I am currently an engineering student at Grand Valley State Unversity.

Given the nature of an engineering curriculum, this is a list of resources that I have found helpful in the course of my college career. Any of the programs are freeware with an unlimited trial, mostly because I hate 30 day trials. All links will bring up the developers' web sites.

I accept no responsiblity for any damages incurred through the use of any files downloaded from any of the following links. ALWAYS check any file with a virus scan program before downloading.

COMPUTER NECESSITIES

These programs are essentials to any new computer. It's a list of basic programs that I always download whenever I happen to get a new PC.

AVG Antivirus
AVG is a free antivirus software that has all of the functionality but none of the price of some of the "name brands". An antivirus package is absolutely essential in today's day and age and AVG is as good (if not better) as any.

Spybot
Spybot is a spyware removal tool, a piece of software that is becomming as important as a virus scanner. I couldn't link to the developer's site, so this is to the loacation at cnet.com.

AdAware
AdAware is another spyware removal tool developed by Lavasoft. I recommend runnign both Spybot and AdAware because each can detect spyware that the other doesn't. Lavasoft's website is a little difficult to navigate, so this link is again to cnet.com. You can get to Lavasoft's site here.

Now to the fun stuff. These are either applications or plugins that typically aren't included with new PC's but are needed to access certain web content. Nothing agitates me more than trying to access a website and not having the correct plugin.

Real Player
I never used Real Player much, I prefer Windows Media Player. But Real Player is required to access a lot of streaming content.

Winamp
Winamp is THE media player for many people. I got away from it after version 3, but it is a very powerful player with tons of customization available.

CALCULATION PROGRAMS

These are basic mathematics applications that I have found useful.

SciLab
SciLab is a very pwoerful calculation tool. I haven't had as much use with it as I have Maple, but it is has much of the functionality of the "bigger" math packages.

GraphCalc
Not truly a calculation tool, GraphCalc is useful for what the name implies: producing graphs in the absence of either Maple or SciLab.