Wednesday
20Aug2008
My (Web) Tools of the Trade
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 6:34AM
This post is a followup to one that I did a while ago on My Tools of the Trade. I typically have a lot of browser tabs open - as in, 50 to 100 simultaneously. But there are some that tend to stick open for most of the time, as I use them to manage, look things up, or otherwise run my business. Here are a few of those web tools that I find useful.
- Grand Central - Grand Central manages all of my incoming phone calls, directing them to my office line, my cell phone, and sometimes even Skype for me, as well as taking messages. I like the convenience of having just a single phone number. Unfortunately, I don't like that Grand Central under Google's ownership has become moribund, and I may well switch to one of their competitors that charges just to get better service and something that's under active development.
- Cashboard - This is the tool we're using around here for time-tracking and invoicing. It works fine, and I appreciate having an OS X Dashboard widget for time tracking. But if I ever find a good, networked, affordable client-side tool, I'll probably switch; I don't like shuffling financials off to the web.
- Nagios - Not strictly a web tool, as our Nagios server is running on an old laptop behind my desk. But since I monitor it via browser, it's going on this list. Nagios is our server monitor, tracking uptime and ping times and free disk and memory and like that across a bunch of client sites. It's a bit of a pain to get set up the first time, but after you learn how it works it's fairly easy to spin up monitors for a new site.
- HopToad - I'm in the process of migrating our Rails sites from using ExceptionNotifier to using this free online service. Errors are just more manageable in a web UI than in an email interface.
- APIdock - There are a metric boatload of sites out there that offer browseable versions of the Rails and/or Ruby APIs. This is the one I'm using these days; the formatting is nice, the search is fast, and the user comments are getting useful.
- Working With Rails - I wander through here fairly frequently to see whether anyone in the Rails community has had good things to say about me. Hope springs eternal.
- github - I've got a few repositories hosted here (though our client-based work is on a private git server). I may still have a SourceForge account as well, but I don't use it any more.
- Google Analytics - I've seen better analytics, but Google's are pretty good, and the price is right. Plus, it ties into the work I've done on the google_analytics plugin.
- No Kahuna - Task tracking that's simple enough to use with any client, even ones who would be overwhelmed by a traditional issue-tracking application.
- Hiveminder - We're using this for shared task and assignment management for Web Worker Daily. It fills the need, though I think there's room for a better tool.
Reader Comments (6)
Hey there. Nice list! I found using a program like Fluidapp.com to be of great help with the tab-iritis. Prism is a similar program from Mozilla (for other operating systems). They keeps those permanent tabs out of the browser,
[...] My (Web) Tools of the Trade (Mike Gunderloy) [...]
Yo Mike, thanks for the Cashboard mention.
Hopefully our planned improvements and innovations will be enough to keep earning your business. I've got some ideas that should blur the 'online/offline' experience. ;)
- seth
[...] My (Web) Tools of the Trade [...]
Suprised to see Nagios on the list. It is a great program but I didn't realize anyone else used it :)
We also use http://www.myintervals.com" title="Intervals" rel="nofollow">Intervals for our time tracking and task management. Our needs are a little more comprehensive than what most siloed apps can provide. It's nice to have it all in once place.
[...] of these days I’ll update my entry about the various web applications that I use constantly, but this one is already long enough. In [...]