billso.com

I’ve set up a billso.com page that displays my social networking activity from several different web sites. It took a bit of coding, but SimplePie handled the RSS formatting with little effort on my part.

Here’s an example of the WordPress template code that I wrote to handle the different time zones among Honolulu, my web server and FriendFeed’s RSS server.

There are plenty of great free software applications and services available on the Web.

In some cases, payment removes advertising and enables more features. Some require a subscription or a one-time payment.Sometimes the payment is merely a donation to a one-man operation that wrote the code.

Here’s a few quick lists of what I’m using, inspired by this discussion on Weblog Tools Collection:

Keep in mind that my recommendations are for the consumer or individual versions of each service. Some products are available in corporate or enterprise versions for a fee.

Free software and services that I would pay for, along with links to each service’s “about” or home page:

• Craigslist, if only to get the spam and junk postings off the classified portion of the service.
• del.icio.us, my second favorite social bookmarking service. I’m waiting to see what happens to Yahoo, the company that owns del.icio.us and also owns my next choice..
• Flickr, for the Pro account features.
• Google Earth, to get enhanced features on the Mac application.
• MacUpdate, for enhanced features on this Mac software update service.
• PayPal, so I could have a business account.
• Skype, for unlimited calling.
• StumbleUpon, my favorite social bookmarking service, to get some extra features as a sponsor.
• TextEdit, my favorite text editor for Windows.

Here’s a list of free software and services that I wouldn’t pay to use, because the ROI just isn’t that great:

• avast, my favorite virus scanner for Windows and Mac.
• Firefox, the best web browser for the Mac and Windows.
• Gmail, because the keep adding more storage space to my free accounts anyway.
• Twitter, a microblogging service that supports SMS and a variety of web and software clients
• Twitterific, a Mac twitter client. I can live with the occasional ad.
• WinZip and other file compression programs.
• WordPress, the software I use to run the billso.com web site. It’s fabulous, free, and there’s no real reason to pay for it. Many WordPress developers earn consulting income from clients who need