Home offices are becoming more common in households as more people use a dedicated space in their home for a computer/office setup.  Whether it's a small spot in the corner of your bedroom, or an entire room, your software needs are basically the same in your home office.  Now a home office doesn't necessarily mean that you are running a full-time business out of your house, or are telecommuting for your employer.  Home offices can just be a space where you can do those things, or just a spot for you to manage your bills and take care of personal business.

I wanted to write a guide that lists software that every home office should have.  Being someone who works from home, I understand how important it is to have software that will make your life that much easier, and your work more productive.  Part 1 of this article will deal with office applications, security, and backup.

Office Tools

Aside from a web browser, the Microsoft Office 2007 is one of the most used applications on my PC.  There are about 8 different suites from the Office Basic version on up to the Enterprise edition.  You can check out the comparison chart to determine which suite includes the applications you will need.  The most noticeable difference in Office 2007 is it's new interface which includes the new "ribbon".  Now I know some will disagree but I have grown to like the ribbon and once I had become familiar with the new layout I found it quite easy to use.

Word 2007

Part of Office 2007 or available stand-alone is Outlook 2007.  It is open all day on my PC, and it is essential for my e-mail, calendar, and contact information.  One of the really cool features of Outlook is the to-do bar which contains a mini-calendar, upcoming appointments, and displays your task list.  This is great because I don't have to switch views just to check on today's upcoming appointments.  Other features include RSS feeds, integrated search, and an attachment preview feature.

If you don't need the complete Office suites, then OpenOffice is a great alternative.  OpenOffice does not include an e-mail client, but another I can recommend is Mozilla Thunderbird. 

Security

Anti-Virus and security tools are very important in your home office setup.  There is such a wide variety of good, quality solutions for this, so I'm going to list some of the most popular applications.

• Trend Micro Internet Security 2007 - This is what I personally use and it's a great solution for anti-virus, firewall, spyware protection, wireless networking monitoring, and parental controls.
   
• Ad-Aware - One of the most popular anti-spyware applications, and they have solutions for personal and business use.  The signature files are updated often and it does a great job of cleaning your system.
   
• CCleaner - Another popular application is CCleaner.  This program does a fantastic job of cleaning up unused files on your hard drive.  It also has a registry cleaner, and tools for cleaning your startup programs. 
   
• Windows Defender - Another anti-spyware program which also includes real-time monitoring.
   
• KeepPass Password Safe - This is a password manager that allows you to store all your passwords into a database that is protected by a master key or key disk.  This is very handy if you have a lot of passwords and want to organize them in one place.
   
• Zonealarm - When people think firewall, Zonealarm comes to the mind of many.  Zonealarm has grown into a complete security suite, but the free personal edition is still available.
   
• AVG - AVG is a great, free anti-virus program for non-commercial personal use.  Talking with many members on WinCustomize this seems to be one of the favorites.
   

Data Backup

Stardock KeepSafe - KeepSafe is an application that I really can't go without.  If you have typed a long report or article and had it suddenly disappear after one of those "rare" occasions Windows crashed, or accidentally overwritten an important file, then you will appreciate what KeepSafe does.  It will save your important files in real-time as you are working on them, and you can easily choose and configure which file types to have saved. 

The first time you recover a document that has been lost or corrupted you will understand why this is such a valuable program.  When you first start KeepSafe there is an easy setup wizard that will have your documents protected in no time.

Acronis True Image 10 - This is another program that has saved my data many times over.  True Image allows you to create an image of your entire hard drive, including the operating system, and will restore in case of hard drive failure or if something goes wrong with your operating system.

In the next part of this article I will cover graphics programs, utilities, and misc. software.  The software I listed today are all things that I use and recommend to anyone.  If you think I missed something or would like to add your recommendations, please feel free to post them.