Special tools - Terminal and other tools

Terminals for port communication

under XP there is still the powerfull hyper terminal, since windows Vista this is gone and some alternatives are always handy. Of course you can use the serial extensions from python (pyserial) and matlab but some GUI like these two might be more comfortable: termite: a simple terminal software http://www.compuphase.com/software_termite.htm that is free

a stronger and opensource terminal is realterm: http://realterm.sourceforge.net/

other usefull tools

Using the soundcard as an AD converter (e.g. with an eternal soundcard makes an simple oscilloscope with this software http://www.zeitnitz.de/Christian/scope%20en

A PC on the internet and a webcam becomes a camera server with this software under windows http://www.watchmycam.de/

chemical compatibility: there are plenty of tables online available. I found this one quite usefull: http://www.geotechenv.com/Reference_Pages/chemical_compatibility_table.pdf

small tool for kind of all the chemical calculations needed: http://chemtoolbox.free.fr/uk/download.php