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  1. When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Portable Monday, July 20, 2009

    Monday began like a normal day at CreateHere—if you can call any day normal. Got in around 8:30 and began work on my various projects. Fellows strolled in and we greeted each other after the long weekend apart. At our weekly team meeting, Helen commissioned the purchase of some fuel for the fellows (snacks, fruit, and such) and so I knew this was going to be a great day.

    Then the unthinkable happened: my laptop died. Power just shut off. Tried many a thing to get it working, but to no avail. There was a sense of urgency as well, seeing as I had a conference call in 30 minutes, and notes for it were on that laptop. Urgency, but not panic, for I had planned for such a contingency. I borrowed a laptop, and utilizing a few free tools and services that I will detail in a moment, I was able to access those notes and continue on as if nothing had happened. (The shock over the death of my laptop had yet to really sink in.)

    First, Dropbox.  This handy online service performs an instantaneous backup with an online server—they give you 2 GB of free storage—and, consequently, syncing with another computer. Everything saved in your “dropbox” is uploaded to the hosting server, which means you have all of your files safe in the “cloud.” I store any document I could want to access from another computer in dropbox, and it’s come in handy. Using it with OneNote—my preferred note taking and organizational tool—is simple: just make the default save location in your dropbox; then your OneNote notebooks are synced across computers, and accessible even if your computer crashes.

    Second, PortableApps. This website has a huge collection of programs that can run from a flash drive. The main one that is handy in this case is Portable FireFox with Xmarks extension. This will backup your favorites—and passwords if you choose—and sync them across computers, so that you only need to plug it in to the borrowed computer and your bookmarks will be available as if it were your very own.

    Third, Skype on a stick. If the borrowed computer doesn’t have Skype, you can still use this to access your contacts and make those important calls.

    Google Docs is also a helpful app in these situations; as any word docs, pdfs, etc. are accessible online anywhere. Also great for collaboration.

    By Ben Johnson, CreateHere Economy Fellow

    Posted by Administrator