<p>Yeah you can get Windows and Office for $10 (at least that was the cost when I was there) at the bookstore.</p>
<p>Hive is good if you are a math or engineering type person, it has a lot of cool software for that kind of stuff. That is the major I was, I’m not sure what software it offers for other majors.</p>
<p>The network setup tool is just something you download once to get internet working at UVA, so you can delete it after that or just follow the web instructions on your phone’s 3g/4g or something.</p>
<p>Home directory is great - it is akin to free cloud storage. You can put your important papers and things there and they live on UVA servers until you graduate from UVA. I forget the limit but it’s pretty big. You can access Home directory from any uva-run computer automatically and using the program downloaded onto any other computer from anywhere (like, I could get to it at home in Philadelphia no problem). You can also make a website there, it will be at <a href=“http://people.virginia.edu/~mst3k[/url]”>http://people.virginia.edu/~mst3k</a> where mst3k is your email id.</p>
<p>ETA: A lot of the cool things you need at UVA are web based… Check out the library homepage for links to JSTOR etc. There is also a foreign language technology lab at UVA for that kind of software… Basically a course will tell you if you need something else and it will be free through the Hive.</p>