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December 25, 2009
 

8 Killer cloud apps you can't live without!

A while back, I subscribed to the idea of The Cloud, cloud computing and living a digital nomadic lifestyle. Well, like you I subscribed to many web2.0 services - some really didn't serve my purpose (despite being cool ideas) and some... well they just couldn't get my attention and so I just unsubscribed form their spamming/mailing list!

Here's the result of what's left in my bookmarks...

Let me just take a minute to explain why I use these services:
It's pretty clear that Gmail is the killer app, my digital nervous system (and with the overload of email, I'm having a nervous breakdown!!) All in all, its the central hub now, I use it for blogging, contact management, chat and other linked services such as calendar, docs, reader. (Willing to pay.)


37 signals rocks! The software is simple to use, well thought out. They're not cheap. But there never was such a thing as a free lunch! I use the Highrise web app to stay in touch with my network, as a deal maker - their cases and deals feature has really helped me! (Paid.)


Easy. That's the single word that describes how blogging should be. Ever since I started experimenting with them - I'm lov'in it! I went to the extent of setting up this site / blog / lifestream to replace my old blog. (Hope you're enjoying it!) Features like posting from email (in my case Gmail), the Posterous bookmarklet to share clippings from the web, the ability to just attach photos and have a gallery - and on top of all this, post to various other web 2.0 for sharing. (Willing to pay.)


Twitter is a great communication tool. However, it becomes just a broadcasting tool once you cross over 100 followers. Today, I use twitter, to shout to the world - share with them great stuff (through url shortners). Some live and die by twitter. But to me its Instant Messaging broadcasting!


Ever since my Mac's hard disk crashed (yes, Mac's do have that problem - occasionally) - I learnt a lesson. Backup. Backup. Backup. But it's a nuisance to do this every day, with Dropbox - everything is synced in the background - and they're fast! (yes, there's a difference between backup and sync). (Willing to pay.)


I recently joined Evernote because of their Blackberry app. It's like your online virtual mind. Whatever you see or want to remember, just clip it to Evernote - it organizes and you can even searches images (OCR) for a particular text. Great potential. (Paid.)


This is one thing Yahoo got right! I upload all my pictures here for backup. But I'm now questioning the usage of this, particularly when Dropbox almost does the same thing (showing picture galleries, albeit with much lesser functionality - but hey, do you really need that many functions? where's the time!?). (Paid.)


I kept this last, because I'm getting pissed by their copyright protection. Always tagging things are copyright protected, banning IP addresses. Nevertheless, its a promising company that uses a special e-paper technology (almost like PDF). Posterous uses them. I use them.

Yes I do use facebook, orkut and linkedin - but that's for a later discussion.

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Filed under  //   37signals   apps   cloud   dropbox   evernote   flickr   gmail   posterous   scribd   twitter   web-based  

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September 11, 2009
 

Setting up a virtual business

Setting up a virtual business is no easy task. The cost of doing so may be little, but there is a lot of effort to it. This is exactly how I plan to operate AVCION Capital - as a virtual business. And for that, all the information, files, documents - soft IP will have to be protected. If I were a consultant - this is of more importance than anything, as that is my leverage tool. Here are a few things I've learnt along the way, and I thought I'd share them with you...

Keep ALL files in one single location & backup regularly - If you work on two different computers, you will most likely have two copies of a document. Avoid this, either by syncing or using only one computer - and backing up to the cloud, or some secure location (frequently). By using only one computer, you only have to worry about backing up. By using two or more, you need to worry about syncing all files. My solution to this is DropBox (they have apps to install on Windows/Mac as well as a web-based interface, in case you cant install - use the DropBox Portable).

Keep Your Business & Personal Files Separate - If you're running a virtual operation, you need to keep your files in separate folders. You dont want to accidentally provide access to your business files only to share the wrong personal diary! It's healthy.

Email - I could write a entire book on Gmail and the use of email. It serves as a record, database, knowledge, blogging platform, chat, collaboration. No other software has such great features (yet). Add to this the integration with Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Tasks and Google Chat - and you have a killer communication platform. Go for Google Apps for Domains - this way, you can user your own domain / website to manage your entire virtual enterprise.

Use Tag/Label, Filter, Shortcuts in Gmail - a big time saver for organizing your emails, enabling them to be searched faster, tracking conversations threads.

Blog - I've learnt one important thing from blogging and that is expression of thought. Depending on the field of your specialization, I can only suggest having a blog. I use Posterous for lifestreaming (faster blogging). I use WordPress to create a private membership site - that publishes everything regarding my operations, track record, newsletter, updates, alerts etc to my members/clients/partners. You can have a mix of both.

Aggregate - I gather information, bookmark and research stuff using Google Reader (by subscribing to an interesting site's rss - you create a database aka archive that can be searched later on). I use a private site on Posterous to gather information using their bookmarklet. I also use Gmail+toread.cc again to keep a copy of any full webpage that I want to visit or read about later (this again, is being replace by Posterous). In the past I used to send copies of pdf,zips,docs, etc to Gmail - using it as a backup option, now DropBox takes this care of this - I just wish DropBox had an email to feature (like Drop.io)

Share - I distribute information/links on Twitter now. If I see something interesting, a bookmarklet - allows me to share the site as a shortened URL with a short comment. The short message gets distributed to those who follow me (targetted broadcasting i.e. narrowcasting), whilst also appearing on a public domain (twitter site) - means if anyone is searching for something - they can also see what i've shared. 

Bookmarks - I no longer use delicious, instead, bookmarks I like to revisit are stored locally, and synced using xmarks.com (addon for mac & pc). But since sites can go down in the future, I like to keep a copy of the text with me. Gmail+toread.cc / Posterous serves the purpose.

Network - with all the social media hype going on - I only found LinkedIn useful. I found it useful, because I know that people who at least update their profile - are serious about some kind of professional relationship. You can meet an interesting set of people. I just wish LinkedIn had a built in CRM feature (with Gmail Integration). Read Never Eat Alone. Dump Facebook.

Measure - Always measure whatever you do. There's a saying by famous Management Guru Peter Drucker - if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.

Accounting - which is based on the above point. Gotta keep those books uptodate - use Xero.com - a New Zealand based group, offering web-based accounting. Good enough for now. (I needn't say this, but get a good accountant! Luckily, I work with some great guys in my bank - who are willing to help me keep the books!)

This is just the "start"... let me know what you'd like me to cover.

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Filed under  //   accounts   avcion   blogging   bookmarks   business   cloud   email   gmail   lean   less   lessons   network   process   share   startup   virtual  

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August 21, 2009
 

Highrise (Paid) Vs. Gmail+Tasks+GCal (Free)

The last two days I was experimenting with Highrisehq.com - an online contact management software. They really know how to sell a product (or at least get you to try). I wanted a means to manage the deal flow (deals or opportunities to do deals) and all the communication that goes along with it. The 'deal' feature of Highrise - is not exactly what deal makers use - but its very close. The three things that caught my attention

1. Ability to link all emails, notes and their respective deals together.
2. Ability to have follow - up reminders (today, tomorrow, next week later) and add extra notes
3. Ability to work from my email, by just forwarding (or bccing) stuff with a dropbox email id

As I still evaluate - I wonder whether paying $29 / month is worth it? Well, if you make let's say a good sum of money from all the deals through finder's fees - then what you pay is nothing. So money is not the concern... its convenience and integration.

But the more deeper problem was - I still had to 'forward' or 'bcc' emails each time I wrote back to someone. It wouldnt actually capture the email as I hit reply. This is a problem of being a third party app. 

So I thought through this a bit. 

Gmail is my email base. Gmail Labels probably handle the 'deals' or 'case' part of Highrise. I didnt want each and every deal label (btw my standard is D.DealName) appearing on the side bar - thanks to Gmail Labs - you can now hide those labels you dont want. I enabled the GoTo Label feature in GLabs for quicker shortcut access (Hit G+L and type the dealname). I then enabled Tasks - which actually allows you to set tasks + deadlines! You can also link tasks to emails as well. And further combining GCal with Tasks and Gmail - I got a very close package to Highrise. (The only thing missing was adding notes to an email) So will I continue with Highrise... well, I'll ride out my trial period and see - but I'm getting more convinced with my Gmail Hack Solution.

Hope you find this useful! (Oh btw, if you're focused on doing business in the MENA region, contact me. If you're looking for funding in India - shoot me an email as well)

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Filed under  //   contacts   free   gcal   gmail   highrise   paid   tags   tasks  

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February 13, 2009
 

Gmail Offline

As part of living in the cloud series, and my experiments with it. I used the latest Gmail offline lab feature to experiment with having a version of my mail accessible offline. Its cool! Unlike the fortunate few who are trying to live in the cloud with high bandwidth connections like 8mb or 15mb (which I might consider if things get affordable in Bahrain).. I'm stuck with a decent yet unreliable shared internet connection - shared with around 50 or so flats in my building.

Now this is the irony, I'm trying to live in the cloud - yet i dont have a decent internet connection. Thinking about it, what if you were really disconnected from the wired web!? What would you do? How have you simplified life? Have you brought in minimalism to make ur life easier? Last year, when my Macbook crashed - and I lost precious kodak moment photos (no I forget to back up on flickr!) I thought my entire life was wiped away...

My lesson... DO NOT to rely on technology so much. Any day Google can fall, would you be ready then? When you outsource a major amount of your digital life to companies like google, flickr, dropbox, sugarsync, amazon, (or even posterous) - you run the risk of losing things. Though the risk is very minimal - nothing is permanent in life.

So take it easy. There's a real life beyond the cloud.

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Filed under  //   cloud   gmail  

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