The Tools I use Everyday

Photo by pvera

• Gmail - I use gmail , all day long everyday. Its searching, and filtering capabilities put and standalone client to shame. I have been using gmail from a year and a half now I am only at 500 MB I have 2.8 gigs if I have to use it, and they are slowly increasing the size of individuals emails boxes a little bit all day everyday.
  
• Google Calendar - I am and extremely forgetful person. My wife has the same school schedule every week, but I can't remember it. That is where google calendar comes into play. She puts here school schedule on her calendar and then we join our calendars together, voila I can look at it anytime of day to know if she is in school or not. Some things I would like to see are, everyone using something like it my school, my family. You could then do searches on free time.


• The Hype Machine - This is my music hookup. They have a billboard chart for music in theblogosphere . Which I think is cool, but they need to work on there algorithm a bit I think. I fell like it allows me too get a grasp on theblogosphere, like how as a whole it is thinking, or at least listening too.


• IM - Instant Messaging has become my main mode of communication to many people. I now sometimes talk to my parents more on IM then on the phone. There are many ways to get your IM on.
  
  
  
  • GAIM - open source wonderfulness. cross platform windows and linux. and all the protocol's under the sine AIM, YAHOO, MSN, JABBER(gTalk)
  
  
  • Google Talk - I use this mostly while I am using google mail. its also the easiest for most people to pickup because it sits there right inside your mail client.
  
  
  • Meebo - At someone Else's computer or worse at a library computer that's locked down. Meebo does all the IM stuff in the web browser no need to install anything. The greatest work around I have ever seen.
    
  
  
  
  
• Google Reader- The way that google lets me interact with my feeds is the reason why I read blogs in the first place. It makes it so easy, that I feel like I am using an app on my computer. Blogs without Google Reader, I don't know how I ever did it.


• Ubuntu Linux - Linux is a great tool by it's self, but Ubuntu makes it 10 times better. I think Ubuntu is going to change a lot of minds, it has already changed mine. More soporifically then just Linux. The command line allows me to work so much faster then just clicking around in windows. The windows command line just sucks it doesn't have the power of Linux

A couple of places you didn't know you could use your aggregater.

Blogs are cool, but they are just one aspect of what RSS can do. It blew my mind when I figured this out, it was a revelation. Everything should be in an RSS feed. My bank statements, my appointments, my wife's birthday(just don't tell her). Even though RSS as a personal tool is still lacking there are many places where RSS is helpful now.

The coolest one so far is, the RSS feeds for del.icio.us users. This is cool because I found that a number of big people use del.icio.us to book mark websites. Which means I don't have to wait for the links, I can get at the links as soon as they bookmark it. There are a couple people so far that have provided the best links. I also have found some peoples name even though it doesn't look like they use it so often

• First Clay Shirkey. He teaches New Media at NYU. His writing on network effects and tagging changed the way I look at blogs and folksonomies. - del.icio.us page


• Second is Gina Trapani the lifehacker geek goddess. Not much comes from here del.icio.us page I just link that I found it. - del.icio.us page

Amoeba music always has great acts in their stores but I kept forgetting to go to there web page and checkout the upcoming shows until I discovered they have a RSS feed. Now whenever they add something it shows up in my aggregater. Calendar link

A couple of others.

• Youtube - provides RSS for searches. Example search for cats falling asleep, and then subscribe the RSS feed. Every time a new video is uploaded to Youtube that matches that criteria it will show up in your aggrigater.


• Google - Does the same things for Internet searches, also news searches as well.

Food Blogs

I am a foodie ... I guess, people tell me so. Anyway I also have been reading blogs for a long time. I am most excited about blogs like these food blogs. Because for a long time blogs have been computer oriented, or politics. Now there are some great blogs popping all over the place about everything.

so on too the food.

My first foray into reading food blogs was slashfood. I hadn't seen any quality food blogs yet but I put this into the quarantine folder and expected it too fail. Over time I realized that these guys were great food writers. My favorite post are those about extremely expensive food items. Like 100 dollar hamburgers. They really try and talk about food items, or food oddities. I don't really remember any restaurant reviews, and I like that.

The next place blog in the food world that I found interesting was My Tiny Plot. While not a food blog it is about growing food. Everyone and awhile she posts about what she made with the food that she grew. I like this blog because she posts a picture with every post. and the pictures are really amazing. I don't know if she takes them her self or not but I think so.

Finally, just last week I got the itch to find some local sf food blogs. They aren't as good as the ones above but they have the local slant which too me will always push a blog into my blog reader. The one that I like the most so far is chez pim. I don't know the story about this person yet and I haven't seen that much food yet but the person who writes this blog I think works at like a restaurant. I am reading and I will find out if this is a good food blog.