insync: it is ok to break up with dropbox

I heard about insync on twitter not too long ago.

It caught my attention the fact they sell themselves as a Dropbox killer, I had to try.

Insync (http://insynchq.com) is, like Dropbox, a little program you can install in a mac or pc even if you are not an admin (which for my work laptop is a must) and that has for objective to sync a local folder among your computers, with a copy online… but with a huge difference from services such as Dropbox or SugarSync, or box.net…

First: it is free. But sure, Dropbox is free for a couple of Gigs too, and SugarSync free for 5Gb…

Second: it uses GDrive or Google Docs as storage and online sharing and versioning… so:

They don’t have to host anything, and you pay Google for storage.

The difference with Dropbox is that for instance a 50Gb with Dropbox costs $9.99 per month, and a 20Gb with Google costs $5…. a year!!! or 80Gb for $20 a year!!

• For $200 per year Dropbox gives you 100Gb
• For $100 per year Google gives you 200Gb

For me this is a no brainier. I was already using Google docs, so I switched to insync.

I can edit documents locally or online, I can set up sharing permissions on google docs… it works like charm.

Congratulation guys!! insync rocks.

Now, how is this Philippines based company going to survive?… we will see… maybe Google buys it…

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GTD: Todos, Task managers… PART 2

I had promised for a while that I would write a second part to the GTD To Do review I did some time ago. Well, here it is.

It is not going to be so deep as the one I did back in September 2010, simply because I don’t have too much time to write on my blog.

Since Sept. 2010 the To Do solutions have increased exponentially. Now we can easily find solutions that are web based with apps for iOS and Android, and even more solutions that are focused for teams and they are web based.

I will focus on the way I do it while mentioning the ones I encounter in my way.

Objective:

• I want a way to manage my To Dos, from my iPhone, iPad, Mac and web. I would like it to be offline.
• I need to have access to shared To Dos with my wife.

List of To Dos and Project Management tools

For collaboration project managment and to dos, take a look to this sites.

Teamly

Teamly is a great tool for managing a team. It has private and group tasks.

• http://teamly.com

Huddle

Huddle is more than a to do solution. Pretends to be a substitute to SharePoint.

Here you have a list of all the features: http://www.huddle.com/this-is-huddle/features/

• http://www.huddle.com

Teambox

Teambox is more like teamly. Webbase app for teams. It integrates with Google docs and Dropbox, and they have iPhone app. 3 projects free.

• http://teambox.com

Vitalist

Also based on David Allen’s GTD. Free to try. Take a look:

• http://vitalist.com

My Favorites

Wunderlist

Wunderlist is awesomely designed. It has apps and web and for windows and mac. It is simple and nice. It is a todo program, and has collaboration features, which makes it a perfect candidate.

• http://wunderlist.com

What do I use?

Evernote

I am an Evernote lover. You can see it from my posts. I am a premium subscriber with 1000′s of notes, from all incoming mail, to my books, wine, receipts, to the todos.

Now the new iPhone an iPad app allow you to create checkboxes therefore in combinaison with Egretlist is an option to consider. The downside continues to be the due dates and repeting tasks….

2Do app + Toodledo

I reviewed the 2Do app in September. It is the one I use, with a Toodledo sync.

Why?

I love the app. It is one of the most complete, with location (on demand so no battery concern), tagging, etc.. it is fully syncronized with toodledo and:

I can feed it via emails. I can email a secret email address at toodledo and with some queries I can control where the to do goes, so a task could have in the subject of an email something like

Call Jim !! @phone #today
Finish the Report ! #next friday *ProjectA @work $Active ~1hour
Mow the lawn *Chores @home

Also I can syncronize my toodledo account with my iCal and see it in my mac.

Downside: No mac client (or PC…)

Reminders Mac.

With iOS5 Apple released Reminders. It is a very simple to do. I use it for shared lists with my wife. The shopping list and the shared list.

This is day to day list, perfectly integrated with mac (iCal) web (iCloud).

To share a list go to iCloud click on the icon.

Other

I bumped into a nice to do website… but not to manage your todos but to outsource them… take a look:

• http://www.taskrabbit.com/

More….

ther you might consider:

• Diddit – http://www.diddit.com
• Doomi – http://doominow.com
• niid.to – http://niid.to
• Toodledo – http://www.toodledo.com
• Remember the milk – http://www.rememberthemilk.com
• HiveMinder – http://hiveminder.com
• ToDoIst – http://todoist.com

 

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The World is Watching: Urban Intervention Goes Ocular

How much more welcoming would a city environment seem if it were filled with friendly creatures? German artist Timm Schneider is filling Weisbaden with very strange beings that are not only unexpected, but also completely lovable.

(all images via: Timm Schneider)

Timm Schneider is a graphic designer who found that his job sometimes left him short on artistic fulfillment. To soothe his creative soul, he began creating street art. Graffiti was too limited for him, but he eventually stumbled onto the type of urban intervention that delighted him and his neighbors.

Schneider’s project is deceptively simple: he makes eyeballs out of styrofoam spheres and sticks them onto inanimate objects, making them look like creatures rather than things.

His art can be seen all throughout his city, adorning everything from public fixtures to products in shops to waste bins on the street. Once the little eyes are stuck onto something, that object is instantly transformed into something lovable and silly.

This type of urban intervention has helped to satisfy Schneider’s need for meaningful art, but it also helps viewers to shift their perceptions ever so slightly.

Instead of walking by an object and tuning it out like we do so often, Schneider’s interventions encourage people to slow down, take notice and see their surroundings in an entirely new light – even if it is only for a moment.

The newly-invented personalities taken on by these urban objects might cause a smile on the face of a city dweller, and for Schneider that is what matters. His interventions are all about pushing the world in the right direction…one pair of googly eyes at a time.

(via weburbanist)

The Books I read in 2011

We are approaching 2012, and before that I wanted to make a list of the books I read throughout 2011.

I must say that most I listened to, some I read on the iPad or even on the iPhone and only a few were actual books.

1. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t (Collins, Jim)
2. The White Lioness (Wallander #3) (Mankell, Henning)
3. The Man Who Smiled (Kurt Wallander Series #4) (Mankell, Henning)
4. Sidetracked (Wallander #5) (Mankell, Henning)
5. The Fifth Woman (Wallander, #6) (Mankell, Henning)
6. The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman (Ferriss, Timothy)
7. One Step Behind (Wallander, #7) (Mankell, Henning)
8. The Pillars of the Earth (The Pillars of the Earth, #1) (Follett, Ken)
9. Firewall (Wallander #8) (Mankell, Henning)
10. The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Mankell, Henning)
11. Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross, #1) (Patterson, James)
12. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High (Patterson, Kerry)
13. The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1) (Connelly, Michael)
14. The Black Ice (Harry Bosch, #2) (Connelly, Michael)
15. L’Oiseau de mauvais augure (Patrik Hedström, #4) (Läckberg, Camilla)
16. The Concrete Blonde (Harry Bosch, #3) (Connelly, Michael)
17. The Last Coyote (Harry Bosch, #4) (Conneally, Michael)
18. Trunk Music (Harry Bosch Series #5) (Connelly, Michael)
19. Angels Flight (Harry Bosch, #6) (Connelly, Michael)
20. A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch, #7) (Connelly, Michael)
21. City of Bones (Harry Bosch, #8) Connelly, Michael
22. Lost Light (Harry Bosch, #9) Connelly, Michael
23. Full Black (Scot Harvath, #10) Thor, Brad
24. The Narrows (Harry Bosch, #10) Connelly, Michael
25. The Closers (Harry Bosch, #11) Connelly, Michael
26. Echo Park (Harry Bosch, #12) Connelly, Michael
27. New York to Dallas (In Death, #33) Robb, J.D.
28. The Brass Verdict (Mickey Haller, #2) (Connelly, Michael)
29. 9 Dragons (Harry Bosch, #15) (Connelly, Michael)
30. Steve Jobs (Isaacson, Walter)
31. Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age is Revolutionizing Life, Business, and Society (Jarvis, Jeff)
32. The Drop (Harry Bosch, #16) (Connelly, Michael)
33. 11/22/63 (King, Stephen)

And Currently reading:

1. The Lincoln Lawyer (Mickey Haller, #1) (Connelly, Michael)
2. The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money – The Story of Power (Zarlenga, Stephen A.)
3. Your Competent Child (Jesper, Juul)

So if I finish this ones, 36 books. Not bad.

2011 has been a Henning Mankell and Michael Connelly. I can say the former is my favorite.

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Inspirational Quotes

Making Bread

Teba and Toni were here for a week.

Teba baked some bread. Here you have the videos: Read more

Quick poll results: the most useful intranet content types (world Internet Challenge)

(this article is extracted from worldwide intranet challenge)

I ran a poll recently asking people to rate the usefulness of 9 intranet content types that add value to your organisation. 221 people (as at Sat Oct 15) responded to the poll and the results were surprising.

What does English sound like to a foreigner?

Travel tips: who needs hotels anymore?

Traditionally when we go on holidays, we used to go to a travel agency where they could either help us build a trip with their limited options, or sell us a package (something still interesting).

Now the biggest travel agency is Internet. We we create our custom trip, filter options like dates, type of travel and get listings of suitable options.

At the same time we can check for reviews of either the website we are using, the hotels they suggest or even the destinations.

The idea of the is post is to give you some of the tools I use and stress the idea that we don’t need to book expensive hotels anymore, that a new bree of websites where you can rent apartments wherever you are planning to, could threaten hotels in the future.

Flights

Kayak will let you search for the cheapest dates to go to your desired destination or suggest you cheap destinations for your selected dates. Kayak has an incredible iPhone app and a pretty good iPad app.

Alternatives to Kayak: airfarewatchdog, yapta, farecompare…

If you are looking for a set of flights around the world, then I have to recommend you the one we used: http://www.roundtheworldflights.com/

Hotels…

Kayak will give suggest you hotels, and it uses the most notable hotel booking sites such as expedia, booking.com, etc…

If you want Cheap Hostels and Bed and Breakfasts, the we use: HostelWorld, it is great for that.

A cool resource for knowing if the hotel you are about to book is OK with tons of reviews, is: tripadvisor (also for iPhone and iPad).

Another cool tool for hotels (specially for the US) is room77 a website where they show you the best rooms for a specific hotel, with the views and so.

but… who want hotels?

Who wants to book a hotel when you can find a great located and flat or a room shared at an incredible spot…

We went to Paris booking an apartment with hometown, luxury apartments for a fraction of what you pay for a hotel, located at the heart of Paris (highly recommended). I also used Isabel’s apartments in a couple of occasions, also great apartments, even if the website is not that nice.

Here is where I want to go:  big websites covering apartments all around the globe.

The most notable:

•  Airbnb (my favorite): this one is the more professional website, the one with more investment in it. It is incredible the choice you can find there, apartments, rooms, everywhere!
• Homelidays: this one is strong in Europe. You can find a nice house in the beach, with swiming pool for a fraction of what you would pay for a hotel…
• Lofty: similar to airbnb but smaller.
• and one focused more in france: abritel

Now if you want to sleep for free, then you have to use couchsurfing: a huge network of people all around the globe that will let you use their couch to sleep for free.

Extreme Sports

US debt crisis explained

101 Brilliant Examples of Forced Perspective Photography

Creative Packages

[Show as slideshow]

Move

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..

= a trip of a lifetime.

move, eat, learn

Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover

These films were commissioned by STA Travel Australia: youtube.com/​watch?v=-BrDlrytgm8

Thanks heaps to Adam Fyfe, Brendan, Simon and Crissy at STA.

All Music composed and performed by Kelsey James (kelseyanne.james@gmail.com)
Soundtrack available here:
itunes.apple.com/​au/​album/​play-on-move-soundtrack-single/​id456257170

Music Recorded and mixed by Jake Phillips

Colour Grade : Edel Rafferty and Roslyn Di Sisto
Online Edit : Peter Mirecki

Assistance in titles and production design : Lee Gingold, Jason Milden, Rohan Newman

Big Ups to Michelle, Kiri, Renee, Hana, Andre, Ross, Bernie & Julie for your patience and support and awesomeness…..

Huge Thanks to :
Marco, Juliana and Julio at GAP Argentina and Peru
Ariana Cardenas, Toni Figuera and cooltra scooters in Barcelona,
Abete Zanetti Glass blowing school, Murano, Venice (abatezanetti.it)
Annabel, Rosario and Carolina (Pitu) in France
Juane and Andrea from the Princeca Insolenta hostel in Chile

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement. The response has been phenomenal and overwhelming. We never thought this little project would reach out to so many people

iPhone augmented reality translator

Word Lens — http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-lens/id383463868 download now on the App Store, and purchase language packs when you need them!

Languages currently available using in-app purchase:
- Spanish to English
- English to Spanish

Try the demo modes first to get a sense of the technology in action — reverse or erase Spanish and English words!

Check us out at: http://questvisual.com/
Now available for iPhone 4, iPhone 3gs, and iPod Touch 4.

Word Lens can instantly translates printed words from one language to another using the video camera on your iPhone. No network delay, no roaming fees, and no reception problems.

Word Lens is a dictionary — evolved. It looks up words for you, and shows them in context. You can use Word Lens on your vacations to translate restaurant menus, street signs, and other things that have clearly printed words.

Word Lens has its limits. Sometimes the translation will have mistakes, and may be hard to understand, but it usually gets the point across. If a translation fails, there is a way to manually look up words by typing them in. Word Lens does not read very stylized fonts, handwriting, or cursive. Try it, and tell us what you think!