As the idea of an Android phone has been hanging out in my hindbrain, it has been bumping into other ideas that tend to hang out there. Things like going paperless, ubiquitous capture, OCR, FOSS, NAS, backups…
So begins a bit of almost stream of consciousness writing on things that are rubbing elbows in the back room of my mind while I am trying to be productive or sleep or do anything else for that matter…
I know, buzzword bingo, but hey, its stuff that is stuck in my brain. Lots of little “one day I’ll…” projects and schemes.
Things that I would like to have documented, but don’t. Things that I would love to use, but I am scared about getting locked into yet another proprietary system. I keep reading and hearing about Evernote… it sounds like a good idea. Especially if I had a smartphone to use with it. But then I get worried about “What if they go away” or as has happened with Facebook, what if they change the terms of use in such a way that not only doesn’t appeal to me anymore, it actively repels me?
I need to have a way to backup information that I trust to someone else to store and keep for me. I’m paranoid. I don’t like using a hosted email like Gmail. I like the interface for gmail, and if I could use it on my own hosted server, I would, in a heartbeat. But I start to get the shakes when I think about trusting someone else with my email or website.
My current offsite backup target is a linux box in my parents basement for crying out loud. My laptop gets backed up to TimeMachine and also using Carbon Copy Cloner and to that linux box in the basement.
I keep coming back to the idea that I want to use FOSS, because I like FOSS, because I want to support it. Because for the most part, FOSS has never let me down, at least not long term. (Yes I can feel the irony of that statement as I write this on my MacBook using MarsEdit.)
I did some poking around today looking for “whitebox” laptops, not that I can justify replacing the macbook any time soon, but just to keep an eye on what is available and what is “coming soon”.
I have also been kicking around the idea of swapping he hdd in the macbook for a new one, and just installing Ubuntu on it. See how well that works. One of the possible issues that comes to mind almost immediately is that of my audible.com account. Is there a linux solution for that, without getting an Android phone?
And since I am back to the phone thing again… is there a way to get an Android without a stupidly high cell phone bill each month? I know I am kind of spoiled by my current $10/month TracFone, but still! I don’t want to shell out $60+/month for a phone plan. Especially for something that I may actually hate. Or just not really want to use, so it sits on a shelf at the house instead of being used.
Ok, enough of that for now, I think I have some other stuff I should be doing right now… ok, I am sure I have some other stuff I should be doing right now.
lopsa