I haven’t actually counted all of the web apps I use, but it has to be several dozen on an (almost) daily basis to keep everything I do afloat. It’s very common for any application, web or not, to be about 90% useful but still have some niggling issues that frustrate me. Sometimes it is a bad UI that makes the site hard to navigate and sometimes it’s a plain old code issue and the app is actually broken in some areas. There are a few, a very few, that just work as I expect and cause me zero pain. Those five apps are the subject of today’s post.

Without any further ado, here are the five web apps that I just cannot live without:

1. Freshbooks

Image via CrunchBase

Freshbooks is an online invoicing system based out of Toronto, Ontario. The folks at Freshbooks are absolutely fanatical about their service and their support and thing just plain old rocks. I have been using Freshbooks for well

over a year now and I never even have to think about my invoicing any more. Freshbooks has a timer that keeps track of my hourly work, an expense system to handle re-billable expenses, and totally professional looking invoices with a variety of payment gateways behind it. I’m paying a gra

ndfathered subscription cost of $14.95 a month for a complete invoicing and billing system and have the added peace of mind knowing that I am dealing with fellow Canadians who are most surely going to heaven.

2. Unfuddle

Unfuddle is an online SVN (or GIT) and ticketing system. Think of it like Trac but with some actual design and user-friendliness to it. I bounce between the free level account when I have one or no projects on the go and up into the paid level accounts when I have more than one project running. It’s all very nicely laid out, very reliable, and very civilized. Plus I get to say “Unfuddle” a lot which is tons of fun.

3. Fastmail

Fastmail is the single best email provider I have ever used. And I have used a TON of them. Fastmail does one thing: email. Period. No docs, no chat, no nothing that isn’t email and they do it amazingly well. I am on my second year with Fastmail and I literally have not had a single problem with their system. No outages, no breakages, nothing. Email has once again just become something That Works ™ rather than something I have to fight with all the time. Fastmail beats Gmail (standard and premium), Yahoo mail, Runbox…everyone I’ve ever used).

4. Batchbook

Batchbook is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool and while I don’t use anywhere near its full feature set, the features that I do use work well. Probably the single greatest feature of Batchbook is its Supertags. Supertags are essentially custom tags that I can create that are better than simple tags because they have attributes. By way of example, I created a Supertag named “Server Client”. I then created the attributes “server”, “port”, “user”, “password”. Now, when I tag any of my clients as a Server Client, I am prompted to fill in their server information. This is an invaluable time saver for me because I managed upwards of 30 servers and having to dig for their login credentials used to be painful.

5. You Tell Me!

No, that’s not a clever name for another web app (although it would be a good one). I’m really asking you to finish off the list for me. What’s the one web app that you simply cannot live without? I’ll admit that I’m being pretty self-serving here. I’m hoping to get a lead on a bunch of new web apps that I haven’t heard of yet. Please use the comment section to send me in the right direction!

Related articles by Zemanta

• FreshBooks Takes the Hassle Out of Invoicing [Invoices] (lifehacker.com)
• This is the Age of CRM! (laf.ee)

Tags: batchbook, fastmail, freshbooks, Gmail, Trac, Yahoo

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• October 13, 2008 -- Online Contact Management: Highrise HQ and Batchbook (4)
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