With schools getting ready to ramp up for another semester soon, you may be looking for some good software tools to make going back to school easier. Here is our list of must have tools for school.

Dropbox

Writing papers and other projects is a key part of school. Backing those up is a must. Add synchronization to the mix and you get a great tool called Dropbox.

Sign up and install a utility on your computer or mobile device and the computer utility will create a folder called My Dropbox. Every file added to this folder is then uploaded to their cloud backup servers. Then, any other computer that has Dropbox on it will automatically download files when they are created or updated. You can also access your files from the web browser on any computer with an internet connection. Not only can you sync, but you now have no attention needed backups.

If you own an iOS device, Android device or Blackberry, you too can access Dropbox via the apps for those devices. The iPad version was our iPad App of the Week back in early June. And finally, users can share documents, pictures or other files with friends too.

Alternative service: Windows Live Sync

Google Services

Google services include Google’s Gmail, Docs, Talk, YouTube, Picasa and others.

The greatest benefit of the simple to use Gmail is the great spam filtering. Some schools may already be using Gmail for their email services even if they give their students an address like student@university.edu as Google lets anyone set up Google’s apps for their own domain. It is good to have a separate Gmail account anyway since you won’t always be a student at that school. Alternatively one could buy their own domain name and set Google Apps to work with that domain.

Along with their great Gmail service Google offers Google Docs, a simple to use online office suite that lets users create and store word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and drawings. Unless you need some advanced editing features, Google Docs may be the only office suite you need. It is online so you can access from them from any computer and most mobile devices and if you share a document with another student you can both edit the document at the same time.

Google Voice will give you one phone number to ring all your phones. Since you can get a phone number anywhere in the U.S. this might be a good way to let family call you locally even though you live far away. Choose a Google Voice number in your home town and they can dial a local number and reach you at school. You can set Google Voice to ring any number including your mobile phone, your cell phone or temporarily some other phone.

YouTube is the number one video hosting site on the net. Want to share your school experience with friends and family? Then set up your own YouTube channel. Add to video Google’s Picasa service which is a very nice photo hosting site. It does more. In addition to uploading photos for sharing, you can also do some basic editing and order prints.

Alternative service: Windows Live with mail, sync, messaging, office and more

Chrome

If you are still using Internet Explorer or Firefox, then you are missing out. Google’s Chrome browser is a faster alternative and still has many of the great extensions that make Firefox so useful. Extensions are an add-ons that give additional functionality to the browser. Some great extensions include ones that save passwords, sync bookmarks, and respond to mouse gestures. A mouse gesture is where you move the mouse in a certain way and the browser responds. Click and hold the right button and drag to the left to go back a page in browsing history or to the right to go forward.

Alternative browser: Safari

Microsoft Security Essentials

The web is a dangerous place and you need protection. There are a lot of free antivirus applications, but we like Microsoft Security Essentials because it is simple, doesn’t bog down your system and has been tested to be as good as the other free security tools.

Alternative free security: Avira Antivir Personal

Pandora

Music is a big part of our lives and Pandora will put most of the top music at your fingertips for free. This music streaming service lets you create your own radio station” by searching for your favorite artists and they will stream some songs in the free version. The paid version give you a desktop application and lets you skip more songs that you might not like. You also get no ads and unlimited listening. They also have mobile apps for the iPhone and mobile devices.

Alternative music service: Grooveshark

Steam

If you love games then you need Steam. This is a service that sells games for download legally. You buy it once and you can download it and play it on your PC or Mac. The Mac version is somewhat limited, but the PC version has an incredible amount of games. What is nice is there are no discs to keep track of and you can download the games again if you get a new computer or have a hard drive malfunction; there are also many demos to try out and sales are a common occurrence.

Alternative game download service: Direct2Drive

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010

We may all want to use free suites like Google Docs, but the standard is Microsoft Office and their Home and Student 2010 version is not that expensive at only $150 or $79.95 with a valid .edu email address. The newest version has some compelling things to make it worth the upgrade for those on Office 2007 or earlier versions. The Home and Student version comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It is very likely that most students and professors will be using Office so sharing files will be easier if you do to.

Alternative free office suite: OpenOffice.org

These are just a few. If you want to get discounts on back to school software, Notebooks.com’s own Carter Sprunger posted a list of student discounts on some of these and many other programs. For an alternate list, check out NotebookReview.

Must Have Back To School Applications and Services is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

One of the arguments that PC fans have been throwing in the face of Mac users is the lack of gaming support. Then Steam announced a Mac version. Suddenly one of the biggest arguments is gone. Or is it?

Image source: Tom’s Hardware

Tom’s Hardware put the new version of Steam through the paces and found that it is somewhat lacking, but usable. As they point out, porting the gaming store/platform to the Mac had some big obstacles. Most PC games are made for Windows and thus take advantage of PC specific hardware like DirectX video cards. Steam is still working on the platform with multiple updates since its release just last week.

So what is the verdict? Not great. Testing the game Portal on both versions produced a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of the Windows based Steam running on a MacBook Pro. On a Hackintosh (a PC with a hacked version of Mac OSX running on it) the difference is not nearly as pronounced, but still convincing. The PC  version of Steam is much faster at this early stage.

Despite this the folks at Tom’s Hardware consider the Mac version playable. You can get all the details by following the link above to Tom’s.

Steam on Mac Tested is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Our very own Josh Smith recently covered the fact that the popular Steam gaming service is finally coming to Mac huge news for Mac users.

You may have caught that news, but what I absolutely don’t want any of you to miss out on is that to promote the Steam service finding its way onto Mac, Steam is giving away the game Portal for the awesome price of free until may 24th!

You may have a few questions, and luckily, I’ve got the answers:

What is Steam, and why is it significant that it is coming to Mac?”

You can think of Steam like you do iTunes. It is a piece of software that runs on your computer and gives you a tidy library of games (instead of music). Additionally, through it, you can access the Steam store, where you can find a large selection of some very popular games; you can purchase these games and they will be downloaded right into your Steam game library.

This is huge for Mac users because Windows has, for a long time, been the dominating gaming platform for non-console video games. There were certainly a few titles for Mac, but the fact that Steam now runs on Mac means that Mac users can now enjoy a huge selection of games that were once Windows-only.

For a full list of games that are available for Mac see the following:

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=mac&category1=998

What is SteamPlay?”

SteamPlay is a service tied directly into the Steam software which allows gamers to enjoy any compatible game on PC or Mac. If you purchase a Steam game on your PC, you can run Steam on your Mac and download and play the game without paying for it again (using your Steam account). SteamPlay also saves saved game files to the cloud, so you can play on your PC, then pick up right where you left off on your Mac — how cool is that?

What is Portal and why should I try it?”

If you have any interest in video games (computer or console), I must implore you to not miss this fantastic opportunity (the game is completely free until May 24th!). Portal is a stunningly original game that will leave you begging for more (and subsequently eagerly awaiting the coming sequel). Portal is a first person puzzle game which combines challenging puzzles with the fast paced action of a first person shooter. Along for the ride is a unique style and some quirky characters all situated in an intriguing scenario that will have you wondering if there is something deeper to the seemingly straight forward tasks at hand. Get a little taste of the game by watching the teaser trailer below:

I’m not alone in my affinity for Portal, Portal has won over 70 game of the year awards according to the game’s developer.

Ok you’ve got me convinced, how do I get Portal for free on Mac and/or PC?”

Simple:

1. If you already have Steam installed on your Mac or PC, you can skip this step! If you don’t have Steam installed, follow this link to do so: http://store.steampowered.com/about/
2. To get Portal for free: follow this link: http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/
3. Click on the big GET PORTAL NOW button
4. Scroll down to find the green Install Game button
5. Sign in to your Steam account, if you don’t have one, click the button to make one, it’s completely free and will be the account that you use to access your games through the Steam software on PC or Mac
6. Once you’ve signed in with your account, Portal will be registered with your account. Simply launch the Steam software and go the the Library tab, you’ll find Portal in your games list, waiting for you to press the Install button after highlighting it
7. Once the game is downloaded and installed, you are ready to play, enjoy!

Get Portal — Recipient of over 70 Game of the Year Awards – for Mac and PC Free Until May 24th! is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Great news for gamers with Mac’s; Valve has finally released Steam for Mac — and as an added bonus they are including a free download of the hit game Portal through May 24th.

Steam is a game download service which offers easy access to many popular games and now with a Mac version users can purchase a game once and play it on both platforms as part of SteamPlay. Not all titles are currently part of SteamPlay, but more will be added each Wednesday as Valve ramps up Steam for Mac.

There are currently 57 games available on Steam for Mac:

• And Yet It Moves
• Atlantis Sky Patrol
• Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
• Bob Came in Pieces
• Bookworm Deluxe
• Braid
• Brainpipe
• Chocolatier: Decadence by Design
• Chuzzle Deluxe
• City of Heroes: Architect Edition
• Civilization IV: The Complete Edition
• Cooking Dash
• Diaper Dash
• The Dig
• Diner Dash: Hometown Hero
• DinerTown Detective Agency
• DinerTown Tycoon
• Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child
• Escape Rosecliff Island
• Fairway Solitaire
• Fitness Dash
• Football Manager 10
• Galcon Fusion
• Gemini Lost
• Guns of Icarus
• Hotel Dash Suite Success
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• KrissX
• Loom
• Luxor
• Luxor 3
• Luxor: Mahjong
• Machinarium
• Mahjong Roadshow
• Max and the Magic Marker
• My Tribe
• The Nightshift Code
• Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye
• Parking Dash
• Peggle Deluxe
• Peggle Nights
• Portal
• Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery
• Quantz
• Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
• Tales of Monkey Island Season 1
• Toki Tori
• Torchlight
• Trijinx: A Kristine Kross Mystery
• Unwell Mel
• Valarie Porter and the Scarlett Scandal
• Wandering Willows
• Wedding Dash 2: Rings Around the World
• World of Goo
• Zenerchi
• Zuma Deluxe

Steam for Mac Released; Free Portal is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Valve, the company behind the digital gaming distribution platform, Steam, has made a big announcement today. Valve will be bringing the Steam service to Mac, along with their popular Source game engine. What does this mean exactly? Well, any games that use the Source engine will run on Mac. A+ games such as Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, Left for Dead, Left for Dead 2, and Portal (and the upcoming Portal 2) are all powered by Source, and will all run on Mac, once Valve delivers Steam in April. Each of the aforementioned games are incredible in their own right, but the fact that Valve is bringing them all to Mac, in one fell swoop, is down-right awesome. If you ever wished that there we’re good, modern, games to play on Mac, you can now look forward to it.

Aside from these huge games, it sounds as though the entire Steam library of 1000+ games will be able to run on Mac as well. Already own the PC version of your favorite Steam games? You’ll be able to download and play them on Mac for free if you already own them. Game saves will also be stored on the web through Steam’s ‘Steam Cloud’ service, which means you can save your game from your PC then pick up where you left off on your Mac. Very impressive interoperability. It’s great to see that Valve is working to make life good for consumers who pay for content, rather than latching everything down with restrictive DRM technology.

Steam also notes that Mac won’t be late to the party when new games are released, and will even be able to play with PC gamers when playing the same games:

We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth.

Head over to the official Steam site to see the full press release, and look forward to some awesome games on your Mac in April! If you are itching to get your game on right now, you should have a look at Crossover Games for Mac.

Steam Game Delivery System Comes to Mac, Brings with It Some Huge Titles is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

If you are serious gamer, it’s unlikely that you haven’t already played Portal, one of the more innovative games to come out in the last few years… still, high-end gaming rig creator Alienware has teamed up with the popular game downloading platform Steam to offer machines with Steam pre-installed, along with a free copy of Portal, which I can personally recommend as a great game with a style and gameplay that is all its own. Take a look at a Portal trailer below:

Don’t be fooled, the inclusion of Steam is not crapware, Steam is the largest game distribution platform for PCs to date, giving players access to some 980+ games. If you are a serious gamer, having Steam pre-installed on your new Alienware machine means just one less step before you can get your game on, and getting a free copy of a highly regarded game isn’t so bad either.

Don’t forget to check out Xavier’s review of the Alienware M17x if you are looking at buying one of their gaming notebooks.

via Joystiq

Alienware Computers Now Pre-Loaded With Steam and Portal is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.