One of the great things about Open Source Software is that there’s generally someone who is willing to toy with it and integrate it with another product. One of my favorite (and most used) integrations is between Lightning (a Thunderbird extension) and Google Calendar. The plugins, with some tinkering, give a user full IMAP access to their gCals, including full read/write access. This allows the user to view, modify, and create events directly from Thunderbird. It’s much more productive than having to go to the gCal website and create the event, then wait for it to sync up with Thunderbird.

Having said that, I wish there were more integration among products. I understand that there probably is primitive integration among a ton of software solutions, and that most of it is created on an as-needed basis. I wish there was more mature integration between zenphoto and Shutterfly – especially since I have hundreds of photos in my gallery right now that I would like to print from Shutterfly.

In the end, integration leads to higher productivity. Instead of spending a bunch of extra time doing repetitive tasks, it can be used for more productive things. Many people other than me can appreciate this – especially with time becoming increasingly pinched these days.