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You are here: Home  Software My Favorite 20 Computer Technologies of Today
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My Favorite 20 Computer Technologies of Today |
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Monday, 21 May 2007 |
The best SOFTWARE, WEBSITES, AND WEB-APPLICATIONS AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY to affect my life as of 5-22-07.
The list includes some of the most popular like StumbleUpon, Firefox, LogMeIn, Linux, Craigslist, and Youtube as well as some of the not-so-popular like Freemind, WebCalendar. I've also included some that have fallen off my list like Ebay. Read on...
1. JOOMLA - The absolute best free open-source website content management system web application out there right now. I know absolutely nothing about web-designing. I can barely put pre-scripted html codes taken from other websites, let alone build a site from scratch. Joomla, allows a total non-programmer like myself to create a website like this. My website does look like crap, yes I admit that, but it's still better than anything I would have ever been able to come up with. I've built websites with galleries, comment features, automatically generated meta-tags, fancy flash banners, very cool-looking flash photo galleries, and tons of other features that I would have never been able to code all on my own. I did it all without learning html, php, mysql, xml, and css - all THANKS TO JOOMLA!
2. Firefox - this web browser continues to amaze me. It's just goddarn useful with all the add-ons they keep coming up with. I currently use Scrapbook, Password Exporter, ChromaTabs, Colorzilla, StumbleUpon, and Firefox Showcase. There are many more I have installed but I just don't really use all that often. Scrapbook is great for saving pieces of tidbits of info that's burried inside much longer text or a page filled with ads. It's also very essential when you are saving dynamic content that could very well disappear soon or change. Password Exporter is great for those one-time uses when you migrate all your passwords to another computer. Chromatabs gives you colored Firefox tabs making it look more pretty and easy to differiate between different sites. Colorzilla is great for webmasters when you just want to match a certain color code and see what the html color code is without actually having to dig through the source code or anything like that. StumbleUpon is just...see for yourself! And Firefox Showcase is for that tab-thumbnail effect of all pages open on your Firefox tabs or windows.
3. Freemind - An awesome mind-mapping software. This program has helped me put my life together. It helps when you've got ideas stacked on top of ideas all somehow linked or dependent on each other in some kind of structure one way or another. See how messy that sentence was? That was just one sentence, imagine the rest of the sentences I've got in my head. Freemind organizes my thoughts, goals, dreams, wants, desires, plans, and anything and everything that pops into my head.
4. StumbleUpon - the new CRACK of the internet. StumbleUpon is so friggen addictive. I keep telling myself, "..... JUST...ONE..... MORE ......CLICK!" Better than Myspace, better than Wikipedia, better than Youtube. StumbleUpon takes all the crap that exists out there and filters it down to match your personality so that you keep magically stumbling upon great website content as if some psychic was reading my mind. StumbleUpon now does videos alongside the tons of great stuff like useful sites, fun sites, and just plain interesting. My friends are often calling me these days only to hear me say "I'm doing Stumble" and once you try it, you will too. I will warn you that StumbleUpon will hurt productivity, my girlfriend loses an average of 3 hours a day to Stumble. Your results may vary.
5. Remote Access Programs - RealVNC, Hamachi, and LogMeIn. I use LogMeIn for fast easy access without worrying about portforwarding. LogMeIn also works great for having an easy remote-access process to give to clients for their own remote use. In other occasions, I use a combination RealVNC and Hamachi to give me easy remote access and file-transfer capabilities. Remote access allows me to work on client machines at late night or hold their hands through simple steps on their computer whenever they need it. I use RealVNC all the time when I leave my home and need to pull files or bookmarks off my home computer or even look up an email that already downloaded into Outlook. You just can't live without remote access anymore, it gives you 100% productivity even when you're away from your main computer. My life as an IT person would be so much harder without remote access.
6. Linux - Microsoft has finally learned that the Open Source world is growing and
growing fast. And Microsoft does not play nice, it will continue to lose market share to Open Source Software. Linux is slowing crawling up the desktop operating system market while OpenOffice has already replaced many large private and government organizations in place of the costly Microsoft Office. I'm glad Microsoft finally recognized Linux as a real threat and partnered up with Novell Suse Linux to ensure a safe future with Linux. What does Linux mean for me? Well, at the moment, an easy to use file-server and extra internet machine. I love how linux is pretty secure against the average user and I don't have to worry that my friends will accidentally download crap and force me to reformat and re-install drivers for an entire machine (which is much easier with linux anyways). Linux works well as a really basic machine or as a really complicated server either for permissions access, virtual desktop-hosting, or a webserver. My main choices of linux has been openSuse and Ubuntu. Suse looks damn really nice and Ubuntu is much simpler and works with wireless right out of the box making it the better choice for laptops.
7. Youtube - this IS the Youtube generation. There is nothing you can't find on youtube. It's not just about funny videos or stupid homemade films of bored teenagers. You can find foreign films, sports, political campaigns, scandalous videos, music videos, movie clips, highlight reels of EVERYTHING, and interesting videos covering every topic known to humankind. And yes, I use also do "Youtube".
8. Google - There's no denying Google's dominance over our lives. I can't do anything without having to resort to Google. It's more than a search engine and free software. Google puts together and perfects basic concepts of life that we have been needing for a long time. Google's answers connect our every computer need to the solution. Google has created an online payment alternative, an internet advertising giant, simple photo-managing software, spreadsheets, calendars, driving directions, real-life satellite maps, Google brings us the clean and simple solutions, delivering what we need as quick and efficiently as possible and it does it well.
9. Isohunt.com - The mother of all Bit Torrent sites. There's nothing you can't find on here for free. Movies, songs, programs, books, pictures, porn, software, and more. Imagine a giant library of any type of computer file you can think of! (And yes, you can find perfectly working versions of copyrighted materials without getting caught!)
10. Slickdeals.net - The BEST site for great bargains and deals everyday. It use to be gotapex for me but the problem is that gotapex is so dark and hard to read and most of the deals are just warm. I also think the site owner has lost site of the visitor by offering WAYYYYY too many warm deals like creditcard offers, webhosting sign-ups, and average-priced Dell deals. Why would Gotapex do that is obvious, they make more money as collecting commissions as an affiliate than they would actually listing stuff that was truly cheap. Slickdeals.net is an easy to read, easy to use website with a design that helps you cut through all the stuff you don't want to buy. Slickdeals is also much less bloated and posts only the best of deals. Of course Gotapex is still useful for the casual everyday coupons and "OK" deals on stuff you must buy ASAP.
11. Craigslist.org - I don't even know how to explain this site. It's errr...it's an EVERYTHING online classified ads. On Craigslist, you can find: a roommate, a used TV, free furniture, a job, a part-time job, a 1-day job, a hooker, a poem to read, advice on getting rid of ants in your house, a new carpool buddy, and more. I really don't know how to say it...if you haven't heard of Craigslist....just see it for yourself. Craigslist.org/Craigslist.com also works well for killing time and site loads very quick without a whole bunch of silly ads.
12. MySpace - Yes...a site more known for showing underage kids dressing up like prostitutes, EMO kids, and other people desperately trying to establish their own identity (by attaching pasting MTV-made labels all over their site). From a more grown-up point of view. It's a great way to keep in touch with people without having to remember things like phone numbers, emails, or having to give that information out. Myspace makes it easier for me to connect with old friends, new friends, talk to friends of friends, all without the awkward request for their information. Myspace
makes it easy for me see what's going on with my friends without having to waste time talking to other people about it. I can easily go to someone's page and BLAM! - I know right away, if they've gained any weight, got smarter, still have a life, still going to school or got a job, whether or not they're single or if their sexual orientation finally went the other way and etc. As much spam as myspace gets, their spam filters and user sign-up policy STILL BEATS MY YAHOO EMAIL ACCOUNT SPAM FILTERS...therefore, I will have to pick myspace as the superior method of staying in contact with people personally.
13. AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) - Yes, it has an annoying ad but the features are still there. There's nice tabbed windows now and a much prettier interface. AIM is the standard chat tool that I use to keep in touch with my friends and it's a great way to leave messages for someone without having to waste cellphone minutes or sending an email and wondering if they ever got it.
14. NOTEPAD - Notepad beats Microsoft Word. Why? Because it loads so much faster and takes less space. Notepad works well for simple fast notes like when you're on the phone and don't have post-it notes or just want to make mental notes to yourself all the time and need something that opens and closes quickly. I also use Notepad to edit a ton of web-documents like html files or .htaccess files or those darn .nfo files that always come with torrent downloads. Lets not forget the billion other uses for Notepad like testing to see if your printer works opening up weird documents to see if you can edit some values, writing batch files or scripts for network drive mapping or other automatic functions. Notepad is fast, easy, small, and works on any computer without the need for a compatibility pack. Hell, I'm writing this on Notepad right now!
15. Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006 - So much faster and easier to use than Googlemaps especially if you have multiple route points. The map is also much faster and more responsive since it is a program that runs on your computer instead of over the internet from Google's website. Great for printing directions with a ton of options to choose from. Even if you don't drive alot, it's still a very useful and cool program to have.
16. SigAlert.com - I have to use this site everyday before I leave my house because I live in Los Angeles. One of the cities with the worst traffic in the world. SigAlert tells me where the accidents are and what freeways to avoid. Think of it as your crystal ball guiding you and telling you which highways to use to get to your next
destination.
17. WebCalendar - Excellent, easy-to-use web application that allows our company to stay up-to-date on our own lives as well as each others. WebCalendar makes shared calendars easy without the cost and time to setup Microsoft Exchange. It simply works with a ton of customizable options and features to make users of all levels happy.
18. Wireless technology - Yes, I know wireless networking has been around for a while. My point is, lately it's become much more reliable, secure, and user friendly. I now have faith in wireless networks at truly long distances to work comfortably and not worry about the signal going out. I recommend it to many of my clients and don't mind the extra work setting up wireless brings me.
19. Dual monitors - Here's the rundown. Either you get smaller lcd monitors or one big one. Why are dual monitors superior? Easy. 1st off, 2 monitors means you get two desktops, so when you maximize a window, it automatically resizes only to fit the scren it's closest to; this is MUCH better than have one big screen and then having to constantly re-size everything to only fit on one window. Dual monitors is also much cheaper. A 20 inch Dell widescreen will only cost you $220 making 2 of them only about $440. On the other hand, a 24 inch Dell widescreen lcd monitor will cost you $600 if you get it cheap. Having dual monitors is also more space than a single widescreen allowing you to have full-width windows or like a movie on one while you chat or do work on the other. I don't know why more people don't spend a little extra money for a second monitor; imagine how much time you save not having to constantly minimize and re-select windows from the taskbar. It's a big time-saver. My only argument for getting the single bigscreen lcd is if you play games and watch movies a lot in which case it might be more enjoyable to have a single big screen.
20. Mouses with back and forward buttons - You can see my positive review for the Logitech MX518 here. The whole idea is people are always clicking around on their computer. Most of the time, you're clicking back and forth going through folders or going through websites on the internet. Why not buy a mouse that saves you tons of time by giving you extra buttons so you don't have to keep wasting time by moving your cursor up to the "back" and "forward" buttons on the screen. The mouse buttons are programmable to automatically open up programs, switch through windows, increase/decrease volume, close windows, etc. No more dragging the cursor all over the screen, you now just click the buttons on your mouse! Wow, what a time-saver! Just do it, I promise you'll smack your forehead wondering why you didn't think of that sooner.
Sites that have fallen off my top 10 list:
Ebay - this online garage sale-equivalent use to be so cool. I could find anything on this site and look at hilarious junk that people would sell on eBay if even just to
make a quick penny. Years have gone by and eBay has raised their fees and added so many options that the average internet user just doesn't have time to learn how to use. Gallery fees, photo fees, subtitle fees, bold title fees, buy-it-now, reserve, 1st category, 2nd category, listing time, store or auction, ....#@$#$$# ----- nobody has time to learn how to read all this! I only know it because I use to be an ebay whore and only had to learn about the new features along the way. Nowadays, it's so hard to sell stuff on ebay - and expensive too. eBay hasn't just been difficult for the sellers, it's been difficult for the buyers too. It is now officially cheaper to buy most products from another online retailer store than to buy from eBay and most people can get a much better deal shopping around on www.pricegrabber.com or www.dealtime.com and get the item right away instead of waiting a week to see if you "won". Oh yea, I forgot to mention the high shipping prices that eBay sellers put on their auctions. C'mon...it's maddening to win an auction for a DVD at $0.01 cent only to find out the shipping was $24.95! @#$#@$! There's just no more excitement suspense in winning an eBay auction anymore.
Friendster - This use to be the best social-networking site on the West Coast but
myspace came out with customizable profiles and Friendster missed the boat (and missed out on the chance to become the 5 most visited website in the world according to www.alexa.com).
I'll be making a list shortly about the best 10 website bookmarks to have for a web-designer.
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