Number One

Well, I told Melody that she should start a blog so I guess that maybe I should do the same. I don't know that I'll have a whole lot to say here or how often I'll say it, but I thought I'd do it anyway.

I thought that I'd start off by talking about some of the things I use on my computer. Now, let me tell you that I'm really picky about what's on a pc that I'm using. To the point that I tend to insist that people at least try using the same things I like solely because, well, I like them so they must be good. Makes sense, right? Anyway, these are some little things that I do or use for a happy computing experience.

PortableApps Suite - Since I spend most of my computer time on a work pc I can't always install everything that I like to use. My solution to this is PortableApps run from my thumb drive. I run my browser, my IM client and all kinds of other random stuff off of here. It also comes with a little dashboard deal to make it all easy to access.

Mozilla Firefox - My browser of choice. Because I run this off of my thumb drive, I'm able to have the same settings no matter where I'm signed on. This is great since I'm so picky about stuff as I mentioned before. I sport a nice brown theme on my Fox. I've got a few add ons and extension that I consider essential that I'll mention in a bit.


Pidgin - For IMs, I use a multi-client application called Pidgin. It basically lets you use several different IM services from the same program. I run AIM, Yahoo, GTalk, MSN and MySpace IM pretty much seamlessly. You just log on to the different services as you would normally and it brings up all of your buddy lists. One problem that I do have with this is that you miss out on some of the features offered by a few clients. Overall I think it's great, especially if you're talking to people who use different clients.

That's about it for actual software I use on a regular basis. Everything else is pretty much web based or a plug in for something I'm already running. Here's a rundown of that stuff:

Gmail - Google email. Plain and simple. If you aren't using it then you should be. So many different options for sorting, filtering, storage...Just do yourself a favor and check it out. There's no reason not to.

Google Reader - An RSS feed aggregator, or feed reader. If you aren't using RSS feeds yet then you really should be. In my opinion, they will drastically streamline your web perusing. There are several out there to be had. Web based, stand alone, add ons for existing software like Outlook.

Google Calendar - Pretty self explanatory. It's a calendar utility. The plus to it is that it's web based. If you're already using something like Outlook it is easy to move all of your stuff to GCal and I'm pretty sure that you can even have the two programs sync up. Another fun feature is the ability to add appointments to GCal via text message. Great for little on the fly things that you don't want to forget.

Google Toolbar - If you haven't caught on yet, I am a big fan of all things Google. This toolbar brings that all together. You customize what buttons you want to show on your toolbar in tons of ways. I usually have buttons for Gmail, Google Maps, GCal, Google Reader and a couple of other things. It also allows you to have bookmarks across any computer that has the toolbar. Simply log on to the toolbar with your Google credentials and you've got your bookmarks. A great little tool.

Greasemonkey - An add on for Firefox that lets you change all kinds of stuff about the content you're viewing. You add scripts for Greasemonkey to run that will do all manner of things from turning plain text into links to showing full size images in MySpace and Facebook by rolling over small images with your cursor. The scripts can be found here.

IE Tab - Ok, I love Firefox, but sometimes websites just don't feel like playing along with the Fox. That's when this little beauty comes in handy. IE tab is a Firefox add on that allows you to open sites with Internet Explorer inside of Firefox. You can set it up so that certain sites will always open with IE or change the rendering engine on the fly by clicking the IE Tab button at the bottom of the browser.

There are tons of other things you can download for Firefox to make it just the way you like it. Play around with some and see what you like. Download some themes and dress up your Fox to your liking. Drop me a comment and tell me some things that you can't get by without on the computer. I'm always up for trying new things!