Stuff that makes my life easier

The first three weeks of the year have been big ones for technology. You’ve had movements at Google and Apple that not only make the business pages but regular news too. In Australia, Yahoo 7 got onto the group buying phenomen with the pruchase of Spreets for $40 million, reportedly upfront too. Even the Good Weekend, the bastion of inner city sensibility, has a lead article on what Twitter is (like you didn’t know…..)

Anyway, further on from my predictions, I’m going to run through technologies that make my life easier right now. I’m currently reading a book about the modernisation of the United States between 1870 and 1920 and reading on the technologies put in place to make things more efficient – nationalisation of companies, cinema, railroads, and the like. Reading it makes me think about the things that make my life easier, especially in a ever more cluttered world of everything.

1. Skype version 5. The bomb. You can now not only do video teleconfrencing but with the new mobile application, take advantage of your phone camera to have a video chat either through wireless or on the 3G network. Good move Skype and great for productivity. Also, Skype Credit is the way to talk to people overseas (especially when calling the office in New York a lot). Seriously, awesome.

2. Harvest. The time tracking tool we use to manage our time, review internally as well as show to clients. Well worth using.

3. Basecamp. Coming up to 5 years now but it still preforms. The simple form project management tool.

4. Pixelmator. You can buy Photoshop for a lot of money, or this product for 30 odd bucks from the new Apple App Store (that’s a good development too, but not a lot on there that is that interesting and / or productive….unless you want to download midly 90s retro games).

5. HDR images on the iPhone 4 camera. Who needs a scanner. Seriously. Just take a photo from a good angle and you’ve got it.

6. The democratic music player in the office. Brian installed this last week and wow this has made life good. You all get access to the library, request songs, get them to play in order. Looking forward to the new music wars of the office.

7. Flipboard. Great idea for the iPad or other tablets. A social magazine of your live and feeds. So good. Just bring in some decent designs to your incoming alerts and you have an enjoyable read.

8. ABC iView. Watching the Daily Show in bed on your tablet, gold. The application has some major User Interface issues but the content is top notch.

9. Apple TV. Jury out on this but playing music from your phone on your TV when people are over for dinner is pretty cool, except for the imagery that accompanies it that makes you feel you’re in a seeding karaoke bar. When I used flickr to type in a search for my suburb “North Melbourne” I saw more animals (presumably from the zoo) and a wall with “FUCK” written on it. Nice.

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