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25 apps for christmas - browsers

it’s december 1st and having recently gotten a windows phone 7 and starting to play around with applications, i’ve decided blog posts of my 25 favorite apps would be a good series for my blog.  i’ve been using microsoft applications since ms dos 2.0 and microsoft flight simulator 2.0 (i had steve ballmer sign the 5 1/4” diskette for my dad a year and a half ago for father’s day) and coming up with a top 25 will be difficult (and i’m debating on the details of how to do this – but like all good ideas, i’m just going to go with it and figure out the details as we go).  i just spent 5 minutes and already listed over 25 programs that have been influenced me over the years but i’d like to rank them from least to most important (i’ll do that at the end)

pc application #1:   ncsa mosaic

my obsession with the internet began in 1993/4 with ncsa mosaic and netcom (prior to that i used a bbs to download shareware) on windows 3.1 and windows for workgroups.  by the time windows 95 shipped, i was hooked.  there probably isn’t a single application i can think of that has influenced me more over the years than the brower because a browser given me access to so much more information, software and other content on various platforms ever since.

phone (and car) application #1: voice recognition

i first experienced voice recognition software on a computer, but on a phone and in my car, this is so much more important (and productive!).  on my latest phone, I didn’t even have to install this software – it was ready to go.  i can say “movie theaters” and it’s smart enough to find information about movies playing near me.

tv application #1: games

software in the living room (or on the television) for me started with games and a gaming console (the first i owned was an atari 5200, but played on the atari 2600 and others before that).  space invaders, pac man and asteroids were early hits.