The online services A-list

June 24, 2008 in General Nonsense

Over the past week or so, I’ve realized that I have come to rely on several online services.  Many of them have replaced desktop software — others are completely new offerings that didn’t exist as software (at least, not on my desktop).

I’d add Meebo, but I really don’t use it that much now.

Office apps

Google Docs
https://docs.google.com/
Yep. Office has not been installed on my Vista machine at home yet. I’m thinking I have officially replaced it with ubiquitous documents.

Personalized Google homepage (iGoogle)
https://www.google.com/ig
I roll with Gmail, Remember the milk, del.icio.us/popular, Google news, and Google bookmarks. I used to roll with a lot more, but then I started using Google Reader religiously and discovered that I really don’t need to know all that stuff on my home page. It’s much less of a distraction now.

Google Reader
https://www.google.com/reader/
Welcome to the new newspaper. Only it’s not on paper. And I can pick (or fire) the columnists at will.

Google Calendar
https://www.google.com/calendar
So much a part of my life, it sometimes fades into the background. If I ever need to schedule or remember something, this is the app I turn to.

Remember the Milk
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
The end-all of ‘todo’ lists. What really kicks ass is this service integrates seamlessly with Jott. Online todo list? Check. Offline access (via Google Gears)? Check. Integrates with iGoogle with a kick-ass plugin? Check. I can add tasks by calling up with my phone — for free??? (That’s the jott.com integration) Check.

Jott
http://jott.com
Yep. It’s one of those ‘James Bond’ style services. It’s free. It’s cool. It integrates with your todo-list (and many other apps). It’s automagic text-to-speech. And it’s pretty darn accurate. And did I mention it’s free? Yeah. Why don’t you use this service again?

Del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/
This one is so ingrained in me that I almost forgot about it — I actually had to come back to this article and add it here! It’s bookmarks. Online. So they’re anywhere. And you can tag them. And you can see what other people tagged. And you can see what’s popular: http://del.icio.us/popular/ And there are RSS feeds for EVERYTHING. But don’t try to use the service bare — use a plugin to bookmark from your browser: Firefox plugin, IE plugin

Communication

Adobe ConnectNow
https://connectnow.acrobat.com
Desktop sharing and online meetings that just work. Period. This works even when Microsoft Office Communicator and Microsoft Live Sharing stop working. And it doesn’t crash Visual Studio (unlike the other 2 products I just mentioned)!

GMail
https://mail.google.com/mail/
Probably the most rock-solid beta service you will ever use.

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com
Microblogging. Think of it as ‘what can I do with all those times that I have an interesting thought of under 140 letters, but nobody around to share it with’. If you want full-blown blogging, go with wordpress.com

IMified
http://www.imified.com
The glue that makes twitter work for my situation. I like sending twitter an IM message much better than pulling up the web interface. Since Twitter’s own IM-interface is hosed for now, this works for me.

System tools

OpenDNS
http://opendns.com/
Awesome free service that puts you in control of your home network infrastructure a little bit more. A nice perk with this service is the built-in domain and category-based network traffic filtering you can do on your network.

Guilty pleasures

Hulu
http://www.hulu.com/
What’s that? I can watch TV online? Legally? And it’s actually built by the major networks? And it doesn’t suck??? Sign me up!

Slacker
http://www.slacker.com/
Aptly named. If you’re listening, you’re probably a slacker. But the best darn music streaming site. Ever. I was a big fan of Pandora until I found this. Slacker beats the pants off of Pandora in my book.