In 2006, I tried out more new applications and web 2.x services than I had in a while.  Recently I've had to get a new computer set up and I've noticed what are my can't live without applications:

FireFox - I cannot live without this Browser.  To go back to *non*-tabbed browsing is like going back to dial-up.  Also, I realize now that IE starts a new browser instance almost everytime you click on a link.  Firefox re-loads the active browser tab.  That has its advantages and disadvantages but over all its better than having 11 IE windows open.

Thunderbird Feedreader - I haven't found a better tool to read RSS feeds than Thunderbird.  I like that I can have a huge list of feeds in the left pane and scroll through them.  I also like that I can select a headline and read the article within Thunderbird.  I'm trying to get into Google Feed reader but I haven't really got into it yet.  Add feeds to my Google Homepage forces me to visit the web page if I want to read the full feed.

What's RSS you ask?  Really Simple Syndication.  Its the only way to monitor newspapers, industry journals, blogs etc.  I don't know what I did before RSS.

Apps I've stopped using

Riya.com - I tried it and it was interesting but here is another web 2.0 applications that the creators seemed to loose interest in.  It took me a while to get a hold of anyone in Support to delete my account.  In my mind Riya is a cautionary tale for Web 2.0.  There was much hype around this application from TechCrunch and others.  It really hasn't gone anywhere except into a new tool called Like.com that also doesn't seem to be overly developed.

Flickr - I wanted to try this to upload my Prague photos but its not that easy to upload a huge number of pictures for a trip.  This was a surprise for me.  Flickr is definitely meant for the take 2 or 3 pictures a day people.  I'm not like this (yet).