I.T. tips for Economists

Here you find a few I.T. tips for Economists. It's a simple list of hardware/software arrangements that I find useful to make my work faster and more efficient. 

Latex Editor: If you are a Latex user, Texmaker is a free cross-platform latex editor that does the basic things, but it does them well. My favorite features are: 

• code completion (makes it quicker to insert commands)

• Fast navigation (includes a structure view of the section, subsections, etc that makes it quick to navigate the document)

• The one-click compilation (ever hated having to compile latex, then bibtex, and bibtex again... . Solved in one click!)

• Integrated pdf viewer (so you can see the latex code and the pdf output in one window)

• Rectangular block selection (a must-have if you handle tables)

However, if you tend to work with several co-authors on the same file, then Overleaf is great. The Tex file is in the cloud and you can collaborate at the same time. 

Annotating, Screencasting, and Recording your lecture: I have been using ExplainEverything for a long time. I upload my pdf slides in the iPad app, connect the iPad to the projects (if I am in the classroom) or to the computer (if teaching online, e.g. Zoom), and then annotate my slides (e.g. graphs, maths) in the app. You can also record the session so that everything you say and every annotation is saved and you can export the video.   Sometimes I also used it for seminars. Unfortunately, the basic cheap app is no longer offered and now the company has moved to a subscription model. I can still access the old version and I am not sure I'd pay for the subcription. 

Audience Response Systems: if you want to interact with your students. This app (PINGO) allows the students to respond to questions. it's free, with an unlimited number of users, allows multiple-choice or numerical type questions, and it has been rock solid in the many years I have used it. 

Reference Manager: If you want to organize the countless list of papers that you have read (or are planning to read) I can suggest  JabRef. It works equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Ideal if you are a Latex user.  I have to say that JabRef used to be very solid but I have recently experienced several issues on the Mac. Still my favorite though. 

I have all my papers (read and to be read) listed and organized by groups. Entering the details of a new paper is easy as long as you can download the BibTex source code. These days all major e-journals, as well as NBER and Repec databases let you download it.  If you, like me, no longer print papers but read and edit them in their pdf version (using Adobe Standard or similar) there is an easy function that links the reference to the pdf file. All you have to do is to make sure that the file name corresponds to the reference Bibtexkey.