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Your top 3 tools?
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Posted by gunars
Mar 17, 2013 at 03:35 AM
Cassius wrote:
>... Later, I added a dumb terminal connected to
>a VAX computer and the statistical program SPSS. Finally, the PC
>arrived and as soon as GrandView became available, I used it for
>everything:
Small world - I used GrandView to help plan software development while working at SPSS at around the same time.
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>An important consideration, it seems to me, with one of these
>subscription-based web apps is where are you if the company goes out of
>business…
An example is thinklinkr that quietly closed up shop. Fortunately, I didn’t have much irreplaceable info there. All of a sudden, I could no longer log in. A note from the owners said I could still get in via the mobile interface, although only in read-only mode. At least that was enough to retrieve my data by copy/paste.
Posted by Cassius
Mar 17, 2013 at 04:14 AM
If you store stuff on your hard drive, you are supposed to back it up often.
If you store your original stuff in the Cloud, where is your backup?
Using Cloud/Web apps reminds me of using a dumb terminal and a mini or mainframe.
Retrogression anyone?
Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 17, 2013 at 11:46 AM
Cassius wrote:
>The example shown for WorkFlowy shows only short notes. Can it include
>many paragraphs or pages in a single note, the way GrandView did and
>Inspiration does?
The answer is yes, as I’ve just tested this, and in fact the single-node note view was the closest thing to the GrandView document view I’ve seen so far.
Having said that, I’d be a bit wary about using WorkFlowy as my main writing or outlining solution. I’d be worried about losing long texts in between syncs. Also, the note text is rendered in a washed out grey font (as opposed to the item title, which is in black), so it doesn’t seem to be designed for that.
The main attraction for me is as a task - and to some extent project - manager, and that I can use it across all of my devices (there are some Android clients too). Its single-click hoisting is just highly conducive to focusing on a particular segment of a task or a project. It is ideal for doing a “work breakdown structure” (brainstorming about and developing sub-tasks) and then rearranging them.
The other attraction is its simplicity. Compared to Checkvist (which I haven’t yet tried), it looks like a beta, on the other hand it’s sometimes simplicity that you want and need. I’m sure they’ll be under pressure to gradually add the bells and whistles (ability to add calendar dates, attach files, tick boxes etc.), so it might get ruined one day.
Okay, I’m gonna take a look at Checkvist to see what I’m missing :)
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 17, 2013 at 06:56 PM
Cassius wrote:
>If you store stuff on your hard drive, you are supposed to back it up
>often. If you store your original stuff in the Cloud, where is your backup?
The theory is that the Cloud includes its own backup, in the sense of redundant content copies and servers.
That said, for me it is important to keep copies of my data in my own equipment both for the principle of it, and for offline access as I spend significant time unconnected. Depending on the actual cloud service, this can be easy, difficult or impossible:
- For cloud mail services, an IMAP capable desktop mail client is all it takes
- For the cloud office service that I use for collaboration, Google Docs, the Google Drive desktop client is an easy solution; however, Google Docs format documents cannot be edited locally, so it is not ideal in the sense of independence.
- I personally use two services for my working files: Dropbox and Nomadesk. In Dropbox I keep most of my day to day files and in Nomadesk (which offers encryption and unlimited storage, but is more cumbersome) anything that is finished and delivered. Both services provide local copies of all data, available offline.
- Evernote, which I use for all my collected information, also provides a local copy of all data.
- The only area where I have found serious obstacles in copying data is social networking. Of the ones I use (Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook), I have only found convenient ways to ‘backup’ Twitter and Google+, by automatically mailing myself anything that I post.
>Using Cloud/Web apps reminds me of using a dumb terminal and a mini or mainframe.
>Retrogression anyone?
Yes, this is partly true. But there’s a good reason for it. A modern smartphone has as much computing power as the machines that the Apollo missions had available onboard. All this power cannot be harnessed very easily. Algorithms can be optimised and bugs can be resolved much more efficiently at the centralised level. We are seeing experiments with many different proportions of local (client) and centralised (server) computing weights. I don’t think that there’s a single combination which is ideal for all kinds of operations.
Posted by Tim the Red
Mar 18, 2013 at 03:55 AM
Cassius wrote:
> Talk to the people who are ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK and watch what they
>do.
Truer advice is rarely if ever given. Alas it is just as ignored now as it always has been.
Anyway, I don’t post mcuh but I wanted to say three things:
1. the above
2. thank you Cassius for one of the most interesting posts I’ve read on this forum
3. why doesn’t someone just redo Grandview for today? Easier said than done I
suppose, but jeez, it can’t be THAT hard, can it? heh heh…