HeyBrett

OK, so my day job running a web/software company keeps me glued to my laptop. I often have over 40 tabs open at any one time. It made me think that I ought to share the apps I love and use daily. It's almost sick when I think about all of these, but heck, it's what I do. And yes "dev and IT guys at my company", we have tools in Biz Dev/Marketing too.

• Gmail - Love it and wish I could convince my IT guys to run our corporate mail through it. :) http://mail.google.com | @google
• Google Docs - I use it instead of MSWord more and more. Love access to all of my writings in one place and that I can share them with anyone. Also cool that you can share folders now too. http://docs.google.com | @googleapps
• Google Reader - Total addict. Love it. I scan and digest content from my favorite blogs and sites every morning and learn a lot in the process. http://reader.google.com | @googlereader
• Google Analytics - See a theme here? I give in. They got me. My company uses it to manage our site traffic. http://www.google.com/analytics | @googleanalytics
• Firefox - I ditched IE about a year ago and never looked back. My only complaint is the damn caching issue. But the add-on's rock. I shout out to one of our lead developers, John, who kept hounding me to switch. Firebug is a nifty tool that lets you highlight text and determine what CSS is going on and let's you change it in the browser to preview different ways of treating text/etc. on a web page. (I can hear you now John - yes, that tool was made for me). http://www.firefox.com | @firefox
• iTunes - Ya', I use this to org my music and sync with my iPhone all day. http://www.itunes.com | @itunesmusic
• Rhapsody - I've been using their desktop app for years to stream any music, anytime. Rather than buying song's at .99 cents, you pony up like $14 a month (which btw is smart- even if I want to cancel, i forget and it's a small amount) and stream anything you want. And it's not just a preview, but the actual full song. They now have an iPhone app and other appliances for your home so its accessible everywhere. Guess I should decide between iTunes and Rhapsody at some point.
• Posterous - Seriously, these guys are one of my favorites. It's a Guy Kawasaki venture and I am a big fan of Sachin (http://sachin.posterous.com | @agarwal ) and his team. It's DEAD simple blogging via email. As a matter of fact, I am writing this right now in Gmail, will send it to a posterous email address, and presto - my post is published and shared on twitter and facebook through their autopost feature. (i'm going to do an expanded post on this later. And guys in IT? Ya, I want posterous to power our company blog). http://www.posterous.com | @posterous
• Outlook - Of course, we use this in the office and I use it on my laptop outside of the office, but see item #1. http://www.microsoft.com/outlook | @office
• HootSuite - I was using Tweetdeck for a while, but I am really liking HootSuite. A cool little bonus? Being a web-app it provides URL click-tracking. So when we post something that references our blog, we can see how many people clicked to check it out. If you're in marketing, that's pretty cool. http://www.hootsuite.com | @hootsuite
• iPhone - I use this all the time for email, text, and social networks. I use Twitterific to post to Twitter and Facebook for iPhone (which is really slick) to stay in touch with friends. I will say again, Posterous still rules, even on my iPhone. It's new iPhone app (picposterous) basically acts as your camera and can instantly upload pics to your blog from your iPhone. Again, I can also blog through email on my iPhone too. Nuts. I can't believe I just said that. http://www.apple.com/iphone
• Basecamp - The guys at 37signals are just cool and their app has always elegantly served us. I am not involved in project work as much as working on the company, so I am not in it as much as I used to be. But our entire company and every project we work on is run through it every day. http://basecamphq.com | @37signals
• Salesforce.com - This is our company CRM and our email marketing software integrates with it. Our web site is tied to it and all leads (trial requests for our software/demo requests/support/etc.) routes into our salesforce.com account. http://www.salesforce.com | @salesforcenews
• Pandora - What can I say, I am a music addict and Pandora is my drug of choice. It should be yours too. http://www.pandora.com | @pandora_radio
• Grooveshark - ok - second drug of choice. Go try it and share music instantly with people. Spread the love. http://www.grooveshark.com | @grooveshark
• Mint - I use it to manage all of my finances. Super-slick interface/GUI and nice iPhone app for me to carry around my finances where ever I go. Their recent acquisition by Intuit makes me nervous though. Don't lose the charm of a well designed app please. :) http://www.mint.com | @mint
• Facebook - I use it, but more and more I use Twitter. Facebook for me is akin to a quick pop-in and hello to a friend now and then and see what peeps are up to in their lives. I have connected with many, many new friends, but also it has been a great experience to reconnect with old friends. http://www.facebook.com | @facebook
• Adobe Suite - Old faithful. I use it for all things creative and web dev and have since, say 1997? (was called Macromedia then I think)
• Dynect - Our partner helps us manage DNS and our application through their very cool and easy-to-use platform. If uptime is important to your business - and you happen to be any one of the companies I list in this post, you need to connect with @dyninc and specifically, the mad-cat who will set you up @kyork20
  
• Corkd - This is one of Gary V's (@garyvee) ventures and I am glad he got involved. My love of wine is a new interest that I am enthused to say has a limitless future. Thanks to the cool app ver at Corkd, you can share with others who have the same love and outlook. I am just getting started, but looking forward to it. http://www.corkd.com | @corkd
• SendLabs - Ok, a little partial here. SendLabs is my email marketing software company. We're a talented bunch and have a really cool application that let's smart and responsible marketers communicate via email to their customers and prospects. I live in SendLabs every day and we use it to communicate to our customers and prospects all the time. http://www.sendlabs.com | @sendlabs
• dishKarma - Full disclosure, this is venture company we are involved in lead by two very talented internet and food-passionate chaps (and friends @BR80 and @griffijw). The app hasnt launched yet, but stay tuned. Go to www.dishkarma.com and drop your email address in to be notified of the launch. In addition to being able to quickly share your favorite dish (main course, app, etc.) from your fav restaurants, you'll also be helping to feed the hungry. The concept will be a dish for a dish as every time you submit and contribute to the community your favs, DK will feed one person through a local food bank. Really passionate about this concept and the software will be something and I others I believe will use often to locate great eats and help a good cause at the same time. You'll be able to use it and contribute just about anywhere too, online or from your smart phone, very soon. http://www.dishkarma.com | @dishkarma

Wow. Seems like a lot, but heck, these are the tools of my trade. I think it confirms for me that being in the software world (especially web-software) is a great place to be.

What software do you use everyday to get the job done? Any recommendations?

Next time I am thinking of sharing what sites/blogs I frequent and find useful and who I find interesting on Twitter. You may or may not find this guy interesting to start.

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