12 Ways The Internet Has Helped Me In 2006

Posted by Ellen
December 21, 2006

I am writing this post for two reasons.  First, as part of Problogger’s Group Writing Project - Reviews and Predictions which appears to be a great way to share my blog with others and read what other bloggers are writing.  The posts people are writing contain a lot of great information and insights so check it out.  Second, I want to take a look back and see what I have learned this past year from the Internet considering I spend a great deal of time surfing around and exploring new sites.  Here are 12 ways the Internet has helped me this past year. It’s a mish mash of information so read through and click on links to see if you learn something new.  

1.  Share, organize and store my bookmarks online with del.icio.us.  I also browse what others are bookmarking to learn about new and interesting sites. I am ellenm1206, click on my username and see all of the sites I have bookmarked this year. 

2.  Create a personal start page.  I created my own page with Netvibes which links me to information and sites that are important to me (mostly through RSS feeds). If you don’t have a personalized start page, try out Netvibes or Google’s Personalize Your Homepage, Yahoo’s My Web, Protopage or Pageflakes.  I have grouped RSS feeds into tabs with Netvibes which gives me all the latest news from my favorite sites.

3.   What is that RSS button?  Thanks to this great article, How to explain RSS the Oprah way I now know it means Really Simple Syndication which gives me the latest story headlines from a site that I can subscribe to using a feed reader.  With a feedreader, like the one built into Firefox or the new Internet Explorer 7 or my Netvibes page, I can browse the latest headlines from my favorite sites without having to go to each and every website to see what is new.  4. Share and sync my calendar. I  now share and sync my Outlook calendars and contacts on multiple computers and my cell phone with Airset ( see my write-up here).  Both Google and Yahoo have online, shareable calendars that are quite nice they just don’t sync with my Outlook like Airset does. 

5.  Be a better shopper. I have been able to find deals and compare prices with sites like

6.  Store and share photos online. There are tons of free photo hosting and sharing sites on the web.  I like Google’s Picassa Web Albums because I use Picassa on my computer to organize my photos.   That hasn’t stopped me from posting my photos elsewhere including Flickr, Yahoo Photos, Fotki and Photobucket.  My cat Jack has photos on all of these sites (check him out here)!

 

 7. Get a laugh watching videos. Home-made & viral videos are big on the web, especially on YouTube,  Yahoo Video, Grouper and AOL Video.  These sites also have clips from television shows, movie trailers, music concerts and more.  I also check out The 9 on Yahoo which is a quick way each day to find out what the most popular and bizarre videos are on the web.

8.  Backup my files!  I now backup my files using Mozy Remote Backup which is a service that makes an offsite backup of my files with 2gb of free storage (you can pay for extra storage if needed).  I chose Mozy Remote Backup because of their encryption of files both online and during upload.  I couldn’t find another free service that offered their level of security. 

 

9.  Remotely access my home computer from any Internet-enabled device.  I use Soonr for remote access to my computer.  This is helpful when I am at work and forgot to bring a file with me.  I can even access files through my cell phone and it automatically resizes the file to fit the screen. 

10.  Discover new music.  This year has been a year of musical discovery using services like Pandora Internet Radio and last.fm where I can listen to music similar to bands and artists I already like.  Read 4 Sites to Help You Discover New Music and Artists for an explanation.  I now know who Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Death Cab for Cutie, Evanescence and Lacuna Coil are and that I like alternative rock and weirdly,  gothic rock.  Right now I am listening to a band called My Chemical Romance and it’s great rock music

EDIT: I don’t know what happened to 11 and 12 and unfortunately it is 2007 and I don’t remember 2006 that well!

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