Robert's Top 10 Tools as at 19 March 2008

1. Keynote - Apple's presentation software was designed with the right concept in mind: that presentation software is meant to synthesize content, not create it. The ease with which one can combine graphics, PDF's, video, audio, spreadsheets, and other kinds of content in Keynote is astounding. And it looks great, too.

2. OmniGraffle - OmniGroup's diagramming software is for much more than drawing diagrams. It's useful for doing concept maps, outlining chapters in a book, illustrating statements and proofs of theorems -- I even used it to redesign my kids' playroom at home. Better than a paint program and way simpler than something like Adobe Illustrator.

3. VoodooPad Lite - An ingenious little piece of software that is essentially a rich text editor with automatic hyperlinking, like a very lightweight but feature-packed personal wiki creator. I have used these for course design, for creating a database with information about my students, for creating linked outlines of books I am reviewing, and more. You can also export to RTF and XML formats, and the paid version allows export to HTML and web publishing.

4. OmniFocus - The Omni Group's personal management software, designed from the ground up with the Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy in mind, has finally hit the market and it is simply a life-saver. It's organized enough to handle highly complicated combinations of tasks and projects but simple enough that it's inobtrusive. It's a must for all educators who have way too much to do and not enough time to do it (which is almost all educators).

5. Wordpress.com - Wordpress.com offers unlimited free blog hosting with no limits on bandwidth, along with the Wordpress user interface and several attractive Wordpress themes. The file-hosting quota was recently increased 60-fold from 50 MB to 3 GB. I switched all my blogs from self-hosted Wordpress to Wordpress.com a year ago and I couldn't be happier. Plus, there's even automatic LaTeX formatting for the mathematically inclined.

6. Wikispaces - A great, and free, online wiki hosting service with lots of nifty features and great ease-of-use. I've used Wikispaces for two class wikis, and students -- who are not used to web authoring in any way -- found it easy and fun to use. And again, it has automatic LaTeX formatting which makes it perfect for mathematics classes.

7. The text editor - Sometimes there really is such a thing as too many features on a piece of software. When I want simply to write text content without having to think about formatting it or having it take up lots of room on my hard drive, I go straight to a text editor. I am typing this article right now on a text editor, for instance; and I use text editors for composing emails, writing blog posts, taking minutes at meetings -- anything that is JUST TEXT and for which formatting is irrelevant, which turns out to be almost everything we write.

8. TeXShop - As a mathematician and mathematics professor, LaTeX is a must for any sort of document with mathematical typesetting. There are several different options for implementing LaTeX on a Mac, and I've tried them all, but I keep coming back to TeXShop for its light weight and its simplicity.

9. LaTex-iT - A marvellous little tool that allows one to typeset individual expressions in LaTeX without having to create an entire LaTeX document, and then drag-and-drop the resulting expression as PDF output. Absolutely essential for creating Keynote or PowerPoint presentations or Pages documents with professional-quality mathematics.

10. Quicksilver - The Swiss Army knife of Mac applications, Quicksilver locates files ala Spotlight, launches applications, performs simple manipulations on files, controls iTunes, and much much more. There's a rumor going around that Blacktree is going to stop development of Quicksilver, and the most recent release seems very buggy when running under Leopard. But it's still a sine qua non among Mac apps.

Robert's Top 10 Tools as at 3 August 2007

1. Wikipedia I use it for everything -- finding information about a topic on the fly, finding graphics related to a topic, doing initial research about something I'm interested in, even just a good old fashioned random article search. It represents a powerful paradigm shift in how knowledge is shared and stored, and it's just plain fun for nerds like me.

2. Keynote  Apple's presentation software is far more flexible and media-friendly than PowerPoint. I do almost everything in Keynote in my job as a professor.

3. LaTex-iT  This is a small Mac app that allows you to typeset individual mathematical expressions one at a time, using the powerful LaTeX typesetting language, without having to make and handle an entire LaTeX document. You simply typeset, compile, and then drag the resulting PDF output into your document. Very powerful when combined with Keynote (see above)

4. Quicksilver  An amazingly powerful app for doing stuff with other stuff. There's no way to describe it, or how wonderful it is. Just download it and start using it.

5. Google Search  The best thing about Google is its hidden features, like the ability to use the search field as a calculator.

6. ecto  I love ecto for its simplicity, the intuitive keyboard shortcuts that you can't use in Wordpress, and its media-friendliness.

7. SnapzPro X  This is a professional-quality screenshot application for the Mac that lets the user capture stuff from the screen in a variety of ways. Most importantly, it allows real-time video capturing from the screen so the user can easily make screencasts, which is what I use the software for mostly.

8. OmniOutliner Pro Brilliantly flexible and useful for a variety of tasks, such as planning lessons and keeping track of projects.

9. OmniGraffle  Like OmniOutliner, only for graphics. Again, its power is in its flexibility. I've used OmniGraffle for everything from concept mapping to drawing mathematical diagrams for Keynote lectures to redesigning my daughters' playroom.

10. OmniFocus  This is an app for personal productivity management based on David Allen's Getting Things Done system. It's still just in alpha, but it's incredible for, er, getting things done. I'd be lost without it.