Here is a short list of my favorite apps/tools of 2009. These are things that I now use every day and find absolutely indispensable:
- Evernote: this app is amazing and is everything that I always hoped for in a to do list and more. Prior to finding this app I had all but given up on ever finding an electronic to do list/app that I liked. Well, here it is, and a lot more. You can access it on the web, in a Windows app, a Mac app, on an iPhone/Touch, or Blackberry. It synchronizes across all of these apps so you can access your to dos and other documents from anywhere, anytime. You can clip web pages to your “notebooks”, save hyperlinks, .pdf’s, you name it, it can probably do what you want or soon will. And, oh by the way, it indexes everything to make it searchable with keywords. You can even take pictures and any words that show up will be recognized. This thing is very slick; I’ve finally found the to do app I was looking for and a lot more. And I’ve dispensed with my paper to do cards! http://www.evernote.com/
- Readability: this is a “bookmarklet” app that takes any web page and strips it instantly down to a simple readable format with no ads, simple black and white, no frames, nothing to distract from just plain reading. Simple and great. http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
- Google Voice: You no longer have to switch to a new number to use Google Voice. Most of the features are available to use with your existing cell phone #. The voice mail app for Blackberry is great, and although the speech to text feature is far from perfect, it is good enough so that you get the gist of most messages. https://www.google.com/voice
- Mint/Quicken Online: Both of these were probably around before ‘09, but hey, I just found them this year. Microsoft recently discontinued its support for MS Money and is phasing it out, so I have now moved to the cloud. Both Mint and Quicken Online are free and provide a way to access all of your financial accounts conveniently in one place and track your spening. Mint is great but does not yet provide the ability to manually enter future/upcoming transactions. Quicken does allow for manual transaction entry, so I’m working in it more often. Since Quicken has now purchase Mint and Mint’s staff is basically now running the Quicken Online site, it looks like the two will merge and the best of both apps will result. There are improvements that I see as obvious, but nothing that is a fatal flaw. The convenience of accessing all accounts in one place is fantastic and makes up for the shortcomings. Mint: http://www.mint.com/ Quicken Online: http://quicken.intuit.com/
