Five Apps
that I’m totally into right now.
I’m certain that Apple will be giving these guys a run this year, but until then I’m more than happy to fork over $10/mo to have a near unlimited collection of new and old music anywhere with an Internet connection.
Oh, and without a connection I sync any music to my iPhone and listen to it offline. Lala was my go to for web music streaming before Apple picked them up. One of the best features (of lala and Rdio) is being able to discover new music through friends, critics, and other users that I follow. It has almost always delivered me interesting bands and albums better than any algorithm. Our 2010 mix was largely compiled through these discoveries.
I spend the majority of my computer time in a browser. For the past several years my browser choices were Safari on the Mac and Firefox on the PC. Today, it’s Chrome on both platforms. There are so many small features and refinements that have made this my default over Firefox & Safari. Here are the big ones.
- Speed: I’ll skip numbers and just say that Chrome feels faster in rendering pages, running javascript, and opening/closing tabs than any other browser I’ve used.
- Bookmark toolbar / syncing: Does exactly what I want it to and works across all of my PCs and Macs.
- Design: The minimalist aesthetic is one of the first things you’ll notice. Much about why I like Safari over Firefox is because its window dressings (or chrome) are much less distracting. Chrome takes this up a notch and drastically improves on tab management. Google is making a serious investment in design and it shows.
- Auto-updates: Why don’t all applications work this way? Chrome silently updates to the latest version and installs without disrupting the user. It is the best implementation of auto-update that I’ve ever used.
The quality of Chrome is what makes me think that the Chrome OS netbooks will be something to take seriously. I predict they will be a serious contender to displace Apple’s notebook market share.
Buster Benson is an impressive individual. He’s single handedly created several well-designed and uniquely useful web applications. The first one I came across this past summer is called 750 Words. It’s a private journal that encourages users to write 3 pages of text (750 words) a day. You get a daily friendly nudge of encouragement, and you get to set personal goals & repercussions for meeting or missing the larger goal of committing to writing every day for a month.
I committed to writing for the month of March. It has been a surprisingly helpful way to dump and work through my thoughts. Another fun feature for us data loving geeks: linguistic analysis on your entires. Your text is analyzed every day and findings are reported: It includes everything from Words/Minute to feeling Affectionate vs. Self-Important in your writing.
Another Benson original. You set a bunch of health goals for a month and see if you can meet them. Goals include dos and dont’s: x cups of coffee / week & y days of exercise. Like 750 Words, you also set your reward or punishment if you don’t meet these goals, but there’s also a huge social aspect to encourage you along the way. Not surprisingly, you won’t be disappointed with any lack of data visualization.
I really enjoy these subtle uses of technology to nudge us into making good behavioral changes. I think Buster is onto a new class of apps that we’ll continue to see grow.
Not exactly an application that fits with the rest of these, but this is by far the most well executed tech podcasting website / network that I’ve seen. Dan Benjamin is an extraordinary DJ / co-host / promoter / designer / programmer with exquisite taste in guests.
I first got turned onto this site when Marco Arment* was interviewed on the 5BY5 show, The Pipeline. Then I realized there was another dozen amazing interviews just on The Pipeline alone. Then I discovered that almost every show on 5BY5 is really high quality. You’ll learn something and almost certainly smile or laugh during each episode.
If you subscribe to only one podcast on the 5BY5 network make it Back To Work. I am a huge Merlin Mann fan. I’ve not only learned a ton about myself through this show, but I totally enjoyed the process while listening. Hilarious and extremely useful.
Runners Up
Here’s a few that almost made my list, but I need some more time with them.
- Pinboard.in - delicous-like bookmarking replacement (that will allow me to set private as the default!) Super fast and clean UI.
- Swackett - weather reports rethought: tells you what to wear
- New Twitter - Twitter’s latest web interface refresh. Top notch.
- Simplenote - Probably should be on the list. I use it almost everyday.
* Instapaper should be on this list, but I’ve been using it for years and I’m trying to keep my selections fresh.
