ok life is very much doom and gloom isn’t it….well here are five good things that I’ve come across or experienced over the last few weeks which have helped me out one way or another. Most of them involve getting things done better, faster or more efficiently. Not something I ever really worried about until recently but now I’m juggling more things at home, work, on the web and with camera I figured it was time to work smarter! None of these are new inventions but I’m a first time user of most of them (late to the party) and not everyone who reads this blog is a total nerd like me so it may even be a revelation for some!
1. Twitter Friends – Where have you been people? Twitter is a social networking gem and a great way to share information, make new contacts, promote, learn and hang with peers whilst on the move and multi-tasking. Over the last week I’ve met two of my twitter contacts in person. Last Friday I met with @philmatthews and over the weekend I met with @maxamphoto. Both completely awesome guys and just as nice in real life where they’re not limited to 140 characters. One a talented web designer and one a fabulous photographer. Both of these guys have imparted ideas and encouragement and also could provide me with future networking possibilities with other people. I wouldn’t have found either of them without twitter! Get with the program people…..Sign up now! or check this out to find out more.
2. Astrid Task Manager - This one is pretty much only going to be of use to google android users (check out the last post) but it’s a task management application which has really helped me get my shizzle organised over the last few weeks. Tasks are easy and quick to create but have the ability to be tailored with a variety of deadlines and alarms etc. This application can also be synced with the online service remember the milk. It has a really nice NAG feature which is just like having a mini Chloe in my pocket (I’m so dead for writing this) but it’s the kind of feature that works for me. Check out the astrid website for more details.
3. Dropbox – Dropbox is a handy little application that you can install on one or more computers that will automatically backup and sync your data between computers. It also syncs to an online depository so you can access files wherever you end up being able to get online (without installing any apps). Very handy for making sure important documents are safe and also working from multiple locations. It also includes some very handy sharing options and now iphone support. This video explains it slightly better.
4. Google mail – This online service from Google certainly isn’t new but it’s something I didn’t get on with when I first tried it. I recently revisited it and I’m glad I did. Google mail is actually a very powerful and free email application. It allows you to set up an account and access your email on the move using webmail or on other devices and software installs using IMAP or POP. What is nice about Google mail is that it can be set to read your other email accounts for you and pass all of this to the one Google mail account. Before I started using Google mail I separately managed about 5 personal email accounts both on my phone and on software clients at home. I now let Google take the strain and pull all of these mails into the one google account. Google mail automatically sorts, tags and syncs this mail so that I only end up reading stuff once! It just works! I’d also like to add to this Google Calendar which is equally awesome in it’s own right but doesn’t get it’s own spot in the list purely because I’m beginning to sound like a Google fanboy!!
5. Delicious – The Delicious bookmarking service is very similar in many ways to Dropbox and Google Mail, All of these services seek to take information you use or need to access regularly and sync it so it’s available in other places. Whether that be at work, a friends house or using your mobile on the bus. Instead of files or emails Delicious works at syncing your web browser favourites. It’s an incredibly simple idea but very cleverly done by the people over at delicious. I can now access my bookmarks from wherever I can get online. In addition they provide some browser extensions which mean I can have a bookmark toolbar installed on computers I use often. Bookmarks can also be shared, organised using tags and sorted in a variety of ways. This means I have a toolbar for my fave sites I access at home and at the click of a single button I can change this to my office based faves when I’m in the office.
I hope you’ve found this interesting. If you’ve heard of but not tried some of the above I really recommend taking the plunge. Some of them take a little investment in time to get set up in a way that you will find useful but well worth it for the long term time saving. Maybe you’ve got some ideas of your own you want to share or you violently disagree with my choices…..luckily we’ve got a comment section for such things…..let rip!
