Time to write my top technology tools in 2013!

As I did last year, this year also I have split my technology tools into a few sections. I have also introduced a new section called ‘Discovery Of The Year’. Hope you enjoy it.

Discovery Of The Year – Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is a small chip that can perform many of the simple tasks that a basic computer can do.

RaspberryPi

Got a chance to play around with this this year and fell in love with it. Have three of these now.

Just connect them to your TV and have a wireless keyboard and you can do wonders with your TV (provided you have wireless internet access).

Highly recommend getting this for your kids as the first technology hardware tool to play around with – how cool is it for your kid to be able to build his or her computer from scratch?

There are many more amazing things that can be done with Pi – especially in a business environment.

Hence the Pi becomes my favorite technology tool of this year 2013.

Click the ‘Read More’ link below to find out about the other technology tools I loved to use in 2013.

Hardware:

  1. Samsung Galaxy Note: Note has replaced Blackberry as my primary hardware of choice.  The Swype feature in this Android phone, where I do not type on the keyboard any more and just move my finger around, is the best thing that happened to me in technology world in 2013!
  2. HP Envy: HP Envy with the touch screen has replaced both the Netbook and the iPad. This helps me with my Office needs (document writing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc) and also turns into a tablet when needed.

Extremely happy with the hardware choices at this point in time. It has been a long search for a useful hardware set to suit my needs – it has now come down to just two devices required to accomplish it.

Software:

Putty and Freemind have now been added to my list of favorite software.

  1. Chrome: This continues to be my browser of choice.
  2. WordPress: This is the best online Content Management System that I am aware of.
  3. Open Office: A must have for any one interested in communicating!
  4. PHPBB: This is still my preferred Document Management System of choice.
  5. Putty: This is a simple tool which enables easy access to all our servers instantly. (Still searching for a android version for this!)
  6. Freemind: This is a mind mapping tool that helps me jot down all my ideas in a visually pleasing manner and also publish them online.

External Social Media Sites:

  1. Facebook: Facebook is one of the best online marketing tools available today – just that its power has not been exploited to the fullest.
  2. Twitter: This is an excellent medium in conjunction with Facebook for business marketing needs.
  3. YouTube: Though I use it extensive, I am yet to make use of its full potential. Something to think about in 2013.

I have still not fallen in love with Instagram, Pintrest and Google Plus. Hope to see it mature in 2014.

External Websites:

  1. TED: This site has the best short videos that are quite inspirational. I made it a point to watch one video each day and it gives me the right dose of inspiration every morning.
  2. Seth Godin: This guy is amazing. He writes one blog post each day on marketing related topics, but most of his writings are about how to do your business right – common sense, which has been long forgotten 🙂 .
  3. Webmasterworld: This site is amazing for the simple fact that its entire content is posted by webmasters who are subject matter experts. It has the most useful material for webmasters online.
  4. Join.me: This useful site allows people to view other people’s screens easily without having to share passwords.
  5. Learnable: This site is an amazing place for technology related books.

Based on my thought process, I am predicting that the following tools might become a part of my necessity list in 2014:

  1. Android based apps: As these apps mature, my dependency on using the laptop for certain tasks (eg. Join.me, Putty, Mindmap, etc) should reduce. If any one of you know of good alternatives to the ones I use from a PC, please let me know.
  2. Mobile Application Development Tools: New tools like PhoneGap and Sencha are making iOS, Android and Blackberry custom coding irrelevant. Hope this will mature in 2014 so that we can standardize on one of these.
  3. SMS: This was originally planned for 2013, but I have not been able to tap into the full power of this tool. Will keep this as a high priority item for 2014.
  4. Arduino: I liked this in 2012, but did not follow up with it. Time to give more thoughts into this.
  5. Google Chromecast: This is a new entrant into the market for web enabling TVs – so hope to play around with this in 2014 to see how it compares to the others in the same field.

Nice to know I have been doing this from 2010. If you are interested in knowing how it has evolved you can see how it has changed from 2010 to 2011 to 2012 to now.

What are your technology tools of choice?

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