some things you could look at: a (convertible) tablet PC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_PC#Convertibles very handy, e.g. when reviewing papers, you can directly write your notes with a pen in Adobe Acrobat. Software: A version control system, e.g. subversion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software) useful not only for programmers, but also for keeping control of the evolution of any other document. Can be used when several persons make unsynchronized changes to the same document. you need a subversion server (which can also be your local PC), and then on your PC(s) one of many client programs (available for Linux, Windows, etc). A quite useful tool, if you want to create html out of your latex sources is TeX4ht: http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/ compared to latex2html it creates less graphics and uses more fonts to display equations. VMWare (or alike): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware allows you to run several operating systems AT THE SAME TIME (e.g. Linux and Windows), giving you the opportunity to get the best (applications) from both worlds. Regarding Linux: Debian Linux, if you want it very stable http://www.debian.org Ubuntu (based on debian), if you want to the latest version of everything http://www.ubuntu.org I personally use Debian with VMWare that runs Windows XP (for Powerpoint, Adobe Acrobat). Christoph