For software and webapps, I value data portability, simple formats, good keyboard shortcuts, continued development support, and mobile and offline access. You’ll notice that I don’t always follow these design principles religiously but I’ve found these work:

• Email: Gmail (both for work and personal. works great in browser and mobile. couldn’t imagine using anything else)
• Calendar: Google Calendar (same reasons as gmail)
• Tasks: Checkvist (i like this webapp because its paradigm makes sense for both todo lists and normal lists like “don’t forget to pack.” It has killer keyboard shortcuts and a bookmarklet that integrates into Gmail and Jira, both of which I happen to use. Not perfect but it’s simple enough to not drown is and the developer is responsive. wish it had a real mobile app rather than just a mobile optimized site though)
• Storage/syncing: Dropbox (just works. is awesome.)
• Notes: Notational Velocity (what an app. everything is in plaintext so it’s super portable. i save it to dropbox so it syncs across computers and also into simplenote so I have it online and on mobile. notational velocity is incredible well designed. it’s fast, simple, unobtrusive, and keyboard driven if you want it to be)
• Text editing: textmate (good syntax highlighting simple to organize files into a project. i’d like to use vim more, but i’m not there yet)
• App launching: Alfred (i moved over from this after a long love affair with quicksilver. it’s solid, stable, under active development, and fulfills my wish to not take my hands off the keyboard)
• Bookmarks: Pinboard (lightweight, simple and tagging is easy enough to keep doing it and keep things organized. it’s also mostly replaced instapaper for me)

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