<h3 id='general'>General</h3>

<ul>
<li><em>Operating System</em> : <a href='http://www.apple.com/getamac/'>Mac OS X</a>: heaven, after the purgatory of Linux and the hell of Windows.</li>

<li><em>Browser</em>: <a href='http://getfirefox.com/'>Firefox</a>. On a Mac, <a href='http://www.caminobrowser.org/'>Camino</a>.</li>

<li><em>Email</em>: <a href='http://gmail.com/'>GMail</a>, &#8220;search, don&#8217;t sort&#8221; really works.</li>

<li><em>Text Editor</em>: <a href='http://www.apple.com/getamac/'>TextMate</a>, you have to buy it, but it&#8217;s worth every penny. There are rumours that it&#8217;s been converting (recovering) Emacs users (addicts). Unfortunately, it&#8217;s Mac only. An alternative is <a href='http://www.jedit.org/'>jedit</a> (GPL, Java).</li>
</ul>

<h3 id='development'>Development</h3>

<ul>
<li>
<p><em>Build system</em>: <a href='http://www.cmake.org/'>cmake</a>, throw the <a href='http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/'>autotools</a> away.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>Source code control system</em>: ditch CVS for <a href='http://subversion.tigris.org'>subversion</a>.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>Project management</em>: <a href='http://trac.edgewall.org/'>Trac</a> tracks everything.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>Scripting language</em>: <a href='http://www.ruby-lang.org/'>Ruby</a> is Japanese pragmatism (and has a <a href='http://poignantguide.net/ruby/'>poignant</a> guide). Python, you say? Python is too academic and snob:</p>

<pre><code>$ python       
Python 2.4.1 (\#1, Jun  4 2005, 00:54:33) 
Type &quot;help&quot;, &quot;copyright&quot;, &quot;credits&quot; or &quot;license&quot; for more information.
&gt;&gt;&gt; exit
&#39;Use Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit.&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; quit
&#39;Use Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit.&#39;</code></pre>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>Java IDE</em>: <a href='http://www.borland.com/us/products/jbuilder/index.html'>JBuilder</a> is great software and has a free version (IMHO better than Eclipse). Java is not a pain anymore since it gained <a href='http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/language/generics.html'>generics</a> and got opensourced.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>Mark-up language</em>: HTML is so 2001, why don&#8217;t you take at look at <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown'>Markdown</a>? <a href='data/misc_markdown.png'>Look at the source of this page</a>.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p><em>C++ libraries</em>: * <a href='http://www.trolltech.no/'>QT</a> for GUIs. * <a href='http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/'>GSL</a> for math. * <a href='http://www.imagemagick.org/Magick++/'>Magick++</a> for manipulating images. * <a href='http://cairographics.org/'>Cairo</a> for creating PDFs. * <a href='http://www.boost.org/'>Boost</a> for just about everything else.</p>
</li>
</ul>

<h3 id='research'>Research</h3>

<ul>
<li><em>Writing papers</em>: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX'>LaTeX</a></li>

<li><em>Writing papers &amp; enjoying the process</em>: <a href='http://www.lyx.org'>LyX</a></li>

<li><em>Handsome figures in your papers</em>: <a href='http://www.xfig.org/'>xfig</a> or, better, <a href='http://tams-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/applets/jfig/'>jfig</a>.</li>

<li><em>The occasional presentation with many graphical content</em>: <a href='http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html'>OpenOffice Impress</a> (using the <a href='http://ooolatex.sourceforge.net/'>OOOlatex plugin</a>); the alternative is PowerPoint with the <a href='http://texpoint.necula.org/'>TexPoint</a> plugin.</li>

<li><em>Managing BibTeX</em>: <a href='http://jabref.sourceforge.net/'>jabref</a>: multi-platform, for all your bibtex needs.</li>

<li><em>IEEExplore and BibTeX</em>: convert citations using <a href='http://www.bibconverter.net/ieeexplore/'>BibConverter</a>.</li>
</ul>

<h3 id='cool_websites'>Cool websites</h3>

<ul>
<li><em>Best site in the wwworld</em>: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/'>Wikipedia</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.mutopiaproject.org/'>Mutopia</a> for sheet music; <a href='http://www.gutenberg.org/'>the Gutenberg Project</a> for books; <a href='http://www.liberliber.it/'>LiberLiber</a> for books in italian.</li>

<li><em>Blogs</em>: <a href='http://bloglines.com/'>Bloglines</a></li>

<li><em>Sharing photos</em>: <a href='http://www.flickr.com/'>flickr</a> exposes an API you can use.</li>
</ul>