This page was originally a blog post, but the more I wrote it the more I liked the idea of having running lists in a lot of areas. Some admittedly dorky, some terribly fun to use, most of it freely available or inexpensive.
Social Media - Sites & Tools
Dopplr
There are a few sites out there for travelers - and I'm certainly no poweruser analyst type on this site - but I do find it cool. I started putting business trips in there and will probably start adding family vacations and getaways soon, even if only as a way of remembering where I ate and what was fun to do.
Drupal
I used this content management system to drive this blog and a few larger sites. I think it's just awesome from a programmatic standpoint, and opensource to the core!
Facebook
Okay, so who DOESN'T have one of these accounts now, but it's worth noting its potential for fueling reunions and reconnections.
Flickr
GREAT site for sharing images. I don't generally share a lot of photos here, but I do use it to share original or otherwise publicly available graphics.
Last.fm
I haven't sync'ed in a while, but this is a great way for me to publish what I've been listening to and get recommendations based on those.
Lijit
This cool concept is a search aggregator that I can include/embed into my site. I'm not 100% fond of it - a lot of the "blackbox"-style stuff that's delivered in the widget (sorry: "wijit") can go haywire, but I just-just-just fixed some things so it works again. Ah, technology.
LinkedIn
Perhaps the single greatest self-promotion and business tool ever. Well, aside from blogs and telephones.
SubSume
Allows me to get Facebook updates t my desktop via Growl. (Sorry, Mac only!)
Twitter
Microblogging, technically speaking. But really just a great way to share little snippets about your activities and "follow" the activities of others who use the tool.
Twitterific
The easiest way I've found to get Twitter updates (tweets) to (and from!) my desktop. Free (ad-supported) or cheap, with only the occasional hiccup over at Twitter.com.
WordPress
It is not The Best out there, but it sure is easy to manage. I use this blogging engine with several sites.
Programs & Plugins
Cool Iris (formerly PicLens)
I've used this for entire presentations, presenting photos & infograms from my Flickr account live in the meeting. It makes for one beautiful presentation.
Chicken of the VNC
Funny name, totally efficient.
Coda
This is probably the most elegant coding client I've ever used, and I've used a few. Fast, feature-packed, and it has JUST the tools I use every day. Awesome.
Jabber (with iChat)
You can set up your own instant messaging service with AV capabilities...) It's what makes my mostly-telecommute situation possible.
OmniGraffle
I was a hard-core Visio user for a few years there... OmniGraffle took me back to where I really should have been - focusing on the content. It does some pretty amazing things for presentations and diagras/visuals. Now, you have a learning curbe until you get the hang of Group/Ungroup and Lock/Unlock so the software doesn't mess with all of your manual decisions, but it's very intelligent and extensible.
Services
Drop.io (DROP-ee-oh)
I use this on my subversations project now for submissions. It's insane cool and with a low-price upgrade can you FAX from it... how great is that??
Skype
When I'm trying to do a quick video chat with people outside of my company - or just phoning home while I'm on the road - I use Skype. The quality is consistently not-as-good-as a Jabber service, but acceptable.
Yugma
This is a nifty screensharing application with integrated chat and I believe an extension for Skype, though I've never used it. Great for long-distance presentations, and really best when everybody's on a Mac to use their custom client so you don't have to be browser-based at all.
Other Sites & Tools
Rob Locher's Regular Expression Tester
I know, I know... but it was a really cool find for me.
