Here’s the dilemma.\u00a0 Most of what I want to do is made better by being able to do it on more than one machine or platform.\u00a0 If I want to use RSS, for example, I want all the viewers that I use for this on all the different machines and operating systems to be in sync about what I’ve already read, what I’m subscribed to, and so on.\u00a0 If I want to jot down notes, I want them available and editable everywhere.\u00a0 If I have an encrypted database of passwords, I want them available on all the devices I use and I want to be able to edit them anywhere.\u00a0 Same with code.<\/p>\n
Local solutions, software that runs on a given device, exist for all these things.\u00a0 Increasingly, “cloud” service providers exist for all these things.\u00a0 The only added benefit they bring is precisely the “available everywhere” feature I mention above.\u00a0 The cost, however, is that I lose control over all this data that I’m sharing; it’s stored by the provider, managed by the provider, shared at their discretion and ultimately disposed of.<\/p>\n
In many cases, there are solutions that are optimal for me.\u00a0 For example, source code control is a well-understood problem that has several solutions that work for me.\u00a0 I’ve used everything from centralized systems hosted by service providers, to my own setup on an ISP, to in-house client-server systems, to peer-to-peer, and I’ve migrated my codebase from one to the other without hassle as I’ve changed.\u00a0 The client side has been similarly painless; as each new OS or IDE has appeared, open-source clients for source code control have popped up as well.\u00a0 I have control over my code, I’m not threatened by services disappearing, and I have universal access in a secure way.<\/p>\n
I’m still looking for similar software for other needs.\u00a0 It seems to me that the universal access piece of this is exactly what is appealing to many about net-hosted applications run by third parties like Google: Docs, Reader, Blogger, and now Keep, Evernote,Tumblr.\u00a0 But it’s not necessary to cede control of my stuff to these services to gain universal access, it’s only necessary that I have a network-accessible place to store things (S3, my local ISP, my own server on a static IP address or some such), standards for interop like RSS, iCal, plain text, and client software that uses those standards for all the different platforms I’m using.\u00a0 So I need to get on with it and identify those standards and clients, and break the bad habit of “trying” and then buying into web services that come with such a high long-term cost.\u00a0 Recommendations welcomed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s the dilemma.\u00a0 Most of what I want to do is made better by being able to do it on more than one machine or platform.\u00a0 If I want to use RSS, for example, I want all the viewers that I use for this on all the different machines and operating systems to be in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifmbanm.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}