New Year's Resolutions: Try something new

Here's the last of my New Year's Resolutions, try something new.

It's so easy to use the same things you always have, just because you always have. To go back to my online word processor example, I have a tendency to head to Google Docs, because I often have Gmail open and it's an easy click. However, I really like Zoho, and I just found out that Thinkfree has a downloadable version that syncs with the online version, and works on a Mac. Thinkfree Premium is in beta testing, and they'll probably charge for it when it's ready, but it just might be worth it. I downloaded it to my Mac last night and it certainly opens MS Word documents with special formatting, like brochures, much better than NeoOffice, which is what I have been using. (NeoOffice, an OpenOffice version for Mac OS X, is just fine for most stuff, however, and it's completely free.)

So that's one thing I'm going to try out. I also need to remember that I've got at least a dozen search engines in my Firefox search box, and I should occasionally use something other than Google, especially when I don't find what I'm looking for right away. For instance, Clusty is good for ambiguous searches, when your words can describe more than one thing.

I've signed up for an account on G.ho.st, which is sort of Web applications taken to an extreme. Does anyone remember thin clients or dumb terminals?

I've also got a big list of online tools to try out for my Online Research Toolkit, which I haven't been giving much attention to. And if I run out of things to try (hah!), Mashable posted 5000+ Resources to Do Just About Anything Online.

So get out there and try something new, before the spring semester gets here and we all get too busy!