Must have tools ... and connecting from home via DSL ...

(Lakkaraju) Sudhir Parasuram's Online Journal:

Category : Security, Protection

Zone Alarm Personal Firewall
AVG Antivirus
AVG Personal E-Mail Scanner
Spybot - Search & Destroy (Anti Spyware)

Close category for security (don't bother if you don't know where these will be used)

Putty (SSH Client)
WinSCP (Freeware SFTP and SCP client for Windows)
Sygate Personal Firewall (alternate of Zone Alarm listed above)

Category : Utility

Firefox (Web Browser)
Thunderbird (Email Client)
Google Desktop Search (Fantastic Desktop Search Utility)

Yahoo Messenger
Skype (Peer to peer voice chat)
Irfanview (Best Image Viewer, GIMP for Windows would be too heavy)
GMail Notifier (Notifier for GMail)
Picasa (Kewl Digital Photo Library)
YahooPops (POP facility for Yahoo)
Category : Blogging

w.bloggar (Best Blogging Tool)
FeedDemon (Best RSS/ATOM Feed Reader, un42nately *NOT FREE*)
Hello (Blogger Image Upload Tool)
Category : Miscellaneous

WordWeb (Offline Dictionary)