TweetDeck, Prism, Jungle Disk, WordPress
TweetDeck
I tried half a dozen Twitter apps and hated them all. Twirl (ugly blue), Spaz and Alert Thingie were the last I tried. All were buggy and hard to read. Alert Thingie actually appeared with the bottom of the interface off the edge of my Mini’s screen and i couldn’t resize it! I uninstalled all of them.
Then someone recommended TweetDeck on Twitter. The white-on-black interface gives it enough contrast to be easily readable. (Why are so many apps blue?) The default is three columns: All Friends, Replies and Direct Messages. You can add, delete and rearrange columns. It’s easy to add a favorite column or organize your Twitter friends into groups. TweetDeck updates itself with a little woodpecker sound I find very enjoyable. (I love downy woodpeckers and all birds). The post field turns red when you go over 140 characters. It has several other features as well, notably URL shortening and Twit Scoop which shows you a tag cloud of what’s “buzzing”.
I’m thrilled to find this as my machines are getting old (need to replace this year). Not having a browser open all day is wonderful.
Prism
Prism is another app I use rather than have a browser open. I can place a link to any streaming video on my desktop and just click it when I want to watch. (In Firefox you can grab uStream links in Page Info). I can move it wherever i want on my screen. Best of all I can resize it. I simply cannot see a tiny video on a site or in a proprietary popout that can’t be made larger. I use this every day.
Jungle Disk
pb30 recommended Jungle Disk for online storage and it’s been great. It’s an Amazon S3 Service. The Jungle Disk software is a $20 one-time fee, then you pay for the amount of data transfer and what you store. No subscription charge. I put Jungle Disk on all of my machines. It appears as another drive and you can also access it via a web interface. I need to back up raw video, audio and image files for our business and Jungle Disk will take any file type. It was easy to install and easy to use. I’ve had no problems with it.
WordPress
This is so easy to use, I want to think of something to blog so I can come back here. I’d never blogged before and was nervous about setting it up. But now it couldn’t be simpler. Last week when I saw the 2.7.1 update saying I should backup first I got nervous. But I found WordPress Database Backup and backed up and updated without a hitch. I haunt the WordPress site for the latest themes and change several times a week. There are endless widgets and plugins to add. The Dashboard is so easy to use I put my drafts up here instead of working on them in Notepad then Word as I normally do. I love WordPress.J