I was thinking about the tools I use every day and which ones I would insist my students learn when they arrived in the lab. Here's the list I came up with:
- Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice) and PivotTables (called something else in openoffice). So, so helpful for analyzing data in tabular format. I would even call them magical. With this and a few other Excel tricks and formulas you can avoid SPSS for pretty much all undergraduate-level statistics - and go from raw experiment output to final inferential statistics in under 30 seconds.
- Inkscape. Terrific free vector graphics editor. So useful for preparing figures and diagrams, especially with programs that let you export to its format from Matlab (search for svg and matlab)
- Version control software (if there is going to be code involved anyway)
- Software-based calendar program, not paper based. That way it can be backed up, and you can do things like schedule repeating blocks of time for classes etc. Then you can feel confident that it really represents your committed time and you won't double book.
- Citation-management software, that integrates reasonably with a word processor. I've talked about EndNote here, but if you're just starting out I'd suggest the free, browser integrated Zotero instead.
- Dropbox
- Automated backups to an external hard drive (I might handle this as part of the lab infrastructure, but if *any* data is to be stored on lab members home computers then they need to have this). For the mac, Carbon Copy Cloner has worked well for me.
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