Windows 7′s taskbar is undoubtedly a great addition to Windows, but if you’ve got more than one application window open, you’ve got to either click twice or patiently hover to navigate to an open window. Reader Richard details how he fixed this: More »
Windows only: Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user. More »
Google lets its employees spend one day each work week focusing on their own projects, a practice that’s delivered 50% of Google’s offerings, including Gmail. Tech blog WebWorkerDaily suggests mixing up your work schedule by setting aside your own 20-percent time. More »
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I frequently download big files to my computer and walk away. How do I stop my computer from going into standby while downloading something from the internet? I’m using Firefox on Windows 7. More »
Are we too reliant on Google’s services? As long-time readers know, I love Google’s products and use them daily, as they’re absolutely the best I’ve tried in their categories: Google search, Gmail, Google Chrome browser, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Picasa, mostly.
But is it dangerous to give all our information and to rely so completely on one corporation? Should we be worried? Should we be looking for alternatives? Should we be moving our data out of Google as soon as possible?
Another thing that concerns me is the commercialization of every aspect of our lives. It’s bad enough that advertising is already so pervasive — in television, in newspapers and magazines and blogs, on billboards and in our mail. But if it’s also in our email, calendars, maps, search, and basically everything we do every day, then there’s no hiding from it. I’m not convinced that using amazing software is worth giving a corporation complete access to my life and my attention.
I’ve been thinking about this for some time. I don’t have answers.
However, last week, I decided to try an experiment: could I go (mostly) Google-free? How hard would it be? How much would I like the alternatives?
It took me one day.
Here’s how I did it, and how it’s turned out so far.
Remember that my main reasons for doing this are that 1) I don’t want all my data in one corporation and 2) I don’t want everything I do to be pervaded by advertising.
So the main principles I chose when seeking good alternatives were to find services that:
And in an ideal world, those alternatives would also be:
These last few ideals are not necessary, but would be great. In most cases, I didn’t achieve them.
The all-pervasive app that we can’t live without. There aren’t really good alternatives — there’s Google search, then there’s everyone else. Bing gets talked about a lot, but I don’t much like the results and Microsoft isn’t any better in my mind than Google. Same with Yahoo.
The alternative I chose: so far it’s a split between Clutsy, ixquick, and Scroogle.
A word on Scroogle — actually it uses Google’s search, but sets up an intermediary (Scroogle) that sits between your computer and Google’s servers. Google places its cookie on Scroogle’s computer, and then Scroogle deletes it, and also deletes any logs of your anonymous searches. So the results are as good as Googles, but ad-free, without Google’s tracking, and 100 results per page (instead of the frustrating 10 results that Google has).
Update: Be sure to go to Scroogle.org, not Scroogle.com, which is completely different and NSFW.
Still, it seems like cheating, so I’ve been alternatively trying Clutsy and ixquick. Both are decent, not the best, but also sometimes have ads.
The transition so far: I set up each of these as my browser’s default search engine for a little while. They all work fine, but I’ve been finding Scroogle finds the results I want more often.
Other alternatives I looked at: Ask, Cuil, Wolfram Alpha.
I absolutely love Gmail, so giving this up has been as hard as Google Search. It’s by far the best email program, period. And I’ve tried almost all. Luckily, I’m far less reliant on email these days — mostly it’s just for family and a few business partners.
The alternative I chose: Fastmail. It’s not as pretty as Gmail, but it’s fast and secure and has a lot of great features. Most importantly for me, it has great spam filters (as Gmail does) and keyboard shortcuts. If you pay a nominal fee ($5 for a year, or less than 10 cents per week), you also don’t get any ads.
The transition so far: It was easy to set up, and I forwarded all incoming Gmail emails to Fastmail. Eventually I’ll delete my Gmail, but for now I’ll leave it. I like Fastmail almost as much as Gmail, especially now that I’ve set up a few key folders (like Archive) and filters and learned the keyboard shortcuts. A couple things I really miss: Send & Archive (in one button or shortcut), automatic adding of email addresses to the address book (Fastmail does it but you have to confirm each time), and threaded conversations.
Other alternatives that look good: Roundcube, Zenbe, and Sup (self-hosted, but similar to Gmail but for command-line geeks). I may eventually use Sup once I get a better command of the command line.
In the last few months, Chrome has been hands down my favorite browser, for its simplicity, speed, and beautiful features. I love it, and can’t do without it. Firefox, Safari, Camino, Opera all seem clunky next to Chrome.
The alternative I chose: Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. This is almost cheating, as it’s practically the same browser. But after switching to other browsers for a little while, I couldn’t stand it, so I chose Chromium. It’s open-source, which is great, and doesn’t track your info like Google does.
The transition so far: absolutely painless. I had to migrate some of the keyword bookmarks I’d set up for Chrome, but that took a few minutes. Otherwise, it’s the same browsing experience, and just as stable.
Other alternatives: Firefox, Safari, Camino, Opera, and the beautiful Plainview.
I store almost everything in Google Docs (and Dropbox, for text files I draft on my computer). It’s absolutely great for sharing documents. Haven’t used Microsoft Office in years.
The alternative I chose: Zoho, an online document and productivity suite, actually more complete than Google Docs. I’d tried it in 2007 but concluded that Google Docs (or Writely, before that) was better. That hasn’t changed, but Zoho is a decent second.
The transition so far: Migrating is fairly painless. You can sign up for a free account, and you can even import your Google Docs (through a mis-labeled “Upload” button), though only 5 Google Docs at a time. Zoho works just as you’d hope, though it’s not quite as good or fast as Google Docs. Still a good alternative, although I’d love an open-source alternative that worked as well.
Other alternatives: Etherpad looks great but was BOUGHT BY GOOGLE! It’s now open-sourced so you can try it Google-free at Typewith.me or PiratePad. While these are great for individual collaborative documents, unfortunately it isn’t a great replacement for Google Docs in managing a lot of documents. Others to check out include drop.io, Feng Office, Peepel.
By far the best RSS reader (for reading blogs & news), Google Reader is simple, fast, and always synced no matter what computer you’re using. It beats desktop RSS readers easily, and I’ve used them all.
The alternative I chose: Vienna, an open-source desktop app for Mac. I was using NetNewsWire for a little while and liked it but then realized there was no way to sync without Google Reader anymore, and as I don’t want to give my info to Google, I had to ditch it. So I tried Vienna, which doesn’t have sync at all, but is even better than NetNewsWire in every other way. And is open-sourced and ad-free, which is great.
The transition so far: As Vienna doesn’t sync (at least I haven’t figured out how), I just read on my Macbook Air, which is absolutely fine. It means my iMac is now just for working, and not reading, which is actually a great thing for my productivity and focus. I exported my subscriptions from Google Reader and imported into Vienna, which took like 30 seconds, and otherwise reading in Vienna is great.
Other alternatives: online readers such as Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Bloglines, or desktop readers such as Netnewswire, FeedDemon, RSS Owl, Thunderbird (not a great RSS reader in my view), or self-hosted varieties such as Gobble RSS or Fever, or browser plugins such as Sage.
Absolutely my favorite calendar ever, I’ve been using Gcal for almost four years and love it. So much better than iCal or Outlook, it’s simple and fast and accessible everywhere.
The alternative I chose: 30 Boxes, another good online calendar that I can share with my wife and access from multiple computers. I tried this several years ago but liked Gcal better — still do, but they’re fairly close.
The transition so far: I probably could have found an easier way to export Gcal events and import into 30 Boxes, but I was testing out 30 Boxes and started entering the events manually. It’s pretty fast and painless, so I ended up doing all my events by hand. Took about 20-30 minutes. 30 Boxes works pretty much as you’d hope, and I haven’t had any problems so far.
Other alternatives to try: Monket (open-source, self-hosted), desktop apps like iCal or Sunbird (open-source), or online suites such as Zimbra or Feng Office.
Great photo management software that’s integrated on my desktop and online. Makes syncing your photos painless and works better than you’d expect if you’re used to clunkier alternatives such as iPhoto.
The alternative I chose: SmugMug, which is a beautiful online photo app but not cheap (if you do sign up, use my coupon to save $5: TlepT5Lpv1XmQ).
The transition so far: Honestly, I haven’t fully made this transition yet as I have thousands of photos in Picasa and haven’t had the time to move them all to SmugMug. I’ve uploaded some of the photos I have in iPhoto using a free plugin, and it works pretty well, but moving all the photos will take a little time. SmugMug is a nice service, though again, not cheap.
Other alternatives: Flickr (which is good but I’ve never been a fan), iPhoto, a few others I didn’t bother to look at.
There are some things that I haven’t done yet, but plan to do in the future to get fully Google-free:
There might be others that I’ve forgotten about, so it’ll take a bit longer than a day. But in one day, I was able to move from the main Google services I’ve been using for years, to good alternatives.
Overall, I haven’t missed the Google services one bit. I really thought it would be harder to make the switch, but it was fast, fairly easy, and without glitches.
The services I’m using are almost as good, and once you get used to them you don’t feel like you’re making a sacrifice.
I need to be clear: I don’t hate Google, nor do I think they’re evil. They make great things, and in general have been more supportive of open standards and open source than other corporations like Microsoft or Apple. But it’s not wise to put everything you have into one corporation, nor do I like commercializing my entire life. It was time for a change.
I also believe that if you give someone power, eventually they’ll abuse it. It’s just a matter of time. How much power should we give one corporation?
I don’t know if I’ll stay (mostly) Google-free, or if I’ll eventually head back to Gmail or one of the other services. But I do know that I like using multiple services — putting my eggs in different baskets — and I like having fewer ads in my life. And I also know that it’s possible to get out of Google’s clutches.
Next up: Apple (see Linux). Twitter is in my sights as well (see identica).
Post inspired by Freemor.
—
If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.
Google Calendar just launched a new feature into Google Calendar Labs called Smart Rescheduler that uses a scheduling algorithm to suggest “best candidate dates and times” for scheduling meetings. More »
Earlier today, I lazy-tweeted to see if anyone had a definitive list of Xcode’s project expansion macros. If you open up a project template and poke around, you’ll see both in filenames and in file contents, these all-cap words surrounded by three underscores like ___PROJECTNAME___. These are replacement macros that get replaced with some other value when you create your project based on that template. ___PROJECTNAME___, for example, gets replaced with the name of the project as it was typed in by the user into the new project assistant.
I’ve assembled from a few different sources a list of all the known macros.
| Token |
Replaced By |
|---|---|
|
___PROJECTNAMEASIDENTIFIER___ |
The project name with spaces and any filename-illegal characters replaced by underscores. |
|
___PROJECTNAME___ |
The project name exactly as entered by the user when the project was created. |
|
___PROJECTNAMEASXML___ |
The project name exactly as entered by the user when the project was created, but with converted using XML encoding so that it’s legal XML. |
|
___FULLUSERNAME___ |
The long user name of the developer who created the project pulled from the account information. |
|
___USERNAME___ |
The short user name of the developer who created the project. |
|
___TIME___ |
The time of the day at which the project was created. |
|
___DATE___ |
The date on which the project was created. |
|
___YEAR___ |
The four-digit year in which the project was created. |
|
___ORGANIZATIONNAME___ |
The name of the company or organization for which the developer works (SEE SIDEBAR). |
|
___UUID___ |
A generated unique identifier for your project. |
|
___UUIDASIDENTIFIER___ |
The same unique identifier as ___UUID___, but with spaces and illegal characters converted to underscores. |
One of the values in that table, however, doesn’t belong there. I’ve included it (___ORGANIZATIONNAME___) because Apple uses it in most (all?) of their own Xcode templates, but it’s not a built-in value like the others with a set meaning. It’s a custom macro and (as you may know) you have to manually add it to Xcode’s list of macros to get it to work. To make things more confusing, there’s no place in Xcode where you can actually set this value (that I know of, at least).
To define the organization name that will be used in place of the ___ORGANIZATIONNAME___replacement token that’s used in Apple’s provided templates, you have to drop down to the terminal and type something like:
defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXCustomTemplateMacroDefinitions '{ "ORGANIZATIONNAME" = "Naked Software, Inc.";}'
That’s a pain, but the good news is, this mechanism is generic. It works for any replacement token you want to define. You could, for example, type this command in the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXCustomTemplateMacroDefinitions '{ "MYTESTTOKEN" = "Hee Haw";}'
And anywhere in a project templates where you included ___MYTESTTOKEN___ in a filename or as part of a file’s contents, Xcode would substitute Hee Haw for it.
If you want to find out what expansion macros you have defined, you can do this:
defaults read com.apple.Xcode PBXCustomTemplateMacroDefinitions
Now, in reality, there’s a limit to just how useful this feature is. Apple’s not likely to start using custom tokens other than ___ORGANIZATIONNAME___ and for your own templates, you can put whatever the hell you want in there, so unless you have machine- or user-specific data to insert into new projects, you’ll probably never actually use this feature further than to define ___ORGANIZATIONNAME___, but it’s nice to know it’s there and understand what’s going on a little better under the hood.
Matt Gemmell and two commenters reminded me that organization name IS now exposed in Xcode starting with 3.2 and that if it’s not set, Xcode will pull it from your card in Address Book, so ___COMPANYNAME___ does belong in the list. The rest of the above is still true, however.
Constantin has a wonderful little script that will configure you home server to reduce it’s power consumption. Unfortunately for me he uses a loop that falls into one of my scripting pet peeves. Within Contstantin’s script there is absolutely no problem but I have in the past seen customers burnt by this such that I have been able to work magic to get some really spectacular performance increases.
The problem is here:
for i in $disks ; do echo "device-thresholds $i 5m" >>$TMPFILE done
Let me emphasize again that in this case there is no real problem but I believe that if you do the right thing where it does not matter you will get it right when it does.
The issue is that for every time around that loop the script opens the output file writes one line and closes the file. This is bad when the file system is a local one but when over NFS this is a performance disaster. With a small change the number of opens can be reduced to just one, which when over NFS all data has to be sent to the server and the server confirm it is on stable storage before the close can complete give a spectacular improvement.
Here is a test I ran over a very slow NFS v4 link (Wifi) to my home server:
brompton% cat /tmp/loop
#!/bin/ksh
i=0
out=${1:-${0##*/}.out}
: > $out
while (( i < 1000))
do
echo $i >> $out
let i=i+1
done
brompton% time /tmp/loop
/tmp/loop 0.15s user 0.51s system 2% cpu 26.850 total
brompton%
Compare that with a the good case:
brompton% cat /tmp/loop2 #!/bin/ksh
i=0
out=${1:-${0##*/}.out}
while (( i < 1000))
do
echo $i
let i=i+1
done > $out
brompton% time /tmp/loop2
/tmp/loop2 0.01s user 0.01s system 5% cpu 0.384 total
brompton%
From 26 seconds to 0.384 seconds. Now this is a very bad case as the loop does nothing else and the network latency is particular bad but none the less the principle is the same if you have 10G ethernet, you don’t want to be leaving that performance on the table.
If you’ve had a tough time choosing between Parallels and VMware Fusion for running Windows on your Mac, all-things-Apple site MacTech pitted the two virtualization tools against one another in a giant faceoff. The results: In tests covering boot speed, CPU usage, application performance, CPU speed, graphics, and more, Parallels 5 came out on top of VMware Fusion 3 in every instance; Parallels particularly outdid VMware in graphic performance, which you can see demonstrated in the video above. [MacTech via Gizmodo] More »
Reader Saad Baig’s desktop shows what a Windows desktop could look like if you made the Windows 7 Superbar really “super”, by adding desktop widgets directly into the taskbar, easily accessible even with maximized applications. More »