At LCSR we want you to use all of our services, from the undergraduate cluster to the labs, but we realize that in this day and age you do a great deal of work on your own personal computer or laptop.  Because this is the case we decided to put together a small list of "How-To"s to lend a hand when you're trying to outfit your PC or laptop for your coursework. 

Most of it is very simple to install and use and all of it is FREE, FREE, FREE.  Most people are unaware that they can get all the software they need, for almost any task, for free!  The only assumptions we make are that you are running Windows 2000 or XP (though all of what we recommend here is also available for LINUX), that you have a PC or laptop that's fairly recent (Nothing to old please... Let's say a Pentium IV or higher and while 256m of RAM is OK, if you have 512 you're in good shape.), and that you know a little bit about how to get around using Microsoft Windows.  That's really all you need to know to get started.  There's tons of free and fun software out there, but what we have below will go a long way towards getting your home computer or laptop ready for the class projects you'll have here at Rutgers.

Applications

Firefox and Thunderbird - Free Internet Browser and Email client from Mozilla

OpenOffice - Why pay for Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Access?  They're right here for free...  

Secure Shell - Secure communications to remote systems as well as secure file transfers

GIMP - Adobe Photoshop costs big bucks.  Why not have it for free?

More - More free applications for your Windows machine

Development

Java - Writing and running programs in Java

Eclipse - A development environment for programming

Tomcat - Develop Java Applications for the World Wide Web

More - More free development goodness here...

Plus... Check out the Tool Workshops offered by LCSR

Cool Stuff

iTunes - Make your PC a jukebox and burn your own CDs

Google Earth - Free Satellite maps for the ENTIRE World

Second Life - A virtual world where you can make REAL money

More - More cool and interesting stuff that costs nuthin...

Unix Stuff

Cygwin - Emulate UNIX with your Windows PC

Knoppix - Run Linux from a CD and forget dual booting

Utility Stuff

Spybot - search and destroy, Nuff said

Crap Cleaner - System optimization and cleaning

AVG - free virus protection

If you have any questions, suggestions, or corrections please let me know...