Hi guys,

I've been a lurker on the forum for a while, but having woken up today full of good resolutions, have decided to introduce myself and try to start a thread :-) Partly I'm full of good resolutions today as I've just bought a new computer over the bank holiday weekend, and I'm determined this is going to help me organise myself and get down to beginning to write my thesis. So to that end, would anybody care to share any computer programs/ software they've found particularly useful as a PhD student? I know you may have discussed this before but couldn't find a similar thread in the recent past, and sorry too to any computer scientists if I'm using the wrong terms! I'm in the humanities, so am really thinking about software for large amounts of word processing, and general organisational/ time management programs. I don't consider myself very technologically advanced personally, but I'll go first with a few extra things I use, in case anybody doesn't know about them...

- Sticky notes: downloadable for free from many different places, to pile up on my desktop and remind me later of anything that pops into my mind while I'm busy with something else...

- Dropbox: one of many programs which backs up/ stores your work for free in 'the cloud'. I used iDrive on my previous machine, but have heard good things about Dropbox, seems particularly useful for synching stuff between my home + work computers, as well as having it all available on the Dropbox website.

- mytomatoes.com: not something to download, but a website for trying to discipline yourself to write according to the 'Pomodoro' technique.

Right, I think that's me out. Does anybody have any programs they use for producing a weekly planner/ timetable, or any advances on Microsoft word for non-linear writers?

Thanks all! (up)
Maccle

Hi Maccle,

Welcome to the forum! I think there was a thread about this a while ago, I think I may have asked a question a few months back regarding the use of microsoft word for combining separate chapters into one big thesis as my laptop at the time was struggling to cope with the size of the document! So that might be worth seeking out.... I know a lot of people use Mendeley too for reference management but I haven't (because of my rubbish old laptop!)

Other than that, I don't really use any other special programmes as I now have a new laptop which does everything I want to do really, I did download Kindle for desktop the other day for instant access to books which has been quite handy. I do quite like the idea of sticky notes though so thanks for mentioning that :-)

Hi, there was a thread about this last year which is here and might be helpful
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=18935

Oh right great, thanks guys! :-)