Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Thing #13 - Online Productivity Tools

I wasn't particularly impressed with the tools offered in this thing. I made a personalized Yahoo page, but I tend to rely on RSS feeds to keep up with my favorite news interests and tend to use Yahoo and Google more as search pages than start pages.

Most of the other sites are not things that I choose to do on computer. While I like making "to do" lists (okay, what I really like is that satisfaction of crossing off something I've finished), it seems much faster to use a scrap of paper rather than log in and out of a website. In the same manner, a small datebook works great for me as a personal calendar and can be stuck in a bag and taken from work to home to a meeting where there isn't a computer available for me to check an online calendar. It also seems like an extra step to have to enter these things onto a computer -- especially since my home computer is dial-up, so online use takes some time.

However, I can see the advantages to some of these tools. An online calendar could be great for a business professional who is generally connected (via wireless or otherwise) throughout the week, but not spending all his or her time in one location. I think the Backpacker site has some nice features for groups of people working on projects needing to share information on deadlines, etc -- perhaps that would be a good site for use by teams in a larger library environment.

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