I’ve used the New Year as an excuse to streamline my work computer, removing all the optional software before going on break and then installing everything fresh first thing this morning. I think it’s a nice opportunity to list out the digital tools I use at work, and see where in the course of a week I find I need them.

So step by step, here is the order of things I choose to install and set up on a PC to get everything off and running from scratch. I’ll continue to update over the course of the week as new things pop-up.

Day One: The Basic Necessities

1. Open Explorer (for the first and last time).

2. Download and install the latest Firefox.

3. Install Xmarks Add-on to synch bookmarks with home.

4. Open Firefox “Options” and set Homepage tabs (hint: separate URLs with a pipe |).

Note: because so much of what used to live on a hard drive is now happening on the web, setting up a browser gets a lot more accomplished than 10 years ago. So in my bookmarks you can count on things that would otherwise have been on a local machine: Gmail, Evernote, Google Docs, Bloglines, Flickr, are examples of “cloud” apps that replace old local apps or folders.

5. Set up multiple user profiles ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager) . Set to prompt on start.

6. Download and install Dropbox for portable file storage.

7. Download and install Trillian (for AIM, MSN, Yahoo! etc.)

8. Download and install TweetDeck (for links and trends).