Cat, Congratulations!
I am an avid Mac user, having made the move a few years back from the PC world. If you are very mobile, I highly recommend the 13" MacBook Air. With the 3 finger swipe enabled, you have nearly unlimited desktop space, making the relatively smaller screen size meaningless as you can now have multiple full screen applications open at once. Performance is incredible, and the flash hard drive is extremely reliable and fast. Even with moderate simulations running in R, I have had no performance issues. The laptop has >6h battery life and is extremely light at ~4 lbs. Splurge on the bigger hard drive and processor and you will have a machine that should serve your purposes for at least 3y. With a student discount you are looking at around $1500. As for stat software, you will get by fine with R, but always have VirtualBox as an option (free) to run Windows if you need SAS or other Windows-only alternatives. R will become your go to tool for most of your quantitative needs. I also highly recommend Evernote (also free) for cloud storage and syncing of notes - I couldn't live without it. Notebook sharing in the paid version ($45/yr) is extremely useful. I use Papers for references, but many of my students use Mendeley and are very happy. I don't know what the Windows alternatives are. I am sure many of the same features can be found, but this is my two cents. Regards, Chris -- Christopher M. Swan, Ph.D. Graduate Program Director Associate Professor Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems University of Maryland, Baltimore County 211 Sondheim Hall 1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore, MD 21250 chris.s...@umbc.edu http://www.umbc.edu/people/cmswan http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NNfHt5YAAAAJ (410) 455-3957 On Jul 31, 2012, at 8:56 AM, Georgina Cullman <gc...@columbia.edu> wrote: > Mendeley is great also because you can read the PDFs and make notes on them > directly within Mendeley, so everything is together. I find it very helpful. > I sync the PDFs in a "currently reading" folder with my phone and then can > read on the subway on the way to school. > > > On Jul 29, 2012, at 2:31 PM, Rachel Mitchell wrote: > >> I would like to suggest Mendeley as a fantastic and powerful citation >> program. I switched from Endnote to Mendeley about a year ago, and have >> been thrilled. It is free to people at universities, and combines citation >> software with paper organization. You just download pdfs of papers to >> populate your citation program, the citation information is added >> automatically (but may need some checking and editing), and both the pdfs >> of the papers and the citations are all stored and accessible in the same >> place. It also has a plug-in that works with Microsoft word, which makes >> adding, deleting and editing citations in documents a breeze, as well as >> having apps for both android and iphone, allowing you to read papers on the >> fly. It has a powerful search function, and best of all, you can sync and >> backup your library in the Mendeley cloud. There is also an interesting >> social media-like function, where you can share libraries and your own >> publications with other users very easily. >> >> I really can't recommend Mendeley enough. It is the most straight forward >> and powerful citation program I have ever used. >> >> Rachel >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Cat Adams <damzilindisdr...@gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> Hi Eco-lovers, >>> >>> I have the intense pleasure of starting grad school this fall, and was >>> wondering if this list-serv could generate any kind of consensus regarding >>> what a "best" personal computer might be for me. I converted to the Mac >>> religion a few years ago, and while I don't feel intractable in my new >>> computer world-view, I am pretty comfortable with it. >>> >>> I don't intend to do heavy climate modeling or the like on my personal >>> computer - I mostly want a computer for web browsing, running R, writing >>> papers, citation programs (Zotero? Endnote?), blogging (perhaps shifting to >>> host my own server), some video editing, and using not-too-complicated >>> graphics programs. Until I make new friends, I might also want to run >>> Netflix =P Regardless, I doubt I'll do all these things simultaneously, so >>> my needs aren't extravagant. In addition to adequate processing speed and >>> storage space, I want something that will be the least finicky with other >>> types of equipment, for doing presentations and networking and such. It >>> needs to be something sturdy that can do some globe-trotting with me; ie >>> not too fragile for airport security in Bolivia. A built-in webcam would be >>> quite handy for Skype, too. >>> >>> I plan to bring ~30 gb of files from my old lab to my new school, so I have >>> all the protocols I worked on and easy access to all the old data. Do you >>> highly recommend an external hard-drive for that? Or should I just throw it >>> on the new computer? Or both?! I'm thinking both, but I'm very curious >>> about your insight, and would be grateful for advice that can help me avoid >>> lost data and other tech-disasters. >>> >>> Ideally, I'd get a new computer before ESA, but if I'm still shopping come >>> the conference feel free to give me advice early Thursday morning when my >>> lab mate presents on our awesome research! >>> http://eco.confex.com/eco/2012/webprogram/Paper37476.html >>> >>> Or, just come talk to me about fungus :) I'm super stoked to dive into grad >>> school. Hope to see many of you at the conference! >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Cat >>> >>> -- >>> Rachel M. Mitchell >>> PhD Candidate >>> Project for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy Fellow, 2012 >>> School of Environmental and Forest Resources >>> University of Washington >>> https://students.washington.edu/rachelmm/home.html >>> >>> >> >
