Recently in Software Category

If you're like me, you've got data all spread out across the place on different machines (PC and Mac), smartphones and in the cloud. And you probably spend a lot of time trying to synchronise data, emails, contacts, appointments, bookmarks, browser state, RSS subs, documents, and everything else across all these devices, and invariably, when you actually need something important it's somewhere else. And of course, keeping all this stuff backed up is a nightmare - either it doesn't get backed up, or you end up with multiple copies of everything in several different places, with no sense of which is the canonical version. So, here's a list of the tools I find pretty essential to get over some of these problems.

• Gmail - sort of obvious, like.
• Foldershare - Groove's younger, more lightweight, and generally easier to use cousin. I've just realised that it has an OS X client as well, which means that you can transparently synchronise your files across your various PCs and Macs, and never lose those important documents again.
• Jungledisk - backup to Amazon's S3.
• Nokia N73 on 3's XSeries. Flat rate web access, and a pretty decent browser.
• OS X iSync - keeps contacts and events on your phone and mobile synced up. You'll need to do a little work to get your N73 hooked up - check here for a nice blog post, and here for the plugin.
• Lifeblog - syncing up pictures and SMS's between phone and PC.

So, basic strategy is to use Foldershare to keep your important bits sychronised and distributed across all your computers. Use Jungledisk on one computer to back everything up to S3. If there's stuff you don't want to distribute across all your computers just run Jungledisk and back up those particular bits to a separate bucket. Starting out, there will be an inevitable big hit as everything synchronises and gets backed up - but after that you can just let it all transparently tick over in the background, in the knowledge that as long as you ensure that you save everything into your synchronised folders, it will be safe and secure - that's gotta be good :) [tags]mobile, synchronise, synchronize, foldershare, jungledisk, backup, onlinebackup, n73, isync, lifeblog[/tags]

Integrated with Windows Live Maps - nice..although it would be better with directions. Let's see whether you can play with the map in place once posted.

[tags]test, livewriter, maps[/tags]

In my continuing quest to ensure that my environment is replicated as easily as possible to any machine I'm using, here's a nice idea:

Even better was a pointer to the PortableApps.com version. I loves me some portable apps. Why? Cause I throw all portable programs on a FolderShare folder and use Launchy to launch them. No start menu clutter, no installation, and my applications roam to all my PCees. Sweet.

Omar Shahine - Portable FileZilla

Definitely a good solution - I like the use of Launchy (which allows you to specify folders outside of the Start Menu structure to index, and if they contain apps, they become part of the index) to ensure there's no Start Menu clutter. Bit of a shame that FolderShare only allows one folder (and its subfolders) to be automatically synced - so that instead of picking and choosing from your existing folder structure, you have to change the way you work and create a "Foldershare" folder, or something like that. I know, moan moan. And while I'm moaning, where on earth is Google Notebook's "post to blog" feature ? [Update] Actually Foldershare can allow up to 10 "libraries" - a folder and its subfolders - to be synched. So, that's even better - although I think the UI on the website needs a lot of work - I don't think it's the most intuitive it could be. [tags]foldershare, launchy, googlenotebook, portableapps[/tags]

I've previously blogged about Quicksilver equivalents for Windows, and came to the conclusion that Launchy would probably do everything an "average" user needed. 4 months later, I can confirm this to be true. I've got Launchy installed on every Windows PC I use, and what a time/life saver it is - no more digging through multiple nested menu options, trying to remember whether I'd classified a program as a utility, or an accessory, or a development tool, or maybe it's just in one of those 30 new folders created since I last cleaned up my Start Menu navigation structure. Nope, that's not how I play these days...Ctrl-space, type a couple of letters, arrow down or return, and that's your application launched. It's so useful, and has saved me so much time I've even ponied up and donated to the author. Oh - and the source code is available as well. A great example, from real life, of the limitations of a hierarchical classification system, with its rigid insistence on single dimension classification. [tags]quicksilver, launchy, classification, taxonomy[/tags]

I'm loving Google Notebook right now. After many attempts at finding an information saving / web clipping tool - including OneNote, Enfish, Onfolio, and a number of others that I can't even remember, finally there's something very lightweight and reasonably functional. I've also installed Google Browser Sync - a Firefox extension that syncs up cookies, bookmarks, history, open pages between various instances of Firefox that you might have - ie work and home, or desktop and laptop. Pretty nice to fire up Firefox at home and continue where you left off, and no longer does reinstalling Firefox mean another session of getting my bookmarks and various web site authentications setup. Firefox does seem slower though - so not completely sold on it. Not liking Google Calendar much. It's not bad, but the lack of automatic sync is a fatal flaw for me, when compared to Airset, which syncs up from Outlook at work to the website to Outlook at home and vice versa. Sounds complicated but isn't - all it means is that I have an up to date calendar and contact list at home and work, and online when I need it (as well as on my Blackberry and mobile phone). Redundancy of access is a pretty powerful thing, and has saved me plenty many times. [tags] Google, software, tools, notebook, calendar, sync [/tags]

If you've got the right setup (multiple monitors, multiple computers) and want to give each a separate monitor but share a keyboard and mouse, then you need Synergy.

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems.

Pretty amazing - I've got a Windows XP box and a Mac mini hooked up to their own monitors, and with Synergy running. I just need a single keybaord and mouse. Moving between screens is as simple as they say, and shared clipboards round it all off and makes it all feel like a single unified system that can run Windows and OS X software.

So - why not just use Remote Desktop or some flavour of VNC ?

• Remote Desktop is *much* better than VNC. VNC is pretty much the only way of doing remote control of a Mac, so I would be forced to use the Mac mini as the primary computer.  I don't particularly want to do this (Mac mini doesn't do dual monitors, slower, etc).
• It's fast ! No screen images to send across the wire (or ether) - just mouse and keyboard data.

Just waiting for my third monitor, and then I'll have a full-on technogeek setup !

[tags]synergy, software, utilities, OSX, remote control[/tags]