Two free productivity tools

While I am working on stories for the main topic of the blog, I thought would share some tools that help me be productive.

1. igoogle
Google has been playing around with this concept since 2005 but I only recently found it when a friend shared it with me. There should be a link on the google search page, or you can get it here..

There are hundreds of “gadgets” that add functionality to your google page. Mine has gmail, facebook, twitter, weather, traffic, google maps and some news feeds all on the same screen. I also have a link to post here and a wikipedia search form. There is also an option for google chat. I set it up today and already am impressed by how much time it is saving.

2. xobni
This tool has been around for awhile, and I have been using for a long time. Xobni indexes your outlook and provides greater search functionality for outlook messages and contacts. It also ties together contacts and messages in a convenient, easy to read format. Xobni does tend to make Outlook run a little slower on startup (at least on my ancient laptop) but is a can’t-live-without tool. When I recently reformatted my hard drive I tried to do without because of the slower start up, but the searching and message tracking are so superior that I reinstalled it. They have also added some new features — you can check for a contact’s presence on facebook or linkedin.