Tech Olive

Netbooks –as convenient as they are– lack a bit in the performance category, but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for less in productivity and overall experience. You can get a lot of power out of these applications without using a whole lot of juice. The best part? They”re all completely free of charge. Here’s a quick list of the top applications that have proven useful for me during my netbook journey.

Daemon Tools

Probably one of the most useful tools that a netbook user could use. Since netbooks don’t have the luxury of an optical drive, Daemon Tools is there to save the day. If you need to install something on your netbook that requires a disc, you can easily create an image of the disc on your desktop PC and then pop the disc image on a flash drive. Then have Daemon Tools open it up on your netbook by right-clicking the system tray icon and navigating to Virtual Devices > No Media > Mount Image and then find the disc image to open it. Walah!
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Google Chrome

If you’re using Firefox on your netbook, consider switching to Google Chrome. I found it to be less sluggish when I have multiple tabs open and Chrome simply takes up less resources.
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GIMP

It’s obvious that most netbooks don’t stand a chance running Adobe Photoshop. You could get by with Photoshop Elements, but to me it’s either all-out Photoshop or no Photoshop. Instead, GIMP does everything I need it to when doing on-the-fly edits. Better yet, try out GIMPshop, which resembles Photoshop even more.
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OpenOffice.org Suite

Why pay for a second license to Microsoft Office (if you already have it for your desktop, that is) when you can simply and easily get away with a free productivity suite that works just as well. OpenOffice.org is a great addition to your netbook. Heck, if you like it enough, you could ditch MS Office all together.
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VLC Player

Your netbook can make a great portable media player, but you obviously need a solid media player to make this happen. VLC Player has you covered. It’s a very lightweight application that will play pretty much anything you throw at it. We also suggest Media Player Classic, which plays HD video more smoothly than VLC, but that’s really not a huge factor when you’re deciding which player to use for your netbook, since most netbooks don’t play nice HD video.
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