I always feel a little silly writing these posts, as I’m not remotely an early adopter or a tech authority by any stretch. But I have lots of conversations with folks who are curious about what I use and why or how,  and every time I think I’ve answered the questions, someone else asks. So what the heck? If it’s helpful, here you go.

I’ll share a few of the apps I’m using lately and what I’m using them for, in hopes that you’ll find something new, or revisit something and find a new, helpful use for you. Oh and PC folks, fair warning: I’m a Mac, and some of these are specific to that OS. If PC folks will share their alternatives in the comments, you might find some gems.

Click on the application names to head over and check them out.

Evernote

Oh, how I love Evernote. It’s the online version of my Moleskine notebook (which I use more for journaling and working through ideas). I use Evernote to take meeting and conference call notes. I keep project lists for my team members in there so I know what to chat with them about during our updates. I draft blog posts there and keep fleeting post ideas as they come to me, because they’re easy to copy and paste right into the blog platform.

I use the desktop and the iPhone app, and sometimes the web version (because right now that’s the only way I can share a notebook with another person). They all sync seamlessly, and it’s free. Great app that knows what it’s for and doesn’t try to be anything else.

Things

This is my task management application. Sorry PC folks, but it’s a Mac-only thing (and I’ve yet to hear about a good alternative for PC folks…maybe someone can share some ideas in the comments). It costs $50 for the desktop app and another $10 for the iPhone app, but it’s worth it for me, because I have a big to-do list.

I love that I can tag items different ways from the main task or project buckets, and I can look at my tasks through different lenses: priority, due date, sequence, tag, project, etc. It’s flexible but really simple, and I love it more than any other task management application I’ve tried (and that’s several, including Remember The Milk and OmniFocus).

The only downside right now is that you have to have your phone and laptop on and on the same wifi network in order to sync right now, but they’re working on that as we speak, and I can’t wait.

Google Wave

I’ve found this really useful for collaboration with colleagues and project partners. The real benefit is that I don’t have to be on IM or the phone with someone at the same moment, yet it has the fluidity of that kind of conversation (vs. a more stilted and fractured email stream). I use it for discussion and conversation with small groups of people, project notes and updates, and brainstorming/knocking around ideas with folks. I’m also playing around with Waveboard, which is a desktop and iPhone Wave client that has push notifications and more.

Go read Chris Brogan’s post about how he’s using it. Mine is similar, though I can’t stand to use it for task management, and there are times when I want a more concrete doc for things. But I went through a similar adoption curve, and he said it better anyway.

If you don’t yet have an invite, either leave a comment or email me and I’ll get you one.

Picnik

Photo editing the easy way. It’s so straightforward and easy to use, and it makes editing a photo for a post so simple it’s silly. And because it’s web based, I don’t have to wait for a desktop app to load every time.  Those photo editing ones can be cumbersome memory hogs. You can pull photos from your machine, or from your Flickr, Facebook, and more. The basic app is free, and you can get more and fancier features with premium account if you want.

Delicious.com

I capture so much stuff here. Case studies. Social media resources and reference. Statistics. Supporting research and articles on topics that interest me, like social media measurement or internal social networks. I use it to keep a vanity file of people kind enough to interview or write about me. It’s a great way to build a reference file for myself, and to be able to share it with tons of other people who might find it useful, too.

Spanning Sync

I’m a Mac, and I have an iPhone. The iPhone syncs with Address Book and iCal for Mac, but I don’t use those.  I use Google Calendar and Gmail, which means lots of my contacts are housed in there. Spanning Sync lets the two pairs of apps talk to each other, syncing my contacts and calendar back and forth. It costs $25 for a year or $65 for a lifetime buy.

For the bonus round, I use MobileMe ($99) to sync my phone and laptop wirelessly over the air, instead of having to plug in and sync to my laptop.

Morning Coffee (Firefox Add-On)

This is so ridiculously simple,  and not really an app, but really helpful for me. I start my day with most of the same tabs open in Firefox: Gmail, my Radian6 login, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Wave, Facebook. Morning Coffee remembers them and pulls them all up with a single click. Call me lazy, but it helps me remember to check all my relevant stuff at the start of the day.

1Password

Have waaaay too many passwords to remember? Yep, me too. And I suck at generating really strong, unique ones for different accounts because I don’t want to remember them all. Enter 1Password, and now I’m a much better little password student.

It keeps them all for me behind a master account,  generates random ones for new accounts if I ask it to, remembers them, and fills them in with a single click.  You can also have it remember your identity profiles and even purchase or e-commerce wallets and payment info if you want and are comfortable with that.

So, let’s collaborate here, shall we? What applications are YOU using that you can’t live without these days? If you’re a PC, share your alternatives to the above, or different ones entirely? Fun and productive welcome. Let’s find some new stuff to monkey with.

image by John-Morgan

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