All your info in one place

[JennyB]

From Web Worker Daily

Those of us who use the web all day long, every day, probably have signed up for at least a couple dozen different information services, all with different login information, all storing different information for us.

We might have a to-do manager, a contact manager, a bookmarking service, a project management service, a wiki, multiple email accounts, lists, multiple online documents, or one of the many other services available for managing our information.

Trouble is, that can make things a bit disorganized. Our information is spread through various sites and services, some of which we use infrequently. We might not remember where everything is, and even if we do, it takes a minute or so to locate it, login, and access the information.

You can simplify this and keep yourself organized in one simple step: keep all your information in one place.


It doesn’t matter where that place is, as long as it works well for you and you use it regularly. But just this single act will keep all your information at your fingertips, and keep you organized in a way you may never have been before.

So how do you do it? Here are some suggestions:

1. Pick a location. There are many places you could use for your info. Google Docs, a wiki that you can keep on your own server or on a flash drive, Backpack, a plain old paper notebook, a binder, any list service, an email account, a secure web site, Evernote, Google Notebook, a text file. Actually, any place you can store info works … just choose one that works well for you. I recommend something searchable, and if you use multiple computers, something online.

So What works for Your "One Place?"

BTW, the author of this piece has a bolg called Zen Habits which is a great source of ideas for living simply.

[justice]

i've started using jungledisk, which uses amazon s3.
for 12 cents a month i store my keepass passwords,todo lists and anything else i can save to a file on there and it appears as a webdav mapped drive in my computer. that way i can keep using all the programs i already use but always work on the most current information. plus its a great unlimited storage backup service too.

and it works with all synchronizers in case you want to synchronise application settings or something.

[nudone]

i like the sound of jungledisk but it's probably more than i need...

can anyone recommend a simple ftp client that will automatically synchronise a few files for me when i shutdown the computer - and i suppose it would make sense if it also synchronises when i first log on to the machine.

i'm sure there must be a lot of utils that will almost do this but are there (m)any that will automatically check the files on the server with your local machine at machine startup and shutdown?

(i'll only be transferring small files. i just want it to be automatic so i can leave it running and forget about it.)

[steeladept]

I don't know of any that will FTP like that - sounds like a good coding snack...

[mwb1100]

can anyone recommend a simple ftp client that will automatically synchronise a few files for me when i shutdown the computer - and i suppose it would make sense if it also synchronises when i first log on to the machine.

SyncBackSE will perform a sync on shutdown/logoff and logon.  I imagine many sync utilities will do this.

[nudone]

thanks, mwb1100.

but after finally doing a quick search on the forum i found this thread http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=7714.0

not decided what to do yet.

edit:
looks like 'GoodSync' http://www.goodsync.com/ matches my needs. it doesn't cost a lot and it will easily do what i need.

edit again:
GoodSync relies on windows built-in FTP capabilities as it doesn't do FTP itself (a bit lame there). but using 'NetDrive' provides a mapped drive for an FTP location so i'm using that.

not decided if i'll be keeping it yet. maybe SyncBackSE would make more sense to use but GoodSync still looks like the cheapest method - especially if paying for a couple or more licenses to sync files between several machines (not read the terms but i assume you need a license per machine).

[Dr-Leech]

No one mentioned Mozy backup ?
I put all my db and important stuff (work, and chat logs) in special folder then I say Mozy that backup this folder.
Everything goes encrypted and secured.

Not good if you plan to restore backups daily, but for that I use Cobian backup to send my daily backups to a private FTP automatically everyday.

[justice]

I used to use mozy for backup, but the free version restores too slow, (took a day), the paid version restores in minutes apparently. however if that's not a problem (or you pay) then i can definately recommend it)

[Renegade]

Hmmmm... For the OP... All my information in 1 place? Starts with my own server(s)...

Next... Screwed. There's nothing that can do it. Period. Nothing.

I have disparate documents, email, code, music, videos, blah blah blah. Nothing out there can keep my information in a single source other than having a central server (which I don't use).

Depends on what your requirements are and what you mean. The idea was abandoned by MS when they dropped the new NTFS system based on MS SQL Server.

I'm a big RDBMS fan, but it just hasn't come about for 'common' use. The task is immense. Organizing data is a massive task. The current things out there are only solutions for small sets of data.

Even email isn't done right. How screwed up is that?

[brownstudy]

Ah, one of my long-time El Dorados: the one repository that will hold them all...

I'm almost defaulting these days to gmail holding most of my stuff. (God forbid they should lock me out of my email one day, or a server goes down, or...) I have my home pc, a work pc, and will soon have a laptop. I'm not interested in synchronizing bookmarks, desktops, etc. among them. (And I can't at work, because of a locked-down PC.) So gmail/delicious/google bookmarks tend to be the hubs of my information empire. (I use google bookmarks for short-term projects.) I can also email Google Reader posts to my gmail account if I want to store them for reference (and really, how often do we go back to refer to these things? But that's another post...)

I'm wondering if a USB drive based solution may work. (I recently ordered this (http://tinyurl.com/3aapzv) from Amazon mainly because the price looked good, so I may use it to test this. ) (Although I have a history of forgetting to pull the thumbdrive from the PC at the end of the day and am then left without it--hence the elegance of an online solution.)

At home, I have a Notetab Pro outline file called "batf" (big-assed text file) (not an original name; got it off of one of the memes circulating last year on keeping your life inside one big text file). At home, this holds all the info I suck up regarding GTD, my web site settings, logs of troubleshooting the home network, etc. Most of this I have no need to access at work. It looks and operates somewhat like Treepad and the other tree-based info organizers. But it's plain-text, all in one file, so could be retrievable and viewable in other apps.

I think we're really talking about a logbook (see my delicious links on this topic: http://del.icio.us/brownstudy/logbook, especially the c2.com link to "Electronic Logbook") and so categorizing in that case isn't an issue. You really just need to enter a date/time (because natural memory may help you triangulate on when you logged  the information) and then the info. The advantage of electronic being you can search on it later. I used a PBWiki for this for awhile, but am thinking of installing an open-source wiki solution on my web site. (For an analog logbook, say a Moleskine or something, just leave a few pages at the end to create an index, either thematic or date-based, and so you can retireve the info a little faster when you need it.)

Google Notebook is also an excellent place to store squibs and snippets of info. That mounting pile o' stuff is out of your face until you need to search for it. But it's more seamless for web-based info than for text files, Word docs, PDFs, and such.

My fear of putting everything onto my USB is that I'd forget to back up the file then I'd lose the drive and then my empire would topple.  But then if I feel that way, I've got way bigger problems than where to store my info...

meb

[sri]

brownstudy: As long as you can install Firefox and an add-on to it called Foxmarks at your work place, you can sync bookmarks between any # of computers. 

[Jammo the OrganizedFellow]

Since there are many web-based solutions (Google Docs, TiddlyWikis, and Del.icio.us), I wonder how many of them have spawned open-source solutions, that you can install on your own server?!

I once found a Del.icio.us clone! Totally forget what's it called though.

I use TiddlyWikis for a large number of things, searching is almost instant.
I used it to store my software licenses, installs & uninstalls on a new PC, track my work schedule, mileage log. I once had as many as 4 Tiddlys on mu USB stick, but, as is an inherent problem with this solution, they get slow with TOO much data.