There are many peaks of been a geek in China. One of which is to access to whole set of Made-in-China software that has no equivalence in the English speaking world.

I was reformating my old Acer to run Windows 7.

The first thing I setup my Windows 7 is not to run Windows Updates but to install a software called 360. This software is a god-sent for people still running on Windows (I am on Mac most of my time now). It does several things:

1. It detect and recommend what Windows patches you need, and once you confirmed, automatically download (via P2P of cos) and install the patches. It runs constantly in the background and only pop-up when there is a new patches available.

This feature alone outstrip what it is offered by Windows Update. In fact, this is the reason I installed 360 first before anything else, because it do a much better job.

2. It scan and monitors your PC configuration and make recommendation to optimize the PC and once you confirm, it does it automatically for you. It does simple things like checking for what temporary files scattered across your harddisk, what program you can stop running so it speed up your startup time etc.

3. It scan for malwares and if you like, it also has a free anti-software. I cannot compare this to other commercial anti-virus but it is good enough for me.

4. It has a software management, that recommends software you should download. It also it has an extremely powerful uninstaller (much better than what is offered Windows again) that it scan and delete all the left-over files and registries entries on your computer so you know you totally get rid of it.

After I setup my new Win7, I found out I have lost my driver discs. Normally, this means I will have to head over to Acer, look through a whole set of links to find the relevant drivers, download them and install them one by one.

Instead, there is another Chinese software I use DriveTheLife. What it does is that it automatically detect your hardware, the missing drivers, makes recommendation for you and with a click, it downloads, install and reboot for you. It save me hours of sitting in front of the computer to setup the drivers. btw, it continues to run and monitor updates for you if you like to keep it around.

There are hundreds of these small software like this, not available in English, no equivalent in the English world, that makes me really happy sometimes I am a Chinese speaking geeks.