5 apps, that can make your life easier
Introduction
I know, I know, this is an exceedingly promising title. Nevertheless, there are several apps, websites and browser extensions, that I use in my day to day life. About some of them you haven’t heard (at least I hope so), that what makes them more unique.
Although, I mention names of companies, I do not set myself a goal of selling any particular application. My goal is to highlight that such applications exist and provide alternatives, from which you can choose what you like.
Without further ado let’s start.
Password sharing service
Sometimes you want to share a password with someone in a more secure way, than through WhatsApp or another messenger. I use Password Pusher from flant, but there are plenty of them — another example is onetimesecret. The idea is simple. You create a secret link with a password, that is accessible only a certain amount of time and a specified number of times. I prefer Flant, because of the minimalistic interface.
Password manager
It isn’t so original, but if you don’t use a password manager right now — you should. Every year a huge number of passwords leak to the network and if you have one password for all services, you are in danger. You can check if your email or a phone number has been compromised with the haveibeenpwned website.
Password managers are not a panacea, because they have their own downsides, namely, you store all your passwords in one place under a single password, but at least it helps to build behaviour of creating more complex passwords on other services and easily manage them, changing and revoking passwords.
Two big whales are 1Password and Bitwarden. You can easily find many comparisons of them on the Net, such as this link, but I will just point out one thing — Bitwarden has a completely free version.
You can use them as a password sharing platform too. For example, Bitwarden has the Bitwarden Send product.
Tree style tab browser extension
Enough with security, lets improve our browser interaction.
There are two types of people — ‘in depth’ and ‘in breadth’. I’m ‘in breadth’ type of person. When I want to search something, I google a term, such as ‘lego’, and then, I open several <seems relevant to me> links at the same time, spawning new tabs and go one by one in order to consume and process information (‘In depth’ people don’t usually open a new link, without reading the entire content of a page from the previous link). Thus, at some point I have an unmanageable line of tabs, such as:
This problem is easily solved by one of tree style tab extensions.
For example, Tree Style Tab (Firefox link) extension renders a window on the left:
It helps to organize tabs in a better way and also, in hierarchy. I’ve found out about this extension by accident at the university, when I noticed this sidebar on a screen of my classmate laptop.
For Chrome, I’d choose Tabs Outliner, but it works as a separate window.
Countdown timer
Aaand we continue becoming more and more productive.
I bet you are familiar with the Pomodoro Technique. Sometimes we are not so productive. We are lazy and our brain drags out a matter as long as possible. To stay focus and make obligations faster you can use the Pomodoro Technique — you need only a timer. Luckily, there are hundreds of apps for this. I use Horo for Mac, as it is simple to use (nothing fancy or distracting) and is embedded in the menu bar.
Digital whiteboard
As a software engineer with a focus on working with data, I mostly use google sheets (tables) to structure my hobbies, projects, expenses, etc. But sometimes I need more than this, I need just a plain sheet of paper, where I can draw. Services, such as miro or diagrams (draw.io in the past), provide this opportunity in a digital format, that you can share your work with anyone. You can use it to design an architecture of a new service/app (as I do from time to time), plan with a family or friends your next trip, the pros and cons of each option, or structure a thought process. If you have one of drawing tablets, then, it’s an unbeatable combination.
Finale
That’s it. These are 5 apps and services, that help me daily.
I hope this article was somehow useful to you. Let me know what non-obvious apps you use.
