Best-of | Mitchelaneous

Best of November 2008

Comments · December 1, 2008 at 4:00 am · Odds & Ends

Time to take a look back of the best of the best Mitchelaneous.com had to offer in November. Did you favorite story make the cut? I have tons of geek candy here for you to enjoy…

Happy to deliver on a weekly basis. As we round out the year, hopefully December will be an even bigger and better month for getting your geek on here.

Bonus: Check out podcast #173 of the Web Hosting Show, my web development and hosting podcast side project. Totally free, and updated every week.

Top Web Apps Mitch Actually Uses

Comments (1) · November 24, 2008 at 6:18 am · Online Tools

lilcoloredmitch I am like a kid in a candy store when it comes to new tools and applications out there. I love to try them all. When push comes to shove though, only a few survive the cut as far as making it to the list of applications I actually use day to day.

Google Calendar - It might not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but boy does she know how to get down with her bad self. Google Calendar has never won points for beauty, but is more functional than anything else out there today. I use this one for just about every date reminder there is, from invoice due dates to birthdays.

MooURL - I probably could close my eyes and pick a link shortener out of a hat and come out with a winner. I won’t lie, I like MooURL.com just because the name makes me giggle.

Gmail - My e-mail situation is kind of oddly setup. I have all my external POP3 e-mail accounts plugged into Gmail, and then connect from Gmail to Thunderbird via IMAP. This way I can easily access my mail via the web or desktop, and a few other perks such as double spam filtering (counting what the server side Spam Assassin does, then put Gmail’s spam filtering on top of that).

Google Docs - Google Docs is one thing I just started using again, not too long ago. I needed to have a few documents easily accessible to me, no mater where I was - and Google Docs made that an easy thing to do.

Instapaper - This awesome site replaced my “read later” bookmark folder in Firefox. Using a simple bookmarklet, you can save any link to read later and the site itself gives you a neat list of links and the ability to “skip” (mark it read) or to mark the link unread. Very simple, and because of that, very effective.

Ping.fm - I use this web site to socialize myself. I can post a message out to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and every other social network under the sun in one go. Great for promoting your work, or just to say hello on all the social networking sites out there.

Google Notebook - This I use a little differently than most. I store a lot of the information from work on this site, such as FAQ’s and hard to find information. That way I have it all in one spot (and it is searchable).

Google Reader - Boy, this is turning into an “I love Google” list, isn’t it? The reason I use Google Reader for all my RSS reading is due to the fact that I can make it “wide view” very easily, and all I need to do to browse the news is scroll down. Don’t need much else for news reading.

I’m always looking for something new to add to the list. I think the major problem is there isn’t anybody doing anything drastically new or different. It is just the different spin on the same idea (no mater what that idea might be). However, I could just be a picky person.

9 Google Reader Add-ons for Firefox

Comments · November 3, 2008 at 9:21 am · Online Tools, Software Help

google-reader

Looking for an easy way to get through your Monday morning feeds? Use these add-ons for Firefox, mix them up with Google Reader and then recover the rest of your morning.

Google Reader Notifier - This shows you how many unread items you have in your Google Reader account.
Google Reader Watcher - Afraid your updates are getting away from you? Google Reader Watcher will check your Google Reader for unread news.
feedly - Feedly is a new kind of RSS start page which weaves Google Reader, Digg and Delicious into a more fun, magazine-like user experience.
Better GReader - Preview web pages inline in Google Reader, collapse the header and sidebar for more reading area, get a Mac OS X like skin, add favicons to feed subscriptions and more with Better GReader.
Shareaholic - Shareaholic allows you to quickly share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via a very wide array of your favorite web 2.0 social networking & bookmarking sites such as Google Reader!
IntenseDebate in Google Reader - Add IntenseDebate comments to Google Reader.
Google Reader Toolkit - Adds a few more browser utilities for use with Google Reader.
Integrated GMail - Allows you to make the Inbox Collapsible and loads your choice of Google Calendar, Reader, Notebook, Groups etc… seamlessly into the gmail interface. Works w/Google Apps Accounts.
gReader Comments - gReader Comments is a Greasemonkey script-turned-extension for Firefox that brings all Disqus conversations into Google Reader.

Know of anymore good ones? How have you super-charged Google Reader? Be sure to share!

Need Some Halloween Wallpaper?

Comments · October 22, 2008 at 5:43 am · Desktop, Wallpaper

Well, now that my birthday is over with - time for my second favorite holiday in October, Halloween! To help you get in the spirit - I have found some of my favorite Halloween wallpaper out there today. Now, just to find enough PCs around here to use ‘em all.