Nov 20, 2016 | eOS, Software |
I configured Dropbox in the last blog, which I use to send scanner output from my WF-3640. I also use it to sync a number of services between iOS and macOS devices (1Password, YNAB, MacDive, and Mindset to name but a few) but other than that I don’t really use DropBox for data anymore.
For me, and I suspect many others, Dropbox was probably one of the first ‘cloud’ services I used regularly. I guess I was a bit of a ‘Dropbox Evangelist’ when it first became popular, mainly as it made sharing files so simple, but also because for every friend you recommended they gave you an extra 250MB of free storage! I can’t remember exactly what you got free, to begin with, but over time I managed to increase my limit to 9.25GB. But once I’d realised how useful this was for keeping things in sync across multiple devices, whilst being able to share and/or access from any device, it really wasn’t enough. I know you can get almost an unlimited amount now for a whole range of different providers, and I’ve probably got basic accounts with many of them (Google Drive, Amazon Cloud, Microsoft Onedrive, Box, etc.) but back then it wasn’t particularly cheap to get more storage, and at the time I think I preferred the idea of keeping my data (especially the important stuff) on my hardware.
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Nov 20, 2016 | eOS |
I was actually expecting this to be a lot more difficult too, but in reality, it was pretty straight forward. I have an Epson WorkForce WF-3640 in my home office, and in any of my Linux VMs I’ve never been able to connect to it, even though it’s physically connected to my LAN and accessible over WiFi.
It wasn’t a major problem as I rarely need to print anything from a VM, and when I do I can actually send it to an Epson Connect e-mail address which sends it directly my printer and prints it out. The wonders of modern technology!
Adding a printer is pretty much the same in eOS as it is any other OS, but the WF-3640 isn’t listed in the longest list of Epson printers I think I’ve ever seen. Off to the Epson website and a search found me a number of .deb files.
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Nov 20, 2016 | eOS, Software |
No, I haven’t screwed things up just yet, but in trying to connect to all my devices I realised just how ‘locked out’ of just about everything I’d be (both locally and online) without access to 1Password!
I’ve been listening to all the scary cyber security stories, and whilst I’ll admit that many years ago I probably used 2-3 passwords for just about everything, I’ve been using 1Password for quite a long time now and almost every password I use is unique and relatively complex. Where possible, I’m also using 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) which makes me feel a little more secure but also raises the issue of what would happen if I couldn’t access 1Password.
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Nov 20, 2016 | eOS, FreeNAS |
Why is this always so difficult? Surely it should be a simple in this connected world for devices to talk with each other without jumping through various hoops?
Playing with FreeNAS has developed my network understanding, but I’m still very much an amateur when it comes to fully understanding my ‘network stack’ I need to figure out the best way to talk to the various devices I have using a combination of sharing protocols (e.g. CIFS, AFP, NFS)
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Nov 19, 2016 | eOS |
Right, now I’ve got my preferred browser, I’d like to sort out some gestures. To be fair, 2-finger gestures seem to be working pretty well ‘out of the box’ or at least I can scroll up and down.
In macOS I use 3-finger swipes to so 2 really common things:
- 3-fingers left and right go backwards and forward in the browser, and make jumping in and out of pages so simple
- 3-fingers up and down switch between desktops, which I use a lot as I like to have different things running on different desktops, more often than not full screen
If I can get this sorted, everything will feel a lot more like macOS.
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Nov 18, 2016 | eOS, Software |
I’ll digress a little here, but what did we do before the world wide web, and more specifically Google?
Yes, I hear all the anti-Google arguments, but they don’t charge me anything and the convenience and access to knowledge they provide is a price I’m willing to pay. I’ve not really hunted around for alternatives, as I’m pretty sure I’ve found the best.
I remember using Yahoo and Netscape in the early days, but where are they now? I’m actually forced to use Bing on a clients laptop I’m currently using, and even that doesn’t work quite as accurately as Google.
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