This post was published 2 years 4 months 18 days ago and as such probably does not reflect my current opinions, knowledge or ability.Well, as those of you who were there most likely noticed, I never made it to Software Freedom Day this year. Instead I was busy being ill, which I’m pretty disappointed about.
If anyone is interested, I’ve uploaded the slides from my talk on Free Software for Students which I was intending to present. They probably don’t make much sense without me talking over the top, and there are a few applications I would like to have mentioned but cut out for timing reasons, so I’ll try to write up a blog post on the topic.
The aim was to cover the types of software I find helpful, for example personal wikis and to do checklists that other students might not make use of yet, as well as suggesting open source alternatives for common applications such as Office. The one thing I really struggled to find was a good referencing tool – everything I tested was either limited to one platform, hard to use, or so difficult to get hold of and install that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable recommending it to anyone else. If you have any suggestions on that front, I’d love to hear it.
Anyway, apologies again for missing the day; I hope that everyone that took part had a really great time.
Photo thanks to AGoK on flickr.
I am not entirely sure what you mean by a “referencing tool” (and I am also not entirely sure (if we are indeed thinking about the same thing) how good it is), but I have fiddled a bit with the Firefox add-on “Zotero”.
Since it can export to BibTeX and I use LaTeX I have always thought that it might be useful ( although I have never actually gotten to try it live :/ )
Also, being a firefox add-on, platform compatability /should/ be a non-issue
Hi, that is indeed the sort of thing I meant by a “referencing tool”. I know the university has and trains students with a piece of proprietary software, either EndNote or something similar, so that’s what I was going for.
Bibus seemed like it would be a good choice as it integrates with Open Office or MS Office but getting hold of it from their website was awkward enough that I didn’t think I could recommend it in a short talk to an audience with varied computing experience.
To be honest I hadn’t even considered a Firefox addon, but looking at the Zotero website it certainly looks promising – a great featureset and clear documentation. Obviously I’ll try it myself before recommending it further, but I think this could be ideal.
Thanks
I agree with you, a Firefox add-on is a strange place to find this type of software, but when you stop to consider it, with how much we do use the Internet to find information, it makes some sense
Hope you find it useful, only glad that I can contribute