People who have computers and spend time surfing the web develop a favorite set of applications to which we happily turn. Today's post is about some of my old favorites among "killer apps," applications that run well, effectively do what we need to do, are beautifully designed and that are user friendly. For me it also means they are all free. . . as well as mostly "bug free." If you subscribe to the C Net newsletter, I have found that whatever apps they recommend are safe to download.
Browser - Mozilla Firefox***** features a stable and robust platform, with tons of add-ons for easy customization. I have added a bookmarks toolbar, as well as the other standards.
Email - My ATT.NET**** is powered by Yahoo! I have separate addresses for: 1) friends and family, 2) general web contacts, and 3) social network contacts. I also use Gmail** for regular newsletters and saved articles.
Pictures on the web - Yahoo! hosts my Flickr pics**** my web albums are hosted by Google's Picasa***.
Search - Google***** just cannot be beaten. A healthy percentage of my readers find my blog posts as a result of Google searches.
Social Media - FaceBook**** connects me to personal friends and family, as well as web friends. HootSuite**** organizes the lists of people and sources I follow on Twitter***** for quick and easy news headline gathering, status updates, or well-written views. Any included links will get me to the full story.
Group blogs - RedGage*** pays money for all kinds of content from contributors, , but it can be a bit "clunky" at times. The blog TPM Cafe***** attracts some of the brightest and most interesting thinkers on the web to its fascinating posts and comment threads.
Blogging hosts - Blogger**** is my primary blogging "home" where I post regularly to South by Southwest (political), and Making Good Mondays (personal/creative). Posterous***** and Amplify*** are quicker and easier to use, and they "broadcast" to any of my other sites I wish to specify#.
Aggregator - Bloglines**** is my favorite gatherer of feeds from a wide variety of websites. I sort them into categories for reading or saving. It is also very quick and easy to mail articles to my Gmail address for use in blogs, or just to read later. I have used it for many years, and am thus habituated to it.
Organizers - Digsby**** loads when I first boot up, having collected all my IMs and unread Emails for scanning, reading, deleting, etc. Evernote***** is a wonderful and powerful host site for my notebook collections of info to keep from my hard drive, archived blogposts, my daily journal, to-do lists, etc. And Note Mania** is a great little organizer and sticky-note app that I just recently discovered. Be careful of the RSS feed tool, however, as it might just shower you with little link notes.
Utilities -WinUtilities**** is an excellent maintenance tool for my computer, though its defragmenter is pretty slow.
DSL Modem - ATandT Motorola**** is reasonably priced, easily installed, and with good support service.
#My Other Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for my websites.
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