OpenSource toolsTools to help you through studies and life

Presentation @ RUC - Paul Henckel CC feb2009

Method

Ordered by Activities (Title is misleading, we know)

Namedropping tools/techniques (30min)

/Break (5min)

Workshop (30min)

Grab the pdf presentation - http://snurl.com/c4qel

To Find Stuff

Google Operators

"link:" - To find sites that link a specific site

"info:" - To see Google’s information of a Site

"related:" - To find sites similar to a specific

"site: + filetype:" - To find specific kind of material on a site

RUb.dk

Tidsskrifter + Artikel Søgning + Eksterne Databaser

To Maintain Your System

Antivirus

AVG antivirus(Win)

ClamXav(Mac)

Manage Space

AppCleaner(Mac) - To uninstal app's correctly

CCleaner(Win) - A no-frills way to maintain Windows

To Organise Your System

DropBox - For instant and automatic synchronisation across computers

MemoClip(Win) - To manage clipboard items

QuickSilver(Mac)

The ClipBoard extension

A general guide/tutorial

To Manage Information

DeepaMehta - For knowledge management, and creating conceptmaps collaboratively

alt: CmapTools

alt: PersonalBrain

Google Reader - To access the content of selected RSS content streams

alt: Snackr

To Capture InformationRemember The Milk - A 24/7 accessible tasklist manager

For Google Calendar

Evernote - To add/synchronise notes from everywhere

Tutorial for use

Delicious - To store bookmarks in one central you can access from everywhere

Firefox extension for convenience

alt: Foxmarks

To Communicate

Pidgin - A central client for IM

Skype - Telephony and videoconferences through VoIP

Highrise - To manage an extended number of emails

Jing - For screencasting or snapshooting your desktop

alternatives for screencasting

online no-frills alt: Screencast-O-Matic

To Collaborate

Yuuguu - To collaborate remotely by seeing eachothers screens: “Hold online meetings, share your screen and work together on the same documents in real time.”

To Keep Track Of Time

GCal - To manage everything with dates and events

add Weeknumbers

Rainlendar - A simple desktop calendar

Synchronisation with GCal - a tutorial

Slife - For timetracking your activity on the computer

To Write: Notes

FreeMind - A tool for quick note taking and structuring

online alt: Mind42

online alt: Bubbl.us

Tutorials

for studies: Brainstorming and Note Taking

for general use

To Write: Std. Reports

Google Docs - For writing documents, with real-time collaboration

alternative: Buzzword

TurnItIn - A tool for managing the writing cycle

DK alternative: Scribo

OttoBib - To make a bibliography from ISBN

Scribus - For press quality documents

To Write: Scholarly Articles

TeX - Separating Content from Layout for a structured writing process

A good starter

An extensive introduction/resource

proTeXt(Win)

MacTeX(Mac)

To Write: Chronologic Narratives

Celtx - For creating a storyline/sript to a timebased narrative: “Celtx is the world's first all-in-one media pre-production software. It has everything you need to take your story from concept to production.”

To Write: Distraction Free

Ever had a time where you just wanted to write, without buttons or any distractions?

online tool: Writer

JDarkRoom

WriteRoom(Mac)

Darkroom(Win)

To Write: Dictionaries

WordWeb

Oxford English Dictionary (@ruc)

Ordbogen (@ruc)

To Draw

Pencil - A simple all around drawing pencil, like MS Paint with extras

Thinkature - To easily draw something collaboratively

To Graph/Diagram

Gliffy - “With Gliffy online diagram software, you can easily create professional-looking flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more.”

To PDF

PdfCreator(Win) - For printing documents to pdf

PDF Hammer - Online tool to edit PDF files

Foxit Reader(Win) - A no-frills fast app to read PDF’s

Learn to do anything with PDF

Preview(Mac)

Use Preview to edit PDF files

To Convert

Audio/Video transcoders

MediaCoder(Win)

ffmpegX(Mac)

To Survey/Interview

Express Scribe - For help in transcribing audio to text

alternatives

almost speech recognition: NaturallySpeaking, VoiceSceener, pluggd

Google Forms - For making surveys

To do Mathematics

Cinderella - For interacting with mathematical geometry (euclidean and non-euclidean)

Sage - To do mathematics (≈MatLab and Maple)

alternatives (Maxima)

To do Chemistry

ChemSketch - For drawing chemical molecyles and LOADS of other tools for chemistry

To do Biology

BioKnoppix - A working self-contained linuxOS for molecular biologists

To do Finances/Budgets

Wesabe - To get control of your money by easily getting an overview of it

YNAB - To manage money by budgeting based on previous months expenses

To Geek

CloneZilla Live - Similar to Norton Ghost, just for everyone and everything. Make clones of your computer to save yourself from meltdown.

Howtoforge tutorial

Lifehacker tutorial

The endThe Keynote file for this presentation is available at: http://snurl.com/c4s4x

The FreeMind mindmap with extra programs/resources at: http://snurl.com/c4s22

Paul Henckel feb2009