Getting my Electronic Life in Order

The following things will bring me closer to productivity zen and computing flow. I feel like I hit this point right before I made the switch to linux, and I haven’t quite caught up again since. Part of this is a lack of effort to research and implement the necessary systems. Part of it is that I’ve increased my standards. And let’s be honest, part of it is that open source software is lagging behind by just a bit in some of these domains. We’re close to having Time Machine for Linux, but let’s face it: we’re just not quite there yet.

Implement a file backup system.
Perhaps some version of this. I want two on-site backups and one off-site. I’ll settle for one on and one off. I want these backups to be incremental (they don’t re-copy files that haven’t been changed since the last backup) and versioned (they keep old copies of files, in case I want to roll back to an earlier version). I want this to happen almost entirely automatically, and nightly. If I have an internet connection, my laptop automatically uses a tiny slice of my bandwidth to backup to my off-site backup server. If a certain external drive is plugged in, same thing, though I’ll also settle for these things just happening at 3 in the morning every day. I want to be notified when I haven’t backed up in 7 days. Same for when my hard drive hasn’t been checked recently.
Also, I want to use versioning to synchronize files, especially programming projects (but also papers, etc), across machines. More on synchronization later.

Implement a to do list system
When I was still using my treo 650, I was on top of this. I recorded my tasks based on what resources they required. I had a list of all the phone calls I needed to make, all of the emails I needed to send, all of the things that I needed to look up online, all of the errands I needed to run, etc. There are a few similar bits of software for the iphone, but I haven’t found one that I love yet. I’m looking for something fast (not really possible at all on the iphone, in my experience) and something that will sync with Sunbird (probably through ScheduleWorld or something).
I’m seriously considering downgrading back to my treo for this and a couple other reasons (can’t beat the speed and the tactile querty). I’d much rather get an Openmoko Freerunner, that way I’ll still be able to get email and web browse on the go, but hopefully it’ll be a little snappier, and it’ll almost certainly play better with my linux laptop. None of the available solutions are ideal at this point, and I blame proprionormativity.
It may be that I just need to start writing things down in my little moleskine. That seems to work fine for a number of people. It’s certainly got its disadvantages, but at least it’s a system, and perhaps it’s what i need in the interim between now and when the Freerunner has some more polished software (and i have the money to purchase one).

Synchronize Everything
I want to be able to add an event to my calendar on my phone, then edit it from my laptop, then confirm the location from another computer attached to the internet. I want to synchronize contacts, calendars, emails, tasks (to-do lists), other “notes” (simple text files). Also, I want to synchronize my feed readers. I love liferea, but I want to be able to read my feeds (and sync read/unread status) on other computers that don’t have it installed (including my cell phone). I want all this synchronization to be coupled with really good offline modes. I want my laptop to slowly download all of my emails while I’m not looking, so that when I don’t have a connection I can still process them and write replies which get sent off once I get a connection again. A really messy mixture of Google Apps, Funambol, ScheduleWorld, Thunderbird, Sunbird, and pixie dust have helped me implement a partial sorta kinda not quite there version of this.

Improved Email
Firefox is gem of open source technology. Thunderbird is “eh.” There are just so many little things. I’ve been so spoiled by gmail. It made searching so easy. And fast. And the way that the threaded view included my own replies. I just can’t live without that functionality now. But I don’t want to depend on gmail anymore. Maybe it’s time to give Evolution a try. Or maybe I should just go full haxor and implement something like alpine.

Take Back my Data
This is part of why I am using open source software. Whenever I add contacts to my address book, or songs to my library, or friends to my facebook, I am making an investment. With closed, proprietary tools, I don’t really own that data. DRM-infested tracks that I add to my music library can become unplayable when I switch players. My facebook friends become useless when I switch to another social network. My address book can be lost when I switch email clients or phone software. These are not all the same issue, but they are related. I want to really be in control of my data, and I want to be able to take it with me so that I’m not tied to any particular networks or pieces of software. For this reason, I want to stop using gmail and host my own email. I want to run my own calendar contact, etc sync server. I want to host my own photos and blog (check [mostly] on that one). I want to back up all this data, and keep it in a number of formats, most of them open. Figuring out how to do this while still staying connected to the social networks is incredibly challenging. I can put my photos up at my gallery2 install, but my flickr friends won’t see them unless I cross-post. Identica and Laconica are making great strides in this field, proving that you can host your own data while still connecting to the network (or, rather, to a few different networks).

I know that I’m not the only one struggling with these things. In some cases the technology is there, but nobody has made it usable and otherwise “pretty” yet. These things can all become a reality, and I do feel like we’re getting close.

So beyond a simple “to do list” for myself, the preceding can be thought of as a challenge to the open source community. Let’s make these things a reality, and let’s make them so easy and intuitive that they become invisible.