...Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

I've been meaning to assemble this list for some time, but John's list over at really got me motivated.

What follows is a few of the web services and applications I've been using lately. If you want a rant about how the internet is new again and the world is fresh and exciting and everything's coming up Milhouse, google it, I don't have the energy. Just know I believe it and that this stuff is the proof.
(Actually, go read for the rant, she gets it right.).

Web Services/Apps

Social this and social that. Wake me when I care. I was a little worried the social aggreagate sites were going to pass me by! They just seemed like really good, but half-baked ideas and I couldn't get excited about them. Then came Furl. Furl is a fully realized, richly featured social bookmark service. Just ebout every feature I could want (except explicit XFN support) is in here. I'm even using it to manage all the links in my sidebar! Check out my Furl archive. It's free, it's clean, and it buries deli.cio.us, citeulike, and blogmarks. To be fair, I haven't tried out , , , , , , , or . Jesus, who has the time? Or the need? Get .
It may be old news, but it's still the best solution for multi-platform instant messaging on the PC.
From , makers of , comes Backpack -- a sort of project-manager-lite for the rest of us. I just signed up today so the test drive has been theoretical so far, but I'm really digging it and I can see already how much it will help me in the future.
I hope by now that anyone reading this page has a Flickr account. If not, you may not be geeky enough to truly appreciate what a intlligent and ultimately world-changing application it is. So take my word for it. And check out my photostream.
Tout la rage, and with good reason. The switch to satellite view still blows my mind every time.
+ plugins
Recently picked up Movable Type and transferred this here blog into it. I'm experimenting these days with plugins and includes and trying my best to keep up with the enthusiast community. Very cool, extensible stuff.
There is no better webmail interface. It's such a shame to receive my Gmail through Thunderbird, that sometimes I don't. I hit up the web interface instead.
Now to just find some friends or coworker's who'll Skype with me...
Formerly called MyIE2, Maxthon is a web browser with all the bells and whistles, an open plugin structure, and the pioneer of the Super drag and Go feature. And all this before Firefox. Why didn't it catch on? Because it uses the IE rendering engine and is therefore part of the corporate machine. On the other hand, if you happen to be a web developer, you need this. Stop using IE.
Just a little teeny Windows color picker that I've been using for about five years. I love it, though.

Firefox Extensions

Sorta like the Web Developer extension's Outline Block Level Elements feature on steroids. Start Aardvark and glide your mouse around the page as it highlights and displays detials for each element.
Auto-populates the address bar with bookmarks in addition to history as you type. Smart.
I've tried all the bookmark sync extensions, they're not there yet. This is as close as it gets. Export and update your bookmarks to a chosen IE Favorites folder either manually or on Firefox shutdown.
Customizable weather reports in your status bar and a link to your local weather.
Just a little dropdown with Furl tools and links. Handy, though.
Inspect document elements with this DOM inspeector.
A very solid JavaScript debugger a la the Netscape console.
Initiate a downlad of any file given the URL.
A must for anyone experimenting with Ajax.
Drag tabs to rearrange. A small thing, but I can't live with out it.
This is awesome for editing code and markup in a CMS or in a forum. I'm using it now to write this freakin' huge blog post!
Simply the best built-in RSS aggregator. I keep trying to switch to Bloglines so I can have a web-based interface, but it's hard to let go.
This is sorta like Maxthon's resume session feature, and it's sorta like Firefox's Save All Bookmarks feature, but not really. In truth, this thing could be a hell of a lot more useful, but it's all we have for now.
Cannot live without. This emulate's Maxthon's Super DragAndGo feature which enable the user to: drag a link to open in a new tab, highlight and drag a URL in text to open it, highlight and drag any word in text to run a Google query.
I use this to emulate Maxthon's tab behaviors. Double click a tab to close it, double click the tab bar to open a blank tab.
Not great, but again... Too bad no one's created an extension to emulate Maxthon's Alt+Z undo close tab function.
Needs no introduction. Chris Pederick is my hero. This is the single most important extension in the suite.

May 03, 2005 6 comments

    web services, applications, plugins, freeware, firefox, extension

Comments

Hey, nice post, better than mine! :) Nice site too by the way.

I have added your link to the end of my post in a similar vain!

John Oxton

May 3, 2005 12:23 PM

Excellent! My very first compliment on the new layout and from noneother than John Oxton! Joshuaink is simply one of the most original and beautiful weblogs on the map. I could, and have, learned a few things from poking around it. Thanks, John!

jason

May 3, 2005 02:31 PM

It seems that Furl is more down than up these days. Plus, they haven't really added any new features in 6+ months. Other services, on the other hand, are up and running and have active developers. Look at Simpy's Changelog, for instance - every month a few new and useful features. Doesn't that feel more promising?

May

May 3, 2005 03:10 PM

hmm... I don't think I've experienced any downtime with Furl, but that's not to say there hasn't been some. The 'Connect' tabs in my sidebar are all being fed different categories of my Furl archive and they seem to work pretty consistantly.

As for new features, I think they've revamped their system for relating links to other links in recent months. Not sure about anything more substantial, but I can't really think of many features they lack that I would want. Again, I think a prepopulated dropdown for XFN tags or something of the like would be a nice, forward-thinking touch. I spoke with one of their developers about it recently and he seemed open to the idea, so we'll see.

I'll definately check out Simpy, though. Thanks for the input!

jason

May 3, 2005 03:18 PM

Nice post (and blog, I found it through a Technorati search) -- I feel equally cynical about "social" software, too! First of all, i've pondered that these web apps need critical mass and while there are so many contenders, it might be hard to come by. As a user you wouldn't want to invest in something that would die or even stagnate in the next six months.

Anyway, I'll file your post with its list of apps in my Simpy bookmarks (username: jkniiv). Apparently I haven't been "geeky enough" to try them all, already. Oh yes, Simpy.com is one to watch but it is also struggling with achieving critical mass. There is a constant stream of new users but it seems that after a while many of them don't bother to post new links. That's why i've been watching Furl (and even del.icio.us and others) as a more "social" alternative/addition, that is for discovering topics I'm interested in. On the other hand the NYC based Simpy developer and web master Otis Gospodnetić -- who is by the way one of the lead developers for the Jakarta Lucene text indexer and search engine -- is a really friendly chap and has still time to answer your email personally.

Best Regards,
a somewhat satisfied Simpy user from Finland.

Jarkko Kniivilä

May 5, 2005 10:06 AM

Pop trio Atomic Kitten will reform to play a concert in support of jailed Liverpool football fan Michael Shields...

Bo Lavoie

December 7, 2006 02:37 AM

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