Tools
My first job in computing was as a compiler writer, building the tool from which all other tools are built. Good tools make computers easier and more fun to use. Here are some of my favorites.
On my phone
Dial2Do – You talk, it types. Very cool way to transcribe and send messages from your phone to email, online services, your blog, Twitter, and dozens of other services. The voice recognition is near-perfect, and the service is trivially easy to use.
ShoZu – Uploads photos from your phone automatically to any number of recipients, including email, Facebook, Photobucket, and Flickr. Turns a tedious task into a transparent one, and ensures that all your photos get backed up in real time.
Opera Mobile – Right now, the best mobile browsing experience for Windows Mobile devices. Elegant zooming, kinetic scrolling, and a slick UI make browsing on my phone enjoyable and quick.
PockeTwit – My new favorite Twitter client for Windows Mobile. A delightful user interface combined with broad functionality, and the ability to manage multiple services beyond Twitter.
On my iPod Touch
i.TV – The best tool I’ve found for quickly checking movie schedules, TV listings, and almost anything else related to broadcast media. Just what every tool should be: timely data in a handy tool with a nice interface.
Kindle -I have a hard time ponying up $329 for a device I can’t even try first, so using the Kindle software on my iPod was a great alternative. Bottom line: it works great! Anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch should really give this a try. Kindle is to books like the iPod is to music, and giving this software away is a brilliant marketing move by Amazon.
LinkedIn -When you are away from your browser, this native app makes it easy to keep up with your network on LinkedIn. While other sites (like Plaxo) have a version that looks good in the iPhone’s Safari browser, LinkedIn went all in and deployed a real app. It makes a difference and makes LinkedIn that much more pervasive.
TweetDeck – The new champion of iPod/iPhone Twitter clients. With support for multiple Twitter accounts, a slick multi-page interface, and synchronization with the TweetDeck client on your desktop, this app sets a very high bar for all other mobile Twitter clients on any platform.
On my desktop
HootSuite – Clever interface that lets one person manage multiple Twitter accounts, many people manage one Twitter accounts, and provides scheduled, trackable tweets for market analysis.
LinkedIn – The original, and best, professional networking site. Continues to improve with groups, discussions, and maturing social tools.
Mozy – Best tool I’ve found for a complete backup of my personal laptop. Runs every night, stores everything in the cloud, has easy recovery features for both single files and whole systems.
Plaxo – The very best address book management tool. Back up your contacts, maintain them in real time, stay in touch with people, remember their birthdays.
TweetDeck – My current favorite desktop client for Twitter. I’ll still use the native interface for a quick check, but TweetDeck provides so many more features that I find myself using it more and more. If you are serious about Twitter, you need to check out TweetDeck.
Yammer – Twitter, restricted to your company. A huge advance over Twitter, making it usable as a controlled messaging platform for the enterprise.
YouMail – Awesome replacement for your boring old voice mail. Greet callers by name, customize greetings for groups and individuals, get text and email notification of messages, rounded out with surprisingly good transcription.
Xobni – Bring data mining to your inbox. The very best way to figure out who sent you what when, plus all sorts of intriguing stats about your email behavior.
Blinklist
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
reddit
Technorati
Why no reference to WordPress for the desktop? It appears to offer flexiiblity in its hosting options as well as a set of sleek, professional blogging functionality. I’m considering it as my future blogging tool of choice and so far it looks good. Thoughts?
I suppose I don’t think of WordPress as a “desktop tool” but I certainly do recommend it. This blog is hosted on WordPress.com, which should be an implicit endorsement of the platform. WordPress is a reliable, feature-rich blogging package that makes blogging fun and easy. I do wish that WordPress.com had a richer set of widgets, but will sacrifice that in return for not having to manage my own installation.
Great recommendations on all fronts. I am a user some and will be checking out most! I did want to make one tool suggestion that I use daily on my BB, http://www.vlingo.com. They are doing Beta for WM now and thought you would enjoy. I have had it for some time and was a free tool. I believe there could be a small onetime fee for the newer version now. You can SMS, Email, Facebook, search Web, Dial Number, Twitter, Notes to self, and Open Apps with a push of a button. Let me know if you get a chance to check out.
Hi Chuck – great list of tools. A few others to consider that can really drive an organizations or individuals sales and marketing efforts are:
Web Conferencing:
*DimDim
ELearning
*iSpring
*Articulate
ScreenCasting
*ScreenR
*GoView
Live Video Broadcasting
*LiveStream
*UStream
*JustinTV
Collaboration
*Google Docs
*YouSendIt
Feel free to get some more ideas from my site at http://www.thebizcat.com where we do weekly video blog reviews of great new online products to power a small business!
And if you’d ever like to chat about social technologies, just drop me a line. Interestingly enough, we have a similar background as I used to work for WR Grace and currently have clients at LaFarge and OldCastle Materials.