So, this is mostly for the 09s, since hopefully the current students know about all this already. I wanted to let you know about a few ways to get useful software (besides the usual free stuff, like my beloved Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client and RSS reader). If you are an MIT student (and have your Certificates installed), you really win in terms of getting some free software. One good site to download software is the MIT Software page, which has useful software for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux computers/operating systems. You can get the Kerberos authentication and encryption software, Adobe Reader, and Anti-virus software. There's also a pretty neat program out there that you can access online from pretty much anywhere, or through a desktop client (that you can download). It's called TechTime, and I am in love with it. It's based on Oracle Calendar, and is pretty nifty since you can actually do a lot of stuff like schedule events with other people, and such. I guess I wont explain everything about it here (that would be silly, and besides, I don't know everything about it by a long shot), but I might be able to answer questions (or point you in the right direction).
Okay, so that was a little overview about the completely free, no questions asked software. There is also quite a bit of software availible to you if you have a decent reason to use it (i.e. for a class, UROP, etc.). Don't be afraid to request the software, though, because there's some pretty good stuff there. Okay, so the site. It's the Volume Site License Software page, and it has some stuff that's free, plus some stuff that's discounted. Depending on the software, you either can request it for yourself, or request it through your class/major/advisor. You'll just have to read through the instructions for the software you want to obtain, to see what you have to do. I've gotten Mathematica and Dreamweaver through this site. I got Mathematica as part of 3.016 (Mathematics for Materials Science and Engineers), and I got Dreamweaver so I could make websites for my RBA advisees to find information. So, those were the reasons I gave when requesting the software. They don't usually have too much of a problem with requests, as long as they're not something like, "cause I want it" or "so i can do mean things to my roommate", or I don't even know what.
So, what other software do you guys use? I really recommend checking these sites out (especially the MIT Software page). I don't know if they still do this, but they might hand out a CD of all the software found on that page with your big packet of Orientation information. So maybe that will make things even easier.
This post makes me want to talk about Athena, but I figure that's for perhaps another post, maybe made by another person all together, since there is so much to know about Athena. If you have any questions about that, you can also try asking me, though I might just point you to a friend or a website. . .
Well, hope that was useful. Again, let me know if you have any questions about this stuff (or anything else). Can't wait to meet you all!
-Stephanie
EDIT: p.s. as one of my comments says, I discovered that MIT is already presenting this information nicely. . .check out Computing for Students at MIT.