Knowledge and Project management

Sometimes it is nice to use a specialised knowledge or Project manager to present times and keep track of money and similar things. these are nice tools to make path plans and similar, for all that are tired of colouring excel fields

Project managers:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/

http://www.dotproject.net/index.php

These are more to make gantt graphs

http://www.ganttproject.biz/

http://timios.net/gantt/more.html

I recently started making gantt charts and mind maps with PlantUML. There are some great online tools for generating this. A bit like Latex for charts

Main Page of the project:https://plantuml.com/starting

Great online editor for PlantUML:https://plantuml-editor.kkeisuke.com

Offline (and my usual workflow) I use Notepad++ for pretty much everything. Here there is a great plugin for working with PlantUML:https://github.com/Fruchtzwerg94/PlantUmlViewer (best installed via the plugin manager)

Mind Mapping

this is one of the thousand good mind mapping tools, or concept browsers (simple mindmaps can be done by libre office by the way too this goes however far beyond this. knowledge oganised with this tools can be easily structured:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.thinkgraph.com/english/index.htm

http://cmap.ihmc.us/

http://www.conzilla.org/wiki/Download/Main

Research suite

Docear tries to combine mind manager and reference manager and pdf collector in one suite, it is an intersting free concept: http://www.docear.org/software/download/

Live interactive editor, offers a server to work on but also the possibility to work on your own server   Etherpad:  http://etherpad.org/

Note taking software

ever more people are using tablets or external pen driven input. Beside note taking, also the function of working with a pen on pdf files (corrections…) is very useful if you are already using OneNote(not free but part of any larger Microsoft office package) then simple drag and drop a pdf file an an empty note and save it afterwards as pdf there are free alternatives

I have now been using Joplin for a while with good success https://joplinapp.org

Jamal is a note taking software that lays a transparent over any file you use (or a white paper) (import pdf as “background”) http://sourceforge.net/projects/javaamal/

Notelab is a very nice note taking software that saves everything as svg, the new version now allows commenting from pdf but still is a bit buggy. It was programmed for writing formulas by hand http://java-notelab.sourceforge.net/features.html (hint, if the software does not start the start script has an error, search the line that starts with “java” and change the the “java” to the path your java is installed, if your path contains spaces you have to put the whole path in citation marks (“))

Xournal works in the same way like jarnal but is not as far developed yet http://xournal.sourceforge.net/

Office

There are many Office packages out there. Most Universities provide site licences for the Microsoft packages. I however prefer the Open source alternatives Libreoffice/OpenOffice - Even if there might be stories, the software has devolved a lot can now open and write all word/excel and powerpoint files) (the drawing module is good for making vector graphics) There has been a split in the project and there are now two software Libreoffice and Openoffice I would recommend Libreoffice, it has all the features the developers of openoffice didn’t want to put directly in the software and it is compatible to all old openoffice versions (maybe the once to come to I don’t know this) advantages:opens svg, presenter view included, has nice fitting routines in the excel module, and is more stable

the new: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/ the old:http://www.openoffice.org/

A really nice feature for presentations in libreoffice is the presenter view. View the main presentation on the main screen and see the next slides, all slides or your presentation comments on the laptop only http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Presenter_Screen

in microsoft office this feature is included in the later versions (after 2003).

A less powerfull but also smaller version is Abiword http://www.abisource.com/

a simple editor for changing CSV files (column files with different seperators and/or other forms) especially useful if files are to be imported into software like scidavis http://csved.sjfrancke.nl/index.html

Simple Text editor for writing code! At the end this is what matters and everything else does just distract, or an advanced version with tabs and syntax highlighting (for matlab and co) might be found in http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Converter between office versions ODF and openXML (this is actually all you ever will need!) http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/index.html

PDF

For software allowing you to write with a pen on pdf files see  Note taking software PDF Tools

PDFcreator (looks for you like a printer, but keeps the Vector data (high quality) http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

PDF Sam works also fine http://www.pdfsam.org/

if you want to combine PDF, take out pages or other simple things I recommend http://www.angusj.com/pdftkb/#pdftkbuilder

With this little tool you can compare pdfs after appearance and content, usefull for proof checking http://www.qtrac.eu/diffpdf.html

in the standard free PDF viewer (Acrobat) you can copy text, copy vector graphics, take a snapshot of pictures and comment in the pdf

a faster alternative would be Foxit reader (very strong commenting features) http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

SumatraPdf  is even faster and does not lock the opened PDF file (good for working with LATEX) http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html

presenting using PDF

Presenting using sofwares like Powerpoint is convenient, but sometimes challenged by the available hardware. These tools can make this easier.

PPSplit is a simple script that splits your slide transitions into separate slides that can then be exported as PDF https://github.com/maxonthegit/PPspliT/releases

PDFPresenter is a simple but powerful java script that offers the presenter view with multiple screens, slide overview and similar things for PDF files. It also has a powerful white board https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfpresenter/

presentation timers and organiser

If you organize a meeting or conference it is often useful to use a little tool showing the presenter his remaining time. While i didn’t find the perfect tool yet and will try to write my own i found several tools that come close and might be enough for most users: This is a small executable that does a very good job. First white on black last five minutes green last 3 yellow last red and then flashing. it is so small and doesn’t need to be installed and they allow redistribution that i attach it here including the readme file  http://www.cicling.org/timer/

This version is also very nice, the payed version offers more possibilities but the free one has only a few increments, a bar is retreating and changing trafik light like the colours during the last fractions of the presentation. It needs to be installed and only works with mayor increments, it is however scale able and adjusts the font during the rescale http://www.exp-systems.com/MeetingTimer/Features.htm

this page has a totally different approach. It provides a powerpoint presentation with fancy transitions that corresponds to one minute intervals. so simply by running the presentation one gets the wished for timer, nice different designs available. http://www.m62.net/powerpoint-slides/conference-slides/powerpoint-countdown-timer/

this is a fancy tool for bible studies but if programmed right can show the next speakers in row, count and show the time and organize a full meeting. to bad that the theme is hard-coded. You won’t get rid of the bible background. (download “congregation meeting timer” on the left side of the page http://www.publictalkscheduler.org/

As usual there is an APP for this: up to three times very simple and straight foward: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tmurakam.presentationtimer

several presentations with different times can be programmed in advance and the bell can ring automatically: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mikufu_works.presentationtimer

simple and does what it should presentationtimer pro (still free!) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chrisallenlane.presentationtimerpro

Room/resource scheduling tools

Disporoom is a very nice online service that lets people schedule rooms. They offer hosting and everything for up to 10 rooms for everybody and 20 rooms for non profits (registration) http://www.disporoom.com/en/

This tool works either on one pc or as a web based application (have not tried): https://code.google.com/p/rapla/

MBRS requires your own server but looks like a nice browser based solution :http://mrbs.sourceforge.net/

For scheduling on your own server phpSchedulIt is a very nice open source solution. Offering quota and similar things http://www.php.brickhost.com/

its own server is also needed for “openroom” including php and mysql: http://www.bsu.edu/libraries/getopenroom/

To schedule meetings www.doodle.com is a very usefull tool. But there are some more specialized tools for this (to come later ;o) )

Small Tools

Little tool for post processing of scanned book pages   http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/

Online Tool to convert different file formats into each other. Very useful to not have to have one tool for each formats http://www.docspal.com/   (attention, you upload your pdf to a server, this means that the company can see your documents, this is not recommendable for sensitive documents, see the “PDF” link for alternatives)

Online tool to create pdf’s also from many pictures. This is the producer from Foxit pdf reader. So I understand their buisness model and this seems reliable (check the top bar for more options and file types). https://www.foxitsoftware.com/jpg-to-pdf/

For smartphones  I recommend Genius Scan:

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thegrizzlylabs.geniusscan.free&hl=en

Iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/genius-scan-pdf-scanner/id377672876

Pandoc seams to have similar capabilities in an offline program, but i did not test it yet  http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/index.html

Font Managing

Create your own font with this tool: https://birdfont.org

Free font managing for windows: Fontbase: https://fontba.se