Sometime it's interesting to see what technologies other people use to get stuff done. With that idea in mind, here are some of the tools I use on a daily basis:
- Firefox – The best PC browser on the planet. Tabbed browsing and extensions (see below) make building and browsing websites a lot easier.
- Mozilla Thunderbird – Easy email. Great filtering functionality (Though, "not as good as The Bat" says Zach). And it's fast. Now if they can just get it to sync with more cell phones.
- Gmail – for personal email. Also using Hotmail, though I'm trying to bag it.
- Trillian – Chat client that runs AIM, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and IRC all from one program. GAIM does most of the same things – just less elegantly.
- del.icio.us and Digg – I mostly use these sites as a place to find links (rather than store them).
- Bloglines – Web-based RSS reader. It's ok – definitely a cool way to discover new content. Still looking for a decent independent feed reader. Got a recommendation?
- Technorati – Blog search.
- ColorZilla – Its a photoshop-like colorpicker extension for Firefox that lets you find the color of anything within your browser. This is particularly useful when working with CSS.
- Web Developer – Another very useful Firefox extension. Let's you outline Divs, disable styling, edit stylesheets, disable images, and much more. I use DevToolBar when I'm working in IE.
- Scintilla SciTE – Simple code editor. Dreamweaver is a crutch in the new world of standards – bag it. I hear TextMate is the editor for Mac people.
- Keyboard shortcuts – Really basic tools many people never use. Ctrl-Z (undo), Ctrl-C (copy) and Ctrl-P (paste) and of course, Alt-Tab. Right-clicking is lame.
- TiddlyWiki – Been trying this out for note-taking. Not terribly impressed. I have a Writely account too, maybe I'll switch. Main goal here is less paper, more organization.
Got a a piece of software or a website you find useful? Let's hear about it.
