em.
I wouldn’t call Firefox a “utility”, but it’s number three on the list and Mobile Computer does offer a step-by-step optimization guide that’s worth a look. If you can do without extensions, I recommend Google’s Chrome browser due to simplicity and speed. FoxIt Reader is one we’ve covered before and I still stand by it as a replacement to Adobe’s offering. Launchy is nice utility as is VirtualWin which adds virtual desktops much like Spaces in OS X or Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop PowerToy. Got any must-haves for your [insert netbook synonym here]?
On my laptop and on my netbook, I also use NovaPDF. (www.novapdf.com); not free but it is an excellent print engine. Every time I order online, i print a PDF of the final screen as a receipt and save it to a folder on my desktop. Then if opens with Foxit Reader.
It is my default printer.
It is a good addition to the list.
Wiley
NW Harris County, TX
“Utilities” I frequently use include:
Autoruns and Process Explorer from Sysinternals
Ccleaner
Recuva
Revo Uninstaller
SIW
PDF Xchange Viewer
Glary Utilities
CPU-Z
HWMonitor
JKDefrag GUI
System Explorer
All free and portable.
wileyj — I do the same, but I use the free/open source tool PDFCreator (from sourceforge)
Freeware Note Book Hardware Control adds detailed battery status, CPU % in Taskbar along with CPU temps, all with low resources pull.
I’ll just risk sounding like a broken record and mention Opera as the browser of choice. The version 10 alpha release is even faster, it does the Acid browsing test right and nobody does small-screen rendering better than Opera.
Launchy and Cooliris!
I’m not a netbook owner yet, but I have a better alternative to Adobe Reader. I used Foxit Reader for years, but I got tired of the cheesy look and feel. Plus it would never hold my place in an ebook. Now I use PDF-XChange Viewer, free tool from Tracker Software. It can be converted into an editor with their add-on. Check it out!
I have a lot of PDF music scores and play-along files. I wonder how well netbooks work with music players and slowdown software e.g. Transcribe! Protools? Anybody know?
I’ve heard good things about “Enso” for all the quicksilver fans. But I haven’t tried it.
“Mojopac” was interesting but I stopped using it in favor of some of a sync system using the apps you guys mention regularly like google docs and “glide os”.