Top 10 Windows Software, May 15 2005

Textmonkey

I check out a lot of software in a week. Not as much as I could, but probably more than I should. A few months back I set up a list of my favourites, but I recently realised I haven’t updated the list that much. So to force myself to do so, I thought I would try to write a weekly post updating the software I used most frequently, or which I am most impressed with. The software needn’t necessarily be new, just stuff that works and continues to work for me. I’m not going to include the obvious, such as Firefox. (For now this is just for Windows, but I’ll try to do something for Macs once I’m reunited with my Mac.)

Here’s this week’s top 10:

Text Monkey
Easily clean copied text. Don’t understand how other people survive without this.
Skype
How did we ever manage without it? Cheap phone calls, quality conversations with other Skype users.
MyInfo
Into its third version, and despite some teething troubles a remarkable vision of where freeform databases could go.
Stick
Some folk I know well swear by this little thing. Post-It note-like tabs to store text, folders etc that cling to the edge of your screen.
Anagram
Still an important part of my day, taking people’s email signatures and turning them into something my PIM can understand
Trillian IM Client
Yes, I know there are others, but I love this IM aggregator. Gathers all your instant messaging accounts in one window.
HotRecorder
Excellent way to record Skype conversations. Great way to label and store old conversations too.
ActiveWords
Even if you only use 10% of its features, you’re still ahead. A way to access everything without ever leaving the keyboard.
TaskTracker
Lists recent documents by type for easy access. It should be higher but I’ve noticed more recent versions seem to suck up resources more than the earlier one.
MessageTag
Some people hate the idea of having someone know when they open someone’s email, but the complaints have been few and far between, and it saves me a lot of sitting around and wondering.

As ever, I’d love to hear love to hear from people who disagree, agree, or just have more suggestions.

14 thoughts on “Top 10 Windows Software, May 15 2005”

Tom Raftery May 16, 2005

Hey Jeremy,

I’m Mac based and the apps I use most are:
Mail
Skype
Firefox (no surprises so far!)
TextWrangler
NetNewsWire (you didn’t have an RSS aggregator in your list I noticed. Any reason?)
Chicken of the VNC (OS X VNC client)
iTunes
iPhoto
Terminal and
FileMaker

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JW May 16, 2005

I’ve still not settled on any one newsreader for Windows. This despite a lively discussion on the best newsreader at my attempt at a list of the best here: http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/a_directory_of_.html

I want something that is flexible enough to pack a good long list of feeds in the left hand pane, and customizable enough to make the viewer pane look the way I want it. SharpReader is perhaps the best, but it doesn’t quite cut it for me.

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JW May 16, 2005

A friend just wrote me to say they love BlogJet and MindManager. I agree both are good, but BlogJet still has problems with lots of error messages in posting to TypePad (and I’m afraid it’s not enough to say the problems lie with the host, not the software. It either works or it doesn’t.)

MindManager is excellent, but I’m still not convinced that mindmaps should be done on a computer. To me they’re more powerful when they’re hand drawn.

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Kahlil May 17, 2005

Text Monkey is a winner.

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ernesto armendariz May 18, 2005

I did try HotRecorder. It’s really superb.
The quality of the recorded Skype calls is outstanding.
I have the paid version and it allows you to podcast.
Amazing tool!

Ernesto

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ron mercury May 18, 2005

I applaude your choice of HotRecorder as one of the 10 top software.
HotRecorder is a fabulous VoIP recorder. I’ve tried it with Skype and managed to record multi-party conversations with outstanding quality.
It is also suitable for Skype Podcasting.
Excellent software.
Highly recommended.

Regards!

Ron

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pieman June 8, 2005

Agree with Tom on NetNewsWire, Skype and Mail for Macs. Ecto – http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/ – is an excellent blog writing tool which by rights should be integrated into the next version of Safari or Mail. I also really like Audiorecorder – http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17392 – which is a tiny MP3 recorder perfect for interviews when I have my powerbook with me.

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Steve February 8, 2007

Good call on Activewords…I love program launchers, but you should look into Keybreeze. I think it looks better than Activewords, it takes up a smaller amount of space, and has twice as many features.

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