Just thought I'd pop in and say that I didn't deliberately neglect to give you a link to the TeX software, haha. I was looking up an easy way to start out and learn, because it's kinda difficult at first.

So I came up with this:

http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~hildebr/tex/

It has numerous links on there to various articles and such, which may help you to get started with examples and such.

TeX isn't 'specifically' for Math by the way...it's just a program to typeset...or 'format text' the way you'd like so you don't have to manually do it every single time if you're say, writing a hundred page paper or a novel. So to use math, you require a math library.

For math in particular, this article (found on the page I just linked) was the first document I read when I was learning TeX:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/mil/mil.pdf

Now, for actual software, I think MikTeX was relatively easy to use, because it has a compiler in which you can directly input your text (kind of like a text editor). You can download it at:

http://miktex.org/

I don't recommend getting version 2.8 Beta...2.7 should be just fine, and it's definitely working properly.

lol, LaTeX is the reason I hate posting stuff on that site physicsforums.com. You get so lost with what you're typing if you don't pay close attention.

Windows build in calculator

Originally Posted by kirchhoff

1) A valid anti virus

OMG. I can't find mine... it's a Systemtec Endpoint... They have Norton... why don't they have normal systemtec!!!

EDIT: nevermind. found it.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

lol, LaTeX is the reason I hate posting stuff on that site physicsforums.com. You get so lost with what you're typing if you don't pay close attention.

Haha. It's such a good site though isn't it? It's better to use LaTeX than ascii art:

   infinity
    -------
    \                   k         n
     \            (n) x     = (x+1)
     /            (k)
    /
    -------
     k=0

Originally Posted by Mowicz

If you're looking to type out Math symbols and such, you should familiarize yourself with LaTeX. It's kind of complicated when you're just starting out, but it's how professional papers are written (once you 'program' the format, it automatically does it for you).

Depending on your interests, you may want to look into some graphing calculator software. Maple and Mathematica are both kinda overkill in my opinion, but they could be very helpful at times.

EDIT:

Here's a sample paper I wrote in LaTeX 2 years ago. I was by no means an expert, but I think it looks nice enough:

Can't you do most of this using Word's Equation Editor? ... or is it just because it's like 1000x faster using LaTex?

Originally Posted by myster

Can't you do most of this using Word's Equation Editor? ... or is it just because it's like 1000x faster using LaTex?

You can, but I find the equation editor to be really clumsy... it's fortunate that I don't have to type out very many equations in my work.

Also, for people who like having their finances straightened out with nice budgetings like me..

I'd recommend Quicken to keep track of where your money is coming from (income), where it's going (expenses), how much you have (equity), how much you owe (liabilities/debts), and other stuff in between.

Originally Posted by myster

Can't you do most of this using Word's Equation Editor? ... or is it just because it's like 1000x faster using LaTex?

It's a zillion times faster using LaTeX. For instance, how long would it take you to write out the quadratic formula in the equation editor?

 
-b +- square root(b^2 - 4ac)
------------------------------------
                 2a

In LaTeX, you would simply write:

$-b \pm\sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}\over 2a$

Learning the codes/shortcuts and formatting your first few times may be quite cumbersome...but once you learn it, your life gets much easier.