Managing my digital life

Over the past couple of years, I’ve gathered a set of tools for managing my digital life.  Most of the tools were discovered by reading feeds from Lifehacker, gHacks, Download Squad, and Tech Crunch using a Netvibes start page in Firefox.

For managing my passwords, keeping encrypted notes about accounts, and automatically filling web based forms, I use RoboForm.  It is by far, the best password manager and form filler out there.  I just wish they had a mac version for my macbook.

For keeping general notes that sync across my multiple machines, I use EverNote.  If you install the desktop app, you can clip any part of a web page (or any other document, for that matter) and include it in your note with a picture and a link.  The notes are accessible via the desktop app, or the web interface from any computer.  You can make multiple notebooks to organize things and can tag each of the notes.

For taking notes on the road, or when I can’t get to a computer, I use ReQall.  If you call ReQall from a phone, you can add a note by just talking into the phone.  ReQall will transcribe the note and email it to you.  Right now, I just use ReQall for this purpose, but this only scratches the surface of what this free service can do.

To keep certain documents in sync across machines, I use the free version of Dropbox.  It sets up a Dropbox folder on each local computer onto which you install the app.  Whatever you place in the dropbox will be synced on all of the machines. The size limit for the free account is 2 GB.

Since I have many photos and other irreplaceable files, I perform daily backups using SyncBack SE.  It is a great program for syncing local folders or doing backups.  The free version is great for most things, but I liked the advanced features that were only available in the SE version.  I prefer using SyncBack to the Windows backup utility because I like to have the actual files on the backup drive, not some compressed version of them.  If I need to go back to get an old version of a file, I just browse the directory structure of the backup drive and pull out the file.  I have SyncBack scheduled for daily and weekly backups in different locations.

To raise the paranoia level even higher, I think of the case where a fire takes out both my main machine and the backup drives.  To avoid this kind of data disaster, I backup to a remote site using Jungle Disk.  For large amounts of data, Jungle Disk is a bit more expensive than Mozy or Carbonite, but since it uses Amazon S3 and Rackspace servers, I think it might be more reliable.  I have also found that upload/download speeds are better with Jungle Disk. Another nice thing about Jungle Disk is that your files are available via a web interface if you need to access them from another machine.  If you are concerned about privacy, Jungle Disk gives you the option of encrypting the files with a private key that only you know (the upload/download stream is encrypted automatically using keys stored by Jungle Disk) .

Whenever I come across a site I like, or think I need to visit later, I use del.icio.us to bookmark it.  I LOVE del.icio.us.  I have about 1200 bookmarked sites right now.  You can tag the bookmarks with categories, so you can find stuff related to a certain topic.  You can share bookmarks with other del.icio.us users by just tagging it with for:username.  You can choose which bookmarks are public and which are private.  Most of my bookmarks are public, so I can easily share them with others by just linking to my page.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll post again with some other ideas for streamlining you life online.