I was thinking recently about how my life has changed so much over the last 4 or 5 years or so… how I struggle with anxiety and how much of that may be due to my increased reliance on the web and technology as a part of my everyday life.

I thought I’d go through a typical day - almost everyday - to show you some of the sites that I use on a regular basis, or have found to be extremely helpful.

Home Page
I try to stay away from the web first thing in the morning, but I’ll admit - if I have time to sit and check news and emails before I head to work, I will. The first page that loads for me each day is Microsoft’s new Live.com. Now, I’d used Google’s customized home page for quite a while, but the new Live.com is leaps and bounds beyond Google’s product. Essentially, Live.com allows me to view dozens of news sources all in one customizable place. If you’ve ever used My Yahoo, My MSN, or anything like that - you know what I mean. Live.com just takes this about 10 steps into the future. Give it a try…

Mail
I’ll come back to some of my news sites in a minute, but the second page that I use every morning is my Gmail Account. Gmail is Google’s attempt at a Web based email service… it’s the best web email to date, in my opinion, but Microsoft is launching their own futuristic web mail program in a couple weeks… it’s likely I’ll be signing into Gmail less and less.

Why don’t I use Outlook? I do… at work and at home… except since I’m online all day at work or home, Gmail makes it easy to quick check and send emails… once you get used to it, there’s no escaping the convenience.

Lists
A newer site that I’ve been using on a regular basis is called Remember The Milk. It’s simply a free todo list application/site that allows you to create several lists of things to do, remember, whatever… it’s one of the simplest, yet most advanced systems I’ve seen.

For a great project management application, try Basecamp. Heather and I use it (kind of) to organize some thoughts and progress of our current web project…

News
Okay, back to news sites for a minute. The main section on my Live.com home page is from Digg.com. Digg is a news site that allows users to submit news stories, and vote them onto the front page (all tech stories), so the stories that get listed on top are almost always interesting. You’ll also see me checking Wired and Slashdot quite a bit too.

For sports, I’m always checking the Capital Times, Journal Sentinel, and UWBadgers.com for all the latest about Bucky. For the funny side of sports, you have to read The Sports Pickle. It updates every Wednesday with the funniest fake stories in sports.

Other
Of course, you can find me - and some of you have - on MySpace. I typically only check the site when I get notified of new mail or requests, but it’s pretty cool if you’re looking for that long-lost friend.

I store pictures on Flickr.com which makes it easy to show my pictures to anyone and everyone.

I use del.icio.us to keep bookmarks of some of my favorite sites. It’s great to just mark it, so when I’m thinking… oh, what was that one site about blah… I know right where to check. Or, you could install Google Desktop to make sure you always have your history at your fingertips…

For blogging, I use WordPress software, which now anyone can use for free - without needing a domain name or any other web knowledge… simply visit the new Wordpress.com site, sign up, and give me another site to read!!

I’m gettin’ tired, so that’s all I got for now, but I’ll edit below this line when I think of other sites I use and/or find.