Trying some recurring feature ideas that will maybe get some posting started. This one will highlight three programs that I have used recently, enough to get a good feel for them. For this first one I’ve picked three of my most used programs, the only other program I use as much as these is AIM, and we all know how I feel about that.
You should know about this one and if you aren’t using it then I’d be curious why. Its just a great browser, its fast and reliable. There are also tons of extensions availabe that give it all sorts of new functionality. My favorites are Bookmarks Synchronizer (saves my bookmarks online so I can get to them no matter which computer I’m on), Tab Mix Plus (adds some nice features to the tabs), and ForecastFox (weather, been using this since I haven’t found a decent weather program).
Why to use it? Tabs, Pop-Up Blocking, Fast Page Loading, Extensions
Why not? Sometimes pages don’t display correctly
I use this for all my email. Since I use IMAP, so that all my mail is sync’d on my server, this is the best option. Outlook has never handled IMAP mail well for me. Even if I was still using a POP3 account I would use this. It has a very simple interface similar to Outlook Express. It also has a junk mail filter. It does not have a calendar. I’d say if you are using Outlook Express then you should get Thunderbird since its also free. If you are using Outlook and don’t use the calendar then also check it out. I’m not a big fan of webmail, if I’m on my own system I want to have it right in front of me. I also have simple webmail if I need to get to my mail somewhere else.
Why to use it? Simple, Junk Mail Filter, Works well with IMAP
Why not? No calendar
I’ve been using this as my music player for almost 2 years now. Version 11 was just released this week. Its biggest drawback is that its not free, the new version is $40. I can’t remember what I paid for Version 10, the upgrade to 11 was only $10. The biggest draw for me was that it counted each time a song was played and it could burn discs based on those stats. It was a huge help for making MP3 CDs for my car. iTunes is the most similar looking program to this but I have never felt like iTunes gave me enough control over what I wanted to do. My iPod works perfectly with the new version so I still don’t use iTunes. It also deals with videos and pictures, neither of which I’ve really used with it.
Why to use it? Excellent Interface, Does just about everything well
Why not? Not free, Completely content with current player
[...] J. River Media Center, which I’ve talked about before, has not been playing nice with my iPod so I’m trying again (I think this is my 3rd attempt) to get iTunes to work the way I want it. My biggest problems: Last time I tried it after a week my database just disappeared from iTunes, ratings, play counts, everything just vanished. I didn’t have a backup so I was out of luck. In J. River those things are saved to the music file, nothing has happened to my database with that but if it did I would just reload all the songs and that information is there. The second issue may seem minor but was driving me nuts, when you delete a song from the library it doesn’t ask if I want it removed from the hard drive. I finally found that I had to change the setting for the iTunes Music Folder to point to the correct place and now it gives me this option. This is a really terrible way to do things but at least it works now. I was a little sacred to try it since I don’t want iTunes touching my file or folder names and so far its been good. So I restored my iPod and sync’d it to iTunes and things have been OK for nearly 24 hours. [...]