Many of you are getting new PCs these days, either as a gift, or just because there's a shiny new operating system out there. But once you get it fired up and the operating system installed, it's time to populate it with good software. Don't just take all the dreck off your old machine people. Use this as an opportunity to start fresh. Let me give you the seven essential pieces of software for your new PC.

First, there's security. You need an antivirus app, and it's not something you need to pay for. CNET's Download.com gave AVG Free Antivirus edition five stars out of five. And if you're not a big company, it won't cost you a dime.

Now that you're protected, it's time to browse the Internet. Don't just go with the Web browser that came with your operating system. There's Opera, and Google Chrome, and Firefox, and so many other options. And you know what? I'm not going with any of them. I recommend Sea Monkey. Why? Because it has the Firefox Web browser, but it also bundles e-mail, an IRC client, and Web page editor as well. If IRC and Web editing doesn't matter to you, then maybe go with Firefox and Thunderbird for e-mail. However, to get the most bang for your byte, I say go Sea Monkey.

Next, you need to tell all your friends of your experience on your new computer. So get an IM client. On Windows, I recommend Pidgin. For Mac use Adium. They both are free, open-source multiservice clients that work great.

Next, it's time to save you a few hundred bucks. Don't go out and drop dough on Microsoft Office. Open Office from Openoffice.org is better than it's ever been. I use it daily for word processing, spreadsheet manipulation, presentations, and more. If you're an Excel superuser, you may have issues with it, but for the average Joe, it's going to do everything you need--for free!

Productivity is covered. Now for some entertainment. For that, you need VLC media player. It can handle almost anything you throw at it. Have DVDs won't play in that piece of crap software that came with your PC? VLC will handle it. Music? Any format you can think of. And it's got that magic price you love.

Two more and we're done.

Now you need a graphics editor. How else will you put your friends heads on celebrity bodies. For Windows there's nothing better than Paint.NET. It's free and powerful. For Mac? It's tough. I like Acorn, which is free to download but $50 to keep. For free that stays free, try Seashore, which is based on the GIMP engine, or Skitch.

Finally, one last security piece of software. Antispyware. You can go with a cocktail of Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destory, Windows Defender, and so on. That's not a bad idea, but if I was backed up against a wall and forced to pick just one, I'd pick Hijack This. Trend Micro has given us one of the most powerful malware removal tolls you can find, and it's freeware.

Now there's certainly many other apps you need, such as registry cleaners, torrent downloaders, FTP clients, and so on, but they start to stray into niches that vary for different types of users. I can say without a doubt that these seven programs are essential for you to install on every PC, no matter who you are.

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Launch Mail.

If you don't get the wizard, go to Mail, choose preferences, accounts, then press the plus symbol under the accounts pane.

Put in your name, e-mail address, and e-mail account password.

Then press continue.

Under account type, choose Exchange 2007. Your company must be running this version of Exchange. Not all companies do, so check with your friendly neighborhood systems administrator.

Give this account a name.

Then put in your mail server, again provided by whomever runs your Exchange server.

Make sure your username and password are entered correctly.

You can also choose to integrate your calendar and contacts.

Press Continue.

Then choose SSL if your Exchange system supports it. One hopes it does, and press Continue again.

Check "Take Account online," review the summary to make sure it looks correct. Then Press Create.

It may take awhile the first time, but eventually, you should start to see your Exchange e-mail in the Mail app.

Mike in Michigan wrote in complaining that while he loves the easy way to take screenshots in OS X, he didn't like that they saved as PNGs. Not that he has anything against PNGs, mind you, but most of the sites he visits let him embed JPEGs only. Well Mike, we can help.

Command-Shift-3 is the command that takes a screenshot in OS X (or Command-Shift-4, if you just want part of the screen). It saves the image as a PNG. In Mac OS X 10.4 and later, you can change the default screenshot format at the command line.

Open Terminal and type in:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type IMAGE FORMAT.

The image format can be JPG, TIFF, PDF, BMP, PICT, or others. You can even change it back to PNG with this command, if you change your mind later.

Then log out and log back in again.

After that, any screenshots will be saved as the format you specified.

"I own a SimpleTech 320GB Black Cherry Hard Drive and needed it to run on both Mac and PC for school. I thought it would be pretty helpful if you made a video showing how to format a disc to run on all OS's using Mac OS X."

First, Here's why there's a difference. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. OS X uses a file format called HFS+ to write its data. Windows can't read or write HFS+ data natively. However, OS X and Windows both can read and write to a format called FAT32, which used to be used for Windows all the way back into the MS-DOS days. Most modern Windows systems use the NTFS file format, which OS X can read, but not write to.

So your best bet for compatibility is FAT32. Here's how to format a drive as FAT32. First, the Windows way and then the Mac way.

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Max from England asked how to get 5.1 surround sound from his iMac into his speaker system. If he has a TOSlink cable already, he can use a TOSlink to optical mini adapter. Or for a bit more money you can get a cord that goes right from the headphone out jack on the iMac to the optical in on the other end. The length of the optical TOSlink plug here is 1/4-inch longer than an analog plug. That activates a switch on the port that tells the Mac it's an optical cable. Find out more at this Macrumours forum thread. Don't forget to make sure your outputting surround sound as well. Plex is a great piece of Mac software for that. Your calls:

We had a couple calls about partitioning and cloning hard drives. Gparted is my favorite. You can use it for cloning drives too, but you can also try Clonezilla.

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One great thing about a laptop is putting it to sleep. Close the lid, pack it in your bag, and you're saved the trouble of rebooting it later. But if it doesn't go to sleep properly, it can heat up in your bag, burn your hand, or even damage its hard drive. Here's how to troubleshoot MacBook sleep problems.

The first step is to make sure you don't have an application running that's accessing the hard drive. If you're downloading a file over Wi-Fi, that can interrupt sleep. Playing music from iTunes or playing a DVD also can cause sleep-interruption. Close programs to eliminate them as a possible culprit.

Bluetooth devices shouldn't wake a sleeping computer, but some Bluetooth mice do. So make sure you don't have any on. Then go to system preferences, click Bluetooth, click settings, and deselect "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer."

Another issue could be the spotlight function. It's a handy way to search the hard drive, but if it's indexing your hard drive, the Mac won't go to sleep.

If you're sharing an Internet connection, a file, or even an iTunes library, that can stop sleep from working. Disconnect any users or turn off sharing to see if this is the problem.

Another issue is external devices. If you have any USB or FireWire peripherals connected, such as an external hard drive, it may cause problems. Disconnect them, properly, one at a time to make sure they're not the problem.

And finally, PCI cards. This was my problem. Expansion cards, like my EVDO card, may have drivers that prevent the computer from removing power from them, thus stopping sleep. You'll need to look for updated drivers, or just remove the cards in question.

If none of this works, you may need to reset the system's power management. Look for our Insider Secret on MacBook Power problems for more on that.