Laptop Programs to Install: 1) A robust text editor. For Windows/PC - notepad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/). For Linux - gEdit (http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/). For Mac – TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html) 2) A file decompression tool. For Windows/PC – 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/). For Linux – gzip (http://www.gzip.org). For Mac – already there. 3) A robust internet browser such as Firefox or Safari (Internet Explorer and Chrome are not recommended because of Java issues). 4) SSH client - Mac and Linux users already have a command line ssh program that can be run from the terminal. For Windows users, please download PuTTY:http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html 5) SCP/SFTP client - Mac and Linux users already have a command line scp and sftp program. For Windows users, please install WinSCP: http://winscp.net/eng/download.php 6) A PDF viewer (Adobe Acrobat or equivalent).