Services Setup 2015
General
These are the web services I am using on a regular basis as of summer 2015. I am usually quick to sign up for new services but few remain in my daily toolbelt.
Dropbox
Been using Dropbox since it was released and I love it. It still seems like magic. It makes multi-computer setup a breeze. I pay for space and keep 99% of all my stuff inside Dropbox. A paid account gets you 1TB of space, private sharing, and remote wipe capability for $99/year.
Pack-Rat
I also pay for the Pack-Rat feature which gives you 12-month of version recovery for all your files. Saves you from the occasional dammit I deleted that scenario. This costs $39/year.
Instapaper
Read it later service. I stick with Instapaper over its competitors because their design fits my use case perfectly.
Pinboard
I have been burned on bookmark syncing many times by many browsers. All browsers have either lost my bookmarks completely, triplicated them, or a combination of both. Now I handle bookmarks through Pinboard. It does not sync bookmarks but is an amazing archive tool and has an api for native apps to build on.
Currently $11/year.
Feedwrangler
When Google Reader died gloriously a few years back I choose to go with Feed Wrangler and have been with that ever since. The service is solid and costs $19/year.
Flickr
I export all of my finished photography to folders in Dropbox. I also send them up to Flickr for an extra backup and easy online viewing.
I keep the majority of images private but set the best shots as public so that family members can view and I can use them as fodder for the screensaver on our Apple TV.
I stick to the free plan here since they give my 1TB of space.
Mint
Nice overview of where your money is going. It helps to see all of my accounts in one place. Also makes tax season slightly less suicide inducing. I suspect they may be doing something gross with my data behind the scenes, but Mint’s usefulness outweighs my paranoia at this point.
Backblaze
Remote backup for my Mac mini and the attached Drobo. Not sure how they make money since I have roughly 3.5TB over there. It is $50/year for some data peace of mind.
Web Development
The set of services that follow skew more towards web development work, and pertain more for client focused work. I use all for personal work too.
Codepen
The blank page syndrome exists for developers too. For me Codepen is a way to start writing code and see results quickly. Most of my work begins here as a rough draft. I only start a formal git repo in a development environment once I have proven an idea here.
I do pay for the Pro account $75/year. The main reason I pay the price is to keep things private. My employer and clients probably appreciate me not sharing rough drafts with the world.
Hover
The only place I buy domain names. They are not the cheapest but they are the best and the extra $$$ is worth it. They also have a transfer service to help exercise your domain name from the clutches of registrars like GodDaddy and Network Solutions.
Bitbucket
I have hosted my gits at Github, Beanstalk, and custom server setups. I moved to Bitbucket for one reason. You ready for this…free unlimited private repos.
They charge per user on a team rather than number of git repositories per user. Github and Beanstalk start charging after 10 repos.
Deploybot (dploy.io)
Automated deployments for your git repos, does not matter where they are hosted. Commit your stuff and Deploybot will automatically or manually deploy your stuff. Makes rolling back a breeze.
One repository with unlimited deployments for free. This gets you development and production deployments for $0. Costs money when you need more than one repository under the same account.
Digital Ocean
My current hosting situation for client and personal projects. The speed and simplicity of this service is refreshing. You have to be ready to do some setup on your own but who are we kidding if you have a server it will need its hand held for its entire life no matter who hosts it. They have a great community to help with this.
$5 per droplet (server). SSDs are screaming fast.
App Specific
Some apps provide their own syncing services apart from iCloud or Dropbox. Here are the ones I use. None of these cost money for the service only the cost of the software.
Closing thoughts
I like paying for services because I feel that they will stick around longer. Reality is it is just simpler for my brain to handle. I give you money you give me service. I also find it icky when I choose a service that is making money from my data (Google, Yahoo, Mint) and has no intention to take my money. I would rather just hand over money for the service.
However for development services I lean more toward solutions that do not cost money upfront. Things can get expensive when a new client pops up and I need to spin up git repo, deployment, analytics, fonts, hosting, domain name, etc. For small projects its hard to sell in $150/year just to get all the infrastructure setup. I do not want 10-15 projects bleeding me dry.
There are a few gaps in my services right now. I am fed up with Google Analytics. The interface is chaos and trying to transfer accounts is not possible for mere mortals, like myself. I have used Heap for several projects and find it very interesting. Not sure about cost for the projects I maintain but time will tell.
The main features I look for when trying out a new service are:
- free to try
- easy import and export data
- ability to keep data private
If the service solves a problem and hits these 3 criteria I will likely stick with it. All things being the same I will generally pick the service that does fewer things better. I get nervous when my domain names, dns, hosting, and email are all tied up in one service. Things break and I would rather everything not break at once.