Your Nerdy Best Friend

Podio is one of the tech tools that is making it impossible for me to finish the chapter on Project Management Tools for Release Your Inner Nerd. Here’s why:

A computer used to be a box on a desk, and to do computer work, we had to be in front of that box. Now our files and applications have moved into the cloud, meaning that we can be almost anywhere and do almost anything using almost any device. We can also backup the heck out of everything – which, in this dangerous age of hacking, viruses and other nastiness – we should.

When you’re using an online backup service, you generally set up an account; tell it which drives, folders and files to back up; and let it get to work. They can work in the background all the time or back up on a schedule. If your computer blows up, you can restore your files to another machine, or recover an earlier version of a document (ever hit “Save” instead of “Save As …”?)

If I didn’t use Dropbox for my backup plan, I’d choose CrashPlan. The free plan, aptly named CrashPlan Free, puts the backup network into your hands by allowing you to connect to friends’ computers for storage. You backup to someone else’s computer while he stores his backup on yours. Neither one of you can see the others’ files, but everyone has peace of mind — without a price tag.

Their paid versions are pretty comparable to other services — $59.99/year for unlimited data from one computer. They also offer to save multiple versions of your active files as well as all the files you delete. And you can backup to multiple locations, such as their online cloud, another computer and an external hard drive.

I need to mention Carbonite and Mozy because they’ve been around the longest and are perhaps the best known, but I think these days you have better options. Carbonite looks great on paper — unlimited storage on unlimited devices for $59 a year. But if you read the small print, you’ll soon discover that if you have more than 200GB to backup, your backups will be slower and take longer — data throttling, if you will. That said, it’s a simple service with a great reputation, so if you don’t need 200GB+, it’s a nice option.

Mozy was one of the first online backup services I discovered. These days they also have MozyStash, which is their file synchronization service. You can have 2GB for free, or choose a paid plan starting at $5.99/month for up to 50GB.

SOS Online Backup doesn’t have a free level, but they’ve won plenty of awards and high marks. IDrive is another standout in this field. It has a fairly generous free plan, and the paid plans start at 150GB for less than $50/year. I love the fact that it integrates with Facebook, which means you can share files and folders with connections with a couple clicks. IDrive keeps a whopping 30 versions of each file, and it backs up multiple devices into the same account.

IDrive is a good example of the mixing of the pure storage sites and the collaboration/sync cloud services. You can sign up for the classic IDrive storage or go for IDrivesync for a Dropbox-like experience with up to 10GB of storage for free.

ADrive also stands out in the pack because of its free level – a very generous 50GB of storage, which is at least five times the free space as most services. AVG LiveKive is a cool option from a trusted company. They have a free 5GB version, as do many of the others, but their unlimited device/unlimited storage version for $79.99/year is an incredible deal. Like Carbonite, though, you should read the fine print, which says that if you have more than 500GB of stuff (which is a LOT of stuff), they may charge you extra.

Way back in the early days of voice recognition, here’s a sample dictation session with my 1997 version of Dragon Naturally Speaking.

I say: “I want a cupcake.”

Dragon writes: “The man picked up the rake.”

I say: “Delete that.”

Dragon writes: “Deplete cats.”

I say: “CHANGE THAT!”

Dragon writes: “Change bats.”

I scream: “STOP IT!”

Dragon writes: “You started it.”

Lordy but I hated that blankety-blank program.

Flash forward more than a quarter of a century, and speech recognition is almost effortless, both on your computers and your mobile devices.

I don’t think I could live without Siri, a pleasantly perky voice recognition system built into the iPhone. You can speak to Siri as if she’s a personal assistant or even a friend, and she translates commands and questions into actions easily and with amazing accuracy.

Siri has a number of competitors for many mobile platforms, all with their own specialties and weaknesses. On Android devices, the top personal assistant tools are Maluuba, Skyvi and the EVA/EVAN “twin” apps so you can choose a male or female personality.

Five Ways I Use Siri

1. Magnificent Multitasking
   While I’m setting up a room before a presentation, I can plow through a few emails by dictating as I walk around.
2. Safe Texting
   When I’m driving, I can send a quick text message using hands-free technology and Siri.
3. Husband Pleasing
   My poor husband has to leave his favorite football games to pick me up at the airport. I simply ask Siri to tell me the score, and D.J. is happy(ish).
4. Quick Calculating
   Siri often serves as my calculator when it’s too much of a pain to open the calculator app, or, heaven forbid, I try to do the math myself.
5. Weather Reporting
   When I’m packing my bags for a speaking engagement, I’ll ask Siri for the weather report for the next city.

Once a year I offer on this site the super-fresh, super-awesome, super-updated Quick Reference Guide that attendees in my sessions receive as a handout.

This document has the top 75 tech tools that I love, PLUS some completely awesome discounts from some of the tool providers.

Enjoy… and share!

Another free chapter from Your Nerdy Best Friend!

This chapter covers URL shorteners and sharing tools to enhance collaboration and simplify communications.

Another free chapter from Upgrade to Free: The Best Free and Low-Cost Online Tools and Apps.

A few weeks ago I decided to create a Nerdy Photo Booth for live events, where people could take funny pictures with nerdy glasses and receive a nice souvenir of the event.

It took me quite some time, but I finally discovered Sparkbooth, an amazing (and bargain) software package that turned my MacBook Air into a portable booth. For $59, you get a professional-quality product that allows you to create custom backgrounds and overlays for your pictures.

People at my last live event were lining up to get their pictures taken, and I left the computer on the projector so the people who were waiting could enjoy the others’ antics. Here are five tips for making the best booth ever:

1. Use Pixlr, GIMP or another graphic editing software to create the background and overlay so you can make one with a transparent background. Or hire this guy to create one for you.
2. Gather a bunch of fun props for people to try on, and then modify the settings to give them enough time to change costumes.
3. Think hard about the lighting for your booth. Your laptop’s webcam may create very grainy pictures in low light. I bought a small USB-powered light that I keep with the props.
4. Figure out how you’re going to get the pictures to your attendees. At first I gave people the option to share via Facebook or Twitter, but it took too long and no one was doing it anyway.
   And I set it to automatically post to the Ask Beth Z Facebook page, but when I was testing it, I accidentally posted horrifying pictures of me in my pjs working late at night to perfect the booth! Frightening! (Luckily I could delete them).
   Finally I chose to simply collect email addresses and names, and I put all the pictures in one Dropbox folder after the event and sent out a link.
5. You have to customize each photo template that attendees can choose, which is a lot of work. So I picked a nice template with just three pictures and locked it in. I wanted to make sure that the process was quick and fun, and that people waiting in line didn’t give up because it was taking too long.