This happens a lot. A family member or friend buys a new PC and says “Gee can you install all the software for me and set it up?” My dad finally bought a new PC, only his second since 2003, and the task fell on me to get it ready for everyday use.

And sure, we admit it, our inner nerd squeals with delight whenever we get our hands on a fresh computer, out of the box.

Depending on who the computer is for, you may have some business software and games to install, but if you’re the technologically-adept one in your family, make sure you don’t overlook these five programs that will make everyone’s life easier now and in the long run:

5. The PC Decrapifier

The PC Decrapifier is a magazine and tech-site favorite, and it is well-regarded as an essential tool for new computers.

What is boils down to is this: sometimes it’s not only about what you put into a computer, but what you take out of it that makes a difference.

When you buy a new computer, it’s loaded with software. Loaded. We call this “bloatware.” It’s fat. You don’t need all of it.

You want to remove trial software, search engine toolbars, Dell/Sony/etc. support software and anything else that you don’t need — and don’t need running in the background — on a new PC.

You can run ‘msconfig’ and then open up the Control Panel’s software add/remove tool to get this same task done, but the Decrapifier has online resources that will tell you which software should go and which software can stay. So it’s helpful.

4. Dropbox

With all this talk about cloud computing and online data storage, even your mom or dad should be able to take advantage. Enter Dropbox, an easy-to-use service that gives you 2GB of online storage for free or up to 100GB for $19.99 per month.

Dropbox is useful. You can store software installations, photos, videos, documents, website files and anything else you need to access later.

3. iTunes and/or VLC

iTunes has come a long way on the PC since I ranted about it in 2009.

And the fact is, your parents and aunts and uncles are using iPads and iPhones, so they need iTunes. Go ahead and install it for them, but then make sure you set up their iTunes account also. Old people get confused.

Beyond iTunes, there’s a bit of Gen-Y software magic that even dear-old-dad can enjoy. VideoLAN’s VLC Media Player is the best, open source, cross-platform media player that can play nearly every disc, video file and audio file available, including DVDs, DivX movies and MP3s, and it has no advertising or spyware

It’s software that we use, so they should use it too.

2. Chrome or Firebox

I still install Firefox on family computers. It’s faster, better and more secure than Internet Explorer. A growing number of people are plugging into the Google matrix, however, so Chrome may be the way to go.

Either way, you need to install a second browser and set it as the default.

Just make sure you tell your loved one to allow the updates to install when prompted. Keep that most recent version running.

1. Microsoft Security Essentials

Go back to the Decrapifier for a second. Now remove whatever trial version of Norton or McAfee came with the computer. Get rid of it. Your relative is never going to pay to renew it after it expires, and the constant prompts reminding then to upgrade will result in “I think I have a virus” phone calls that you don’t need.

So just uninstall the stupid trial editions.

Install Microsoft Security Essentials. It is the best piece of software that Microsoft never charged for. As long as you have a genuine version of Windows (and all new, out-of-the-box commercial PCs do) you can download and install Microsoft’s always up-to-date antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-malware security suite.

It integrates with the Windows Firewall (make sure that’s turned on, especially once you remove the Norton/McAfee software) and gives you real-time protection just like the expensive boxed products.

If you have some moral problem with Microsoft securing your computer, you could try avast! and the free version of its antivirus software. It’s a very good solution that keeps your computer secure.

Honorable mentions

You may also want to consider EASEUS Partition Master, if you’re really doing some hardcore configuring. If the PC has one big 2TB drive, it may be a good idea to break it up into a system drive and some workspaces.

Recuva is a good choice for file recovery. It helps you recover accidentally-deleted files. We’ve all been there. Another phone call-saving measure.

Seagate calls their new Replica drive an “appliance,” and it’s a rare apt marketing plot.

You see, by 2012, Seagate and other research firms estimate the average household will store more than a terabyte of data, including videos, family photos, music, programs, vital documents and even homework. Currently, less than half of consumers back up their data.

People think they don’t need to back up their files, and others think it takes too much time. Still more people don’t know how to preserve their files.

That’s where the “appliance” comes in.

Seagate wants you to consider a backup drive int he same light that you look at your refrigerator or oven — an appliance with a single, vital use. And the company has finally made it easy.

We tested the Seagate Replica 500GB Multiple PC backup drive, and we were impressed. As soon as you plug in the drive, the device is ready to start backing up your files. We’re used to installing software and going through a little (a lot) of configuration, but Seagate’s just saying “screw it — let’s just back up the damn drive.”

It’s effortless. Every time you back up a drive, the on-board software overwrites the oldest versions of each file, so you can avoid clutter and a quickly filled drive.

The drive will quickly fill, however, if you have all your eggs in one basket. If you have all your videos and music and photos on your C: drive, the software is going to have you do a little work. That’s the one bad thing we found with this drive. A “mere” 500GB just doesn’t do it in the iTunes age, where every time you download a video, you’re getting a 500MB standard version and a huge high-definition version.

When this product is available in a 2TB setting — or more — then we can safely say we’re in the backup appliance age.

But assuming for a second that 500GB is enough for you, the Replica functions better as a single PC backup solution than a multi-PC solution. The included dock insinuates that you can put the drive on a desk and back up all your computers from there, but that’s useless if you have a desktop in your bedroom and another in the basement.

For a single PC, or a PC and a laptop, the automation of the Replica makes it easy to back up your system files, documents, and some of your multimedia files. As ease of use goes, the Replica is as good as it currently gets.

While the size does matter, the Replica is a great solution. The included recovery CD allows you to restore your computer to its original state, even if your internal hard drive fails. This function combines with the practical ability to drag and drop backed up files if you delete them accidentally from your PC. The Replica is a functional, useful tool, if not totally an appliance yet.

The 500GB Multi-PC version is available for $129. A 250GB single-PC model sells for $88.

Here at Blast, we’re all about backing up everything digital in our lives. We recently just got our hands on EASEUS Todo Backup, a free backup client for Windows and we are very impressed on how well this product looks and performs. Sure, it’s not as simple as Apple’s Time Machine which has only a single on-off switch, but this product does everything it advertises very well, and it’s absolutely free, so you can’t really complain.

Home screen of the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

The interface is fantastic with large buttons for the most common tasks such as backing up your entire disk or just a few partitions, as well as an option to restore your backed up content. There’s even a clone disk option where everything on your drive is duplicated to another hard drive. On the right hand side of the interface, there is a long, easy to read menu, marked with icons for more advanced options like mounting and unmounting a disk image. EASEUS did an excellent job with navigation and presenting an easy to use application, while maintaining a clutter free workspace.

Performance was great as well. In our tests, we were able to successfully backup up our drive and then later restore it. Todo Backup works by making a disk image of your entire drive, essentially duplicating it elsewhere. If a file ever gets deleted or Windows encounters a problem, it’s simple to just restore the files you need off your backup and be up and running again. The program also has a few nice features like the ability to set a priority to a backup, compress your backup to save space, and split your backup among disks. The splitting feature alone is a great because it enables you spread your backup among drives or discs; if you had a large backup that wouldn’t fit onto just one DVD, the spitting feature allows you to place your backup between as many DVDs or CDs as you need. The application also gives you the option to create a bootable disk, meaning if you’re main hard drive were to fail “" woe the day that happens “" you can plug your bootable drive in and run your computer from it.

Advanced configuration options in the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

There are, however, a few things we felt Todo Backup was missing. The ability to back up on to network volumes would have been nice. Also, the the program only allows you to backup the entire disk and doesn’t give you the option to select certain files and folders to backup. It also has limited security; we didn’t see any encryption or security support at all, but clearly this free piece of software is meant for home use and not designed for enterprise users.

For all the features, ease of use, and the fact that it’s completely free, EASEUS Todo Backup is a must download for Windows users looking for an easy to use backup solution. The interface, setup, and feature list are excellent and the program does everything EASEUS advertises. While it may have room to develop, for most users looking for a quick backup, these shortfalls probably won’t be an issue. Definitely give this product a try and test it out for yourself. You can download this free product from the EASEUS website.

We never realize how much effort we put into our digital lives. Think about how many times you tweet about your horrible public transportation experience, update your Facebook status to tell everyone about your appearance in the Boston Globe, Tumble about that sweet volcano picture you found, or blogged about your teenage anxiety. Ok, so the vast amount of data you’re creating on the Internet may not add up to much of substance, but to you, it’s a very personal history of what you’ve done, where you went, and on some level, who you are. And what happens if that data disappears?

Sure, backups will protect you, right? Technical errors in this day and age are at least uncommon due to redundant servers and offsite backups, but they’re still not unheard of. Delicious competitor Ma.gnolia experienced a massive database corruption last February, and users forever lost all of their saved links overnight. On the other hand, human error ended up labeling every site on Google’s searches “" even their own homepage “" as potentially malicious. Can you imagine if an earthquake were to tear though Netflix’s California data center erased your history there, forcing you to go though and rate the thousand movies you’ve seen over the last few years and rebuild your carefully curated queue ?

What would happen if your blog were to disappear overnight? We have a blog that we used to attend to daily in high school, and while we’ve certainly moved past it, it’s always fun to go back and remember the times when we would post horrible pictures of our friends as an “idiot of the week.” To borrow the analogy of our forever techno-geek crush Gina Trapani, the potential loss of an online blog is almost akin to someone burning your diary.

But on top of accidental loss, there’s the planned destruction of your digital data. Remember a few years ago when your Facebook wall was a highly editable wiki? And then do you remember when it disappeared overnight? We know we wish we could go back in time and look at it one last time, but alas, it is gone forever. Or what if you use an online backup service that decides to shutter its doors? You could very well be out of luck.

Likewise, Twitter’s system is set up only to hold 3200 tweets per user. Come tweet number 3201, and tweet numero uno is gone forever, and no amount of searching or API hacking will bring it back. In era of near infinite email storage, the fact that Twitter keeps only the equivalent of 3200 text messages is, quite frankly, absurd. We send and receive twice that every month, and our iPhone happily keeps track of every single one. Luckily, with some command line-fu, you can back up your Tweets if it’s that important to you, but in the case of your Facebook history, and many other sites, that’s mostly gone forever.

Either way, until site developers allow us a simple way to backup the data we’ve imputed to a website, the moral of this story is backup, backup, backup. Obviously you know to keep your Time Machine updates frequent or just to copy your files to an external every now and then, but now, you need to make sure to add your online data to that list as well, lest you lose something infinitely more personal to you than the pdf of your tax return from last year.

I’m working on another one of my Globe Tests articles for the Boston Sunday Globe business section, where I get to do what I normally do: play with fun toys.

Last time, it was computer mice, and the Globe and Blast saw something like 12 computer mouse reviews as a result.

The WD My Passport Studio maxed out at 32.7 MB/sec, which is admirable.

This time, it’s portable hard drives.

One of the drives that my story will feature is the Western Digital My Passport Elite, a delicious, beautiful 2.5-inch 500 gigabyte USB 2.0 hard drive with a soft, leathery finish‚  and a 5-year warranty.

One of the drives that didn’t make it into the story, however, is the WD My Passport Studio, another 2.5-inch 500 GB hard drive, only this one is formatted for Mac and supports FireWire 400 and 800 for faster data movement.

We test drives with HD Tune Pro 3.10. The two drives are virtually identical on USB 2.0 mode.

The My Passport Elite was just as good, really

The Studio tested just a little bit faster, but that could easily just have been random background interference. For all intents and purposes, the Studio is an elite with Firewire and Mac-formatting, and that’s really yummy (yeah I didn’t have dinner tonight, I’m hungry) for video folks, graphic designers, photographers, etc., because 500 GB is just a sick amount of data (today). I don’t care who you are.

The Studio is formatted HFS+ Journaled, and it‚  supports Apple Time Machine

The only major difference: the My Passport Studio doesn’t have the Soft-touch Finish. What gives WD? You couldn’t leather this one up too?

It’s important to note that while they’re small and possibly edible, these are still hard drives — rotating metal discs and lots of moving parts. Just because they’re small doesn’t mean they’re iPod Nano’s. They’re designed to be packed up and move around but I wouldn’t go jogging with one in my pocket.

Both drives have lighted capacity indicators showing you how full the drive is, which is useful if you plug it into a server and are doing automatic backups.

Both drives also are 100 percent powered by the computer you plug it into — no external power supply required.

By the way, 500 GB can hold 220 hours of DVD video, 125,000 MP3s, or 142,000 high-resolution photos.

Please look out for my Globe Tests column this Sunday in the Boston Globe Money & Careers section or Boston.com/Business!

Wouldn’t you love to be able to sit back and enjoy your computer without worrying if it’s vulnerable to attacks just because you clicked the “Remind Me Later” button? That piece of mind can be achieved with an automatic updater.

I recently came across UpdateStar, a great, easy-to-use application that lets you sit back and relax while it take care of all the updating.

The initial installation went quite smoothly. Within a few minutes, I had the program recognizing all my applications. When UpdateStar first launched, I was blown away by its Microsoft Office 2007-esque toolbar with the ribbon-like view. UpdateStar really offers a very simple and well-designed user interface. On the start page, UpdateStar includes a pie graph with detailed information about your application updates. It even includes vast list of all the available updates that are yet to be installed. The ribbon-like menu system gives you the ability to update programs, news, configure settings, increase the text size and so much more. Without a doubt, this has to be one of the best well layout and user-friendly applications I’ve ever used.

But UpdateStar doesn’t just focus on updating programs. It’s also is a great way to uninstall programs – far more intuitive and easier to use than Windows’ “Add & Remove Programs ” pane. Simply click on the programs tab on the ribbon menu system, highlight the program that you wish to uninstall, and click “Uninstall” and it’s done.

Best of all, it’s free. In my experience, the program keeps the user experience in mind as it performs very well, delivering all the latest updates to one’s computer in a timely and effective manner.

In the realm of all things pretty good comes the Duracell Powersource Mobile 100 power inverter and battery backup system.

Maybe more than pretty good, the Powersource crosses over to “good” now that the price has come down from a whopping $139.99 to just over $50.

The Powersource Mobile 100 gives you a three-prong plug and two USB ports to charge your laptops, cell phones, iPods, and just about any other portable device up to 80 watts. It’s guaranteed to work with iPods, Palm devices and BlackBerry phones and will work with most others as long as they take USB or standard “wall socket” power.

The device advertises two hours of laptop power, and that’s definitely possible with modern, low-power computers with the monitor turned down. Like anything else — if you’re running an Alienware monstrosity laptop, you’re not gonna get a lotta juice.

So I tested this puppy out, and my favorite part about it is that it’s not just a battery but a power inverter too. This means I can plug it into the car socket and run my Laptop at full power for as long as I need it. As a news reporter, that’s a invaluable asset on the road.

I’m glad the price came down on the Powersource Mobile 100. $50 is just about right for this product. It’s about double the cost of a normal power inverter and gives you a boost in your laptop bag or suitcase.

This is a great impulse buy. If you’re looking for something to put in the car, it’s a great idea. It works as advertised.

Yes, the Powersource is a toy. It’s not entirely necessary. It’s extra. I like it. Would I necessarily go out to the store and buy one?

I dunno.

One of the things that I cannot stress enough is backing up your files.

We store our work documents, pictures, music, videos, precious family photos and more on our computers, and with one hard drive glitch all our important files can be gone forever. Luckily, there are plenty of easy ways to prevent data loss by backing up your system.

Essentially, backing up produces copies of all your hard drive contents and exports them to one file, typically stored on a remote drive. In the old days this was done with tape drives and CD-R discs, but now this can often be done with external hard drives or flash memory.

Finding the right backup program can be quite tricky, but I recently came across Roxio BackOnTrack 3, and it seems to make backing up my PC easier than ever.

My experience with BackOnTrack has been excellent. The installation process went exceptionally well. Once the program was fully installed, I was taken to a preference window to customize my backup options.

Once that was out of the way, I was brought to a beautiful, simple, well-designed interface where all the options were just a click away. The software makes a statement with its easy to use interface of big buttons and easy to follow prompts.

I started out backing up a 100MB video file, and soon it was in a folder on my drive ready to be restored. I then deleted the file off my internal disk and restored it with BackOnTrack, and again within a few minutes a notification window came up telling me that my restore was completed successfully.

Finally I decided to backup my whole system and see how the product performed. All you have to do is click the “backup drive” button in the frequent tasks pane, select the drive you wish to backup, select the destination drive and click the large orange “go” button. Restoring files is just as easy.

In my tests, Roxio BackOnTrack exceeded expectations, mainly because of its ease of use, large buttons, great interface and overall great functionality. I would definitely recommend the software to anyone who wants an easy backup solution and piece of mind knowing that their files are safe.

It does have a few downsides, like when you try to back up individual files. The program only gives you the option to select email messages, financial data, photos, productivity documents videos and music. I would prefer if you could use the windows explorer and select the files to be backed up, rather then using its choice interface.

With its great features, functionality, ease of use, $49.99 price tag and it’s great user interface, Roxio BackOnTrack is a must have for any PC user.

Quck Hits:

Publisher: Roxio
Developer: Roxio
Platform: Windows XP or Vista
Genre: Backup Utility

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars