Picwing (http://picwing.com) is probably the one that has improved our life the most lately. It is the perfect thing for people with new babies. Your relatives get a regular stream of new prints with near zero effort.

Do they no longer make hardware?

For now, no. It turns out that a lot of the photo frame market actually prefers prints.

They should incorporate the print ordering in the hardware: one click to put it in the next batch.

Sry downvoted by mistake, on iPhone...

I like Etherpad, but I'm not sure why. I'm a big G Docs user, or at least was in college, and use both for the same features (don't do too much heavy collab). But I use Etherpad Pro to consolidate all the random text files I have lying around usually. I think I like it because it's simple, non-nosense and logging into google docs is a pain. I have it on google apps and i never remember the URL so i have to log into mail, click the icon, etc. Granted I could setup a CNAME but I digress..

Maybe I like em more than gDocs b/c they're also a startup..

I agree completely. Etherpad is a lot better than Google Docs. The big reason for me is that it provides instant collaboration. When I type something in, the other people editing the doc can see my changes instantly.

For Goog Docs, it takes a few seconds to see someone's changes. It's great for solo editing, but very annoying for collaborative work.

> but very annoying for collaborative work.

tell me about it. i wrote a 33 page group paper in Google Docs once.. PITA.

Tarsnap is unique among the startups that get play here in getting me to open my wallet to the tune of more than the price of a T-shirt.

Tarsnap! Solo Founder, great product, great payment terms. What's not to like?

Does anyone know if Colin has anyone working with him on Tarsnap yet? Or is he still the only person working on it?

I'm still the only person working on tarsnap, unless you count some (free) help I'm getting from my brother to build a more useful website.

I think that's awesome. How long have you been working full-time on Tarsnap?

Almost 3 years -- I started making plans and designing everything in September 2006, but didn't start writing code full-time until December 2006.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! :-)

GitHub really impresses me.

GitHub has found its way into my workflow for web development work. Plus, the sheer number of useful projects and source code available from other developers keeps brings me back to the site frequently.

I agree. I really like their release cycle and transparency. They produce a solid product, they understand their market, and they are innovative. The only thing I don't know is how profitable they are.

We're doing well and will be around for a long time.

Heroku...

After that I'm a bit partial to launchly but that's probably because it's mine. :-)

Yeah Heroku is awesome, I'm really enjoying their new deployment platform.

The heroku guys do a really solid job.

What's launchy?

Thanks for the link... and yes, launchly is run on Heroku and yes they rock! :-)

thesixtyone, probably. It's replaced Pandora for me. It's a little too social networky (I just want to listen to music!) but it works.

+1 thesixtyone. The idea of giving users quests to reward them for exploring a site/app more is inspiring.

big fan of thesixtyone - has one of the best streaming music players on the web...quality product.

Plus, huge kudos to them for not relying on RIAA as is true with most other online music services.

ahh, the sixtyone is great. stellar way to find new music.

also, they make it super easy to buy music that you like. i just wish more artists on the site had stuff for sale!

I never heard of it before, but I love it! My girlfriend is going crazy about it too :)

280 North for re-inventing how web apps can be developed.

Posterous. It just works.

Amazing how they continue to crank out feature after feature. They are wicked fast..

You don't know anything yet! Too bad I can't talk about it. :(

no themes yet. still.

dropbox. still.

Dropbox takes up all of my CPU these days. It's very depressing how little I use it now.

The CPU usage is kinda high, thats why I only run it when I need it

I agree, Dropbox is a really nice startup; really polished.

Dropbox helps gets things done but stays out of the way. It's so subtle I forget I even use it. That's exactly what I like in a program.

dropbox and spotify.

Spideroak impressed me. It's a service similar to Dropbox, but with more emphasis on privacy. I found their devs really accessible and interesting to talk to.

Nice. New to me.

I'm really finding Evernote a great tool for syncing my daily to-do lists.

Prefer ShoveBox, however only available for OS X... http://www.wonderwarp.com/shovebox/

that's 2 votes for shovebox. great organizational tool for the mac! also with an iphone client now that is super useful on the go.

Is Evernote a YC company? I can find any info to this regards. Here is a list of YC companies http://www.crunchbase.com/company/y-combinator, though not sure if it's a comprehensive one?

No, but I realize how the title might be misleading. I realize now this question was maybe geared toward those who started YC companies, which I haven't.

Doesn't have to be a YC company. I was only asking YC.

Github takes the cake for me. It makes reading and finding code a breeze, and for the relatively unexperienced (like me), it has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for OSS.

A Facebook for hackers, I love it.

cloudkick, I think those guys did a great job.

Delivered something of value, freemium business model that I believe will work extraordinarily well for them.

My hat is off to them! Just wish I would've thought of it first.

I guess it's about execution every time, and yeah, they execute well.

Aardvark for potentially kicking off a new way to search (and even if not, for having awesome diction)

Kickstarter for being beautiful and the first crowdfunding site that looks like it has a chance to explode.

Billmonk, for splitting restaurant bills with friends.

Chatterous. I have it hooked up to my IM, and I use it for group chat all the time.

grooveshark, still wonky interface but its as close to spotify I can find on our shores.

..of course I still use dropbox .. who doesn't? I stopped using evernote as I got tired of having to use Wine to run it..

Favorite Startups of 2009

vark.com listia.com saynow.com

Cloudera! Their tutorials kick-ass :)

I like the following (may not as cool as some of those listed, but they're great startups and driving real revenue):

1. ZenDesk 2. Freshbooks 3. 99designs

Rightscale. They put out such a solid product and make using ec2 so easy, it's not even funny.

not to denigrate the smart people and great work done here, but i think this is a pretty depressing list when looked at from on high. this is the creme of the crop of all the yc hacker intelligentsia? suprisingly banal imhop.

"yc hacker intelligentsia"? Sounds like your expectations are way over-inflated. Consider reconsidering your concept of "intelligent".

Makerbot is pretty awesome

Twilio. Top notch.

Shapeways

YCombinator.

Dropbox