Jane Hart runs a very splendid resource, Top Tools for Learning and she invites information professionals to list their favourite top ten tools. I thought this would be a nice blogging opportunity to look back at the tools I suggested over a year ago, to see how many I would still recommend, and which - if any - have been replaced with something else.
The tools that I chose in February 2008 were:
Audacity (an audio recording piece of software)
Bloglines (RSS reader)
Firefox (web browser)
Flickr (Photograph sharing resource)
FURL (boomarking resource)
Pageflakes (home/start page resource)
PBWiki (a wiki creation package)
Slideshare (social media resource for storing and sharing presentations)
Typepad (Blogging tool)
Twitter
So, what's changed, and what remained the same?
Audacity was great, but it's slightly limited in that it's really just for voice. These days if I want to record, I prefer to narrate a screencast, and the software that I prefer for that is a nifty little thing called ScreenToaster, which is easy to setup and use.
Bloglines is not my preferred software now in the field of RSS readers - I got fed up with them messing around, technical errors, lack of information and so on. and switched to Google RSS Reader instead. I'm not overly fond of promoting Google when there's a good alternative, but the Reader has always performed really well. I've been back to Bloglines since, and it seems to have recovered well, but it's a little too late for me - I'm used to the way that Google's reader does things, and I don't want to go back and relearn something else. I think this shows the danger of loosing users - it's very hard to then get them back!
Firefox is still my preferred browser of choice and don't understand why it's not got more users in the UK than it has. It's fast, flexible, I love the add on utilities and it doesn't feel clunky in the way that IE does.
Flickr is still my photograph sharing resource. I've just paid out for another two years of use, which says all that needs to be said really. Oh, other than, if you want to look at my photographs you're more than welcome and they're at http://www.flickr.com/photos/philbradley/
FURL was my preferred option for bookmarking. However, it's now been bought out and closed down by Diigo. I moved everything across but to be honest, I've not gone back to Diigo since. I'd always used Delicious as a backup resource, and have found that I'm using that more and more now. So Delicious is currently winning out for me.
I loved Pageflakes as my home/start page, I really did. However, they were sold to some idiot who simply doesn't understand the concept behind them, and the company alienated their users by forcing advertising on pages, and then crashing for a week without even an apology when it came back online. I now recommend Netvibes instead. Just as good, better in many respects, they're going from strength to strength. This is probably the single piece of software I use most in a day since it's always the first thing that gets loaded when the browser starts. I'd happily pay to use it if necessary.
PBWiki has now turned into PBWorks. Straightfoward and easy to use. Free and paid accounts. I still use this on my courses and have no problems with it. Sure, there's plenty of other resources out there, but PBWorks is still fine by me!
Slideshare is still the first place that I put my presentations. They did have a blip on April 1st when they played a slightly illthought out prank, but everyone is entitled to a mistake now and then, and I'm still happy to use them.
Typepad as my weblog authoring tool. I've been using this product for 3 or 4 years now. Quite frankly, I don't like it that much now. They 'improved' the product by reducing functionality and making it much harder to use. I'm still with them basically because I can't cope with the idea of moving the blog again and starting from scratch. Consequently I don't feel able to recommend them. If you want a good blogging tool, it's got to be Blogger, since it's free, easy to use, flexible and does what it should do.
Twitter is the resource that I'm most surprised about, since I was singing its praises over a year ago, and predicted good things for it. If anything it's even more vital now than it was then. I've been saying for a while now that Twitter is going to end up only second to Google as the most important tool on the net *IF* they don't get themselves bought out or dramatically change what they do and how they do it.
So, that's my current top ten tools that I can't be without. Let's have a look at the overall top ten on Jane's list.
1. Twitter. Obviously.
2. Delicious. Makes perfect sense.
3. Google Reader. Still matching my choices so far!
4. Skype. I have to admit that I've never got into Skype, having always preferred email and written communications. However, it's a very good tool if you like that kind of thing!
5. PowerPoint. I sort of agree with this one, but I've taken it to the next step with Slideshare.
6. Google Search. I can see why this is valuable - I'm fascinated to see where it is in the list, but I wouldn't regard it as a tool in the same way that I have referred to the others.
7. Google Docs. A great way to store and share resources. I tend not to use this one so much, though I teach it on courses because - since I work alone - I don't have that many times when I need to share content.
8. WordPress. Well, I've gone with Blogger as you know, but as long as there's a blogging tool in the top ten I think that's important.
9 - 11 Gmail/Slideshare/SnagIT These all share the same spot. I have one of them in there, so I'm happy with that. SnagIt is a capture tool that I've not used, since I prefer Fireshot as a Firefox add on. I do agree however that some sort of screen capture device is very important.
So - that's my list; what about yours?
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