Nick Projects

As a gadget person, I come across all kinds of data.  One of the issues I run into is finding a way to archive that data or find it again when I need it.  There are a few tools I have been using and like for this purpose.

Wordpress is treated more as a blogging solution than a personal database.  But,  if you think about it the two aren’t really all that different.  Both allow you to organize information in a way that’s easy to search and find.  Both allow file uploads and linking to external documents. So,  why split hairs.  

The truth is,  that wordpress is really easy to use and has so many plugins that it is a great way to aggregate information public or not.  Of course,  it is a web based platform so if you want to be archiving your tax documents you probably don’t want that on a web server anywhere.  Luckily,  there is this way cool company called jumpbox (www.jumpbox.com) that distributes virtual machine images of many web based platforms and wordpress is on their free list.  If your interested in wordpress check them out.  

  Evernote is a more traditional personal database.  In my opinion the best feature of evernote is that it has amazing OCR capabilities.  You can even search on handwritten documents and not so great scanned images.  The downside of evernote is that it is really designed to archive information to a central website.  This is a double edged sword.  On one hand it’s great to be able to sync notes across multiple computers and handheld devices.  On the other your space is limited and your security is a bit suspect ( although probably just fine).  Evernote also makes it easy to archive emails and websites which is pretty cool.  

Zotero is a solution designed for academic purposes.  Like evernote it can clip websites for archiving,  but it allows you to store all of your data locally or on a private solution like jungledisk.  Zotero also records academic standard source citation information.  This is great if you are researching to get a paper out or if you tend to do research for this purpose.  Zotero is also able to pull source information off of most academic databases.  

Mendley is sort of like zotero,  but it has a social component.  Mendeley is good if you are working in a group and have an academic focus. Mendeley should be able to handle larger data sets than zotero,  but again the focus is on community research.  I keep thinking a platform like this would make a great solution for a small programing group.

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This is a great free app that is perfect for anyone who has multiple exchange in boxes that they need to keep track of.   The application pretty much does what it sounds like,  it allows you to embed your email or calendar, or both on your windows desktop.  so that you don’t have to go clicking around when you need to find something.  I really don’t know why there is no default outlook view that allows you to see both your calendar and your email in one screen,  but there’s not and this allows you to get that and more.  

Check out the page below to download:
http://www.outlookonthedesktop.com/

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Screen Sharing is another fun topic!  Here’s the setup,  when someone at work is getting a funny error message, has a problem in excel that they can’t solve or in the case of my life has take controll of a client’s machine to get something done and is up against a wall; I walk over and take a look at what’s going on.  Sure we could talk about the issue in my office or over IM or some other system, but, it’s way more efficient for me to just see what they have in front of them.  Also there is a ton of different information on a screen that you would have to explicitly ask about unless you saw their screen.  Of course if you would have to walk 500 miles to see someones desktop in person, you need another option.

Ultra VNC
The first option is probably my favorite because it lends itself to creating lists and directories of links that allow you to take over people’s screens instantly.  The caviat of this one is that you either have to know how to configure your firewall or be on the same network.  Of course if you are on a VPN or using Hamachi much of this is already taken care of for you.  ( this is why I mentioned those tools ).    Youtube has a host of videos about setting up VNC.  This one seems ok.

Ammy Admin:

Ammy Admin was covered a while back (Fix a friend’s computer),  but it is a good tool for this application aswell.  It won’t really allow you to take over people’s computer with one click,  but it is really pretty easy to use and doesn’t require any crazy software or firewall configurations.  This is a good solution for people who really find themselves requireing this functionality seldomly rather than all day.

Both of these systems work well with multiple monitors and have ways to modify the settings for optimizing internet speed.  Both will get the job done and save you from having to walk 500 miles to see what’s going on on people’s screen.

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The goal of communications software for a work from home situation is to allow remote users to share ideas as freely and easily as users in the office.  I outlined an ideal implementation in article one and haven’t been able to find a perfect solution yet,  but I have found many solutions that get close.

My favorite solution is video.  Just having a camera on all day provides a ton of information and communication opportunities.  You know when people are on the phone, when they are away from desks, when their upset or happy,  this is probably the best type of collaboration I have used.  The downside is that it can be sort of taxing on your bandwidth.  Especially if the majority of people on the system are in an office and talking to one or two external people.

TokBox
For video conferencing I recommend tokbox.  Tokbox is a great flash based site that allows you to have live video chats with several people at once.  The system supports pause and mute functions.  It also has a pretty robust text chat feature which is great.  I tried this system for a few weeks with about 6 people.  I feel like it did succeed in extending a great office environment to people working out of the office,  but sadly had to stop using it because 4 people were in the same office which made the system take up way too much band width.  If you were working with people who were all spread out and there was no central office I think this would be a fine solution.

Voxli
For voice chat there is a cool program that just came out called Voxli.  Voxli is designed to be an alternative to programs like teamspeak,  but it doesn’t require a server setup.  This makes configuration super easy which is always a plus.  Voxli allows you to assign a hot key to your microphone so that each time you press the hot key you are broadcasting.  This makes carrying on conversation very simple during the course of the day.  Voxli has some support for text chat, like tokbox,  but it is not as sophisticated as it could be.  Also there is not any security on the site yet,  so if you are whining about customers go ahead but if you are talking about my credit card application its not a good fit. 

Meebo
For plain old text chat the best I’ve found so far is meebo rooms.  I pretty much hate meebo, but basically can’t find anything better.  Rooms can be locked down and the chat features are relatively sophisticated.  Meebo also integrates with many IM clients which is nice,  but it’s no digsby.  My biggest gripe with meebo is that it is exceptionally bloated with advertising,  also I would much prefer to have chat as an offline application rather than having to blow an entire browser window on a chat screen. 

Campfire
Campfire is a better system than meebo,  but it isn’t free so It’s a mixed bag.  Campfire is more business oriented and keeps good logs of what was said.  Much of the chat that comes across our meebo room is about youtube videos so logs are not really required.  For me I don’t get enough utility to justify the cost,  but that’s just me. 

Yammer
For an even more removed solution Yammer is a pretty good way to keep people in the loop.  Yammer is like twitter but for business.  I would think of it this way,  If you wold like a company news letter but don’t have the time, resources, or motivation to write a daily publication;  you can use yammer.  Yammer gives people the ability to constantly update their status during the day so that everyone else can see what’s going on.  This is good for companies that need limited communications between departments.  For example I don’t really need to know that the accounting department is really amuzed by the benny lava video on youtube,  but if they post something like working with client x about renewing.  I may be interested in knowing that client x has something going on right now. 

Blellow
Finally, being at home by yourself,  or just working at a small company will leave you with a lack of people to ask questions to.  Blellow is a good solution for this,  blellow is like a twitter for communities.  With blellow you can ask groups of people their opinions on a variety of topics and if you are asking for help you can rate their responses.  This is a good way to artificially increase your talent pool when you really need it.

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