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Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

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Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#81
Stackoverflow, for two main reasons:

1. The obvious reason: for making it easy to find answers to problems I might have. 2. The larger reason: I feel like in browsing and reading thru other people's questions, in areas that I'm interested in, I've learned a TON of new things which I would not have otherwise learned or had seen if all I ever looked at was my own codebase/projects.

Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#82
I've been recently trying out apps to help better synchronize multiple 2 man (developer/artist) teams for casual game development, and this is what we've found so far. (All of these are free, we're not yet big enough to need heavyweight features that are worth paying for, but when the time comes, I'll happily cough up the cash for good 'robust' tools)

I am checking out some of the other suggestions for possible 'upgrades' :)

- Google Docs - for Design Documents where we can both edit/view and see modification histories.

- Toggl - for off the cuff task based time tracking, a bit finicky, and won't let you view details of tasks from other team members, but it's dead simple to use so that's a big plus.

- Subversion - This doesn't count as a web app, it's a lightweight install on a machine in my home office, but it's a necessity for any coding I do, and crucial for keeping the team synchronized.

- Skype - for remote brainstorming and quick Q&As when a face to face meetup isn't possible.

- Unyte - free Skype plugin for screen sharing. Beats the hell out of having to say 'now click Window menu, then library, then go here, etc...

- Basecamp - not often used anymore, but did a decent job of task planning, scheduling and note making... something about it felt a few degrees off, can't put my finger on what though. Is probably a good fit for most people.

Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#84
post #36

Redmine. It's not perfect, but it resolves all of the shortcomings (IMHO, of course) in the other major project management / issue tracking apps.

As a developer of MantisBT, assuming that you've looked at it, mind giving me a summary of what Redmine has that MantisBT lacks?

Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#85
post #13

Hacker News. This is not a joke. I realize that hn is not a web app in the classic sense, but I get far more value from hn than any webapp. Let me explain... I learned long ago that increasing productivity was like "striking out the pitcher". You got small, easily measured, and much appreciated improvements. But the real improvements come in major shifts in thinking and processing. I once had a choice of 2 projects t…

What's interesting here is that a lot of the commenters -- myself included -- are blurring the definition of what a web app is. I wonder why that is? I don't have a point other than to ask that question, because my gut tells me it would be an interesting thing to investigate.

In general, I'd put it like this:

A "web application" is a browser-based tool that allows a user to create and consume content.

A "web site" is a browser-based tool that allows a user to consume content.

Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#87
post #36

Redmine. It's not perfect, but it resolves all of the shortcomings (IMHO, of course) in the other major project management / issue tracking apps.

As a developer of MantisBT, assuming that you've looked at it, mind giving me a summary of what Redmine has that MantisBT lacks?

Well, the key feature it lacks for me is that of "not being written in PHP". That might not sound like much, but it means it can't fit into the rest of my Ruby infrastructure, so isn't even in the running really.

You did ask ..

Re: Ask HN: What Web apps increase your productivity?

#88
post #7

I'm going to adopt a liberal definition of web app here. The only web app that appears to increase my productivity is Twitter. But I use a desktop client to access the service. I use it for live-searching of programming problems I need to solve. Why is this so funny? Because I didn't comprehend Twitter at all, so much so that I originally joined only to leave my account languishing for months before actually beginnin…

I'd be interested in knowing how twitter increased your productivity. For me twitter is a great tool for networking, increasing visibility for your product/project.

I am yet to see any real networking benefits myself, I find having to put up with 'I am running now', 'I am eating a burrito' more than anything of significance from people I would like to network.

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