Zotero (tested v1.0.7)
Firefox research notes and citations add-on
Developer: Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
OS: Windows/Mac/Linux (via Firefox)
Price: Free
Site:
http://www.zotero.org
Summer's almost over, which means schools and universities across the country are about to fill up with students for another year's worth of tests and essays. Whether putting together that first five-paragraph essay or writing a hundred-page graduate dissertation, students of all stripes and ages will likely rely on the Internet as much as the library for research. Until Zotero, however, there have been few accessible tools available for taking notes and storing references.
Designed to merge the various processes involved in finding, understanding and organizing research, Zotero offers a high level of integration with both academic databases and more general sources such as the New York Times. On supported sites, Zotero can save the proper citation data from both websites and library records of books for easy referencing. It can also store and organize research notes related to web clippings and other source material you've saved. Zotero's ability to annotate and highlight snapshots of web pages will especially delight students who routinely do the same to textbooks and photocopied articles.
What's great about Zotero is it offers many of the same features as expensive programs like Refworks at a price accessible to high school students and non-academics. One key feature Refworks has that Zotero doesn't is the ability to access your research notes from multiple computers, but the feature is planned for upcoming versions. Even without data synchronization, Zotero is a vital tool for students looking for a better way to organize their notes and citations.
StumbleUpon (tested v3.26 for Firefox)
Website suggestion add-on
Developer: StumbleUpon
OS: Windows/Mac/Linux (via Firefox, also available for Internet Explorer on Windows)
Price: Free
Site:
http://www.stumbleupon.com
The primary method by which most people experience the Internet is through web browsers. But consider how often you actually browse for random websites. The act of haphazardly following hyperlinks out to the far-flung corners of the Internet is something of a lost art, largely replaced by searching and just plain visiting the same few sites in your daily Internet routine. But when wanderlust strikes, the best cure is a little add-on called StumbleUpon.
As the name implies, you don't look for anything specific using StumbleUpon. Instead, it delivers random websites at the click of a toolbar button. A guide to digital photography can be followed by a political cartoon, which could be followed by a neat Flash game or a YouTube video of people whistling a video game theme song. As you tell StumbleUpon what pages you like and what you don't, it will begin trying to send you sites that, while still random, more closely fit your preferences. The add-on also ties into the StumbleUpon website, where you can save stumbled sites to your user profile and befriend like-minded stumblers.
If you're especially meme-savvy, StumbleUpon may show you a lot of sites you've already seen. But for those who haven't seen the Evolution of Dance video seventeen times this week, there are plenty of hidden Internet treasures waiting to be stumbled upon.
Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager (tested v.0.9.1)
Windows virtual desktop manager
Developer: Z-Systems
OS: Windows
Price: Free
Site:
http://www.codeplex.com/vdm
The concept of virtual desktops have long been a staple of Unix and Linux-based systems. Most Windows users have all their applications open on a single workspace, with one taskbar and one desktop. Virtual desktops multiply the number of workspaces, allowing you to move applications and windows between them as necessary. That means you can devote workspaces to different tasks, like placing distracting e-mail and instant messaging apps in one workspace while you work in Word and Excel in another one.
Windows is the last major operating system to leave out virtual desktop features; even Apple's OS X has had a very slick virtual desktop manager called Spaces for years. Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager's no-nonsense name reflects the straightforward nature of the program itself. The utility adds virtual desktop capabilities to Windows Vista and XP, allowing users to create workspaces, move windows between them, and switch workspaces at the press of a hotkey.
Taking advantage of some of Vista's more advanced interface features, the Virtual Desktop Manager can also display live previews of each workspace, though this doesn't always work in practice—videos, for example, sometimes black out. It's also not quite as responsive a utility as some of its Windows-based competitors like VirtuaWin. But the Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager is easier to figure out and has a much nicer interface overall, making it a top option for those seeking a larger virtual office space.
