Visualization and Mapping
There are many good formats for geophysical data, and no single tool excels at everything. The following are enough to do almost anything, though:
Panoply -- netCDF, HDF, and GRIB data viewer with gorgeous plots and many projection options.
ncview -- Sure, it's old-fashioned. But ncview installs effortlessly on almost any platform (especially compute clusters), and is fast. ncview remains the best tool for quick diagnostics.
Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) -- An excellent, powerful tool with many remote access options (OPeNDAP, THREDDS, etc...) and support for most formats (including netCDF, GRIB1/2, satellite raster data/other geo-registered imagery, KML, and even rawinsonde soundings).
m_map -- A bit finicky, but still the best library for plotting geospatial data in MATLAB.
Panoply -- netCDF, HDF, and GRIB data viewer with gorgeous plots and many projection options.
ncview -- Sure, it's old-fashioned. But ncview installs effortlessly on almost any platform (especially compute clusters), and is fast. ncview remains the best tool for quick diagnostics.
Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) -- An excellent, powerful tool with many remote access options (OPeNDAP, THREDDS, etc...) and support for most formats (including netCDF, GRIB1/2, satellite raster data/other geo-registered imagery, KML, and even rawinsonde soundings).
m_map -- A bit finicky, but still the best library for plotting geospatial data in MATLAB.
Reading and Writing
LyX -- The ultimate time-saving LaTeX typesetting frontend (installs LaTeX for you, too).
Mendeley -- Free research management tool, similar to Papers and Zotero. Catalogs your papers/PDFs, and stores them online for easy synchronization between computers and sharing with other scientists. While it has some drawbacks, it is the only solution which is cross-platform and includes a streamlined PDF reader with annotation capabilities.
WriteLaTeX -- Online collaborative LaTeX tool. This is a great way to try out different document classes, or to draft something with a co-author. If Google implements this in Docs, it will become the ultimate scientific authorship platform.
latexdiff -- simple tool for change highlighting in LaTeX documents.
Usage: latexdiff old.tex new.tex > diff.tex
Install: sudo port install latexdiff
Mendeley -- Free research management tool, similar to Papers and Zotero. Catalogs your papers/PDFs, and stores them online for easy synchronization between computers and sharing with other scientists. While it has some drawbacks, it is the only solution which is cross-platform and includes a streamlined PDF reader with annotation capabilities.
WriteLaTeX -- Online collaborative LaTeX tool. This is a great way to try out different document classes, or to draft something with a co-author. If Google implements this in Docs, it will become the ultimate scientific authorship platform.
latexdiff -- simple tool for change highlighting in LaTeX documents.
Usage: latexdiff old.tex new.tex > diff.tex
Install: sudo port install latexdiff
Miscellaneous Utilities
Dropbox -- Automagic, mindless synchronization and incremental backup of files/documents between many computers.
Password Gorilla -- Open-source, cross-platform password database.
Evernote -- take notes efficiently across devices, and share them easily with others.
Skitch -- now owned by Evernote; still a great app. Cuts out the middleman when putting together a quick presentation with lots of figures.
Password Gorilla -- Open-source, cross-platform password database.
Evernote -- take notes efficiently across devices, and share them easily with others.
Skitch -- now owned by Evernote; still a great app. Cuts out the middleman when putting together a quick presentation with lots of figures.