A quiet week for me, I am enjoying some downtime. It is good to rest sometimes.

I have finally upgraded my Mac to a MacBrook Pro. The upgrade has given me a chance to clear out my machine and lock down on the apps that help and remove those that just take up space. My aim was to end up with a minimal setup with less ‘stuff’ and fewer places for ‘stuff’. Something generally better and more productive – I’ve got to get an ROI on the time and money somehow!

Critical Applications:

• Firefox – for browsing.
• Quicksilver – for quick keying/sorting/doing.
• Chicken of the VNC – for controlling the other machines about the place.
• iPod notes – For using my iPod productively.
• Plaxo – for keeping contacts up to date.
• Thinkingrock – for organising life.
• Freemind – Great Mindmapping tool.
• Microsoft messenger – still my default IM.
• Skype – love it!

Then a few bookmarks and sites to keep things going:

• Bookmarks into Firefox – easy because of delicious (installing the Firefox plugin of course).
• Gmail and Google reader
• netvibes (just because it is cool)
• bloglines (not used so much any more.. hm.. time to focus on one RSS reader?)
• eBay – thankful I’m not addicted anymore, really…
• Linkedin – ah… the joys of staying in touch with good people
• Amazon – got to read!
• Facebook – ah friends!!!
• WordPress – of course!
• And a few Dashboard widgets

Few… Not quite as minimal as I would have liked. Did I miss anything off of there? Anything you would remove? I love hearing about the apps others have found useful.