Software
Department/University-wide Licenses
- You are required to run anti-virus software on the university network
Matlab (network or stand-alone license)
Mathematica (network or stand-alone license)
Origin (network license)
If you wish to use any of these, please discuss with JavaScript must be turned on for you to be able to see this address.
Useful Free or Cheap Software
Data, Statistics and Graphing
Datathief (Shareware, Mac/Linux/Win)
- A Java app for lifting datapoints from figures. Useful if you want to compare your data to an old paper.
Gnuplot (Free, Mac/Unix/Win)
- Command line graphing tool compatible with almost everything.
Igor Pro (£80 individual student license, Mac/Win)
- A wave-based data analaysis suite. Similar functionality to R, Octave and Matlab, but targeted at wave analsysis.
Octave (Free, Mac/Unix/Win)
- A free alternative to Matlab... You decide.
Plot Digitiser (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Similar to Datathief.
R (Free, Mac/Unix/Win)
- Comprehensive analysis package. Will do anything you could possible imagine, if you can work out how to tell it to do so...
Images & Design
CombineZP (Free, Win only)
- A utility to combine a stack of narrow-focus-field images into a single focused image.
Fiji (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- A distribution of ImageJ with 3D capabilities.
GIMP (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Am open source equivalent to Photoshop.
ImageJ (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- An excellent Java based image analysis package.
Inkscape (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- An open source equivalent to Adobe Illustrator. Vector graphics editor - good for posters and illustrations.
Open Clipart Library (Free, online)
- Not a program... an online clipart database.
PDF Split and Merge (Free, Mac/Win)
- A utility for splitting and merging pdfs.
Text & Document Processing
Crimson editor (Free, Win only)
- An open-source code text editor.
JEdit (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Java based 'Programmer's Text Editor' with syntax highlighting and customisable language support.
LibreOffice (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- A branch of Openoffice that some say is better. Make your own mind up...
LaTeX (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Essential for thesis writing. A comprehensive text processing package - must have.
Notepad++ (Donationware, Win only)
- A free source code editor which supports several programming languages.
OpenOffice (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- The open-source competitor to Microsoft word. Does almost everything as well, and some things better. Some have issues with the spreadsheets though...
TextMate (39€ Academic License, Mac only)
- An excellent, highly customisable text editor with programming capabilities for Mac. Works well with LaTeX.
TextPad (£16.50, Win only)
- A windows text editor with programing capabilities and syntax highlighting.
Programming
The 95 Project (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Stable, open-source Fortran 95 compiler.
Organisation & Referencing
Bibdesk (Free, Mac only)
- A Mac-native LaTeX citation manager
Jabref (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- A Java based LaTeX citation manager
Mendeley (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Another paper organiser and citation manager... you decide!
Papers (35.40€, Mac only)
- An excellent program for organising and citing academic papers.
Zotero (Free, Firefox add-on)
- "a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources"
Subject Specific/Fun
Celestia (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Real-time 3D space simulation featuring a database of over 100000 stars and absolute kick-ass
Google Earth (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Needs no introduction...
GSAS & EXPGUI (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- Reitveld Refinement of XRD Powder diffraction patterns for crystallographic analysis.
Pycma (Free, Mac/Linux/Win)
- X-ray fluorescence toolkit for handling spectroscopic data.
Unit Cell (Free, Mac/Win)
- A non-linear least squares cell refinement program with regression diagnostics.
Suggestions?
Any suggestions for this list? Email JavaScript must be turned on for you to be able to see this address.
Last updated on 03-Oct-11 11:23