Software necessary for a Grad student

I usually come across so many friends who have questions about what software they need for their laptop. My conversations always end up in a demo showing how to make their laptop use more productive. So I thought of writing a blog to address the question:

"What software do I need on my laptop to make my Grad life more productive?"

(a) Bibliography Manager: First of all as a Graduate student, we are exposed to scientific conference papers/journals. It's always good to come up with a filing system to access all the papers you have read or intend to read at some other time. Most of the times it's all about filing intelligently, so that the next time you don't waste time searching for the correct reference. For Mac OSX, I recommend installing BibDesk. This is a free application and is the best bibliography software on Macs. For Linux or Windows, use JabRef. I will not mention EndNote for Windows, as it relies on proprietary formats.

(b) Typesetting documents: Though MS Word is the most commonly used format to typeset documents, it is not the preferred work flow in most academic institutions. Use Latex to typeset all your documents.

For Mac OSX, keep track of the latest Latex software packages from MacTeX. The MacTeX package includes the Latex distribution, BibDesk, Equation editor, Excalibur (spell checker) and TeXShop (front end). As a side note, I recommend TextMate for advanced Latex users.

You can install Latex on Windows using MiKTeX. The front end TeXnicCenter is very useful and integrates well with Windows. This way you can avoid installing Cygwin on your Windows laptop for Latex.

Latex is inbuilt on all Linux distros. I have used Kile on a FC/Ubuntu box and have enjoyed the experience.

(c) Diagrams: I use OmniGraffle for making all diagrams on Mac OSX. I have used Dia on Linux machines and found it to be a very good application. Visio may count as a good alternative on Windows machines, though I don't use it.

I will keep updating this blog as and when I find interesting software that's a must for Grad students. Hope someone finds this blog useful. Thanks to MT for his guidance :)

Era of social networking

It has become a habit to glance through my emails the first thing in the morning. However, an in-depth reading of the emails and the daily news on my laptop flopped today because of the flaky internet connection. I restarted my desktop, power cycled the modem and the router a couple of times. Nothing worked. Finally I checked the important stuff using my iPhone. Thanks to Apple's wonderful device.
After all the email checking and reading the news updates, I decided to call Comcast and report the outage. The Comcast rep took my info and gave me a service ID saying that the next available technician would come between 8-11 am on Monday. In any case, I decided to twitter about my internet service down due to Comcast. I also mentioned if anyone knew about Comcast sending a technician on Saturday. Surprisingly, within minutes, I had a direct message from ComcastBill asking me to send my info. I sent my info and ComcastBill tweeted that the Comcast service was down at my zipcode and would be up in some time.
Thanks to twitter, the world is a smaller place. Everything is connected. I wonder if Twitter will replace the SMS feature on internet enabled phones?? I think it's time for me to upgrade to Tweetie on my iPhone.

Memory upgrade

My current work requires compiling programs in emulation mode and I started seeing my Macbook slowing. Promptly I decided to upgrade the RAM on my MB. Dealram has always provided good deals on RAMs for laptops and desktops. I bought a 1GB RAM module in 2007 Feb for 67$ from 18004memory.com I was surprised to see that the same RAM module cost me only $14 now in 2009. This suggests that laptop memory is getting cheaper by the day. 

Transposing the value of computer memory to human memory value it's exactly the opposite. Humans cherish the value of memory. Older the memory, priceless it is !!! Also the price of memory increases as we get older, as our memory retention decreases. So if our memory were to be traded in the stock market, we would see our investment doubling over time. The assumption is that we are involved in good deeds, etc. 

Happy Makar Sankranti !!!

2 different movies offering a glimpse of everyday life

I watched 2 movies over the weekend: Mumbai Meri Jaan and Thirakatha. MMJ is a movie depicting the effects of the Mumbai train blasts that happened in 2006. Excellent casting coup that features Paresh Rawal, Soha Ali Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Madhavan, Irfan Khan. This movie gives an insight into the workings of the Mumbai Police, unfair media coverage of the blast victims, Hindu-Muslim divide, trauma of traveling in trains after a bomb blast and finally the poor man's take on such blasts. I liked the actor who has played the constable's role, who is disgusted with the working of the Mumbai Police. Must watch movie !!!

Thirakatha is a malayalam movie by Ranjith that explores the life of a yesteryear film actress. Again a wonderful movie that includes a cameo by the director as well. The last monologue by Prithviraj lingers on: "Life is like a screenplay with lots of actors who do not know their roles and continue to act without the guidance of a proper director." Though this is not a word-to-word translation, I have tried capturing it's gist. Another must watch movie !!!

Why communism is the farce of Kerala

Mallu--yeah !!!
Proud to be one --- Nah.. Why?? here's an interesting reason.

Thanks to Silverine for posting this on her blog.

Internship fun !!!!

2008's coming to an end. My 4 month romance (i.e. internship) is over. During this short romantic interlude, ahem.. I mean my internship, I got to meet a lot of people. Everyone had their own specialization and was fun talking to. Thanks to Neal for reintroducing me to the life of Fedora9. Thanks to the internship, I was able to follow a disciplined lifetyle, i.e. eating at the right time, hitting the gym, sleeping (nah...). C-SPAN radio station served as my morning newspaper while driving to office and I had a lot of things to listen to - Elections, Economic depression, Foreign policy, History, etc. I enjoyed the mandatory walk from cubicle/desk to the cafeteria with CJ to get my morning dose of caffeine (Starbucks and complimentary). The shortwalk was peperred with discussions about latest technology, cellphones, daily hacks for devices, etc. Lunch was equally entertaining with Sheel and Vincent. Vincent buys all the latest tech gizmos in multiples and both me and Sheel had a great time teasing him about his collection of laptops, netbooks, cellphones, hard disks, music players.
One of the most important things you learn from an internship is scheduling and managing your work in a professional way. In Grad school, I can always stay up late and finish my work, catch up on sleep and then present my results/presentations. Office life is more challenging, work for a specified amount of time and finish it in that time. Technically, you do not want your office life to take your time with family. Overall an interesting and rewarding internship !!!

After the smoke cleared in Mumbai

My heart goes out for all the victims of the Mumbai tragedy. Here's a look at Mumbai after the attacks. Thanks to MT for the link.