Back to School Guide 2009: Software Essentials

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Another school year is just around the corner and the craze for purchasing students laptops, iPods, and all other necessary college devices has just begun. However, often overlooked is the software needed to help fully utilize and protect all your new toys. We’re going to be taking a look at both the PC and Mac options for certain categories of software and help you prepare for the upcoming year of partying learning.

Document Editing / Presentations

Windows: Microsoft Office 2007
While a big change from the beloved Office 2003 layout, Office 2007 has taken the stage as the predominant suite for editing documents and creating PowerPoint presentations. While not the free choice, many colleges offer the product at significant discounts (if not for free) so price becomes less of an issue. Plus, the new templates added to PowerPoint and the overall ease of use added to Excel make Office 2007 a step up from its predecessor, regardless of its somewhat confusing interface.

Mac: iWork ’09
Let’s face it: Office 2008 for Mac is awful. The layout is ugly and difficult to use, and nothing matches its Windows rival quite in the same way. In addition, Office 2008 doesn’t collaborate well with Office 2007, so let’s just count that out of the picture. This leaves us with iWork ’09, Apple’s beautiful response to document and presentation editing. It works well, gets the job done, and costs only $71 in the education store.

Free option: OpenOffice
If your college doesn’t provide a discount for the software, and you’re not interested in shelling out the money to purchase either, OpenOffice is always an alternative. It might not be as pretty as either of the Microsoft or Apple products, but it is compatible with both. For free, OpenOffice does its job well and is a viable alternative to the commercial options.

Web Browsing

Universal: Firefox. Enough said.
Firefox is years ahead of even IE8 on Windows, and Firefox 3.5 is bound to be even faster than Safari 4 on Mac. Therefore, there is hardly competition as to what browser you should be using. If you’re on a Mac, and love Safari, keep using it. But for Windows, you’d have to have something wrong with you to go with a browser besides Firefox.

Communication

Windows: Pidgin + Skype
For your typical AIM/MSN/Yahoo (who uses the later two?) and even Facebook conversations (with a plugin), Pidgin for Windows gets the job done. As far as voice and video chat go, Skype is the leader in that field and should have you covered. Plus, both applications are free, which is always a plus.

Mac: Adium + Skype
Adium is by far the best instant messaging client I have ever used. From it’s amazing flexibility to the wide range of supported protocols, it is simply second to none. Again, it is free, along with it’s companion, Skype.

Data Backup

Universal: Amazon S3 + Jungle Disk
For the low price of 15 cents per gigabyte (per month), Jungle Disk allows you to backup your data to Amazon’s massive S3 content storage network which is the safest option for your data backups. In case of theft, fire, or any acts of God, Amazon will still have your information stored on their redundant network. Nothing is worse than losing a paper you have been working on for weeks (although, let’s face it, it’s always the night before anyway), so backing up your data is a critically important step.

Anti-Virus

Windows: Grisoft AVG
It’s absolutely free, does all the necessary scanning, has active database updates, and looks nice while doing it. For free software, it is hands down the best anti-virus you can get. Just remember that the best way to protect yourself from viruses is to not download .exe files claiming to be MP3s.

Mac: None. While certain companies offer Mac anti-virus solutions, there has yet to be a Mac virus that has had a widespread effect. For the mean time, enjoy your advantage over Windows computers.

Music

Universal: iTunes
The de facto music player does a lot of things right. Purchasing music, managing it, and putting it on your iPod or iPhone couldn’t be easier. Then again, if you use something other than an iPod (why?), iTunes might not be your best option. However, with the recent “Buy a Mac, Get an iPod” promotion, who won’t have iPods for college?

Photo Management

Windows: Google Picasa
Picasa makes managing your digital photos extremely easy and intuitive. The program automatically manages your camera, allows for easy gallery creation, sharing, and printing and even features a service to remotely print your photos (for an obvious fee). Best part about the program: it is completely free.

Mac: iPhoto ’09
The wonderful photo management software that ships with every Mac is your best option. Supporting albums, geotagging, face recognition, image tweaking and much more, iPhoto makes managing photos on your mac a breeze. It even integrates with Facebook to help share your photos with friends and family while you’re away at school.

Wrap-Up

Ultimately, the software you choose for your computer is very specific to what you like to do. However, the software above is virtually indispensable in your every day activities. Keep checking back for more Back to School tips and products and we’ll be covering them all the way up to this coming fall.