If you are part of a large number of people in the world with a desk job or one where you work primarily at a computer, then you are probably familiar with the idea that the right tool for the right task can make a big difference. Many of us have tried tightening a screw with our fingernail or hammering a nail in with a screwdriver handle, but it’s obviously not the most efficient way of doing things. The same mentality should be applied to digital tools.

I am one of these people and each month I will be blogging about such digital tools – technologies, widgets, applications or devices that improve the quality and the ease in which we accomplish computing tasks.

Chat is not just for teenagers anymore.
Using email for quick conversation is like writing a letter to someone sitting right next to you. Maybe you really need to collaborate with your project partner, but you’re half way around the world. Or you need to converse with a colleague or client about specs on a project and you want to keep a record of what is discussed. Chat or Instant Messaging (IM) answers the call. It is fast paced communication that is perfect for digital dialogue and quick questions. Response is immediate (usually) and all contained in one window (instead of separate emails). Great for the traveling executive, telecommuter, or anywhere quick collaboration is required, the value in chatting as a communication supplement is illustrated by the myriad of available chat applications.

My Instant Messenger program of choice: Digsby
Digsby designers thought of you when they built their application. It allows you to be on all the major IM networks at one time (AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, etc). Also, it keeps tabs on all your email addresses from one place and gives you notifications as soon as you receive new emails (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL, even IMAP and POP accounts). And for those of you that are on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn) – They’ve got that covered as well. All in one application!
It fits so well into my daily communications that I now take it for granted.

However, with the recent introduction of Google Wave – all bets are off.  Wave is a brave new frontier of collaborative communication- a means of conducting and managing group discussions as living documents.  The initial implementation already appears to be full of powerful features for capturing, versioning, splitting, sharing, extracting, and extending conversations with new levels of digital organization and flexibility.

Until next month this is Thomas Rye on the hunt for my next technology, widget, application, or device to make our digital lives easier and more productive.

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Tags: and Devices, Applications, Productive Technologies, Widgets

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 9:26 am and is filed under Communication, Uncategorized, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.