7 tools in my digital EDC in 2018

The concept of EDC – Every Day Carry – normally covers the group of core items you take with you on a daily basis. You might have a few different EDCs, depending on the occasion, and of course all of us would have different ones.

The digital version is the collection of tools, websites and services one uses on a daily basis.

1. The browser – Firefox with Qwant

My browser of reference since 2006 or so, Firefox is a speedy, solid and multi-platform browser that actually cares about your privacy. I recently switched my search engine to Qwant (against DuckDuckGo previously) and absolutely love it.

Also Firefox Sync allows you to send tabs to/from other devices like your phone, keep a unified history, and, with a strong enough master password, allows for a reasonably secure password manager.

2. The news aggregator – Feedly (app/web)

Feedly is a brilliant service (app/web) which pulls together in one app/website all the sources of your choosing. Stop going to one website after the other, looking for news – feedly can aggregate them all, save your favourite articles into boards, which you can then share with friends or teams.

3. The sharing tool – Buffer

Buffer allows you to automatically schedule Facebook posts, tweets, linkedin updates, pins and even Instagram posts. I mostly use the app and the Firefox add-on when I going through my feedly, to share the most interesting updates.

4. The automator – If This Then That

This nifty service helps you to create digital recipes which automate tasks for you. I notably use the automatic upload of my Instagram posts to Twitter (as a native picture), the archival of my tweets to Google Calendar, or asking Alexa to unsilence my phone (and then ring it).

You can browse the hundreds of existing recipes or create your own!

5. The inspiration – Kickstarter, ProductHunt, Medium

Kickstarter is the crowdfunding platform of reference, and always makes for a great browse. Even if you don’t participate, getting inspired by what others create is fascinating.

ProductHunt is a community compiling some of the newest and best digital services out there. You know that time you thought “it’d be great if there were this service…”? It’s probably on it.

Medium has been one of the best places to find serious writing for a while now, and quality publications abound. Follow some of your favourite finds – The Mission is a great place to start.  

6. The surveillance (ish) – Google Alerts, Hootsuite, Bloomberg

A relic from the old times, Google Alerts still prove to be quite effective at surfacing articles and web pages mentioning specific keywords. It’s always a good idea to have a few set up about your own name, your company or brand, or a few of your passion points. 

As far as free yet powerful social media dashboards go, it’s difficult to beat Hootsuite. It’s one of the oldest players, and the interface isn’t the swankiest, but it allows you to do pretty much anything you might need as an individual.

The Bloomberg app, finally, allows you to follow companies you’re interested in, with a personalised feed of articles and the basic financial information. The free version allows 10 articles per month, which isn’t much, but their notifications are of great use in and of themselves, and the reporting quality is up there.

7. The listener – Player FM

Podcasts have been around for a while, yet they seem to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance. Player FM (Android only, unfortunately) is easily customisable, and the discovery feature is quite good.

The 20 minute VC, How I Built This, TED Talks Daily and RadioLab are all great shows to start with.