Smarterware

Free Tools to Back Up Your Cloud Data

Cloud computing lets you store your data in web applications and access it from any browser, anywhere—but that doesn't mean you don't need a backup plan. Next time your favorite web site is down or you're locked out of an account, make sure you've got the crucial info you need where you can get to it: on your computer.

"But I don't need backup if my data's in the cloud," you say. "Big companies with lots of servers are better at backup than little old me could ever be." That's true, but cloud computing does come with risks. Depending on an external service to host, update, and maintain the software you love and the data you need is both the cloud's advantage and disadvantage: you're putting your stuff on computers you don't control at a single point of access (or failure). Companies get shut down or bought, accounts get locked up, servers (and you) go offline. If you store your email, photos, documents, contacts, bookmarks, and journal entries in the cloud, safeguard your data for when a storm's a-brewing with these handy tools.

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When Social Networking Becomes Self-Incrimination

What I love most about my friend Penelope Trunk's Twitter feed (and all her writing) is that it's raw, personal, and hilarious. But I imagine getting served with legal documents that involve a printout of it wasn't so hilarious.

On Archiving, Curating, and Republishing Public Twitter Conversations

Once you've amassed enough of a following, one of the best uses of hot social networking app Twitter is getting instant answers to any question on your mind. When you post a question on Twitter and get a dozen replies within the next 10 minutes from live humans--some of whom you know and trust--it's waaayyy better than impersonal and sometimes out-of-date Google search results.

After two years and 1,700 updates on Twitter, this insta-Q&A is my favorite use of the service. The only problem is, I always want to archive and share what I learn from my followers on my blog, and it's not easy. My post on what people love and hate about netbooks, sourced entirely from Twitter replies, took me hours to compile manually, because Twitter doesn't easily list replies to a particular "tweet" in a very readable or republishable format. So this weekend I dug into the service's API to make that happen. Using Kevin Makice's new book, Twitter API: Up and Running, after just a day of coding I had my entire Twitter archive plus replies ready for viewing and publishing. While the code itself isn't ready for sharing, a few questions and subsequent replies posted on Twitter and compiled here recently include:

• What info do you wish Twitter gave you about your followers/updates that it doesn’t or that it makes you dig for?
• What are your telltale physical signs of stress?
• What's the most expensive software you’ve ever paid for?
• What’s the best project management software?

Update: I've posted a pre-alpha, nerds-only version on GitHub, tentatively named Twitalytic, called ThinkTank.

Of course, I included only replies from Twitter users whose updates are public, and I didn't include direct messages (because, by nature, they are private). I hope to post more lists of curated public replies going forward; I'll file future posts under "Twitter Q&A." Let me know how I can make posts like these more useful and readable.

The Realities and Responsibilities of “Crowdsourcing”

The straight-faced definition of crowdsourcing is using the ability to communicate with thousands of people efficiently on the internet to get those people to do something for you. To me, "crowdsourcing" is also one of those annoying internet neologisms that's overinflated by "Web 2.0" marketing hype, so I qualify it with quotes. Even though I "crowdsource" information all the time, quality results require stringent editing, checking, and yes, curation. I'll be on a panel at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, TX called "Curating the Crowd-Sourced World" on March 13 to discuss just this.

As a part of their SXSW coverage, The Austin Chronicle quoted me as saying,

For a blogger, crowd-sourcing is just outsourcing your research. Without fact-checkers, why not?

Since the reporter asked for a definition to go in his "glossary with a sense of humor," I said that with tongue lodged firmly in cheek. The truth is that crowdsourcing research--and editing and even fact-checking(!) the results--is a serious subject with lots of issues. Because I felt like being cute, I crowdsourced what "crowdsourcing" means, by asking about 9,000 people on Twitter. My followers didn't disappoint; several nailed some of the thornier aspects of the issue in their 140-character responses.

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