Comments on: 9 Essential Free Programs Every College Student Must Have

By: Ingrid Forsberg

Ingrid Forsberg — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:17:26 +0000

I just want a simple calendar like was on my Windows XP. I do not want a desktop calendar. Where can I find one?

By: Nate Desmond

Nate Desmond — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:44:57 +0000

@ Jeff

Thanks for looking into it. That is really interesting.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:08:44 +0000

I just took a look into some facts about the browser market share and it seems that the only thing consistent is IE takes the cake for most used browser at most sites. However the percentages seem to vary greatly depending on the source. The “Usage Share of Web Broswers” Wikipedia page lists some of the reasons why there are such discrepancies when it comes to figuring out browser market share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

By: HazardousPaste

HazardousPaste — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:24:38 +0000

It’s not my information, that was the disclaimer at the bottom of the w3c school’s website that you linked to. Browser statistics are incredible unreliable. On my website only about 6-7% of my visitors are on IE.

By: Nate Desmond

Nate Desmond — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:46:02 +0000

@ HazardousPaste

Good point about the free software from colleges. I mentioned that in the section on internet security, but it can also apply to other software.

About the browser use statistics: Where did you get your information about IE being used by 80% of computer users? I just looked at my Google Analytic stats, and it shows that only 21% of my visitors use IE, while 63% use Firefox. Of course, it is true that my website visitors are techno-savvy college students, so the browser usage on my site is not representative of the rest of the internet..

Thanks,
Nate

By: HazardousPaste

HazardousPaste — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:47:33 +0000

Two things.

1) Larger universities often have licensing programs in which machines on their network can used licensed software for either free or greatly reduced cost. The downside is that you usually have to be on campus, but you can request home-use licenses as well. This makes the prospect of acquiring expensive software like the Adobe Creative Suite, Wolfram’s Mathematica, or AutoCAD much less daunting (to name a few).

2) The link to the web stats you posted contain this disclaimer:

“W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools’ log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.”

Always be wary of statistics.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:42:33 +0000

Another good one is Office Live Workspace from Microsoft. Students can save files online then access them from any computer with an internet connection. This comes in real handy when you want to print something off on campus but you forgot to bring your computer or save it to a thumb drive. If your essay or project is saved to a Workspace, you just log in on a school computer and then you can access it, edit it, and print it from your school’s computers.

Cheers,
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach

By: Ibrahim | ZenCollegeLife.com

Ibrahim | ZenCollegeLife.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:24:07 +0000

Great share. I already use many of these, and since I am starting to write an Ebook, the pdf maker is a perfect find.