What software do you use/find indispensable?

[Herbie]

Cool! I've been waiting for Office to revert back to something like Microsoft Office XP. In the meantime, I've been using Office XP for the past ... 8(?) years --never switched to Office '03 or '07. Meh.

Yeah, plus for some time I used OpenOffice, but it became a hassle when transferring files to different computers on campus. Maybe it was me, but some times margins would be messed up, double spacing instead of 1.5, etc. and when I go to school to print a research paper before class, my head pops off!

I will get this EndNote everyone is suggesting. It sounds very sexy.

[natsteel]

I will get this EndNote everyone is suggesting. It sounds very sexy.

Disappointment is in the air!! EndNote is the farthest thing from "sexy" I can imagine.

I also just upgraded to Papers2 and THAT is sexy. Absolutely fantastic piece of software.

[Herbie]

Do both programs have the same function?

I am seeking sexiness during graduate school, and am sincerely interested.

[Kathiza]

I think EndNote is pretty sexy. (But it's expensive if you don't get a student discount at your university; it's basically a literature management program that makes writing papers and compiling reading lists or bibliographies much easier und much less work - you can use it with Word, the Word-equivalent of Mac (I don't know the name, sorry), LaTex and many more...)

I'm also hoping for some sexy members of my cohort, but that's another story

[waddle]

I think EndNote is pretty sexy. (But it's expensive if you don't get a student discount at your university; it's basically a literature management program that makes writing papers and compiling reading lists or bibliographies much easier und much less work - you can use it with Word, the Word-equivalent of Mac (I don't know the name, sorry), LaTex and many more...)

I use LaTeX on a regular basis, but it's best for papers with >10 references (i.e., don't use it for writing letters and such). Otherwise, it's not worth the time to set up your document formatting, and BibTeX is just a terribly archaic and clunky language.

If you use Windows, Zotero's supposed to come out with a stand-alone program (Zotero Everywhere--I think a testing version is out already). (Did I mention? It's free.)

[Eisenmann]

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional -- viewing and annotating .pdf files

Adobe Photoshop CS3 -- editing images

CPU-Z -- if you need detailed information about your computer hardware

Dropbox -- for cloud storage

Eclipse -- for writing Java programs when necessary

Google Chrome

Graphmatica -- for graphing

MATLAB -- for modeling and graphing

Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -- for writing C++ programs when necessary

Mozilla Firefox -- most frequently used add-ons include Zotero, Tab Mix Plus, LastPass, Adblock Plus, Fasterfox Lite, HTTPS-Everywhere, and Lazarus Form Recovery

proXPN -- if you need a VPN

Sophos -- antivirus software

VLC media player -- plays almost any media file

WinDjView -- viewing .djvu files

WinRAR -- for zipping and unzipping compressed files

you don't use pro 2, malvern stuff, lab view?

[was1984]

Currently an M.S. student, starting my Ph.D. in the fall.

I use Mac, various flavors of Linux, and various versions of Windows when I have to

Indispensable programs:

LaTeX - don't even bother using anything else for document formatting

Vim - fastest way to type anything

Matlab - standard fare

Perl - nothing beats it for writing quick and dirty scripts

Cadence - glued together with perl scripts

Zotero - It's really starting to grow on me...great for cataloging articles

MacSpice - for when I want to simulate something on a whim

gimp - for figures

[natsteel]

Do both programs have the same function?

I am seeking sexiness during graduate school, and am sincerely interested.

Check it out at mekentosj.com.

The major upgrade to 2.0 just came out and it's really good. And you can get the student discount just by scanning or taking a decent pic of your school ID and emailing it to them, IIRC. It also now has CiteWhileYouWrite and integrates with Word so it has basically obviated the need for EndNote or Bookends or Sente. It also has a really cool social component called Livfe which lets you add your own brief reviews and ratings of articles and see those of others who have done the same. It also can pretty much find the metadata info for most articles downloaded from the major databases and also lets you search those databases within the application via EZProxy.

[MoJingly]

• F.lux: free, F.lux is great, saves your eyesight (& sanity) if you're working late into the night (adjusts your screen hue)

Going to bump this because I just downloaded Lux. It's awesome! Immediate relief.

[edwinksl]

you don't use pro 2, malvern stuff, lab view?

Nope, not yet.

[UVaSpades]

Quick questions about Papers: is there anyway to share or sync your library with more than one computer? I'm thinking about getting a Macbook Air as more of a "work" computer, but would also want to hold onto my Macbook Pro, so it'd be nice if I could have them sharing a single database.

[Nurse Wretched]

Quick questions about Papers: is there anyway to share or sync your library with more than one computer? I'm thinking about getting a Macbook Air as more of a "work" computer, but would also want to hold onto my Macbook Pro, so it'd be nice if I could have them sharing a single database.

Not sure about this, but I've gotten outstanding software support (even for the officially unsupported Mac) through Computing & Communications at the UW. I'd shoot them an email or stop by one of the labs on campus -- Health Sciences in particular has been helpful.

[FunkMasterFlex]

I've done a MS and PhD in mathematics/computer science field (used same software throughout)

Windows (XP or 7)

1) Firefox + adblock, noscript - Being able to safely mine the web for the specific thing I want is extremely important. (free)

2) Dropbox - syncing the laptop and desktop in a way that is not a hassle, and free (free)

3) LaTeX - I prefer TeXNicCenter, but whatever floats your boat. Latex is the absolute best means for creating professional documents/presentations (free)

4) Foxit Reader - free PDF reader, makes Adobe Acrobat look like a slug going uphill, also available is a free windows search plugin to allow windows to index PDF (free, or buy for more features)

4.1) CutePDF - print to PDF, makes getting things from the screen to a printer or colleague easier. (free)

5) Visual Studio Pro - Eclipse and Netbeans are nice, but for C++ on windows VS seems significantly more polished (though eclipse does have a few features VS does not) (free to students through dreamspark)

6) Linux - great for running simulations where you want to minimize the amount of junk running in the background (this is near impossible on windows), VI for quick edits is also a cakewalk (free)

7) R - beautiful graphs, plenty of built in stat function, and under constant development. The graphing alone is a good reason to use R (free)

8) Notepad++ - Excellent text editor, and through macros, you can cause it to behave like an IDE for many languages (python, R, perl, fortran, etc...) (free)

9) Force - Fortran IDE for windows. The IDE leaves much to be wanted, but when working with people not *nix friendly, it is the only free fortran IDE on windows. If you have money get Visual Fortran from PGI (free)

10) Matlab - Don't really like it, but it does make analyzing matrices easy ($100ish for students)

I also use Office 2007 but when it comes to a final draft of a paper or presentation - it will be in LaTeX,

Edited April 3, 2011 by FunkMasterFlex

[ahny]

Software I (have) use(d) and recommend:

I. General

Firefox

Quicksilver (open-source application launcher--quickly locate and open files/documents/pdfs/whatever at the touch of a button)

Dropbox

uTorrent

OpenOffice (open-source office suite)

TextEdit (no frills word processing)

TextMate (commercial text editor/simple but powerful)

II. Writing

OmniOutliner (simple commerical outlining tool/useful for brain dumps)

FreeMind (open-source mind mapper)

Mindjet MindManager (commercial mind mapping app/sleek and virtually no learning curve)

Curio (commerical notetaking & brainstorming app/wonderful for non-hierarchical organization of ideas)

Darkroom (open-source word-processor that has been my no.1 during periods of writer's block...or if you want to feel like you're in the Matrix while working)

Scrivener (commercial app designed for the writing process/great for both papers and essays/great for non-linear thinkers/wish I had known about it when I wrote my thesis)

Mellel (commercial word-processor/designed for the paper, thesis, and/or dissertation writing process/better, I think, for linear thinkers)

III. Information

Devonthink Pro (commercial/ultra-powerful database creator/organize articles, e-books, notes, screenshots, reference material, etc./I can't imagine another project without it, but some will find it a bit too much)

Process (commercial project management/great for those overwhelmed by Devon/simple, clean interface)

OmniFocus (commercial todolist app)

Things (commercial todolist app/highly recommended)

Bibdesk (open-source reference management tool/synchronize with TextMate&LaTeX)

Bookends (commercial reference management tool/syncs well with Mellel)

Sente (commercial reference management tool/syncs well with Scrivener)

Skim (easily annotate PDF's)

[Dante311]

Software I used for my MS, and soon to be my Ph.d

...and I'm on a PC, mind you. I never got into the whole Macworld thing.

In no particular order of importance, nor have I categorically divided software into its respective use/s...

1. Microsoft Word, hands down. Best word processor. Microsoft Office 2012 Ed.

2. Microsoft Excel

3. " Access

4. " Powerpoint

5. R Statistical Software, THIS, if you know the R language, is a G-dsend for running stat models, regression analysis...

6. SPSS... don't we all need this BS program?

7. Google Chrome (I run Pubmed on it better)

8. Primo PDF

9. Refworks

10. Ableton Live 8 & Serato Scratch Live... DJing helps me keep my sanity. heh

[HyacinthMacaw]

Hey folks,

My friend just told me about Crocodocs, a document viewer/annotator with apparently free and unlimited cloud storage. More info at http://crocodoc.com/. Searching for "Crocodoc" on gradcafe yields no results, so if anyone has tried it, please feel free to share. I will be using it in conjunction with Mendeley. (Mendeley offers only 500 MB of free storage but it seems to organize papers well. For articles going beyond 500 MB, I think I can just paste the Crocodoc URL into Mendeley.) In particular, please feel free to correct me about the "free and unlimited storage" part. Thanks!

[tew]

Windows 7, M.Sc. in Applied Physics, predominantly using the following software (at least on my work PC; all of the non-free stuff is fortunately free or dirt cheap for students here):

• Windows 7 (duh)
• Mathematica 7 (surprised no one else mentioned it; great CAS, simpler than MatLab)
• Origin Pro 8 (even more surprised no one else mentioned it; great program to work with large amounts of data, do statistics on it, plot it, fit it, etc., simpler than MatLab)
• LyX 2 (yes, I'm too lazy to write all the TeX code myself) (free)
• JabRef (bibliography software that works great with LyX and LaTeX and so far is quite sufficient for my paper organization needs) (free)
• LabVIEW 7 (for controlling any and all measurement equipment)
• Office 2010 (still the best spellchecking engine (especially non-English), easy presentations or short/simple documents)
• Adobe CS 4 (PDF creation and editing, figure postprocessing, ...)
• TeamViewer 6 (easy remote control for measurement PCs) (free)
• Opera 11 (web browser and email all in one nice package) (free)

Edited June 15, 2011 by tew

[MoJingly]

• F.lux: free, F.lux is great, saves your eyesight (& sanity) if you're working late into the night (adjusts your screen hue)

I downloaded F.lux because of your post, waddle, and I LOVE it!

Does anybody know if there are programs similar to this one that reduce eyestrain while reading papers online? Or any programs that do this in general?

[waddle]

I downloaded F.lux because of your post, waddle, and I LOVE it!

Does anybody know if there are programs similar to this one that reduce eyestrain while reading papers online? Or any programs that do this in general?

Can't do without it anymore. (Hi I'm waddle, and I'm a f.lux addict!)

redshift and xflux are very similar programs (run from command line), for linux users. I haven't been able to find any other programs that do something similar, but maybe I haven't been looking in the right places.

[TheSquirrel]

Degree Level: Doctoral

Software I use and can't live without :

• Windows 7 (came insalled on my laptop)
• MS Office 2007 (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint for the most part) ($ : i can buy it with a student ID for relatively cheap from my university computer store)
• OfficeTab (free) -- it's an add-on thing that allows you to use tabs inside Office instead of having multiple Office windows open at the same time... a real life-saver... can't imagine having 10 Office windows opened simultaneously..
• Adobe Acrobat Professional 9 ($$) -- absolutely cannot live without it.. there's also free ones that I've used for a while, that let you create PDF files, etc, but none can beat Adobe at its own game, really... but Acrobat is pretty expensive..
• SPSS (my university just made this available for free , but only for employees; however, since I have an employee ID, as I'm a TA/RA, I can install and use this for free). Have also used PSPP (free) at some point.
• Cisco VPN client (free from my university), to connect remotely to the libraries/databases..
• Firefox and Chrome (in case a site wouldn't open with firefox )
• Sophos anti-virus (free from my university).. one of the best anti-virus programs I've used..
• Nvivo (my prof bought it for me, as I'm working on this as a RA) -- for qualitative research

[Guimauvaise]

Incoming PhD, English Lit

PC user

General software:

-- Norton Anti-Virus: provided for free by my Uni's IT services.

-- Windows 7 ($$$): nice improvement over Vista

-- iTunes (free): sometimes I just have to have music on while I work

-- MS Word ($$), for obvious reasons

Homework software:

-- Firefox (free): JSTOR and ProjectMuse are my friends

-- MS One Note ($$): you can do some nifty digital notebooks to organize your notes/thoughts...and it's all searchable. Tablet users will probably get more use out of it, though.

Teaching software:

-- Firefox: I sometimes search for classroom ideas, especially where writing exercises and literary criticism are concerned

-- MS Excell: I keep track of my students' grades in a spreadsheet. It makes things easier, and having the electronic record is essential.

-- Google Sites (free): I run a website as a supplement to my courses. My Uni does use Blackboard, but I have a lot of students who either don't understand it, or just aren't comfortable with it. The website is more familiar territory, and since it's not affiliated with the Uni, it's a bit less intimidating. Plus, it's easier (I think) to customize than Blackboard's course manager, which means I can get it to do exactly what I need it to do.

Unwinding (not exactly software):

-- Xbox 360 with Xbox Live ($$$): I'm sorry, but pwning newbs on Black Ops after working on a research paper is a sublime way to relax

-- Teavana Azteca Fire ($): If you like tea and cocoa, you'll love this. It's my favorite tea.

-- KitchenAid Artisan Mixer ($$$): Homemade cookies can do wonders for yours stress level

[Eigen]

I'm in the sciences, which might tint this some:

MS Office (2007, 2010, Office for Mac): The version doesn't really matter, but unless you want the headache of dealing with converting Tex documents to the corresponding .doc/.docx format when it comes time to submit it to a journal... The best one out there. Most journals in my area require a word formatted document, and usually supply a similar template. Most won't accept Tex files.

Origin: Awesome data analysis package. I don't use excel anymore unless I'm doing something light/personal. Quite expensive as I understand it, but we have a departmental subscription. For those running Macs, Prism is quite good as well.

Dropbox: I don't know how I transferred documents/kept things synced before.

Endnote: Well worth the ~$100 for easy management of references and papers. The new version allows you to annotate PDFs within Endnote, which is quite cool, as well as upload/backup all your full text documents to the Endnote Web servers, which is also awesome.

Adobe Illustrator: How else do you make professional quality graphics for papers? Takes a while to learn, but really the only way to make figures that really look good. Expensive, but worth it- thankfully we have a departmental subscription.

Adobe Acrobat 9: As was mentioned above, nothing else does PDFs like Adobe. Expensive, but worth it. Thankfully, we have a departmental subscription.

[theregalrenegade]

The best part of Microsoft Office 2010 is OneNote - I use it to organize ALL my notes.

Just recently I dumped everything into Dropbox - love it!

And I use Zotero for citations, but sometimes I'm not impressed with the organization or formatting.

[Strangefox]

I also tried both Zotero and Mendeley and wasn't impressed with either. Especially Mendeley, which crashed not long after I installed it and I lost all the information I had on it.

So what are you using for references then? I don't see EndNote on your list.

[Strangefox]

Is anybody using LastPass? (http://lastpass.com/)

I've been struggling with the growing amount of passwords and then I came across this software. Would like to know your opinions.