Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t I? Hopefully, I can add some tools to the list that others may not have pointed out. Here are the wonderful tools and programs that have straightened out my life.
Plaxo · Sync your Outlook to-do lists, contacts, and calendar on all of your computers. Also available as a web based version.
Password Agent · Extremely simple encrypted password management program capable of running off of your usb flash drives.
Quicken · I added this to the list for those people hesitant to start this program. It is a pain to learn, but once you take about a day to get a good feel, it can help you out financially more than you would expect.
Home Networking · I just came out of the stone age as far as networking is concerned. I took a weekend to set up my home network, so now I can edit all of my code from a single localhost, and not have to worry about managing multiple copies of multiple files on multiple computers.
DNS2Go · Convert your dynamic IP to a static one. Have your own web and ftp site on a home computer. This is the next step for my network. I have not implemented it yet, but I have heard great things. I will let you know how it turns out.
NewsGator · It seems like a no brainer to have a feed reader. I added it to encourage people using other web based feed readers to try this one out. I recently made the switch, and won’t be switching back anytime soon.
So I’m curious… how’d you settle on NewsGator? What other Web-based feed readers did you try, and how was NewsGator better?
I don’t have an affiliation with any of ‘em, ‘cept as a bloglines user.
Chris introduced me to Bloglines (after I had been using open all in tabs in a folder in Firefox) and I was sorely disappointed with their interface. It was clunky, a bit slow for my taste, and not very intuitive.
I don’t know exactly what Ryan thinks, but he introduced us to NewsGator’s free online version and I haven’t looked back after using the OPML export function. The interface is a lot prettier (for those that care), the servers feel a lot faster and makes adding a feed easy as hitting a bookmarklet.
I agree with what Kevin said. The whole user experience was better. Additionally, NewsGator has a knowledge base of popular feeds based on topic, so that helped me to find feeds I was unfamilar with but still interested in. I also like the way NewsGator handles feeds with no new information.