I really don’t like using my laptop. It’s more than just the pain of working on a small cramped computer, staring at a measly 15 inches of dim liquid crystals. It’s that I don’t have all the same stuff that I do on my desktop computer. However lately I find myself needing to work more and more on the run.
What I really want to do is move my life online. Ok I’ll keep the family, but I mean my work life. I hate having contacts, emails, links, settings, documents and everything else tied up on my desktop. I’m obsessive about having everything at my fingertips just in case I might need it.
The Internet to the Rescue
Fortunately we’re moving in exactly that direction. It’s not easy, and it’s very fragmented, but you can get a lot online. So I thought I might compile a small list of all the things that help you take your stress, er I mean work, on the road with you.
Productivity
Contacts
Voip
Projects
Screen Sharing
Basic Collaboration
Todo Lists and Oragnization
Calendar
Invoicing and Billing
Bookmarks
Start Pages
While this is by no means an exhaustive list, it is a list of the applications I use or found that appeared fairly usable. If you have any suggestions for a site that helps get your information online and on the road with you, let us know!
Published on December 6, 2005
Resides in Web Technologies
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19 Responses to “Taking your office with you”
1
Jameson Hsu on December 6th, 2005
Don’t forget about Planzo.com for the Calendar category.
2
ryan on December 6th, 2005
Done and done.
3
Ian Main on December 6th, 2005
I must admit, I’ve never really grown to online tools but can certainly see the advantages some can offer, like Basecamp for example.
Does this mean you’ll be welcoming Office live when it comes out online?
4
ryan on December 6th, 2005
Hrmmm, probably not. I had an interesting conversation with a Writely VP, and Office live may not end up what we think it is. Time will tell.
I don’t think I’ll be too interested in supporting their software, and I doubt it will be very revolutionary over other offerings. They have already shown their same old stripes by making ‘live favorites’ IE only.
5
Heiko on December 7th, 2005
Nice collection of “Officelinks”. Best project in my mind are Side Job Track and of course Del.icio.us
6
Kyle Talbott on December 8th, 2005
Perfect! I was batting this around with some collegues. My sentiments exactly, I am doing this as much as possible, and with this new list, I will push the envelope further (away from my laptop).
7
ryan on December 8th, 2005
Over at Techcrunch Michael asks what the big deal about these AJAX start pages (or desktops as I refer to them). I feel like they are important. One day I would love to bring my ‘OS’ with me. In other words all the applications and data I use should go with me.
This includes my interface/desktop. Wouldn’t that be great? Log in to about any computer, boot up Google OS…er I mean some online version of an OS and start being productive with everything there intact.
8
Steven Woods on December 9th, 2005
Just wondering what you would do, if any/all of these companies went under, taking your data with them?
There’s a lot to be said for local backups, hehe.
9
Chris Johnson on December 10th, 2005
I do use a lot of these same online services to help me manage working from my laptop when I’m out and about and getting away from my desktop. But I had the same concern as Steven brought up about if they go out of business. So what I do is once a month I back things up to hard files stored on my desktop (”file server”). Not the most efficient way but I’ll always have information if the web versions go down.
10
Kevin Cannon on December 12th, 2005
Maybe it’s assumed email can go everywhere with you these days because of gmail and the like. But i’m old fashioned, I like accessing mail from a client and because of that love IMAP.
It’s like POP accounts, only all the messages are stored online, and organised in folders etc…
I can access my own domain, my old college account from home & work with Thunderbird. And when I’m on the move I can access them via a nice webmail interface. It’s the business.
I’m not sure why it’s not the default for all commercial mail accounts. It’s too good not to use.
Also, while we’re on that route, you shoud check out Portableapps too, while you’re waiting for all applications ot be web based: http://portableapps.com/
11
ryan on December 12th, 2005
I love the idea of IMAP. However I tried using IMAP again recently but I found it ’slow’. It was difficult to wait every single time you click on a folder. Is it the same for you and it’s just something you learn to live with?
I just gave up and went with the instant response of POP.
12
Johnny on December 13th, 2005
RE: #7 isn’t that what remote desktop is already doing?
13
Damian on December 13th, 2005
One tool that we love is subethaedit. This is a great product that is really simple for editing files together, including code.
Check it out http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
14
inoodle on December 14th, 2005
Hey Ryan, Great list. Someone mentioned backups being a problem - I use an online backup company now - to deal with the major things related to code and business. Then I’ve got flickr pro to store all those gigs of photos. All I really need now is a way to store my 40GB music collection - it would be nice to have that safe somewhere. My hard drive would then only need to be about 30GB (20GB for visual studio
Aaron.
15
ryan on December 14th, 2005
Taylor - Done!
Johnny - Yeah, that is what I’m using now. It’s still a limited solution. It’s a bit slow, and it locks up the computer in question. Also some places (like some coffee shops) block the ports it uses
Aaron - haha nice. I forgot where I put my 10 DVD pack to reinstall VS.
16
Taylor on December 17th, 2005
This is a great summary of some excellent tools, thanks for putting this list together!
To the VOIP category, I’d be sure to add Gizmo, a Skype competitor with a focus on open standards, and other features like recording calls (great for podcasting) and free voicemail.
www.gizmoproject.com
It has gotten quite a bit of press lately, including this article at Wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/start.html?pg=3
17
Axel on December 20th, 2005
Why don´t you set up a VPN connection to your desktop computer. You can acces your PC worldwide with all your own apps, images desktop etc. It´s just a hint! You can acces all your digital data from all over the world. Just go to an internet cafee of a pc at your office and login to your own house, it´s that easy!
18
smarcus on December 30th, 2005
lots of calendars, foto places, maps, mashups, desktops. ajax, java, ruby,etc. Wheres it all going? Is it easier or just different? Are we bored and need change? How about an email where you can change your name instantly without changing the @ghot.com. Today at 8 I am glennhel@ghot.com for sending a letter to my landlord but an hour later to invite a friend to a party i could be glenniteman or buzzly@ghot.com . or i could become richard newman @ghot.com to send comments to a page where i dont want to be found. All letters go out of my same box and come in the same. Why is email address considered unchangable while we change desktop, blog, fotoplace and tel numbers, addresses, age? sex?
19
Denis on December 31st, 2005
This is the list of apps that I have been searching for. Thanks for the post !