I'm getting more and more uncomfortable with the amount of information Google has about the world - and me.
GoogleFlu for instance estimates flu trends based on web searches (when a lot of ppl in a certain area look for flu-related terms it's likely that there's a flu outbreak there). Even if this can be helpfull in some ways i'm wondering which other trends Google can predict and how this knowledge can be use for their purpose.
It has already been speculated that Google can forsee development of (stock) markets, but even political developmenta are an issue.
Beside that "global view" i have some privacy concern. As i've stated in the past i'm a big Google fan and like their offers (mail, calendar, docs, reader, notebook just to name the daily-used). But what if Google goes evil sometime in the future (Their company mantra is "don't be evil")? If i just knew an alternative (don't suggest MS live or Yahoo pls. :-)) ...

I just realized that i haven't promoted launchy yet. it allows to launch programs and open documents with a view keystrokes, it requires little configuration, it allowed me to clean up my win-xp desktop completely (it's ridiculous to see some ppls desktops where hundrets of .lnks wait to be clicked), i never play around with winxp's start menu to somehow "optimize" the vast number of entries - it just works. wonderfull. recommended. can't imagine to work without it.