iPhone, MAC & Google apps are my nearest IT future
Why is iPhone the best organization tool for me? In my case it has a lot to do with the fact that I swapped my Windows laptop for a MAC. This radical change made me thinking what software am I going to use from now on. And this is what I came with. I swapped MS Word and Excel for Google docs. So far so good. I have been using Google docs for a some time now and I have not find a case when I would need more functionality. I can image that it would not be enough for companies where you need to use Word for example for generating templates which are then merged with the contact data from database and so on but for my daily work it is enough. Google sheets has all the basic functionality like using formulas and simple charts but it is not enough for creating complicated analyzes when you need to connect couple of documents and calculate complicated formulas long as your screen width. But again, for daily work it is absolutely enough. And do not forget that it is free.
Replacing Outlook - Email, Calendar, Tasks
Talking about email it gets little bit more interesting. I am using Gmail as my main email so I have online access to it from any computer. But at home I use Mac-Mail which allows me to use my Gmail account in its nice interface. Another application I use on the MAC is iCal which keeps a track of my Calendar schedule. As you can see I use lots of Google applications and it is not difference with calendar. I use Google Calendar as well and that is nice synchronized with my iCal and what more when use upcoming site and decide to attend some conference or event, with a single click the event is stored in my Google calendar which obviously shares the data with my iCal. And here comes the coolest thing. I can access all these information on my iPhone. Either I check the iPhone applications for iMail or iCal or I can use Safari to connect to internet and check the data online on my Google apps. The last part of MS Outook I have replaced with online service are Tasks management. I have created an account on Basecamp. You can only have one project in the free version but there is a possibility to create a group of tasks and that is what I use as replacement for projects. I named every group the way I named my projects in Outlook and keep all the tasks in that group/project. This application is again accessible over iPhone which gives me a good control during the whole day. Even in such a trivial tasks as shopping list when you stand in the supermarket and you can not remember what is that you suppose to buy.
Google maps on iPhone
I would never think that this is one of the applications I will be using a lot but living in London this is a top think. The city is so big and I need to use map very often. Google maps give me the comfort I need when I am lost or looking for a place in areas where I have never been before.
RSS
It is not over wit Google aps yet. I also swapped my Firefox RSS extension for Google Reader. This way I can read my favorite RSS feeds on the go true my iPhone or at my work computer. If you think that Google Reader does not look very pretty. I agree. Fortunately you can use Firefox extension called stylish and apply any CSS you want for it.
It is all merging very nicely together and I enjoy it a lot but if you have some suggestions about any other online applications which I could use let me know. I will be happy to hear from you.
