5 Online Services I Cant Live Without
Those that are members of UKAPU will know that one of newsletters monthly articles is a 5 Items You Cant Airsoft Without. I thought I’d add a similar feature to my site.
I toyed with what software but decided to make the first one an article on online services I cant live without. So without further ado, I give you my list of services in no particular order. You might be able to argue that some of these are software services as well, which may well be the case but I’ll class them as online services here!
So everyone should have heard of the excellent Dropbox service by now (if not, have you been hiding under a rock?!).
Dropbox 
is an excellent, simple syncing tool and it just works. No hassle, no problems. In all the time I’ve been using it (probably nigh on over a year), I’ve not had an issue. Conflict with syncing files? It creates a conflicted copy and tells you and lets you choose the conflict. No internet connection? No problem, Dropbox will reconnect when it can and upload the work.
Built into a lot of mobile applications (such as the excellent Writing Kit and Day One now as well, mean that’s it’s use is firmly set in my daily work flow.
I’ve briefly paid for a 50GB account but currently I’ve dropped down to the free account. The price is worth it but at the minute, my referrals and extra space mean I have an account that is currently 8GB and I don’t need to sync my music so much that I’m willing to pay (though if they brought in a smaller service or started charging for the space I’m currently using, I’d happily pay as the software is invaluable)
Spideroak is another online hosting/syncing/backup service (well, mainly backup when compared to Dropbox). Initially I tried to run one service or the other but came to the conclusion that I couldn’t. Why? Various reasons.
- Dropbox is primarily syncing – it does it well. However, to keep changes to files for more than 30 days, you need to pay extra. Spideroak does that in it’s price.
- Spideroak’s syncing is a bit hit and miss. It’s difficult to see what has finished syncing and stay on top of what’s been uploaded etc.
- Spideroak gives a lot more space for the money, double what Dropbox offers.
So after trialling Dropbox and Spideroak together, I came to the conclusion that I’d use Spideroak for the excellent and cheap offsite backup – I backup all my documents and my music, as well as some odds and ends, such as my eBooks that I purchase from the Black Library and my GPS tracks recorded when cycling and running.
The lack of being built into mobile applications isn’t really a concern thanks to Dropbox but it’s nice to know that this is constantly updating my offsite backup of my files. Teamed with Dropbox, I’ve got a tool that will sync all my important documents to all my devices and then back them up to the cloud safely.
Evernote is a note taking program. Any notes added to it are synced to the Evernote servers and then to all your devices, be it PC, Mac or phone so you can have access to the notes anywhere, anytime. You can also add images, files and other items to it (if you have a premium account) and can store items for offline use on your phone.
Very quickly I paid for a premium subscription to this. $5 a month is a small price for the indexing, searching mind space that is Evernote. Dropping a thought into Evernote means I can pick it up at a later date and time. It’s a massive help to my PhD and all my notes are stored within it on the papers I’ve read, my thesis plans and ideas and my research notes. Extremely helpful.
iCloud is a new addition to the list and replaces the Google services. As a Mac user, with iPhone, it made sense to move to Apple’s offering, rather than Googles, especially as the new Google themes and updates have basically killed the service for me (the new theme is utter terrible and trying to use Google Reader without the use of desktop software like Reeder is a painful process). As such, it seemed to easy to move over to iCloud.
Since doing so, I’ve had no issues (other than my documented attempt to try and use Sparrow with iCloud here which is still occurring). Being able to sync all my calendars, contacts, reminders, bookmarks and emails to all my devices is a great help and fits nicely into my workflow.
I’ve yet to pay for the service as the current 5GB seems plenty for my current use (I don’t use photostream or the Pages/Numbers/Keynote storage).
Last.fm may seem like an odd one but over the past year, it’s been a fantastic source of insightful information on the music I listen to (I guess I like VNV Nation a lot!! ) and for finding new music based on what music I already like.
This ability to find more of what I’m interested in is great and the ability to listen to a radio station based on similar artists to what I’ve already scrobbled is great for times I don’t have access to my music but do have access to my Last.fm account.
That rounds up the 5 best online services I cant live without. However, there are a few that probably deserve a mention here that didn’t make the top 5 for some reason.
Imgur
This service is a great phot sharing service. I spent ages considering how I could spend money on some hosting to get a Imgur style site for personal use and decided I’d just pay the Imgur hosting price for the benefits it gives me as it’s so easy to use that I couldn’t replicate it elsewhere. It’s how I host images for this blog!
Tumblr
The host for this blog, Tumblr has been an excellent online service, allowing me to write this drivel and share images of cats. The ease of customisation and the ability to add your own domain name for free is a nice touch. Thanks Tumblr and keep up the awesome work!
Wordpress
Ok, so a competitor to Tumblr that I left for this site. However, it’s main use to me now is that Wordpress acts as my OpenID identifying service. Which I use on a fair few sites (normally, all that allow OpenID!) so I have to give a shout out for that.
So there we go, my top 5 online services. Hopefully that’s given people an idea of what’s out there and of the different services.
Self Control
I think everyone get’s it at some point – you need to concentrate on something important but you cant stop checking Facebook, Twitter or another website. There’s where the excellent Self Control app comes in.
Simple and Easy to Use
The principle between Self Control is easy – it blocks access to time wasting websites. It works by blocking access to websites in any browser you have installed. It’s initial screen pops up with the following window.
Clicking the edit blacklist lets you choose what sites you want to block. Sites are blocked completely but you might need to play about (i.e. I blocked micromart.co.uk but it didn’t block the sub domain forum.micromart.co.uk)
Set the slider to the time that you want and off it goes – Self Control asks for an admin password and then displays a timer, counting down to when access will be allowed again. Be warned, once started, Self Control cannot be stopped, even by restarting!
Downsides
The main downside is the inability to import or export website lists on different PC’s but that might also prove a benefit – you can block different sites on Mac’s at home and work for example.
Also, for some reason, some apps aren’t blocked. The Mac Twitter app isn’t blocked by the app and therefore can still be used to browse/keep up with Twitter. However, for me, this isn’t a huge issue – it means I just shut down the Twitter app and leave it closed during the stint.
Conclusion
Overall, Self Control performs really well considering the free price point. It’s worth checking out if you find yourself wasting time during the day on various sites.
A Customers View on the Mac App Store
So the Mac App Store has been about for a while now and I’ve seen plenty of talk on what it means for the developers and Apple. We’ve seen arguments on the cost of using it (Apple taking 30%) and on it requiring sandboxing 
and what this means for the consumer.
However, I’ve not seen any posts on how we feel, the consumer, using the store.
Why the App Store?
I’ll start of by saying I’m a big fan of Linux. Why? The repository system. Not only do my updates for my computer come from this, so do my program updates. Updating my system is as simple as running the commands
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
This will update my system fully. How simple is that in comparison to Windows where each individual program has to look for updates each time it boots up?
I originally saw the Mac App Store as the Mac equivalent of the synaptic repository of Linux but with more detail and prettier looking. And it is, similar.
I love the fact when I open the App Store, it automatically looks for updates for all the apps I’ve installed and purchased. One app lets me download and update all the installed software from it and that for me, is the main plus side to the app store. Alright, it’s not as polished as the Linux method, as system update is a separate program but it would be nice for each to run at the same time and both update at once if needed.
Advantages
It’s main advantage is as above. But also as a consumer, having access to a central repository of apps is great for flicking through and finding new apps. The Staff Picks and featured apps means I very often find programs I might never have considered or even found had it not been for the feature.
The reviews feature is extremely helpful, even if most of the reviews aren’t. Perhaps Apple should police them a bit more than they do.
Downsides
However, the app store is hard to navigate – well, it’s easy to navigate but to find the decent apps, it’s a struggle. I still find myself relying on external websites such as Mac Appstorm to find myself new, quality programs. This is a flaw but at least the Staff Picks and Featured try to combat this problem.
It would be nice for the App Store to check daily/weekly/customisable time to check for updates – I guess it might already do this having seen the icon on peoples docks with notification numbers on it but I don’t have it in my dock and manually run it (mainly because I try and find new software at least once a week). Would be nice if it ran alongside Software Update as I mentioned above.
Also, where’s our Genius feature? iTunes has it for music and iOS have it for apps on iPhones/iPods, why isn’t there a feature for that in the App Store? Or a “Customers who purchased this also purchased these” feature similar to Amazon? That would be very handy!
Conclusion
Overall,I think the App Store will be here to stay. As the image above shows, I have a considerable number of programs from the App Store and this list is likely to get far longer as time goes on. I’ll be interested to see how major software upgrades plan out – ideally I’d like to see them progress similar to Smultron – two versions are on the App Store and both can be purchased though the developer is focussing on the newer version.
Overall I think the app store is a really good step towards emulating the Linux behaviour of package management. It just needs a few tweaks.
A month using Evernote Premium
Well, it’s been a month since upgrading Evernote to the Premium account and I thought I’d write a quick piece on it.
Evernote for those that don’t know, is a fantastic application designed to take notes and sync across multi platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and others) and it does this very well. There is a limit on how much can be uploaded to the cloud on a free account (60MB a month) but if you use it mainly for text like I do, then why would it be worth upgrading?
Essentially Evernote Premium gives the user extra space (1GB upload a month) and adds some nice features - the best in my mind, is the attach any file feature. Evernote basic allows for PDF and image attachments which can be displayed inline in the notes. However, an upgrade to “Pro” allows any file you want to be attached. I thought this would be a bit of gimmick to start with but it soon became apparent that for how I use Evernote, this was the best part of the upgrade!
I use Evernote for a variety of reasons. One of which is for my PhD and also for computing references. Both of these require some computer coding, from simple batch scripts, upto javascript files and other files. Now my main backup and sync method is Spideroak but I keep a record in Evernote on what each file does - I can then add the file to the note and instantly be able to run it when I find it.
The same applies to technical help or conversions - you know, articles like this Kindle Jailbreaking on How to Geek. These articles can easily be saved to Evernote for future reference thanks to the fantastic web clipper (and the Firefox/Chrome plugins) but in the future, you might want to do this and follow the instructions in your Evernote notebook, but the files might have disappeared off the internet! With Pro, you can attach those files and at a later date, everything you need will still be there!
Overall, this alone makes the upgrade worth the $5 a month. That’s a pint of beer a month for piece of mind and the ability to sync anything across all platforms :) In my mind, well worth it.
Source: evernote.com
Spideroak
Spideroak backup service - Like Dropbox but better. Considering trying it - 2GB free and if you click my link and sign up, you and me will get an extra 1GB free. :)
Evernote
Well finally got round to upgrading to Evernote Premium. Excellent news is the offline notebooks, ideal for me as my iPod Touch and phone don’t have internet when out and about so it means I can still download notes.
It’s an excellent service so I always felt I should pay something for it and to be fair, the $5 price is peanuts. The ability to add PDF files and have them made searchable is gold - especially as some papers stupidly don’t allow searching.
Source: evernote.com
