As a graduate student, writer, and instructor, I wear a lot of hats. One of my favorite parts is teaching students about technology. While it may sound trite, I learn a great deal from the students I interact with, and enjoy the opportunities for instruction. After teaching technology courses for a little while now and being a total geek all my life, I figured it was time to feature 4 free apps that help get me through my work day – fast.
1. Dropbox
Remember when you had to carry around a flash drive everywhere you went? Say goodbye to those days – the future is in the cloud. Dropbox is the leading cloud storage provider in the world. The company uses incredibly secure technology to keep my essays and research, private and safe. More importantly, when I’m working on shared research projects and/or presentations, Dropbox is my key collaborative tool. Now, people can edit, revise, and leave comments on documents that are synced in real-time, and accessible to me – instantly! It works like magic. If I were ever to lose my computer, I feel comfortable knowing that my stuff would still be available to me. Between the collaborative opportunities and storage backup, Dropbox is an easy choice. Plus, if you refer your friends, you get bonus storage for free!
2. Google Calendar
This is where my day begins. What am I going to have to do? Google Calendar is the always aware, always synced option that saves me a boatload of time and hassle. I know where I need to be and when – all the time. By opening up my iPhone calendar or navigating to Google.com/calendar, I can easily see what my week looks like. By utilizing this service, I save on paper, time, lost items, and much more. Google Calendar keeps me running.
3. LibreOffice
I’m a HUGE fan of open source technologies. Not only do I believe they can save you lots of money in the long run, but they also propagate a philosophy that’s about being inclusive and sharing. LibreOffice is a free platform that aims to compete with Microsoft Office’s suite of applications. If you are about to plop $100 or more on the Microsoft suite of applications, think again – there’s another way. Just download LibreOffice and try it out – you have nothing to lose. Moreover, I prefer the design options within LibreOffice and there are terrific opportunities for tech support all over the web.
4. TextEdit/Notepad
Are you stuck taking notes with a paper notepad? It’s time to upgrade to a stupid simple option that’s available on every computer (Mac, Windows, and Linux). Just open up the system’s pre-installed note taking app. For Mac users, it’s called TextEdit. I use this semi-religiously as my go-to app for quick notes and ideas. These applications start up faster than LibreOffice or Microsoft Office, and they are perfect for the busy student. Now, save and sync your notes to Dropbox, and you’ll be able to access them in the cloud and back them up
For some reason my calendar is one thing I can’t seem to make myself go digital on. I live by my planner, even though it costs $14 every 18 months, I’m not willing to give up the pen and paper just yet.
While not an exorbitant cost, I appreciate being able to check my calendar from anywhere. Using something like Google Calendar helps out a lot! 🙂
Every now and then I get the urge to switch back to pen and paper… Hah.
Thanks for the comment,
Sam
Dropbox is a saviour for me (though I am not a student but somewhat on the other side). I was writing with an Italian colleague couple of weeks ago and she said: how do you have so many computers and no chaos. The naswer is simple: Dropbox (and if the US intelligence can break into it and the agents die from boredome ‘serves them right’ I say :)).
Agreed. Dropbox has come in handy A LOT of times and is great for academia.
Thanks for the comment!
Sam
After buying several flash drives (how many, I can no longer recall) and just leaving them everywhere being the forgetful me, you cannot imagine the glee in me when I discovered Dropbox. I could just say “Yay!” forever for it.
I love using the calendar on my phone because I always have it with me. It’s also great that my husband and my phones sync. If he adds something I see it and vice versa. I use a dry erase weekly calendar so the kids can see what we have to do for the week. Dropbox sounds awesome! Will definitely have to try it out sometime! 🙂