What I Use

Here is a list of software that I use regularly. I do not pirate any software, and encourage students not to too! The use of non-licensed/pirated software is unacceptable! I use a mix of proprietary and free/open-source software. I like open-source, but I am allergic to open-source fundamentalists, who cringe at the mention of proprietary software (or Microsoft!). I believe in using the software that helps me get my work done with the highest quality in the least possible time!

Preferred OS

  • Windows 11 Pro
  • Linux Mint 17.1, now over Ubuntu (Unity drove me away too!) – inside a VM (VMPlayer) Windows Bash/Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux!

I was a long-time Linux user but gave up at a point where I had to install patches to make MATLAB icons show up on the Desktop environment 😃. And increasing dependence on Excel pushed me to Windows!
WSL gives me the best of both worlds now. If only, if only, Windows search would work a bit better…

Package manager

  • Ninite used to be a life-saver before, but now winget does it!

Proprietary

  • Adobe Acrobat Professional
  • Microsoft Office 365 (PowerPoint has come a long long way since 2007) incl. Microsoft Teams
  • Zoom
  • MATLAB R2020b
  • Synergy, to share keyboard/mouse across systems
  • Grammarly

 Open Source/Freeware

  • Sublime Text, have paid for it
  • f.lux
  • AutoHotKey
  • Visual Studio Code
  • CopyQ: superb clipboard manager
  • Foxit Reader (denounced Acrobat Reader once they moved to the heavier DC)
  • SumatraPDF
  • DiffPDF – fantastic tool to compare PDFs
  • OneNote: best-ever note-taking tool
  • ChromeBrave and Edge (Chromium-based)
  • Octave
  • TeXStudio, which I now favour over TeXworks, thanks to Rob Hyndman (only Sublime Text now!)
  • TeXLive, which I now favour over MikTeX
  • JabRef
  • PyCharm
  • jDiskReport
  • Cytoscape
  • Inkscape
  • ImageMagick
  • VLC media player
  • gVim
  • MendeleyZotero
  • Calibre
  • VMWare Player
  • WinSCP
  • PureSync
  • 7-zip (x64)

Proprietary software I have stopped using

  • Adobe Illustrator (Inkscape/Tikz/TeX can together more than replace it!)
  • Dreamweaver (use CMS systems for web pages; e.g. MediaWiki/Wordpress/Dokuwiki) or better still Jekyll/Hugo!
  • EndNote (Use Zotero!)

Web tools

  • Evernote free: for clipping the entire internet
  • Dropbox Plus
  • Dynalist Pro – fantastic to-do list ClickUp works for everything now!
  • RescueTime premium – the most powerful tool to analyse and manage your time
  • Lastpass
  • Feedly Pro- the best replacement ever for Google Reader
  • Trello – an excellent project management tool
  • Notion.so occasionally

See Also

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