The complex web I weave

November 10th, 2008 Posted in Day to Day

Lately I’ve been exploring a lot of different options to help me get organized. I don’t think there is any one solution for this, but I’m starting to get somewhere with my workflow, which will eventually have the fortunate side effect of less stress.

The applications (online and off) that I use with each other have begun to create a very confusing web that even I sometimes can’t understand. Some of the methods that I’ve come across though are ingenious. I’ve tried to cover some of my favourite ones below.

Note: I use a Mac, so if you’re a Windows user some of the apps I’m using won’t work on your PC. You may prefer to stop reading. It will only make you jealous.

First, a bit of context
I work at Social Media Group and, because of the nature of our work, I am online pretty much all the time. This has it’s pros and cons.

Pro: I can keep copious amounts of data in the cloud and syncing between two computers is a breeze.

Con: If I don’t have an internet connection I’m screwed… and I can get very bored.

MAMP [website]
My first solution is the obvious one for people who build and design websites or web apps — set up a local server on my machine. With MAMP I can continue to toil away on a wordpress theme or plugin without a) being connected to the internet and b) breaking a live website I’m working on irreversibly. MAMP allows me to run MySQL and PHP right on my machine, which suits my needs perfectly.

1Password [website]
I was introduced to this app at Wordcamp Toronto. Between work, clients and my personal life I have tons of passwords and logins to remember. Writing them down is sometimes a bad idea, but as one person noted at Wordcamp — If somebody breaks into your house to steal your passwords, you may have bigger problems.  Using the same password over and over is also NOT a good way to do things. Don’t learn this the hard way.

1password is a secure solution to this problem. The app collects, oober-encrypts and stores your web passwords in an encrypted database on encrypted servers in an encrypted location. To access your passwords you need one master password and the app. The obvious upside of this is that it is much easier to remember one super complicated password than several easy-to-remember ones. One license can also be used on several computers, which is handy when you use more than one computer on a regular basis.  As part of the app, 1password also has a password generator which helps you create completely random, secure passwords.

If you are concerned about the security of this at all check their website for the details.

Dropbox [website]
This my keystone. Dropbox is an online dropbox that shows up on your computer like a folder in finder. It stores, backs things up and syncs your files just as quick as if you were working directly on your computer.  You can also create public folders online where people can go to access the files you want to share.

What this app allows me to do is sync things between my work and home computers. For example, my 1password keychain is located in my Dropbox so that I have access to all my passwords on both computers [here's how]. When I am working on a site on MAMP, I can use a folder in my Dropbox as the root directory allowing me to work on the same design from both computers. And because it is all stored online I don’t need to keep my computer at work on to access these files.

Spanning Sync [website]
This app syncs my calendars. This is by far the most useful app I use, because it reminds me of where I need to be and when. At work we use Google Calendars to set up meetings and see when co-workers are free. I use iCal and my iPod to keep track of where I am supposed to be at any given time. Spanning sync brings these two calendars together seamlessly. My only problem now is remembering to sync my iPod to my computer. If there was a way to do this wirelessly I’d be set.

Anyone else have any techniques/apps they’d like to share?