Hi, some of you will think is an odd question. I have used a unix (or unix based) system for almost 10 yearsnow. The last Microsoft Windows version I used was MS Windows 3.1.1 for workgroups. Now, that I'mlooking to leave academia, I need to reacquaint myself with the Microsoft platform. I have a new MS WinXPbox, and am looking to populate it with software. Is there any software, besides the usual stuff (MS Office,Matlab, Mathematica, IDE, Origin) that I should look at trying? If it's free, even better, but hopefully I canat least get a student rate.Thanks

www.activestate.com - has (free) windows distributions for PERL and Python. One or other of these should really be on your list of things to get sence windows still doesn't have a proper scripting language.All of the java stuff works - all freely available from the Sun website. Getting familiar with the Eclipse dev environment is probably not a bad idea.If you're doing C++ then you can get the MS compiler for free from their site (not with all the bells and whistles - but basically there).Firefox is a way better browser than the default IE 9also a lot safer)Are you going to put on a commercial anti-virus and spyware chacker? Spybot, AdAware and AVG are good (free) options.

Not really quant related, but if you're used to unix, then you should probably install cygwin, that will provide you with most of the unixy command line tools you're used to using (Oh and it's free of course!). (www.cygwin.com)

Right, I got cygwin. And since I know perl, I got activestate perl. Antivirus... right. I didn't even think of that. My computer is probabaly already infected... What's a good commercial antivirus program??

>> What's a good commercial antivirus program?? Symantec or Macafee. AVG is not bad (they have a pay for - slightly better - version on their site as well as the free version)Dont forget the spyware stuff as well.

QuoteOriginally posted by: linuxuser99>> What's a good commercial antivirus program?? Symantec or Macafee. AVG is not bad (they have a pay for - slightly better - version on their site as well as the free version)Dont forget the spyware stuff as well.I found I had a lot of problems with Norton Internet Security 2005. I'm convinced it wasn't thoroughly tested before release. These have been documented on various websites. I don't know if the problems will be fixed in newer versions. I had a good impression of Norton Anti-virus software before this, but now I don't think I'll ever use stuff from Symantec again.

ayone use thishttp://www.download.com/3000-2144-10122137.html

Anti-Virus: I used Esats NOD32 which I can thoroughly recommend. You get all of the protection with none of the extraneous rubbish.Cygwin should already come with a full compliment of development tools, such as python, perl and the gcc compiler. PostgreSQL is a great database that has windows binaries - I currently use this with Python 2.3 and the eGenix mx.ODBC library.Finally, for stats work, R is an excellent package, which is also available on the windows platform

Not trying to start a flame war, but I've spent several weeks playing with R and found it extemely painful. Not the fault of the R developers - I just found the underlying language, S, very badly designed. Why on earth use underscore as an assignment operator? The object system of S is just complicated enough that even many examples I've seen in package documentation spend an inordinate amount of time casting between types 'matrix', 'array','list' and what not - all for the same bunch of data! Yet I could not discover a way of defining custom implicit type conversions, the way you can in C++.In short, if you want an environment to play with data - don't waste your time on R, buy matlab, it's not that expensive and (at least in the areas that I looked at) a superset of R functionality - e.g. does R have a debugger?The large numbers of R and S+ users out there show that your mileage may vary, but that has been my experience.

As regards anti-spyware/firewall software, I'd recommend ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs.com

I think people have stopped using underscore and use <- as assignment operator. Yes it has a debugger, use ?mtrace. You have do use the packages mvbutils and debug before you can use mtrace.

QuoteOriginally posted by: afosterCygwin should already come with a full compliment of development tools, such as python, perl and the gcc compiler. If I write some code in cygwin and compile, the executable will only run under cygwin, right? Is there some cross-compiler or some other method, so that the executable will run under Windows?

QuoteOriginally posted by: linuxuser99>> Dont forget the spyware stuff as well.u could try ms anitspyware betahttp://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spywa ... fault.mspx

QuoteOriginally posted by: ZmeiGorynychNot trying to start a flame war, but I've spent several weeks playing with R and found it extemely painful....Why on earth use underscore as an assignment operator? ... does R have a debugger?...don't know much about object models and type conversions but learn about the R debugger with ?debug and you can use "=" or "<-" as assignment operators.

QuoteOriginally posted by: pdebruicQuoteOriginally posted by: ZmeiGorynychNot trying to start a flame war, but I've spent several weeks playing with R and found it extemely painful....Why on earth use underscore as an assignment operator? ... does R have a debugger?...don't know much about object models and type conversions but learn about the R debugger with ?debug and you can use "=" or "<-" as assignment operators.are there any tutorials around on the web for R with a finance slant? I'm looking for something I could get across of an evening.