8 Little Known, Insanely Useful Software For College

Posted: 06 Mar 2011 10:30 AM PST

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

–

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!

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

8 Little Known, Insanely Useful Software For College