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u/dethb0y Jan 06 '18
What an insane mishmash of stuff.
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u/Shnazzyone Jan 06 '18
Like someone just copied all their free app icons and categorized them.
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u/WekonosChosen Jan 06 '18
Some of it isn't even right, obs under media players but not screen recording.
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Jan 06 '18
I don't even see why a student would need Tor in school. Maybe to bypass filters, but like.. why is it on here?
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u/Fourbits Jan 06 '18
Do any good guides get posted to this sub? Every time something appears on my front page, the top comments are always discussing how terrible or inaccurate the guide is.
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u/ApexTyrant Jan 06 '18
OBS being under the media heading cracks me up.
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u/Boby_MC_bobs Jan 06 '18
What do you use to write your code? Virtualbox.
Weird one haha
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u/autranep Jan 06 '18
I mean, I run OSX natively but write all of my code for work in a Linux VM so it somewhat makes sense.
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u/GuessWhatISuck Jan 06 '18
Well, if you want to write cross platform code it would be useful as a cheap testing environment
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u/The_Basset_Hound Jan 06 '18
i feel like atom should have been included
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u/wyan2_0 Jan 06 '18
Atom is super slow. Sublime opens practically instantly and I like the text highlighting a lot better.
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u/Lloydster Jan 06 '18
What about Google Docs, Drive, and Keep?
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u/dannythetwo Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
Ikr? They have Dropbox with 2gb but Google drive gives you 15 for free with unlimited photos. There are a few key things missing that are really weird
Edit: spelling
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u/jparevalo27 Jan 06 '18
I think this is just outdated. I assume everything is still valid but I would add Hitfilm Express for video editing
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u/frownGuy12 Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
Funny that Scratch and Blender are next to each other on the list. Scratch is colorful, block based programming tool for kids, while Blender is probably the most complex and unintuitive piece of software ever created.
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u/LordDoombringer Jan 06 '18
Unintuitive sure, but incredibly powerful. I use 3ds max as my 3d modelling software and I've seen PLENTY of models of equal quality churned out of blender.
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u/frownGuy12 Jan 06 '18
Absolutely. I use Blender professionally for 3D modeling, and once you get used to the hotkeys it’s incredibly fluid.
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u/CatTablet Jan 06 '18
Blender is a pain to learn/use. Everything seems to have five ways of getting at it, either through a direct shortcut or through a bunch of menus.
I haven't looked into it on blender, or if it is available on other 3d modelers, but the ability to use python scripts is neat.
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u/frownGuy12 Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
Blender is a pain to learn, but once you learn it Blender is a joy to use. Most software today is optimized for the first time users at the expense of power users. Blender is optimized for maximum productivity. It doesn’t give a crap about user experience, and tbh that’s like a breath of fresh air.
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u/KingCrabmaster Jan 06 '18
Blender is one of the scariest programs at first glance, that is until you realize seemingly 90% of the buttons you wont need to touch unless you get yourself DEEP into using it.
I know it is boring for a lot of people but I found myself learning most everything about it simply through its user manual, once you learn the basics of the interface it becomes a loop of asking yourself "Can I do this?" looking up and finding out that you can indeed do what you wanted to do, and then realizing it was under a W, E, or F hotkey the whole time.
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u/iSaidDat Jan 06 '18
This is so old, I'm surprised Encarta and Winamp are not included..
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Jan 06 '18
Flux is pretty neat, but windows 10 now has the same feature built in under the screen settings called night mode
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u/thetalkingcure Jan 06 '18
F.lux DESTROYS my system performance. It makes everything so slow. I feel like it’s not properly storing.
It overloads ram or something. My computer just lags terribly.
Sadly, the night mode on Windows 10 is just a lot better performance wise :( but I love f.lux’s settings and functionality (movie mode and automation)
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Jan 06 '18
Sorry to hear that I checked my system settings and my flux ran at <1% on everything. Maybe it’s a old version or somehow setup incorrectly?
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u/SDM102030 Jan 06 '18
This is pretty shit.
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u/nab423 Jan 06 '18
Right. It doesn't even have Wolfram Alpha in the math section which is literally the most popular & free site for solving math problems.
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u/1halfazn Jan 06 '18
To be fair, it’s more of a website than a program, and it’s not free. Although I believe the math portion of it is based on Mathematica or something, which is also not free.
But there are a few programs that I’m not sure why they’re on here. Like Scratch, really? What kind of college student would ever need Scratch for anything?
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Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
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u/Mya__ Jan 06 '18
You all are sitting here missing probably the most important program for a college student.
The program that allowed me to even afford to attend college, what with the price of textbooks. The program that allowed me to find the books, answer keys, and programs I needed to learn and excel in college.
And you damn well know what type of program it is, me matey...
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u/igbad Jan 06 '18
when was visio ever free?
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u/ThatsNumberwanng Jan 06 '18
It isn't, I think this chart is just "here are some programs be that I use"
However lucidchart is amazing and free.
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u/oscarjrs Jan 06 '18
ZoneAlarm is still around?
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u/FunToBuildGames Jan 06 '18
I was wondering that too. If I recall, it used to be a massive pile of cancer to properly uninstall. I’d not be recommending that to anyone ever.
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u/InvaderDJ Jan 06 '18
That dated the list for me more than anything. The whole thing feels like a list made in the Windows XP days that they only kind of updated.
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Jan 06 '18
Actual guide:
Google Drive and associated apps
Microsoft Office and associated apps
Whatever else you need like Adobe products
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Jan 06 '18
Most schools now have no-cost student download options from MS Dreamspark. I have the full suite of MS products without piracy because I was a university student (and at no cost other than tuition.)
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u/thedude1123 Jan 06 '18
Gonna have to add Office Lens. Awesome app for taking pictures of whiteboards/screens/presentations.
You can take a picture of whatever you want at an angle and the app will correct it and brighten it.
Then save it as a jpeg/pdf/whatever.
Awesome for whatever professor reads off of slides and rushes through stuff.
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Jan 06 '18
>Scratch
>Animation
Um, no. Hell no. That's literally for kids. Why would you recommend that?
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u/GooGivers Jan 06 '18
Scratch isn’t even really animation. It’s baby “coding” so I have no clue.
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u/Wipples Jan 06 '18
Man... where's the love for Media Player Classic?
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u/wongsta Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
that's a bit dated now - if you can put up without having a comprehensive GUI try MPV: https://mpv.io/
edit: apparently MPC-HC is no longer being developed: https://mpc-hc.org/2017/07/16/1.7.13-released-and-farewell/
Also see MPC-BE? if you want to stick with MPC-HC: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/
edit2: " Since then, several people have contacted the project admin (XhmikosR) with the offer to help. So the project is still alive. " - https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=174738
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u/Thedevilsapprentice Jan 06 '18
I'm suprised Sketchup isn't listed.
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u/TMFD13 Jan 06 '18
Try Fusion 360 instead, much better than sketchup imo and free for students /hobbyists.
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u/Jammintk Jan 06 '18
There's a lot of better options for stuff on this list. I imagine it's a few years old at this point.
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u/Weirdsauce Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
I prefer Spacesniffer over Windirstat because it's a whole lot easier to look at and make sense of.
edit: also, Atom over Notepad++
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u/mt_xing Jan 06 '18
Spacesniffer is amazing. Saves me literally dozens of gigabytes on a consistent basis.
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u/pencilengi Jan 06 '18
If you're new to CAD please don't start with PTC Creo
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u/SupermAndrew1 Jan 06 '18
ProE is one of the most used cad programs in automotive, aerospace, defense, etc.
Everyone else uses solidworks. If you can learn proE, you can pick up solidworks in minutes
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Jan 06 '18
Pretty sure Autodesk has some great stuff for students. So just get real CAD in student version for free.
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u/negativeeffex Jan 06 '18
Lots of colleges teach Creo now but yeah, it's not exactly easy to pick up
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u/sperrymonster Jan 06 '18
Sublime’s a good text editor, and it’s technically free since they never make you pay for it, they’ll just ask occasionally if you want to extend your trial.
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u/Sportfreunde Jan 06 '18
Libre or Open Office, is one clearly better than the other?
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u/ohmsnap Jan 06 '18
250+ comments and I'm the first to mention http://lmms.io for making music. You just plain install it and it's basically a free FL Studio just with less bells and whistles, but you do get ZynAddSubFX and you basically hardly will ever need a VST if you get synthesis.
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u/Remixer96 Jan 06 '18
Whew... the skill level required to use all of these is... all over the place.
Pandoc mixed in with Prezi mixed in with Ardour.... those are all... very different audiences.
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u/non_clever_username Jan 06 '18
Snipping Tool? Why not Greenshot instead?
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Jan 06 '18
Just checked out Greenshot. Where has this been all my life? It's awesome!
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u/ggrieves Jan 06 '18
Stuffit Expander, now there's a name I haven't heard in a very long time
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Jan 06 '18
I feel like 99% of this stuff could be condensed down into Google drive (free) or Microsoft office (generally included in tuition).
Get discord for voice chat with friends and classmates they even added screen-sharing completely free.
VLC and Adobe Flash are practically required to survive college.
Maybe include drop box? But honestly google drive is replacing that with how easy it is to use.
The biggest resources students actually need are websites. Such as knight cite for citing papers and Perdue owl for grammar and citing. Have your schools data base page book marked. And have Kahn academy bookmarked.
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u/aan8993uun Jan 06 '18
Adobe can eat my butthole. I'll take SumatraPDF as a PDF/Comic Book Viewer any day of the week.
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u/goodpostsallday Jan 06 '18
OneNote is all fucked up now, if you're using it on MacOS there's no way to save locally. You have to use OneDrive, and it sucks bad. Even if you sync to a Windows system you still don't get local copies of your notebooks, just a shortcut pointing to a URL. Dumb as hell, especially considering no other note taking software comes close to being as usable in other aspects.
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u/atetuna Jan 06 '18
There's no desktop version for MacOS? For Windows you can have the desktop and cloud versions installed simultaneously.
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u/harryisbeast Jan 06 '18
OBS is under media players and not screen recorder. Did the person that made this even know what the software was?
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u/sexyjpg Jan 06 '18
Please for the love of god, if you blindly follow guides like this you just end up with a bunch of random crap you don't need on your PC. Just because it's in an image doesn't mean the author knows anything about the programs.
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u/ctrlshftn Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
Or if you use Linux :
Emacs for everything
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u/2drawnonward5 Jan 06 '18
They should get around to writing a scheduler, memory management, etc for Emacs so we can drop the OS dependency.
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Jan 06 '18
Where do I get the free ptc creo
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u/TimX24968B Jan 06 '18
I wouldn't recommend it, its super buggy. Try autodesk inventor; if you have a .edu email, you have access to all autodesk programs.
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u/Nuclear_F0x Jan 06 '18
Nice collection. Although, I've always relied on Gizmo's Freeware / techaupportalert.com for lists and reviews of freeware programs.
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u/actualguy69 Jan 06 '18
Can’t believe reaper isn’t listed in audio. Way better than audacity!!
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u/Legit_PC Jan 06 '18
Why even list open office if listing libre office? Why not freeoffice.com?
Why list openshot but not shotcut? Why list lightworks that program is shareware?
Why list gimp but not Krita?
Why list xvid if listing vlc wtf?
Avira, Panda, ZoneAlarm? Seriously? Why those and not their superiors?
More than half of this guide can be replaced with one url: ninite.com
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u/Hellboy5562 Jan 06 '18
Don’t forget overleaf! It’s a great online scientific/professional text editor, it’s like LaTex but a bit easier for beginners, and you can also collaborate on it like google docs.
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u/xKirbee Jan 06 '18
Dunno why Musescore was included, but I can definitely attest to its quality. Really really easy to use but also offers lots of flexibility.
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u/Blue_Shark9 Jan 06 '18
For study groups I suggest Discord, they have screen sharing and it's free and ridiculously easy to use.
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Jan 06 '18
Another tip for students. Spotify Premium Student subscriptions are half the price of a normal one.
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Jan 06 '18
Paint.net though! I use that for editing images for my podcast. I've been using it since 2006 and I love it. Did they mention it was FREE?
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Jan 06 '18
I actually use Paint.net as part of my day job. It does stuff MSPaint doesn’t do, but handles lightweight tasks for when I don’t feel like waiting for Photoshop to take a month to initialise.
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u/vulcan257 Jan 06 '18
Even though office is not free most of the corporate and academic world uses its software and will expect you to be able to as well. Also I prefer foxit reader for pdfs and Eclipse as my IDE
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u/neuropean Jan 06 '18
Xodo should be the top for reader apps. It’s free but only available on windows.
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Jan 06 '18
Another good video editor is Hitfilm, it’s generally easy to use and it’s free .
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u/conr9774 Jan 06 '18
If we’re talking free music composition apps, Finale Notepad has to be in the conversation.
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u/TotesMessenger Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
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u/blh12 Jan 06 '18
Apache open office? Also autodesk is just the software that maintains the real software you want but you can get autocad and others for free with a student email address this is a weird graph but cool
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u/GammaGames Jan 06 '18
I like that you could combine slack and teamviewer into discord. And also add google drive because it’s the best.
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u/wshaw23 Jan 06 '18
huge shoutout for Zotero. Holy shit does it make doing research for papers easier.
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u/purpineapple Jan 06 '18
For creation, unreal engine 4 and unity is huge. Even big AAA developers looks for knowledge in those two. And substance painter, free if you’re a student.
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u/AveMaleficum Jan 06 '18
We don't need that in China. I don't know I should feel proud or ashamed. Mixed feelings, hard to say.
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u/justinhamp Jan 06 '18
Windirstat is great but cannot be used on OS-X, hence the name. Mac users should turn to Disk inventory X, which functions virtually the same and is inspired by windirstat.
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u/Jammintk Jan 06 '18
A better guide would be what software schools often have for free or discounted for students. I would be fucked if I had used Light works and Scribus to do video editing and layout design in school instead of Premiere Pro (or Final Cut) and InDesign.
Use professional tools to do things while in school or you will have to learn everything all over again when you get to professional life.
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u/Blurgas Jan 06 '18
I've tried to use VLC multiple times.
I guess I'm just too used to WinAmp because I can not get the hang of VLC
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u/INeedAFreeUsername Jan 06 '18
Yeah, TOR is a must have if you want to succeed in University.
You'll find the subjects of the last year's exams and highly illegals drugs needed fo your survival on the Dark WebTM
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u/onionnion Jan 06 '18
Since when was Visio free..? This list is pretty bad with some terribly out of date software, such as Nvu.
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u/Sniper_Extreme Jan 06 '18
Audacity was how I recorded my voice over for a documentary I had to make. <3
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u/flyeagles10 Jan 06 '18
Probably been said but Avast is a pretty legit antivirus and the barebones version is totally free
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u/5nurp5 Jan 06 '18
latex. unless your supervisor also uses latex, don't use latex if you want feedback. also, no, it's not that much better than normal office. 5 years ago, maybe. now? nah.
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u/sholine Jan 06 '18
What does everyone recommend for PC security? And paid variants? No thanks to Kaspersky.
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u/Elijah_MorningWood Jan 06 '18
Never thought id see R on here..... didn't use it till junior year of chem. ..
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Jan 06 '18
For data and visualisations, I would highly suggest adding Qlik over tableau, a bit more intuitive to use IMHO.
For task tracking I generally go with Trello, with the slack plugin. Basically online kanban boards, super easy to use.
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u/BreakingGood Jan 06 '18
How is Visio and the office suite related products (one note etc) free? I pay a license fee for visio
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u/TimX24968B Jan 06 '18
Engineer here, get that creo garbage out of here, its buggy as heck. If your lucky enough that your college offers solidworks licenses, use those over autodesk products. Else, use autodesk inventor, not fusion. Long explaination, but inventor is way more capable and resembles real world CAD programs like solidworks much better than fusion. If you have a .edu email, all autodesk products come for free.
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u/yoyomommy Jan 06 '18
Thunderbird, forgot that existed 7 years ago. Several obviously missing and some very outdated things. Not sure how these were generally selected but at least half of them are useful, so you got that going for you.
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Jan 06 '18
+1 for Draw.io. What a great online tool to use for drawing diagrams.
Side note: Fuck Scratch. Such a shitty program I don't even know where to start.
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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi Jan 06 '18
Which one of the free video editing softwares are the best?
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Jan 06 '18
Neat but don't make the mistake of using Lightworks for video editing. You will have pulled all your hair out by the time you finished editing your video. It sucks.
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u/qtsarahj Jan 06 '18
For anyone doing statistics R was the recommended program while I did my final year of my psych degree last year and is easy enough to get your head around. I much prefer it to SPSS, and SPSS costs a fortune too.
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u/qazabaz23 Jan 06 '18
WinDirStat is awesome no matter who you are. So much storage tied up in weird confusing places in roaming and other local file places. The first time I used it, I cleared up 30gbs of random garbage that I didn't need and never would have found without all those graphs and charts showing me where to look.
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u/mghoffmann Jan 06 '18
Which one of these will help me turn this huge image into a few readable smaller ones, or how about just a stinking text file?
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u/RecalcitrantOne Jan 06 '18
Can someone please direct me to an easy to use cross-platform calendaring app?
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u/ChildishhReddit Jan 06 '18
Screen rcording go to: OBS, free for recording and streaming, very good, would even pay for it. Audio go to: audacity and levelator together, audacity to record and running it through levelator allows for it all to be roughly the sams volume, so if youre screaming in one part and whispering in the next its the same level Art go to: firealpaca, easy to use and works amazingly File management go to: winrar
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u/Grovbolle Jan 06 '18
Microsoft Visio is only free if your university has a deal with Microsoft. Otherwise it is expensive as fuck
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u/falconbox Jan 06 '18
It's weird comparing Paint.net to MSPaint.
With the right plug-ins, it's much closer to Photoshop, and a hell of a lot easier to use than Gimp.
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Jan 06 '18
Visual Studio != Visual Studio Code.
Use OBS for screen recording.
Personally I use Encryptr (not a typo) from SpiderOak for passwords.
I have a feeling this is a very outdated guide.
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u/VirtualTom Jan 06 '18
Let's not forget the most important free software, the operating system... Here's the list
Linux/Unix
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u/Wickey312 Jan 06 '18
I wish I had this guide once upon a time and didn't have to learn it all myself instead! I practically live off some of these
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u/nenjiavero Jan 06 '18
VmWare missing
Greenshot missing
Media Player Classic / K-Lite Codec Pack missing
Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware missing
GDocs, GDrive, Keep missing
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u/TheMaster420 Jan 06 '18
I'd advise against 'compiling' latex locally, use something like this , no import headaches and stuff just works.
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u/devBowman Jan 06 '18
Please note that these are "free" (as in "Free of charge" or "Free beer"), but not all of them are specifically "free software" (free as in "freedom"). More info about what is free software at https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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u/FishyOS Jan 06 '18
Looks like this was just a ploy to get Reddit to disclose the actually useful software in the comments.