I collect user accounts like other people collect frozen yogurt rewards cards…
…which I also collect.
I found: http://idego.co/ which seems pretty cool. I have no idea if it’s “safe”. Seems reasonably so.
But I appear to be an “early adopter” according to their weighted ranking based on userbase and the fact that I have 6 accounts they can compare. #5 so far. Top of the “sixes”!
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arrows with perspective[/caption]
I was running my own linux server at EC2. But, I don’t know the right way to maintain a linux server and I had to stop pretending that I did. I just want to blog, own my own code, and use an affordable service. Most virtual shared hosts work great for this. I was on bluehost for a while. They are ok. I guess. Go Daddy is another example that I would never send anyone to use. And I just had a simple shared host that a buddy maintained for years for me. As long as it has cPanel. You are in good shape.
But I wanted more control… I wanted to have a way to host more random apps and projects without all the headaches and hoops that traditional hosting providers incur. So, I tried running my own Linux server so I could mess with things like OpenPhoto and ThinkUp and Node.js and Ruby on Rails. But maintaining a server is a pain. Especially for an individual with custom needs and not much spare time.
But, I found the ultimate alternative. Wordpress on Heroku. Seriously. This is great. Free* hosting. No server maintenance… just run an application. Almost no risk of having your site hacked, because the filesystem is read-only! And, you are forced to keep your entire site in a git repository which is a best practice anyway. Why is this not everywhere? It’s the perfect compromise between running your own server and simple linux virtual shared hosting.
So, I realized Heroku fulfills all my desires in app hosting (except ASP.Net apps, try AppHarbor). I can hack on quick projects. Maintain a safe and secure code base. Run a simple personal blog with full custom capabilities of a self-hosted WordPress install. And, not pay very much money. And, now I don’t have to worry about my Amazon AWS alarms telling me that I’m spiking my CPU twice an hour for no reason!?! Grrr… And I don’t have to configure Apache anymore! Yay!
We were traveling back home to be with my family last week and we needed to fill out some paperwork. This was one of those rare instances where we had to deal with a company that was still stuck in the pre-digital age. Specifically, a bank needed us to fax documents to them. They expected us to print out paper, fill them out (with data that they already had on their website), sign it and send it in. I had an iPad and iPhone with me. I wasn’t going to try to print and fax at a Kinko’s. So here was my very convoluted workflow.
On the iPad download the PDF’s from the bank website. Open it in PDFPen and enter all my details. Copy and past data from the a website into a text field on PDFPen. Let it to crash a couple times. Finally get everything entered. Sign it with my finger or Cosmonaut stylus. Save the pages as images in my photo stream. Wait for the images to appear on the iPhone. Use JotNot Pro on the iPhone to open the image files, and then buy a Fax credit pack in the app and fax the pages to the provided bank fax number! Boom. Forms submitted. All digital.
Takeaway 1: Fax credits are kinda expensive, but cheaper than going to an office store.
Takeway 2: I wish JotNot had the ability to fax an original pdf file, not just an imported image of a PDF.
This continues to reinforce it is possible to go all digital with small devices like an iPad or iPhone.