More opensource utilities

Lately, I’ve been expanding the number of opensource software I use.

First of all, I was invited to Flock (like a zillion other people, most likely). The browser is essentially a stripped-down Firefox, with different add-ons built into the browser. Actually, I’m using the Blog Tool component right now to edit this post, and it’s web 2.0 nature is kinda cool: it shows all my previous posts, lets me drag’n’drop a random bit of text and enter Technorati tags from the same editing window.

Next, I reinstalled FreeMind, so that I could graph out everything I do in a year in my job, and most importantly, how can I cut back and focus on the things that really matter in 2006. Since time is a scarce commodity, and with a growing family, I need to make sure I spend less time at work doing more meaningfull things. My current 50-60 hrs a week doesn’t make sense…

Naturally, I also installed the lastest version of OpenOffice.org (2.0), and plan on starting to use it more often. Of course, the problem is that there isn’t a native version of OS X yet, so I’m still on MS Office for the home PC. We’ll see how much mileage I get out of this.

Finally, the one I’m most excited about is probably WikidPad. I’m usually pretty anal about looks and integration into my current desktop, but I could not find something as easy and useful as thing thing: it’s a local wiki for your desktop. Now, I’d been using Stickies for a while now to keep myself reminders as we as a Lotus Notes journal database for what I needed for a longer while. But having a local wiki means I can use if for confidential things, everything sits in the same place (wiki) and it has full text search. That’s goodness and a real time-saver.