Tag Archives: Recommendations

ownCloud – a self hosted alternative to DropBox and Google Drive

I’ve used both DropBox an Google Drive for a while. They are wonderful. I’m going to talk for a moment about free self-hosted alternative that I’ve grown fond of.

2019 UPDATE: I now recommend NextCloud. It’s the same, just a different name.

Features Overview

  • Nice iOS app.
  • Mac & Windows clients are better than Dropbox
  • Support for multiple sync locations and selective sync
  • Public link sharing with optional password or expiration.
  • Server requires just PHP

Sharing

Sharing works very similar to dropbox. The expiration date & password options are quite nice for limiting who has access and for how long.

Selective Sync

Like Dropbox it supports selective sync.

Bandwidth Limiting

Great for control if you’re syncing large files. The Automatic setting is quite handy

Tips: My Favorite Sublime 3 Packages

I primarily use Sublime as my code editor of choice; a bunch of us at Sprout Social do. It’s simple, clean, lightweight on system resources, and it has some pretty sweet packages. I’ve found a number of packages that increase my efficiency developing. Thought I’d share several of these personal favorite Sublime 3 packages.

If you’re on Sublime 2, upgrade to Sublime 3, it’s totally stable.

To get started you’ll need to install Sublime Package Control into Sublime. It’s fairly simple, and the you’re read to go. The “Package Control: Install Package” command will now be available in your command pallet via Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P.

SublimeLinter

SublimeLinterBase package for all linters. Syntax error highlighting can greatly reduce the save-run-revise cycle time. Most IDEs already have syntax error highlighting, why not add it to Sublime?

There are many SublimeLinter packages. Browse through them find what fits your workflow. Be sure to follow each packages setup instructions, each will be a bit different.

My personal must have’s are:

  1. SublimeLinter-phplint
  2. SublimeLinter-jshint
  3. SublimeLinter-jsxhint
  4. SublimeLinter-csslint
  5. SublimeLinter-contrib-scss-lint

BracketHighlighter

BracketHighlighterAn even better bracket highlighting than what comes with Sublime. It also shows starting and ending brackets in the gutter, and can matching for [ ], ( ), { }, ” “, ‘ ‘, <tag> </tag>.

SideBarEnhancments

Give the context menu more options when right clicking on files in a project. Duplicate files, move, rename, etc.

DocBlockr

DocBlockrEasier creation of document blocks for functions, classes, methods. It’s intelligent and looks ahead to see what you’re documenting to pre-fill the base info (such as input parameters and what is returned). Documenting is now convenient.

Pro tip: use the Tab key to navigate through the generated documented block, no need to click or use arrow keys.

Shell-Turtlestein

Launch the terminal/command line right in the context of your project directly from Sublime.  Either as a new window or as its own panel within sublime.

GitGutter

Visually shows the diff since the last commit in the gutter.  At a glance you can see what lines are additions, modifications, or deletions.

Origami

Split Sublime into multiple horizontal and vertical panes for side-by-side work. Remove the need to switch between tabs or windows as frequently when comparing files.

TrailingSpaces

Highlights and helps cleanup end of line trailing spaces. Nobody likes them right? Or maybe we just don’t notice them.

 

There are many other great packages out there for Sublime : code snippets, theme,  and syntax highlighting. But these are just some of my favorites.

Apps: My top iPhone / iPad apps

This will be an ever changing list, of apps I am currently big fan of.

All apps are free, unless noted.  I won’t bother to mention some of the more popular app.

Socail

Photography & Video

Finance & Money

  • Splitwise – Shared group expenses
  • Mint – Tack spending and savings trends, owned by Intuit and trusted
  • PayPal – Nice way to send / receive money
  • CardStar – Store your loyalty card numbers/barcodes on your phone.
  • LevelUp – Simple rewards and discounts at restaurants.
  • PaperKarma – ‘Unsubscribe’ button for junkmail in your physical mailbox

Travel

  • Waze – Map directions with traffic, cop warndings, and red light camera notices.
  • Google Maps – Best map directions
  • WunderMap / AccuWeather – Combined they make the best weather app
  • Hipmunk – Flight search tool
  • Hopper – Finding best time to fly

Productivity & Organization

  • AnyList – Shared group todo/shopping list
  • OneNote – App+Web note taking app that breaks things down into notebooks
  • RD Client – One of the better experiences for remote desktop