5 Productivity tools I can’t live without (and you shouldn’t either)
The news that social bookmarking king Delicious might get shunned yesterday really made me (and others) value it even more. While there are alternatives, they’re not quite ‘Delicious’. That got me thinking about other tools I use that I can’t see myself without. Here they are:
Delicious
As mentioned above, it’s a the real king of social bookmarking. It was the first service that let users save, tag and search their bookmarks online. That fact that many of us have accumulated so many bookmarks since it’s inception provides infinite amount of filtered knowledge is staggering. You can have all your bookmarks online and also export them if needed.
Evernote
Started using it two years ago and it really has become my second brain as advertised. You can clip images, web pages, screenshots, save notes, clip certain paragraphs, save audio and docs. Most importantly it syncs with popular hand held devices. It’s all saved in the ‘cloud’ for you to access from anywhere there’s an internet connection.
Dropbox
If you exchange files between multiple computers then you know it’s a hassle to keep them up to date and a big time waster in doing so. Dropbox eliminates this problem, it installs a folder where you can add folders or files you want to keep synched between computers. And if you don’t have your computers at hand, you can access them through Dropbox’s website. Invaluable tool!
Xmarks
Same situation as above but with bookmarks and passwords. Suppose you get a new computer and have to transfer over all your passwords from your previous browser, pain in the butt right? Xmarks automatically synchs them to your new computer. It supports all popular browsers so no need to worry. And much like Delicious getting possibly shunned, it was also kept intact thanks to the loyal community that uses it.
Xobni
If you use Microsoft Outlook you know it’s search function is quite outdated. It’s just doesn’t cut it for people who have hundreds of thousands of emails saved. Through some nifty algorithms Xobni searches your emails for connections with the people you exchange emails with. What this does is create a very fast way to search for emails and attachments. It separates them and brings them to view for you in a very efficient manner. It’s a must have for MS Outlook power users.
