Tech Products I Use Every Day and Love

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington recently wrote a post about the various technologies he uses every day and loves. I really like reading posts like that, partially because I often come across good ideas that I hadn't thought of and partially because it is just really interesting to me in a voyeuristic way.

I thought I might do the same here -- list out the applications and gear I really use and love. If you have other stuff that you really like, please leave it in the comments section. We all learn a lot from each other that way.

Mozilla Firefox

Still my browser of choice, though Chrome is coming on strong. Firefox, for me, is all about the add-ons (the additional functionality and customization you can wring out of your browser by downloading small add-on programs). Going through all the add-ons I really like for Firefox is material for another blog post of its own. For now, though, I will say that the one thing stopping me from defecting from Firefox to Chrome is Roboform. Since Roboform for Chrome is now in alpha testing, I'm not Firefox will make next year's list.

Evernote

Calling it a note-taking app doesn't do it justice. Evernote is my go-to app for stashing all of the digital information that passes through my little world. Itinerary for upcoming trip to St. Martin? Evernote. Powerpoint deck for my presentation to our Board of Governors? Evernote. Research for TECHSHOW presentation? You get the idea.

Remember the Milk

You might get the idea based on my love of Evernote that I am an organized person. You'd be wrong. I need all the organizational help I can get, and Remember the Milk is the task list application that helps keep me on track. It's got a nice app for my Droid as well as for my dearly departed iPhone and Blackberry. I need to stop changing mobile phones so often, apparently. Anyway, Remember the Milk is a task app on steroids. It can integrate with your calendar, provide an RSS feed of your tasks, allow you to email in new tasks, etc, etc. Good stuff.

Hootsuite/Tweetdeck

I follow too many people on Twitter (and Facebook) to not use some sort of interface to keep it organized. (Are you sensing a theme emerging that I need help staying organized?) Hootsuite and Tweetdeck help me harness the power of Twitter lists and I use one or the other almost every day.

SugarSync

I have a basic need for data backup: it must work automatically without me ever needing to think of it. There are a lot of options out there in the world of online backup and if I was looking today I'd probably look pretty hard at Carbonite. But SugarSync has been flawless for the year I have been using it. I can use it to back up my home machine and certain files on my work machine; I can share folders and documents with it; I use it to back up my music so I can stream my music from it. It's not the cheapest game in town, but it works well and I have been very pleased.

Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn

I hope we are getting past the point where there is debate as to whether there is any "there" there in social media. I am finding that these three services have combined to take the place of email and comprise a huge portion of my digital interaction. I still use email but it is typically now for notifications and other one-off communications. Ongoing conversations with contacts tend to occur through Facebook and Twitter, and to a lesser extent, LinkedIn.

Android

I have had a tortured mobile phone existence. Basically, I am an Apple fanboy but I can not stomach AT&T's anemic service and I am unwilling to carry two phones. I started with a Blackberry, moved to a Palm Pre, an iPhone and now a Droid. Yes, that all occurred in 2009. I know, it's a sickness. Along the way, it has become clear to me how much I rely on my smartphone. I am often on the road and away from my desk and my smartphone has become essential. The Android operating system is not as polished as the iPhone, but I am willing to put up with the downgrade to use the Verizon network. Truthfully, if I hadn't gone straight from the iPhone to the Droid, I'd probably be doing backflips about how great a phone it is; as it is, I would give it a solid B+ and I am optimistic about the new Android 2.1.

Skype

I use Skype everyday. It's a great service and can be a really money saver and a great way to do remote meetings.

Chrome

As I mentioned at the top, Google Chrome is coming on fast. It is a faster, slicker browser experience and now that the PC version has extensions available to customize it, I like it a lot.

Gmail/Google Calendar/Google Reader/Google Voice/Google Docs

I won't belabor the point that I love and use all things Google. I have entrusted most of my mission critical applications to them, in whole or in part.

Squarespace

Well, a cursory look at my blog archives will reveal that I don't blog anything like everyday, but I aspire to and Squarespace is my blogging platform. I've been using Squarespace since about April last year and absolutely love it. Since switching from Wordpress (another great blogging platform) I've never looked back and never required any help that the great help team at Squarespace has not provided quickly and professionally.

There's a lot more stuff that is batting just around the edges, but the solutions listed above are my current hit list. I couldn't function with them. Hope you find something interesting or useful in there, and as I said at the top, if you have some other products you love, feel free to list them in the comments section.

Happy 2010!

Comments

[Michael Byrnes]

Out of curiosity, how do you use Remember the Milk to stay organized with mulitple projects?

[Erik Mazzone]

Hi Michael,

I use Remember the Milk in a not quite by the numbers version of Getting Things Done that seems to work for me. I create a single list in RTM for Projects and each new project goes there with it's due date, when applicable. Then I use several other context lists (Office, Home, Phone, Computer, etc) to track the next actions for each project. I also create a notebook in Evernote for each project and that becomes the repository for the project support materials.

Hope this helps. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment.

Erik