education.zdnet.com— Whether you're attending college for the first time this fall or you are a returning student, now is the time to think about whether your PC is ready for the upcoming academic year.
Aug 19, 2006View in Crawl 4
Definitely marked as lame. Most kids going to college nowadays get brand new PC or Macs with XP or OS X standard. What it SHOULD tell you is that most universities only support the Pro version of Windows XP. ...But I suppose that information would be too useful for this article, wouldn't it?
The problem with Office is that they've completely redesigned the interface (to be much much better) so Open Office will be outdated in terms of interface. I'm sure that a lot of people won't care about the new interface, but it really is nice.
the basics:adobe acrobat readerfirefoxnero (it's the best)vlcwinrardivx + xvidthe office... "thingies" *ehem* "thingie:"ms office (sorry, it too is the best)the defenders:adawarespybotwindows defender (microsoft anti-spyware)avgzonealarmcrapcleaner (ccleaner)the players:quicktime + itunesreal (or real alternative)the messengers:trillianskype"teh 1337ness:"bittorrent (bittorrent, azureus, utorrent, whatever...)i swear to you, with that mostly-freeware software package, you'll be able to get through anything and get anything done.p.s.of course i left out an email client. with all the web-based email out there, they're almost insignificant; but i use thunderbird. ;)
Foxhoundadmin: He's going to college, not planning his personal leisure time for the next two years. There's no reason to have iTunes really, unless you're one of the iPod crew who're telling apple that DRM cages rock, there's certainly no use for realplayer in an educational situation (it is highly unlikely that a school would encode using their codecs) and izArc offers a free alternative to winrar. I also don't believe it's wise to use bittorrent on a public connection which is monitored by the people determining your future, especially considering they will be looking for it.It's nice that you want to help, but there's really no reason for the excessive entertainment software - too many entertainment programs on your computer will only serve to distract you from your goal (which is to study).As for the office productivity software debate, the only thing OpenOffice has on MS Office 2007's beta is that it's free, while MS Office costs $1.50 at the moment. Sure, it'll go up when it's properly released, but students can get massively discounted (or perhaps free) versions of MS software through their schools. I've tried both, but the new interface for MS Office simply blows OpenOffice away. Of course, you don't really have a lot of choice if you use Linux (unless you emulate it), but that again is personal preference as students can usually get access to low cost or free versions of Windows.With this, I'm simply challenging your statement that you'll get through anything with that software combination - you're more likely to get distracted with irrelevant materials which could cost you your grades.
jatlasbAug 20, 2006
Definitely marked as lame. Most kids going to college nowadays get brand new PC or Macs with XP or OS X standard. What it SHOULD tell you is that most universities only support the Pro version of Windows XP. ...But I suppose that information would be too useful for this article, wouldn't it?
ozcanAug 20, 2006
Can anyone point me to a link for a good dell laptop that i can pick up for a decent price that i can use in college.
xinexAug 21, 2006
The problem with Office is that they've completely redesigned the interface (to be much much better) so Open Office will be outdated in terms of interface. I'm sure that a lot of people won't care about the new interface, but it really is nice.
foxhoundadminAug 21, 2006
the basics:adobe acrobat readerfirefoxnero (it's the best)vlcwinrardivx + xvidthe office... "thingies" *ehem* "thingie:"ms office (sorry, it too is the best)the defenders:adawarespybotwindows defender (microsoft anti-spyware)avgzonealarmcrapcleaner (ccleaner)the players:quicktime + itunesreal (or real alternative)the messengers:trillianskype"teh 1337ness:"bittorrent (bittorrent, azureus, utorrent, whatever...)i swear to you, with that mostly-freeware software package, you'll be able to get through anything and get anything done.p.s.of course i left out an email client. with all the web-based email out there, they're almost insignificant; but i use thunderbird. ;)
Closed AccountAug 21, 2006
Foxhoundadmin: He's going to college, not planning his personal leisure time for the next two years. There's no reason to have iTunes really, unless you're one of the iPod crew who're telling apple that DRM cages rock, there's certainly no use for realplayer in an educational situation (it is highly unlikely that a school would encode using their codecs) and izArc offers a free alternative to winrar. I also don't believe it's wise to use bittorrent on a public connection which is monitored by the people determining your future, especially considering they will be looking for it.It's nice that you want to help, but there's really no reason for the excessive entertainment software - too many entertainment programs on your computer will only serve to distract you from your goal (which is to study).As for the office productivity software debate, the only thing OpenOffice has on MS Office 2007's beta is that it's free, while MS Office costs $1.50 at the moment. Sure, it'll go up when it's properly released, but students can get massively discounted (or perhaps free) versions of MS software through their schools. I've tried both, but the new interface for MS Office simply blows OpenOffice away. Of course, you don't really have a lot of choice if you use Linux (unless you emulate it), but that again is personal preference as students can usually get access to low cost or free versions of Windows.With this, I'm simply challenging your statement that you'll get through anything with that software combination - you're more likely to get distracted with irrelevant materials which could cost you your grades.