5 invaluable free productivity apps for college

A few years ago I wrote about useful apps for high school — but now college is here, and it brings a whole new set of demands. Since I arrived at Harvard, I’ve had to do more, and my apps have had to do more too.

These new apps need to run on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS), sync seamlessly between them, and help me keep my data organized. They have to be versatile, robust, and easy-to-use. And they have to be free.

With that in mind, here are the five apps that I’ve relied on most at Harvard and that I recommend to anyone in college or anywhere else in life. They’re ranked in order of usefulness.

Evernote, Wunderlist, Mailbox, Sunrise, Pocket
5 free, essential apps for college: Evernote, Wunderlist, Mailbox, Sunrise, and Pocket.

Fall Cleaning, part 1

Some beautiful fall leaves
Feel the fresh air and cleaner computer.

The leaves are changing color, the weather is becoming cooler, and the World Series is on. Yup, it’s fall.

It’s become sort of a tradition with me to clean up my computer every fall, since just Spring Cleaning is rarely enough.

I’m here to share with you my secrets and guidelines to fall cleaning, and since most people are on Windows I’ll be showing you how to do Fall Cleaning on a Windows 7 machine.

Internet Explorer 9 is out

Well done, Bill, you’ve finally done something right. Internet Explorer 9 is now out and can be downloaded from microsoft.com. Here’s the catch: it only works on Windows Vista and 7.

Let me repeat that:

It only works in Vista and 7. It doesn’t work in XP.

Thoughts on the new browser

For one thing, it’s a lot better than Internet Explorer 8, although that isn’t saying much. To be honest, it’s actually decent; Internet Explorer can now compete with the other popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome.

Here’s what really matters: