My Most Efficient (Yet Still Somewhat Inefficient) Digital Life Yet
Monday, March 24th, 2008
For many years, new technology and gadgets have often wasted more time than they’ve saved. Only recently have I been mildly satisfied with my latest entanglement of services and devices that I rely on to run daily life. Here is my current run-down.
- Email: I use my own domain(s) for email and Google Apps for Domains has been the best solution yet. I’ve been running it for about 16 months now after using MS Outlook for almost a decade. The free version has 6.5+GB of space and the Premier Edition gives you 25GB for $50/yr. It also allows you to POP3 or IMAP mail in/out of the system. I imported all of my old email so I can use the search feature (it’s Google, the search rocks) to go back over a decade of mail. A lot of people like to keep all their old email (like Mark Cuban, who should definitely check this out). Cost: $0.
- Calendar: Google again. It comes with the Apps for Domains package. I like keeping multiple calendars (work, personal, financial/investment, birthdays) so you can turn them on and off as you need them. I also like the database of calendars Google keeps that you can search through and add to your own. That is the only way I know which sports games on are and when. Also, it finally 2-way auto-syncs with my BlackBerry with the new Google Sync for BlackBerry. Cost: $0.
- Tasks: I still can’t figure out why Google hasn’t made even a primitive task manager part of their online suite that is slowly eroding Outlook’s market share. Until they do, I’ll be a faithful user of RememberTheMilk.com. It lets you create multiple task lists, set due dates, add notes and associate links all very quickly. They are also one of the earliest adopters and best users of Google Gears so the task system works when you’re offline and will sync later when it detects a connection. I use this on multiple machines throughout the day and it does a great job of staying in sync. The only thing they really still need is BlackBerry sync (they have a Pro Version ($25/yr) that syncs with iPhones or Windows mobile devices). Cost: $0.
- Chat: Because I really only chat with people in my organization (which runs Google Apps), I really only need GChat (Google Talk). They have a great BlackBerry client, though, which can tell when you’re not at your PC anymore and will send chat conversations to your BB (which blinks red when there are new IM’s). All your chats are logged and searchable later (unless you tell it to go “off the record”) Works flawlessly. Cost: $0.
- www.blackberry.com/GoogleTalk from your BB browser.
- Phones: I still have 2 phones because I haven’t found one yet that is durable enough for all of life’s activities (and I like redundancy).
- Motorola K1M KRZR (Verizon) - horrible UI but very small, durable and cheap/easy to replace if lost.
- BlackBerry 8830 (Verizon) - A great device, though I’d use a Curve if Verizon carried it. And it obviously has a lot of support from the Google Apps.
- Backups: Both desktop and web server backups are very important in my (and most peoples’) business.
- Desktop files: I’ve been an avid user of FolderShare.com for quite a while now and it has always been there for me (it even survived being acquired by Microsoft!) It is a small desktop client that runs in Windows or OSX and monitors directories you tell it to watch for changes to files. When files are created/changed/deleted, they are sent to the other machines in your FolderShare network that are currently online. It does so in a peer-to-peer fashion so your files never touch a Microsoft server. You can also access all of your files via foldershare.com (as long as the client machines are on and connected). This has saved me countless times when I’ve been on the road and needed a file I forgot on my desktop. There is a lot of buzz these days around backing up to “The Cloud”, but I see no reason to move away from FolderShare anytime soon. Running it across my home and work machines has allowed me to stop paying for and bothering with expensive RAID arrays as well. Oh yeah, and it’s free.
- Server files: I also have a leased Linux web server that I host a few non-mission-critical web sites on (like this blog, for instance). Even though it is not mission critical, I’d rather not lose everything when it inevitably dies. I also would rather not pay for expensive RAID gear or managed backup services. For this reason I use a nightly RSYNC via SSH to backup to another Linux web server. This isn’t an extremely process to set up, but if you do the following 2 how-to’s in order, you’ll be set. You’ll need some Linux CLI knowledge but nothing hard-core.
- Setup an account between the 2 servers that can SSH from client to server w/o a password.
- Setup the automated RSYNC over SSH of your web and database files.
This technology changes and typically improves almost every month - especially the Google offering. I’ll probably end up jumping on the iPhone bandwagon, too, once the next version is released and they start using a real network.
