Archive for the 'Software' Category

College students can get just about anything online for free. Whether they need to define a word, look up a quote, organize their schedule, take class notes, or decorate their dorm room, it’s all online today.

Here are nine great tools to use for your college planning:

For the student who wants textbooks on the cheap…

Public Domain Reprints lets you print out books in the public domain for a lot cheaper than your average textbook costs. The tool searches the archive of books available through sources like Project Gutenberg and other copyright-free tools. The final cost depends on the book size, but I haven’t seen costs exceed $15.

For the note-taker…

Notesake is an online application that doubles as a notepad with HTML formatting. Tag your notes with your course name to find them later and share the notes with friends. You can also print out the notes or save to a PDF.

For the organizer…

Notely is a collection of online tools that helps make your life at school a whole lot simpler. Organize your class notes, schedule, to-do list, calendar, contacts, and more with a single login. You can keep track of your grades, upload files, stay in touch with friends, and even collaborate with your classmates on a whiteboard.

CollegeRuled is your one-stop shop for organizing your college schedule. It’s an easy-to-create class and extracurricular activity schedule. Just punch in the courses, activities, and times, print it out, and tape it to your door to tell your friends when and where you’ll be.

For the student who searches for answers…

Schoolr combines all the possible searches you may need for particular words of phrases by aggregating Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, a regular dictionary, a Google search, an encyclopedia search, and more.

The Free Dictionary combines all the other tools you’d need for your search. It includes an online dictionary/thesaurus, an eBay and Amazon search for those dorm essentials, a legal dictionary for the students studying political science, a medical dictionary for the bio lovers, a financial dictionary for econ students, and a whole lot more.

For the skimmer…

Litsum is one of those online Cliff’s notes that your school probably doesn’t know about. Get full chapter analysis, discussion, and more.

Sparknotes is the other Cliff’s notes tool that your school and just about every classmate is already using. After all, beyond just offering abridged versions of popular books, you have test prep questions, academic charts, and college facts at your fingertips.

For the college student who wants the dorm to look like home…

HomeSlyce takes the difficulty out of planning your dorm room with your roommate next year. Build your ideal dorm room with a roommate, collaborate with your roommates, and split the bill on the items. This is useful if you’ve never met your roommate face-to-face or if the long-distance relationship makes it too difficult for you to choose all your items.

If web technology is your thing — and chances are, it’s a huge part of your future, you’ll be happy to know that Google Code University offers courses and lectures on AJAX technology, web security, distributed systems, and languages. Fortunately, if you’re a computer science major, you’ll already have your foundation established to understand the basics, but even if you’re looking to delve into web technologies in the future and have no idea where to begin, this is a good starting point.

Of course, there’s also a search function for computer science courses around the world. Better yet, if you’re in San Francisco on May 28 and 29 of 2008, the Google I/O conference will be held where you can get a close look at all of these technologies and speak with Google engineers about how to build the next groundbreaking application. Student admission is only $50.

Perhaps you may know about Microsoft Office. Did you know that the full version of Office costs a whopping $679? If you have an old computer but want to run the latest and great software, from now until April 30, 2008, as long as you have a university email address, you can buy the entire suite for $59.95! This is a promotion for students and is accessible at The Ultimate Steal.

“We’re listening to students who have told us they need Microsoft Office for their studies and want more flexible ways to get the latest version,” said Alan Yates, general manager of Worldwide Education at Microsoft. “We’re committed to providing accessible and affordable technology to students so they can meet their academic goals. The Ultimate Steal is the latest in a long history of providing compelling academic offers for students.”

What’s included:
Access™ 2007
Accounting Express 2007*
Excel® 2007
Groove® 2007
InfoPath® 2007
OneNote® 2007
Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager*
PowerPoint® 2007
Publisher 2007
Word 2007

Why this rocks:
You’re getting everything in the package: the word processor (Word), the full-fledged email client (Outlook), the presentations manager (PowerPoint), the spreadsheet editor (Excel), Microsoft’s database management system (Access), a tool for note-taking and collaboration (InfoPath), software for accounting–which comes in especially handy for business/economics undergrads (Accounting Express), the newest peer-to-peer collaboration system (Groove), and an awesome publishing application (Publisher). Really, this is probably the best steal that Microsoft has ever aimed toward students, and you can get it today.