If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
In my Going Portable post, I wrote about how I’m trying to use more and more online services so that I’m not tied to any one computer. I realised this week, that I was also tied to one notebook (i.e. paper notebook) when I went ot refer to my tips’n'tricks section in the back, and reaslised that I didn’t have it with me!
This got me thinking. Whenever I need my notes, I also have Internet access and we use a Wiki at work to share information, rather than emailing documents to everyone. I needed a Wiki! 
Regular readers will have noticed that new posts have been a little thin on the ground lately! This isn’t anything to do with having nothing to write about, rather it’s due to my new role (same company) which keeps me away from home Monday to Friday, and so away from my PC. I’ve considered buying a laptop to enable me to be completely portable, but since I like to travel light, I felt that this wasn’t a realistic option.
Now, when I’m away from home, I have my business laptop which is certainly powerful enough to cope with my needs, but lacks the licenses to run my software. So, I’m on a quest to move to a fully Open Source solution (see my earlier post “What is Open Source?” for background on this), with all critical data being stored online. This is what I’m planning so far:
- Use Google Documents for larger documents, as needed.
- Use Google Notebook (with the great Firefox plugin available for it) for notes and thoughts that I need to share between systems.
- Use KompoZer for my HTML editing. This is a full-featured, Open Source, WYSIWYG HTML editor that gives most of what Dreamweaver provides, but for free!
- I already use Notepad++ for editting text files, which is also Open Source.
- For images, I’m not sure whether GIMP or Google Picasa are sufficient, although I suspect I’ll leave most serious work for when I get back home to my trusty Photoshop….! Both of these packages are Open Source, but GIMP is far more powerful than Picasa. That said, for what I’m likely to need whilst away from home, I suspect Picasa will suffice, and seems to be less complicated to use.
That leaves me just lacking audio input. Whilst I already have Audacity for editing my audio files, I don’t have a good quality USB microphone that I’d be happy to carry around. At home, I use a USB audio interface and a studio quality microphone, but this is not a portable solution! I suspect I’ll end up recording the audio whilst at home, and doing the editing during the week whilst away.
For video, I was fortunate enough to grab a copy of Camtasia Studio whilst a free offer was running last year, so am well provided for in this area. I’m reluctant to go to full video, as I suspect pictures of me would scare you all off! 
So watch this space! Let’s see how my portable life progresses and whether I can make the most of my “hotel time” whilst away from home!
In response to my previous article “Open Source Living”, I was asked to elaborate on what exactly ‘Open Source’ really is. It’s easy for those of us involved in the software industry to expect everyone to understand the terms that we use on a daily basis and sometimes, it’s great to have someone stop us and say “explain this to me”.
This is my attempt at clarifying exactly what Open Source really is!
I’ve recently started making more use of the StumbleUpon Toolbar which this morning led me to an amazing site - www.osliving.com. The site author describes it as follows:
“Welcome to Open Source Living, an archive of the Web’s best Open Source software, applications and references for a zero-cost / top quality digital experience.”
I would highly recommend to anyone who has even a slight interest in Open Source applications to have a good look at this site - you’ll be amazed what’s available!
