I haven't updated this blog in a while, so I'll post about something less technical for this time.
There are tons of "free web tools" out there. Everybody knows the tools you get on Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft Live. Also, there are tons of other tools, but after the "buzz" of trying a new tool for the first time, few of them are good enough for day-to-day use. So, here are the tools you may not know about and that I use almost every day because they're that good.
Evernote: Basically, it's an online notebook. It's "killer feature" is its ability to be able to search for words in pictures you upload in a note, but personally I don't use that. The reason I use it is because there are multiple ways to input new notes (web-based, Firefox plug-in, "clipper bookmarklet", full Mac and Windows application, mobile, iPhone app, email), and just as many way to view and edit the notes. With its full support for tagging and easy search, it can easily handle thousands of notes.
How they make money: Free accounts have a 40MB monthly upload quota that gets bumped up to 500MB for $5/month. Good if you tend to upload photos and files in notes a lot.
Remember The Milk: The short address is http://rtmilk.com. As its name suggests, this is an online "TODO" list. Pretty simple to use and has a great amount of features. You can add a "TODO" item easily by email, instant messaging, on the web or mobile web, and get reminders through a "live feed" (Atom feed), iCalendar, email, SMS and instant messaging.
How they make money: Pro version for $25/year has priority support, and applications for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and iPhone.
drop.io: A file upload service. There are tons of "file upload and sharing" services out there, but they are typically filled with ads, waiting times to download, and many other ridiculous time and size restrictions. drop.io lets you create a "drop" where you can put up to 100MB of files, and gives you a short URL that you can give to anyone to let them access the files. No obnoxious ads, no queues to download. The files stay for up to a year of inactivity, and you can upload additional files in the drop after it was created. The drop then has a ridiculous amount of options for viewing the files, including inline view of PDFs, audio files and pictures, subscription to be notified by email or "live feed" (RSS feed and podcast) whenever the drop changes, and ridiculous amounts of options for uploading, including email, web-based, voicemail (!), fax (!!), firefox plug-in (to upload entire folders), and more. And since you can always post text and links to your drop, the drop can become in a way your own blog.
How they make money: Increase the capacity of your drop for $10/1GB/year, options to sell media from the box, and an advanced "manager more" for corporate use.
tr.im: The site tinyurl is currently quite popular for use in services like Twitter as it lets you "shrink" a long URL into a smaller one. The problem? Since all its shortened URLs start with http://tinyurl.com/ (19 characters), it's already too long. Well, with http://tr.im/, you save 5 characters every time. It also has additional options to let you chose your own "shortcode" like http://tr.im/benad (try it), privacy codes like http://tr.im/h4eR-mycode (compared with http://tr.im/h4eR which won't work), and visitor statistics for each clink on your short links.
How they make money: Through other applications and services they sell that make use of tr.im, listed here: http://www.nambu.com/.
OK, that's it for now.
Published on March 5, 2009 at 14:48 EST
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