Piazza.com for emailing the instructor or the TAs and also as your newsgroup/discussion resource. You can also email/ comment anonymously.
Sakai for grades and for turning in the assignments
Putty for remote login from windows into linux storm machine.
vim I prefer this editor while coding on linux. This is one of the best and fastest editors if mastered.
eclipse If you prefer an IDE then you should use the C++ version of eclipse.
Visual studio 2010 (32 bit, even for 64 bit computers) : you can get it free via your MSDNAA accounts if you are a College of Engineering student. I guess that visual C++ express should be available free to everyone.
Xcode if you use mac.
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