In adddition to buying a new machine roughly every 18 months, I frequently buy new hardware and reconfigure existing machines, therefore this list may not always be 100% accurate.

What is my hardware setup?

New Primary Machine

• Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition Processor(8 cores 16 threads)
• be quiet! BK019 cooler
• 32 GB of Corsair 2800Mhz memory
• MSI X99A Godlike Gaming motherboard
• Corsair RM1000 Gold Rated Power Supply
• Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X - 12GB GDDR5
• Samsung 850 pro 512GB x2 SSD
• WD Black 3TB x2
• TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224FB DVD/RW drive x2
• Fractal Design R5 case
• BenQ BL3201PT 32-Inch 3840 x 2160, 4ms

Old Primary Machine

• Intel DX79SI motherboard
• Intel Core i7 3690X Processor + Intel Liquid Cooling Kit and running Windows 7 pro 64bit
• 16GB Kingston 2133MHz memory
• Dual Intel 120GB 510 Series SSD, and 2 x Seagate Constellation 3Tb drives for data
• Gigabyte Geforce GTX590
• Dell 27 inch TFT Flat screen U2711(2560 x 1440 WQHD)
• Dual Samsung DVD CD/DVD Writers
• CoolerMaster Silencio 550 Chassis
• CoolerMaster 800 Watt Silent Pro Gold PSU
• Intuos3 A6 Tablet/Pen/mouse
• Logic3 USB speakers
• Logitech QuickCam Sphere AF
• Veho VMS-004 Discovery 400x Microscope
• Intuos3 A6 Tablet/Pen/mouse

Other Machine

• A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
• AMD 4800 (running Windows XP pro) with
• 4 Gb of memory
• Four 250Gb Dasd in Raid 0+1
• XFX Nvidia 7800XT (490Mhz)
• Sharp 17inch TFT Flat screen LLT1714B
• 16x/52x TSSTcorp DVD-ROM
• Plextor PX-750A DVD Rewriter
• Antec P180 Case
• Intuos3 A6 Tablet/Pen/mouse
• Philips ToUcam Pro webcam
• Agfa Snapscan e50 scanner
• Netgear WG311 Wireless G network card
• Microsoft Intellimouse optical mouse

Network

• BiPac 7800N - ADSL2 modem/router
• Buffalo Linkstation(250Gb)
• Canon S9000 (A3+) colour printer

My Primary machine is connected via Ethernet while my Secondary and Backup machines are connected wirelessly, and there are UPS devices on all machines. I also have an old portable(with a Dlink Wireless card) and my indispensable Jornada 548 Pocket PC, and a Nokia N800. I've also got an Archos 40Gb miniHD, WD120GB, WD250GB and WD500 and a 2TB WD My Passport Ultra Portable Harddrives, which are ideal for support activity as they are USB connect(no power), also great for swapping files. I also have 1Gb and 4Gb Pretec, and 32GB Fusion USB3 thumb drives for more casual needs, and an iBoutique 64GB and 128Gb Integral USB3 flash drives for bigger jobs.

In Nov 2012 acquired a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7 inch Tablet(16GB) with a 32Gb SD card.

The main software I run is:-

• Windows 10, 7, XP & Vista 64 - I've tried various flavours of Linux, it's not ready yet to be my primary desktop OS - I do run various virtual images though using VirtualBox.
• Firefox - Best browser(Opera runs it close, and I do use it occasionally), but configurability and addon options are endless. Currently using the 64bit Cyberfox and Palemoon versions.
• Thunderbird - It again has a number of useful addons and allows aggregation from Googlemail and others.
• Quick Cliq - I've used it under Windows 7 for a number of years, Quick Cliq, enables you to have a custom designed menu under your mouse(using a right-drag to activate-you can change this and various hotkeys). It's an excellent utility that deserves greater recognition.
• MusicBee - Excellent free MP3 player and library manager. For other media I use VLC which plays just about anything, and Audacity for sound editing.
• Acronis TrueImage - I've found this a totally reliable backup solution, and have it setup to automatically take backups while I sleep!
• VMWare - excellent software. The free player allows you to run virtual machines with prebuilt images on a variety of operating systems. No more having to sort out boot menus and repartitioning(with all the risks involved) to try new versions of operating systems. I also use VirtualBox, and, although it is not quite so polished with such great control, it is opensource and works really well.
• TeamViewer - great for remotely controlling machines. I control the machines in my spare bedroom from the comfort of my living room.
• LibreOffice - Great free replacement for MS Office, although I still use my old Excel 2000(I have many old macros which I doubt I'll convert).
• CorelDraw/Paint - For drawing and photo manipulation easily on a par with Photoshop and much cheaper. I also use GIMP and Paint.Net and find both excellent. GIMP has most of the features of its commercial alternatives and is opensource and I don't hesitate in recommending it. I also use XNView as my image viewer.
• Nero CD/DVD writer - What can I say, it works!
• AVG antivirus - Free and it works well. I've not had a virus since I switched from Norton, nor any of the software conflicts and other irritations that came with Norton. I've tried the other free virus checkers and always come back to AVG.
• BridgeBase online - Great free software that lets you play Bridge online for free. In addition you can watch Vugraph of the various leading world competitions, also free.
• Binary News Reaper - Great free software to download from Usenet from multiple feeds. Has a few irritations but generally works well.
• QuiteRSS and GreatNews - both excellent RSS feed aggregators with different strengths.
• The Witcher 2 & Path of Exile- well I have to play sometimes!
• VirtuaWin(with vwKvasdoPager module) - A nice free utility that gives me multiple desktops much like Linux
• XNews - this aging newsreader still meets all my usenet requirements
• MagicDisc - this is now my ISO mounter of choice
• FileZilla - one of the best FTP programs and opensource.
• Notepad++ - for all my text editing/programming needs
• FreeFileSync - a nice free file sync utility that lets me sync key directories with removable media
• CCleaner - probably the best cleaning program and again free!
• XAMPP - lets me run a local webserver and prototype my website.
• MIRO - This is a great source of videos, and totally free and legal!

Machines recently passed to friends(Sept 2015)

Secondary Machine

• Acer Veriton N4620G
• Intel Core i3 2377M 1.5GHz running Windows 7 pro 64bit
• 4 Gb of memory
• 500GB HDD

Backup Machine

• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
• Intel i7-975(3.3Ghz) running Vista Business 64
• 12 Gb of memory
• Dual Intel X-25M 80Gb SSDs, and 2 x 1Tb drives for data
• Gainward Nvidia GTX-295
• Sharp 17inch TFT Flat screen LLT1714B
• Dual 22x/52x TSSTcorp CD/DVD Writers
• Antec P183 Case