Wednesday, December 27, 2006

PC Magazine's Most Useful Sites

It is the end of the year and all the Best of 2007 lists are coming. PC World Magazine just published their list- The Web's Most Useful Sites. I find these articles interesting because I often stumble upon interesting apps (Gliffy, Basecamp and Writely were all added to my repertoire this way). I am also really interested in Web 2.0 and I think it is changing the face of computing, business - disruptive technology at its best. But back to the article.

I am a big fan of Remember The Milk and the article rated RTM the winner in the to-do list category.
Winner: RememberTheMilk reinvents the to-do list in a snazzy interface that lets you make lists in configurable categories, all laid out on the front page as tabs. Adding to-dos is easy, though adding deadlines, notes, and time estimates is unintuitive.

You can add to-dos using natural language such as "Call Ted next Thursday," sync with your calendar via the widely supported iCalendar format, and set tasks such as "Pay credit card bill" to recur. RememberTheMilk sends reminders through instant message, e-mail, text message, or a combination of these. You can also upload tasks via a special e-mail address that the site gives you.

It's a tremendously well-rounded free product, with neither more nor less than you need to get and stay organized.

I take a little umbrage (if you can only take some) that they gave Gmail runner up status.
But its limitations--the inability to add new folders, to open multiple messages in one window, to filter e-mail, and to right-click on anything--will surely frustrate power users.
They fail to mention tags - that which power users will love the most. I've been thinking of totally dorking out and writing a post about the obvious superiority of tags in organization. But I'll save you from that for now.

In terms of the next, new interesting application, I'm going to check out Meebo, a web based, multi protocol IM client. I've been using IM more and more for work now that I am a remote worker and one of my large projects involves a team spread across the country, both in-house and consultants. I'll let you know what I think.

The article is a long read, but I recommend it. Check it out.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has PC Magazine never heard of eBuddy???
I've been using eBuddy for ages, even before Meebo or Koolim came up with the same idea!
Congrads to Meebo, but how on earth did Koolim finish above eBuddy???

Beau said...

On first glance, eBuddy only appears to support MSN, Yahoo and AIM. Meebo also supports Jabber (Google Talk) and ICQ. That would have to push eBuddy a little lower.

Anonymous said...

Daniel, eBuddy only lets you sign into one of three services at a time. For people with multiple accounts, this is a huge limitation and the ability to log-in to multiple accounts is the prime reason to use KoolIM or Meebo. Otherwise why not just use the online app offered by MSN or AOL or whatever?

Anonymous said...

Okay, fair enough, maybe i'm just one of those people that sticks to either MSN, Yahoo or something else.

Why would people need mutliple accounts? It's not like one of my friends is on MSN and the other on Yahoo? I don't really see the point of having multi log in. But thats just me :)

Beau said...

Only within the last year did I start using IM as a communications tool and, for me, it started at work. Work was all MSN, but my friends use AIM and Jabber.

So, for me, late to the game, I've got friends using all different protocols.

I kind of view it like cell phones: if Verizon phones didn't talk to Cingular phones, I would probably have a Verizon phone, too!