November 15, 2014 (Vol. 34, No. 20)
Rating:
Strong Points: Provides free download, documentation documents
Weak Points: Users need basic familiarity with computer programming
Summary:
If you find yourself in need of bioinformatics tools, you should check out the freely available tools on GenomeTools.org. This website provides a download of the open source software GenomeTools, which is itself a collection of bioinformatics tools that can run on Linux, Mac OS X, and OpenBSD. (A Windows version is also available, although it requires an additional installation.) Eight tools are included in the GenomeTools distribution, including a tool for the de novo detection of LTR retrotransposons, a library for drawing genome annotations, gene prediction software, and a sequence assembler. The website also includes a mailing list for users, an issue tracker forum, and documentation for GenomeTools, including user manuals for the specific tools in the package. Users will find that having a background in basic computer programming is useful.
