Pretty soon I would be giving up my official laptop and purchase one for myself at school. I was making a list of the essential software/tools that would be required at school. I sent out a mail to my team to get their views and here’s what my manager sent. He himself is an MBA from IIMB… (reproduced with his consent) :)

Tools that can help you in your MBA:

  • Brain (Rare, but I believe you already own one)
  • Gift of the Gab ( Hmmmm, again – you may have it already)
  • MS Excel (the tool, this is not a qualitative statement)
  • A Calculator (not very complex, or you overshoot the MBA mark)
  • A Sense of Skepticism (to digest all the theory which makes sense of this world)
  • A Dash of Cynicism (to handle the marks)
  • A Sense of Humor (the long nights and no willing girlfriends….)
  • An iPoD/iTouch (the Apple version, no other implication here)
  • A cell phone (at some point you need to find out which exam is when)
  • A 1TB external hard disk (copy copy copy)
  • Google (its what MBAs rely on, even to figure out what M.B.A. stands for)
  • A Bed (only to sleep…. On some days)

Its good to know that so that I can be armed with these :) . On another note, here is my list of software that I think are a must-have. Would like to hear from you all too…

  • Acrobat.com is a set of online services — file sharing and storage (up to 5 GB for free), PDF converter, collaborative online word processor, and web conferencing (up to 3 people for free)
  • Microsoft Office – Of course
  • Firefox Browser with some essential add-ons. Add-Ons can be downloaded here. My favorites are: Download Status Bar, dragdropupload, foxtunes, tabmixplus, greasemonkey, ie tab, cool iris and cool previews
  • Stickies
  • Doomi - Simple To Do List with reminders
  • FrndNet – An application that lets you build a sort of a private peer-to-peer network which lets you swap files and chat with people whom you choose. Good for transferring assignments with your section-mates.
  • Thunderbird - The best free email solution (I have already set up my UM ID on this)
  • Enso Launcher – A very innovative and useful software once you get used to it
  • VLC - A media player that plays almost any type of media
  • Unlocker – very useful
  • Process Explorer (if you are on Windows) [Sorry this one is geeky!]
  • Jing - for screen-capture for demos

The above list has hardly any business software. I want to grow this list. Feel free to add… drop me a mail or comment here and I will add to the list…