New to Me in ‘08: Web Services and Software

This is a continuation of year-end posts.  As a I said in my music post, I wanted to reflect on (in this case) programs and services that I couldn’t live without in 2008.  Some of these debuted in ‘08, while others are simply new to me.

Web Services and Software

lala–JRod and I haven’t been bashful in our adoration of this site.  There’s a reason: this is an amazing service for music lovers.  DRM-free MP3 downloads (note to non-techies: that means you can burn, share, trade, etc at will) for $.89 (paging $.99 iTunes Music Store…), or unlimited streams for $.10 a song.  It communicates flawlessly with iTunes, automatically loading newly-downloaded tunes into your library.  It also uses Music Mover (a free-standing program) to find the music you already own and make it available anywhere there’s a web connection.  My workday is now filled with the joyous sounds of Fleet Foxes and Sigur Ros, and I’m more productive because of it.  Amen.  (PS–as evidenced in my music post, lala also boasts a simple and great embed tool)

Mint–A great one stop shop for tracking multiple bank accounts, credit cards, and investments.  I tried a similar site (Wesabe) for a while, and ultimately brought my personal finances home to roost at Mint.  This site has improved remarkably throughout the year, adding much-needed features like the ability to customize categories of purchases, the inclusion of stocks, and student loan tracking.  I don’t know that I could live without Mint at this point.

TripIt–Another indispensable addition to my life in 2008.  Being in a long-distance relationship necessarily means lots of travel plans.  On top of that, my work requires fairly regular time on the road.  With TripIt, I simply forward every e-ticket, hotel reservation, and rental car arrangement from my email account to TripIt, and it’s automatically imported into a comprehensive itinerary that I can pull up quickly or print out for reference.  I love this site.

GoodReads–Were niche social networks a trend of 2008 or was that “like soooo 2007″ already?  In any case, I started using GoodReads in earnest in 2008 and it’s one of the few non-Facebook social networks [did anybody try that Doostang thing?] that holds my attention.  GoodReads does one thing (tracks the books you and your friends have read/are reading/want to read) and does it well with a simple interface.

WordPress–My only other blogging experience prior to Tropophilia’s launch last January was with Blogger while I studied abroad.  I found Wordpress to be a much more nimble blogging platform, and I’ve been delighted by recently-added features like an improved back-end interface.

Twitter–Certainly not new in ‘08, but I started using it in earnest a few months ago.  I enjoy Twitter, though I don’t know that I would call it an essential tool quite yet.  I expect Twitter to explode in ‘09, so maybe I’ll rely on it more in the year to come.

Indeed–Since I’ll be job hunting in ‘09, I’ve been checking out a variety of online job-search tools.  I found Indeed to be the most comprehensive while also returning the most relevant results.  Lifehacker readers similarly praised Indeed as the best job search site.  Here’s hoping that very few of you NEED a tool like this next year; if you do, Indeed is better than most.

Gmail Tasks–Very simple: a to-do list embedded in Gmail.  It’s a great interface, and I’ve used the feature religiously since its debut.

TripAdvisor–I’m late on this bandwagon, but in my search for honeymoon locales I found this site to be populated through and through with honest, detailed, and robust reviews.  I now check TripAdvisor before booking anything.

Google Chrome–Switching browsers is a huge step, since I spend many hours of the day online.  I’ve been a loyal Firefox user for a few years, and I initially tried Chrome purely out of curiosity [important side note: my work laptop is a PC but I use a Mac at home...so I'm still a loyal Firefox user half the time].  But once I made the switch, I haven’t been back.  I find Chrome to be refreshingly fast, clean, and chock full of features that you didn’t know you wanted (like the ability to drag a tab out as a separate window) but won’t be able to live without after a week. (Windows Only…for now)

Synergy–I discovered this little gem only a week ago thanks to MacHeist’s Christmas day bonanza of freeware (thank you, Jrod).  It’s a simple little app that allows you to control iTunes with keyboard shortcuts (so I can, for example, switch to the next song as I’m writing this by hitting Cntrl+F12).  Like I said, simple…but delightful.  (Mac Only)