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8 Little Known, Insanely Useful Software For College

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If you’re in college, check out these eight lesser known, but still indispensable software applications for your computer. We bet these will be as useful as Dropbox and Evernote!


Photo by Samantha Decker. Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

1. Connectify

Connectify lets you share your laptop’s internet connection with others nearby. Connectify can create a Wifi hotspot out of any Windows 7 computer in a matter of seconds.

connectify7

The app shows up in the system tray once you install it. You give the hotspot a name, a password and other computers in your dorm can quickly join the hotspot and use your connection.

2. Panda USB Vaccine

Panda USB Vaccine completely disables autorun on your computer. The next time a friend of yours plugs in a USB pen drive, you can be sure that malicious programs won’t run from there.

Panda-USB-Vaccine

In addition to disabling autorun, the tool can also create a dummy autorun.inf file on removable drives, thereby “vaccinating” them from getting infected. Indispensable if you’re still on Windows Vista and if you frequently exchange or lend pen drives.

3. WordWeb

WordWeb is free and does one thing really, really well. Select a word from any Windows application, press a hotkey and voila – WordWeb pops up with the definition instantly.

wordweb

WordWeb works when you’re offline and it could obviously help you improve your vocabulary. You can also quickly access Wikipedia to know more on a topic when you’re connected.

4. Pen Drive Reminder

If you frequently come back to your dorm room just to take back that pen drive you missed, Pen Drive Reminder is a must-have. Pen Drive Reminder alerts you on screen if you forget to remove your pen drive when you shut down or log off from your computer.

PendriveReminder

There’s also a countdown timer that pops open a notification after the counter reaches zero seconds.

5. WunderList

Wunderlist is free and ubiquitous – it works in Windows, Mac, iPhone and is coming soon to Android. Unlike RTM, you don’t need a pro account to use it on your phone. It’s FREE for all devices.

Using Wunderlist, you can create tasks and notes. Wunderlist syncs them to the web so that they’re always available. You can even share a todo list with your friends – very useful if you’re collaborating on something. Try it and you’ll not switch!

6. Tor Bundle

Tor is a set of tools can help you browse anonymously. This is very useful especially in college when you don’t want the administrators to track what you’re up to.

The Tor Browser Bundle is a standalone set of programs that has a preconfigured portable Firefox browser that you can use to surf the internet without restrictions. It’s your best bet to browse blocked sites online.

7. Anki

Anki can help you remember anything – words, equations, pictures, faces and a lot more. The best part – this flashcard tool is also available as an iPhone and a web app so you can review your cards anywhere. If there’s one simple, all in one app for flashcards, this is it and you should use it.

8. MS Office 2010 Math Addin

If you extensively use Microsoft Office Word/OneNote and if you’re into math in college, this is for you. This addin puts a Mathematics tab in the Office Ribbon.

From that tab, you can quickly add equations, graphs and a lot more into your notes and documents. It doesn’t work for very complex equations, though but it does come in handy once in a while.

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Are you a college student and are there any unpopular, but uniquely useful apps that you know of? Please tell us in the comments section!

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Written by Shankar Ganesh

March 7th, 2011 at 12:00 am

Posted in software tools

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  • http://www.pcgeekblog.com/ Gouthaman Karunakaran

    Interesting list. I’ve already used Connectify and it’s awesome, but of late I am in love with the tethering on my Desire. Lets me get a Wi-Fi hot-spot wherever I am. :)

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    @Gouthaman: I like that feature too. But Desire gets heated up like hell when I use it :(

  • Nick

    Hey nice blog :)

    Have you seen http://www.topfreeware.net

  • Blake

    My advise: don’t use windows. The first one comes in Ubuntu and Mac OS, but the most important thing is that you don’t have to watch for viruses.
    Regarding 10, if you’re in college and you’re into math what you really need to learn is LaTeX. Start with LyX if you want (which is simpler) but eventually you will need it.

    I’m going to try Anki, it looks awesome.

  • http://twitter.com/Soederhuysen Nigel Soederhuysen

    Yeah I guess if you still have problems with getting viruses on your computer you shouldn’t be using windows. I suppose not downloading shady torrents, not visiting sketchy websites and not opening e-mail attachments from people you don’t even know is just too much to ask for some people. If your best reason for using OSX rather than Windows7 is the good old virus argument, than you haven’t been using OSX to it’s full potential.

  • Coreo

    Hey, guess what I did last night?

    Rebuilt my friends mac because he got a rather severe virus.

    Damn I love your OSX….

  • http://www.facebook.com/vincentbill Bill Vincent

    The only people who get what you call “viruses” (You mean ‘malware’, all modern OS’s are pretty much immune to actual virii) on their Windows machines are people who probably shouldn’t be using computers at all (IMHO). These people would very likely manage to infect a MacOS or *nix box machine just as easily. It’s not the OS, folks, it’s the user base. Windows has 90%+ of the users on this planet, so the probability that many of them are idiots who can’t/won’t follow directions is far higher than the much smaller groups, and there are just FAR more of them. But Bob bless them, they keep me in business fixing their eff-ups.

  • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

    Yea, doing mathematics in word really isn’t an option for college work in my opinion. It just isn’t anywhere as powerful as LaTex.. And indeed.. Windows is a bad choice for college. It costs money and does not offer you anything that Linux doesn’t offer you for free.

  • Zdenko

    Exactomundo dude!

  • stymie

    It sure, an OS that works properly.

  • http://urbngeek.blogspot.com Abhishek Biswal

    It’s awesome. I liked Wunderlist!

  • Thomas

    My advise: don’t use a Mac. It is limited to what apple says you can use and super expensive. Also where is freemind? Possibly the best, most useful application for those students who have to write complex, complicated research papers.

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    Freemind is a good suggestion @0b1a67745062b5abc9618b7d6d8b86b0:disqus . I’ll add it when I have the time.

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    @TheUrbnGeek:disqus I agree. Wunderlist is certainly good, there isn’t a better todo list app for Windows right now.

  • http://urbngeek.blogspot.com Abhishek Biswal

    @shankarganesh:disqus Hey dude! I know it’s one of the best looking app. Have you tried GeeTeeDee? http://goo.gl/tEQUj

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    You’re awesome. Thanks for the tool, @TheUrbnGeek:disqus Certainly looks beautiful but doesn’t sync. That’s a downside :(

  • jordan

    dude, why would you have to rebuild a computer just because it got a virus. i think you’re seriously confused.

  • http://www.benspictureoftheday.com Ben

     Best thing I ever did to save money at college was ditch Windows.

  • http://twitter.com/tellio Terry Elliott

    Wow, what did you really add to the conversation except to suggest we ban those who are trying to learn?  Troll much? 

  • Zachary

    My advice, don’t take someone’s advice who cant spell advice.

  • http://webtrickz.com/ Mayur

    Have heard about first 3 software’s out of which ‘Word Web’ is one of my most favorite. This post is really useful for college students.

  • http://www.facebook.com/EricPWest Eric West

    If you have Windows, continue using it. The folks suggesting a change are windows-agnostic and are more interested in getting people NOT TO use Windows for some Linux revolution, than to solve any problem you are having. The fact is, you’ll need to learn a different OS that has different commands, different interface and questionable support of devices and programs. The second you switch, you’ll hear crickets when you ask why your device or program is not supported. Linux has had almost 20 years to come up with a clean, well defined operating system that will sweep Windows. So far, nothing. So for the people saying all your problems are resolved by switching to Ubuntu, you are not helpful. You are not skilled enough to address the issue without using these threads as a Ubuntu recruitment campaign, so why answer at all? 

  • http://www.thewebprograms.com fareed@Thewebprograms

    Excellent collections of software

  • http://www.nurseslabs.com NursesLabs

    I like the connectify tool and the Panda security USB vaccine. Very useful! Great list!

  • Notbuttfrustrated

    Honestly almost all of you are totally butthurt. Each OS has advantages and disadvantages.  They’re all good for college, stop complaining and stating your ass pained opinion, which no one cares about anyways.

  • Marty

    hahahahahahaha  wow your clueless  hahahahahah

    show me where Microgarbage is clean and well defined..    (registry-what) 

    haha  you should do stand up !  really.!!!  cause as far as IT..?

  • User

    I don’t think you could say this any better. Obviously Marty is a little immature. I almost want to save your comment for future use againt linux shills.

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    Thanks for the panda usb vaccine, this would be very useful

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