Top Applications of 2008

Introduction

In the spirit of putting a close to 2008, I decided to make a top 10 list of my most used applications—both computer- and cloud-based.  Since I spent a vast amount of my time on a computer, I have spent an impressive amount of time with these applications and I believe them to be the best.  Some of these will be in common with you, but fire away in the comments to tell me your most used applications of 2008.

Top 10 Computer-Based Applications

These are the top 10 applications that I use on my primary computer, a MacBook Pro, so they’re all Intel Mac-based.

1. Safari and WebKit—4.0 got 100/100 on Acid3, yes please.
2. Adium
3. NewsFire
4. Coda—I use this for a majority of my programming.  I use Textmate and Cyberduck purely for quick fixes once files are live.
5. Textmate
6. Cyberduck
7. Terminal—yay command line OS!
8. Transmission
9. Pages & Dictionary—for essay writing, nothing beats it; Word can’t even compare.
10. iTunes/Bowtie—Bowtie is a wonderful iTunes remote and audio scrobbler.
11. Honorable mention: Things; Anxiety; iStat Menus

Top 10 Cloud-based Applications

For an amalgamation of all my social networking feeds, dive into my lifestream.

1. Gmail
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Digg
5. Readernaut
6. LinkedIn
7. Basecamp
8. FriendFeed
9. Last.fm
10. WordPress
11. Honorable mention: Splunk; Cacti; Mint; Delicious; Wishlistr

Conclusion

I recently started to use Wakoopa to track my application usage.  It’s interesting to see how a majority of my time is spent in the cloud.  Is this representative of a paradigm shift?  Well, probably not, but it certainly is representative of how the web 2.0 movement has gone viral.  What do you think is the future of computing and what are your favorite applications?