The best apps for staying in touch

Outlook

For my day-to-day communication, I can't shake Outlook. Nor do I want to. Whether I'm working on my PC or on my Mac, Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2011 are fantastic applications that keep my email and calendar in one tidy spot. On my PC, I've also connected Outlook to a number of SharePoint sites I use in my consulting business, so it really is a single point of information management in many ways.

For my own use, I've subscribed to Office 365, which makes Outlook a natural choice. That said, I've relied for years on Outlook to manage my day-to-day. In fact, I generally switch to running beta versions of Office when they're available just because of the enhancements that Microsoft continues to make in Outlook.

Photo credit: Microsoft

Outlook Web App

I'm happy to go on record to say that, in my opinion (your opinion may vary!), Exchange 2010's Outlook Web App is by far the best Web-based email and calendaring tool out there. I've tried a lot of other options, but I don't think this one is surpassed by anything on the market right now. In Exchange 2010, which Office 365 uses, Microsoft has added full support for browsers other than Internet Explorer, making Outlook Web App a more than viable tool across a variety of platforms.

Photo credit: Microsoft

Twitter/TweetDeck

Although I rely heavily on email for my work, Twitter has definitely become a mainstay in my system tray. I use Twitter -- the service -- from a variety of locations and devices. From my desktop machines, I use TweetDeck. I like the way that the application places each of my feeds into columns.

When I'm on my iPhone, I simply use the Twitter app. I used to use TweetDeck on my iPhone but began to have stability issues with the app. So I just switched back to the native Twitter app, which I've found to be perfectly viable for my needs.

iPhone mail app

One of the most-used apps on my iPhone is the mail app. The native iPhone mail app connects to my business mail as well as all my personal accounts and helps keep me connected on the go.

As you can see here, Apple's iOS supports an assortment of mail account types and a unified inbox, making it really easy to manage mail from a variety of sources.

Photo credit: Apple

iPhone mail app

Apple's iOS also supports supports a threaded view of your conversations.

Photo credit: Apple

MacJournal

I don't particularly like to log in to WordPress to write a blog post unless I have to. I'd much rather use an application installed on my machine.

On my Mac, I've been using MacJournal for quite some time. It's a really good tool and is suitable for anything from a quick 50-word post to a 2,000-word manifesto. I've barely scratched the surface of what this tool can do, but so far, I'm very happy with what I see.

Photo credit: Mariner Software

Windows Live Writer

On the Windows side, I've used Word to write blog posts, but I also use Windows Live Writer for this task. Writer supports a variety of blogging platforms, it's free, and it provides the formatting and media/photo handling options necessary to manage a comprehensive and complex blog.