#Tools

Simple works.

Sometime around early 2012 I switched over to using Things for OSX from the spartan essentials of Taskpaper. I have to admit, at the time I was angry with Taskpaper. It was still using the SimpleText service (Taskpaper now uses the uber-reliable Dropbox) for synchronizing with my iPhone and it had done what I felt was the inexcusable: It had lost tasks I had to complete in a sync conflict and even after I recovered the file, I didn’t know what they were (partly my stupidity for not having it source controlled in git).

Sure, they make it cutesy, but you have no idea how often this actually happens. Disaster recovery in most orgs is not given anywhere near the attention it deserves. If it can happen to Pixar, it can happen to you.

So, um… do your backups kids. And make sure you have offsite backups as well! I use Crashplan myself (which works on Win, Mac and Linux) though was using Haystack’s Arq on my Mac until very recently as well. Seriously, the minimal cost is nothing compared to losing photos or critical docs. Believe me.

While I have to thank TextMate for being the editor that was my gateway drug into Rails (and back into programming), I kept having loads of issues with it (while I still think it’s hands down better than any of the new editors I’ve seen and much prefer it to a host of IDEs): It crashed pretty regularly, I found it slow and had to wait for it quite often, I was constantly switching between it and the command line and project searches beachballed all. the. time. I also have to admit to having had more than a little bit of guilt that I’d added yet another Mac-only title to my list of software. Somewhere in the back of my head I still keep trying to convince myself I’ll move back to Linux… someday cough. (Note that my purpose here isn’t to wail on Textmate. It is a great piece of software and I do owe it a debt. I just decided I needed to move past some of the limitations I’d been experiencing.).

One of the things I absolutely love about the iPad is all the mind blowing melding of interface and things you just never see combined like music, sound and visuals. OK, how can anyone not like fingerpainting sound? I mean, why have people not been screaming at me about this. So cool. Oh, and Singing Fingers is free. Download now . I am having much fun with it. Absolutely brilliant.

Oh, and works on the iPhone and iPad, but so much nicer on the iPad with the extra screen real estate.

Fact is, managing code is difficult, even with git and github .

The fact git makes branching and merging so cheap and easy creates a new problem. Go away and work on something else for a while, leave a project and come back or even get distracted with prioritizing another feature or an urgent production hotfix and suddenly, you’ve got a problem. Add in a team environment and you’d better have something agreed.

OK, not sure who thought of this idea, but I absolutely love it. Personally, I use and abuse the excellent TaskPaper for my own GTD flogging (can haz iPad verzion pleaz?), but Epic Win is sheer brilliance : Your task lists as a role playing game. Brilliant.

Done right, this could unbelievably popular. WTB now. Apparently, the twitter feed for the app says it is awaiting approval in the Apple app store at the moment. Do wonder how it’ll work and sync with my desktop needs though…

If you’re a CTO moving heavily into cloud services, one of the things that keeps you awake at night is what happens if one of your providers goes under or just becomes so unreliable you have to move. Let’s face it, lock in goes along with the cloud as the fact of the matter is you code to exploit a specific platform.

The amazing thing about Fog is that it acts as a universal interface in front of the cloud, allowing you to control a variety of cloud services though a unified API. It deals with both servers and storage already supporting EC2, Rackspace servers, vCloud and Slicehost and numerous cloud based storage vendors S3 and Rackspace Files.

Mmmm… Fresh Quicksilver.

I have been waiting for ages for an update to perhaps the most often used application on my mac. Seriously, the time this thing saves me in just allowing me to find, launch, or manipulate info with a simple CMD-space is unreal.

According to Lifehacker, looks like it’s those crazy github coder kids (rather than the creator who is busy working on Chrome OS) who have pushed this one out to the eagerly awaiting masses.

mySociety , the force behind such excellent online pro-democracy tools in the UK as TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow are calling for proposals for the next amazing online tool they need to build.

Got a great idea, but lack the development muscle to make it happen ? Here’s your chance to create something with clear social, civic or democratic value and make the UK a better place (and it needs it).

If you happen to be looking at key-value stores and document databases for whatever little dev problem you have that might need to be looking at these, you’re probably like me and thinking you probably need to have a version of CouchDB on your trusty macbook to kick the tires on.

So, thank plok’s CouchDBX revival for sorting you out. Nice implementation, you can even run it independently of an already existing macports installation on your system.