These are a few of my favourite things...

So many to choose from, but hey, this is my very own publishing platform, the beauty of which being I can say what I want,when I want.

So here's a cheer and free plug (I do work in marketing and advertising after all!) for several sites/apps that I've found incredibly handy time after time after time.

If you haven't tried them do:

SnagIt: A fab tool (with a free trial period) that's incredibly handy for taking screengrabs with functionality well beyond ye olde "print screen" trick so you can capture full scrolls of web pages at a touch of a button, annotate them, resize them and all manner of things that make evidencing your point in presentations so much easier, and having consistent sizes to your screengrabs without hassle. Love it.

YouSendIt: My very own free FTP service - really useful for sharing large files, that otherwise won't go through some people's mail servers

LogMeIn: A brilliant (free) remote desktop application that allows me to provide all manner of useful helpdesk services to those a little less technical than I, saving a lot of heartache and frustration on all sides

NX Powerlite: In these days of creating Powerpoint files full of graphics and images, file sizes rapidly tot up, and this very cool tool, (also with a free trial period) does amazing things to crush down your file size without compromising quality (visibly) nor faffing about with winzip or similar.

Kiss YouTube: With more and more content taking a multi-media format, there are innumberable occasions where I need to be able to grab stuff to share at times where I might be in places with no interweb connectivity (shock, horror, indeed these still exist!), and this handy site allows me to convert most videos on YouTube into FLV's. Then I use this to convert them into something a little more universally shareable or friendly...

Media Converter: This is really handy (especially the Firefox plug in) to convert files from one format to another i.e FLV's to WMV's, MPEGs, AVI's etc

Pixlr: There are frequently times when I haven't got my own laptop with me full to the brim of editing software, but need to tweak something. Pixlr is a reduced down functionality, web based Photoshop equivalent that I find very handy.

And then of course there's Skype. VOIP calling is hardly new news these days but with 405million subscribers (May 09) there's a lot of people out there using it and it's amazingly handy to keep in touch with friends, family and business contacts near and far, without racking up ridiculous phone bills, and with the added benefit of video calling. I know of 90 year olds using it to keep up with their great grandchildren. I have a friend who was able to show off her new son to me at 3 days old despite us living either side of the Atlantic. And I have another friend whose 2 year old daughter thinks all phone calls work with a visual element and was recently applying a mobile phone to her arm to show off a recent bruise to her grandmother! Digital native!

Go play