How I Use It
With the rate of change taking place in online communication and productivity, it is absurdly easy to quickly fall behind the times. Each week there are new tools and services that promise to help us communicate better, be more productive, stay informed, etc.
The problem is that it is hard to figure out how to integrate all of this stuff into our lives. This morning I was reading Jason Moore’s comments on the difference in Having and Using. It made me realize that there are a bunch of us who sign up for all of these great services and tools and don’t have the time to really use them.
Sometimes I will have an aha moment with a service / tool and I will post about it here. That is because there is some value in sharing how I do it and often times I will get tips back on how other people are using it.
Do you have an Evernote account? Do you really use it? If so, could you tell me because I haven’t really integrated it into my workflow. Do you use gmail for email? Do you use it well? If not, don’t you wish you could read some real-life pointers from people like you?
There is a great site that I have used over the years for finding great new software. http://iusethis.com is a place for people to share the software that they use and the ratings give some indication of popularity. But how do you use it well? I want a site focused on sharing HOW to use software.
Not an instruction manual – a use case.
Coincidentally, http://HowIUse.it was available. So I bought it. This site could be awesome.
Does anyone know some open source software that would be a good tool for allowing people to post how they use software and allow other people to rate those postings and comment on them? Should I use wordpress? Try to get a Stack Exchange site? Use a Hot Or Not clone?
Ideally people could post text and images, link to screen casts and videos, etc. Software developers and service providers could post how they intend for their tool / service to be used.
Would you post on a site like that? Would you read it? Should it be moderated / curated or not? So many questions.
Hey, Jackson, sounds like an interesting project. I would encourage you to include features to allow users to tag entries with purpose and environment descriptors – for example, I might want to see how other libraries/librarians are using certain open source software tools.
That is a great idea Rachel.
I have seen some sites that have two types of “tags”. I could have one be for info about the software (opensource, search, catalog) and one for info about the users (librarian, researcher, archivist)
I would certainly contribute to such a site. Some of the tools I use every day:
Gmail (calendar, chat, email)
Wave (love it!)
Balsalmiq Mockups
openGoo (now Feng Office)
SugarCRM (and the iPhone app KinitoPro)
Kayako ESupoprt Suite (and the iPhone App SupportDesk)
reQall (has saved my marriage several times!)
SVN (i don’t work with any developers who do not use source control. period.)
Jim,
That would be awesome if you wanted to submit some how-tos. I have a wordpress site spun up with plugins that will let me build what we need. It is currently live at http://howiuse.it
It is a default template right now, but you can register or login via facebook and submit an article. For now the submissions are moderated, but I plan to elevate people who submit posts so that the subsequent posts are not moderated.
What is this reQall that you mention?
I use Evernote big time. It’s got all sorts of stuff, including my network password lists (the last 10 can’t repeat), names of wines I’d like to buy that I’ve tried at dinner, yard equimpent model numbers & appliance model numbers if I need to pick up a part, etc.
Jim,
How do you use notebooks in Evernote?
Would you be willing to submit a post to http://howiuse.it? I have a site spun up, but need some initial content (while I work on the UI).
You can either register for an account or login via Facebook.