Sites that are essential to my day

Bryan Person asks: Which 5 sites are most essential to your daily workflow?

For work, the key sites for me are:

• Gmail. Always the first one to be opened on my browser. I start and end every day with a 'mail run' but I don't have it up all the time.
• 30boxes. I usually have the mobile version loaded because the view defaults to today's activities and it's easy enough to add new events to my calendar. I only switch to the web version when I'm moving things around because the drag-and-drop feature is perfect for that.
• Google Search. I typically use the search toolbar in Firefox, and rarely does a day go by without me performing at least one search.
  
• Dictionary.com. I do a lot of writing and editing in my job, so having ready access to an online dictionary is absolutely necessary.
  
• TwitBin. For the times when I just want to clear my head, I keep TwitBin, a Firefox extension for Twitter, open on my browser.

Once I'm done with my work day, my focus shifts to sites that are more in line with my personal hobbies and interests:

• Blogger. My blogging platform of choice, simply because it's easy and I'd much rather leave the management of the whole blogging infrastructure to Google.
• Google Reader. An indispensable tool for keeping up with conversations all over the web. When I'm on the road and stuck somewhere with nothing to do, I can also fire up the browser on my Treo phone and read my feeds using the mobile version.
  

I expect to eventually reclassify Google Reader as a work-related site because I'm starting to find feeds that are directly relevant to my work -- a trend that is quite gratifying to see.

Try TwitBin

Just installed TwitBin on my home PC.

It's a Firefox extension that adds a narrow panel on the left side of your browser so you can view and post messages to Twitter.



I've only had limited use of the extension for now, so my feedback is probably way too superficial at this point. But here goes:

Last Updated: May 8, 2007 at 9.10pm

Stuff I Liked

• User name and Password. I especially like the fact that TwitBin doesn't store your user id or password on their own servers (or, at least I think they don't).
  
• Shortened Links. I really appreciate the abbreviated links. They make for a much better use of space.
• Adjustable Width. I like keeping the TwitBin panel really narrow, so I'm glad I had the option to adjust the width.
• Character Countdown. TwitBin now has a character countdown so you know when you're almost at 140 characters. It also stops you from entering more characters when you've hit 140, so there's no danger of going over [added May 8]
• Open in new Tab. I'm so used to right-clicking on links and opening them as new tabs on my current browser window. I'd like to be able to do that in TwitBin too. The updated TwitBin opens links only in the active tab in Firefox v2.0. Not exactly a new tab, but this is a good step in the right direction. [added May 8]
  

Stuff I'd Like to See

• Position Preference. I'd actually prefer having TwitBin run down the right side of my browser window, instead of the left. I consider the left side "prime real estate" and would rather reserve that for whatever site I'm visiting.
• Image Suppression. I'd like an option that lets me completely suppress the display of avatars. Considering the limited (narrow) space, and the fact that avatar sizes are scaled down anyway in TwitBin, I'd rather use all that space for tweets.
• Direct Messages. I'd like to view direct messages, or at least get a notification that a new direct message has come in.
  

Overall, I definitely like. Kudos to the folks at infinimedia for coming up with this baby.

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Addendum: If you're like me, you may have some trouble figuring out how to launch TwitBin for the first time, after you install the extension and restart Firefox.



You'll find that a new TwitBin icon has been added to your Firefox Navigation toolbar, inserted discreetly just before the URL field. Clicking on the icon toggles the TwitBin extension on and off.