Mark My Words 2.2

Being a techie I tend to use a lot of tools to help me get jobs done more efficiently and effectively. These include:

• Mendeley for keeping track of research papers. Mendeley is extremely useful as it allows me to annotate the papers, make notes on them, and share collections with the world. It also allows me to follow fellow researchers, and be alerted to new research in my chosen field. Did I also mention that it is free? A great alternative to EndNote.
• Google Reader for keeping track of 150+ RSS feeds, blogs, and journals.
• Gravity for my Nokia mobile which is linked to my Twitter and Google Reader accounts so I can keep up-to-date on the move. Despite its hefty price tag, it’s definitely the best Twitter client I’ve used on the Nokia. It also included Foursquare and Facebook integration if you are that way inclined.
• Dropbox for online file synchronisation across my laptops. If you have not used Dropbox before, you really must. It also allows you to share documents with friends and family with a generous 2GB of free storage.
• VirtualBox and VMware Fusion for easy virtualisation of Windows and Linux desktops. I actually prefer the flexibility of the free VirtualBox application, but some people prefer the tighter integration that VMware Fusion provides. If you’re wondering, I use Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Ubuntu.
• Eclipse for any programming tasks I have which I combine with the Aptana Studio plugin for additional language and version control support.
• AppFresh for keeping my Mac applications up-to-date. You can find a list of all the applications I use via i use this.
• NodeXL, Gephi, and Pajek for social network analysis. I prefer the ease of use of NodeXL over the complexity of the other two products.
• Evernote and the Evernote Web Clipper for note-taking, and saving web pages and documents that I find interesting.