![\"Credit](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/creditkarma.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAll my life I’ve been warned the same thing: there’s no such thing as a free credit score. The closest thing you can get is your free annual credit report \u2014\u00a0annualcreditreport.com<\/a> is the only legit website for that \u2014 but those don’t actually list your credit score number (unless you pay $7.95) and you can only check those, at most, every 4 months. (Technically, you can request your credit report once a year, but if you stagger your requests for the three different reports, you can get one every four months.)<\/p>\n Then I heard about Credit Karma<\/a>, which shows you your credit score for free. Free as in free beer. No credit card required. Rather than offering a “free” credit score then charging a monthly credit monitoring fee, like some sing-song sites, Credit Karma makes money by partnering with different credit card companies earning affiliate cash. Everyone wins.<\/p>\n I’ve long been frustrated by the lack of access to information as personal as my own credit score. It’s always seemed to me insane that companies like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are allowed to hide behind such shrouds of secrecy and bureaucracy. I would always request my free credit reports, but even that process is muddled and made me feel distanced from my own information.<\/p>\n Basically, I’m really happy I found Credit Karma. It makes me feel in the loop again.<\/p>\n Check out Credit Karma<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dark Sky<\/a> is more of a fun tool than anything else. Basically, it’s an extremely targeted weather app, targeting only on rain within the next 24 hours. While this may seem limiting, this intense focus has created a really interesting, useful, and unique product.<\/p>\n I have the app set to send me a push notification whenever it’s about to rain. The application is amazingly accurate, and usually within about 5 to 10 minutes of the alert it’ll actually start raining. It’s also really handy to look at the rain report for the upcoming hour, checking for breaks in the rain.<\/p>\n Even when the information provided by the app isn’t useful (like when I’m sitting at work or otherwise stuck inside) I always find value. I enjoy being able to scroll through the storm and see the projected rain patters. I like knowing that the rain will stop in 20 minutes or if it’s going to pour for the next hour. It’s absolutely fascinating.<\/p>\n Check out Dark Sky<\/a>.<\/p>\n Download Rapportive <\/a>right now. Stop reading the article for a moment and install Rapportive. Seriously. This is the only item on this list where I\u2019m making this statement, just do it.<\/p>\n Rapportive is a browser plugin for Gmail which adds contact profiles directly into your email workflow. Instead of ads, you\u2019ll see a picture of the person you\u2019re emailing, their work title, as well as recent tweets, Facebook statuses, and social media profiles \u2014 assuming this information is public or you\u2019re already connected via each social network.<\/p>\n Rapportive is fantastic for putting a face to a name and getting some context to the conversation. It\u2019s fantastic for networking, since adding someone on LinkedIn can be done with a single click. It\u2019s also a great tool if you\u2019re trying to find someone, as you can take guesses at their email address until the correct Rapportive profile populates.<\/p>\n Rapportive is the first browser plugin I install when I get a new computer\/browser. It\u2019s the first thing I recommend when talking to someone about email\/Gmail. It\u2019s an invaluable tool to my workflow.<\/p>\n There, was that enough of a sales pitch for you?<\/p>\n Check out Rapportive<\/a>.<\/p>\n I usually get one of two reactions when I talk to people about If This, Then That<\/a>. Either people have never heard of the service, and stare at me with blank eyes, or they\u2019ve absolutely heard of it and seem surprised that I\u2019m even asking.<\/p>\n IFTTT is exactly what it sounds like, a way to set up if this, then that rules for almost anything on the internet. It operates by checking for triggers and executing actions based on those triggers. If you favorite a tweet, then save it to Evernote. If you post a photo to Instagram, then save it to Google Drive. If it is going to snow, then send me a text message. And on and on with over 50 different services.<\/p>\n I use IFTTT to automatically post my blog posts here to Tumblr, to post shared linked on Facebook to LinkedIn, and to email myself if it\u2019s going to rain. You can browse through popular \u201crecipes,\u201d or make them yourself.<\/p>\n If\u00a0you’ve\u00a0ever wanted to automate two seemingly unrelated services, IFTTT can probably find a way.<\/p>\n Check out IFTTT<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve written at length<\/a> before, I use MediaWiki to have my own personal Wikipedia (appropriately dubbed WikiDannia<\/a>). This is the best way for me, personally, to layout and organize my brain and links I want to save. Some people use Evernote<\/a>, other\u2019s Pinboard<\/a>, and others one of the many websites and services trying to capture a slice of the productivity space. For me, a private MediaWiki install is the answer.<\/p>\n While I\u2019ve had a few people contact me, after reading my article, letting me know of their own Mediawiki installs, I don\u2019t expect this process to appeal to everyone. It\u2019s a bit complicated and takes work to edit and maintain \u2014 not a lot of work, but more work than, say, clicking a bookmarklet and maybe adding a few tags.\u00a0MediaWiki makes this list mostly because it\u2019s usually a surprise addition to the personal productivity market. I can\u2019t remember my specific \u201cah-ha!\u201d moment where I realized MediaWiki would be perfect for my needs, but I haven\u2019t yet met anyone who had come to the same realization on their own, although I\u2019m sure they\u2019re out there.<\/p>\n Check out MediaWiki<\/a>.<\/p>\n App Annie<\/a> is a fantastic tool for mobile app developers. It\u2019s a set-and-forget service that sends a daily email with Apple and Google app sales from the previous day. It also shows percentage movement from the previous day\u2019s sales as well as any new reviews. If you\u2019re a mobile app developer, this free service is definitely worth checking out.<\/p>\n Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper<\/a>, has a great post<\/a> about keeping an Apple developer account secure when using services such as App Annie. Definitely worth a read if you\u2019re setting up App Annie.<\/p>\n Check out App Annie<\/a>.<\/p>\n ThemeForest.net<\/a> (affiliate), and the entire Envato family of websites, has been extremely valuable to me. Not only have I purchased multiple themes from the site, I\u2019ve also gotten great deals on bundle promotions, videos, and code snippets. I even used CodeCanyon <\/a>to find a developer<\/a> for my iPhone app Reader Tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prices are pretty fantastic, too. Themeforest has saved me countless hours. And their affiliate program is pretty great as well. My blog post about creating Reader Tracker has generated roughly $40 worth of credit, effectively paying for my last few purchases.<\/p>\n Check out Themeforest<\/a>.<\/p>\n I love quantifying my behavior. I\u2019m almost always wearing my Fitbit<\/a> and I will randomly find myself checking my Facebook analytics on Wolfram Alpha<\/a> when I\u2019m bored. So when a post about a Google Apps script called Gmail Meter<\/a> made it to the front page of Hacker News, I immediately set it up.<\/p>\n Gmail Meter is a set-and-forget script that simply sends you can email every month with your email usage stats for the previous month. How many emails you sent and received, your busiest days and times, length of incoming and outgoing messages, everything. It\u2019s complete with graphs and charts and comparisons to the previous month.<\/p>\n I had no idea that Google Apps spreadsheet scripts even existed. Nor that something as incredibly cool could be done. The best part of Gmail Meter is that none of your personal information is sent elsewhere to be processed (like with the Facebook analytics, which is processed by Wolfram Alpha). It\u2019s all done through your own Google Apps suite.<\/p>\n Check out Gmail Meter<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2010, I decided to free up some space on my hard drive by transferring my entire music library to an external drive. This was fantastic, until the external hard drive crashed and I lost everything. I\u2019d spent years building that collection, and now it was gone. For two years, I would open iTunes and just stare at all the song names that were now nothing but broken file links.<\/p>\n From then on, I decided to always backup my important files, especially pictures, videos, and documents. I decided to go with Backblaze <\/a>for my notebook backups, as it\u2019s only $5\/month and runs completely in the background. It fits my favorite theme of set-and-forget services.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never had to use it yet, thankfully, but I rest much easier knowing that my laptop is constantly automatically storing all my files to the cloud somewhere, just in case.<\/p>\n Check out Backblaze<\/a>.<\/p>\n [UPDATE: I’ve actually switched over to Alfred<\/a> recently, but everything below still stands.]<\/p>\nDark Sky<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRapportive<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIFTTT<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMediaWiki<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nApp Annie<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThemeforest.net<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGmail Meter<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBackblaze<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nQuicksilver<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n