Matthew Lang

I think it's fair to say that I've finally settled on a browser that I enjoy using. For well over a year now, Firefox has been my browser of choice. Over the years I've used Internet Explorer (long story), Safari, Chrome and even Opera for a while. In between those I've used Firefox as well. Ditching all Google tools meant that I wanted something that had good development tools, an extensive library of add ons and a few other features that I just like as an individual. Firefox fitted the bill and I've been using it for two years straight now.

Firefox has added a number of great features of the years. Cross-platform support, continually improving security and even pinned tabs. They're all great features, but the single best feature I love about Firefox is this.

Opening tabs in the sidebar.

Expecting something else? Okay, it's not the ground breaking feature that everyone might rave about, but it's a feature that I like the most and here's why.

Ever since I seen split views in Vim, iTerm 2 and Tmux, I've seen the benefits of having multiple views open at once. Being able to switch at a glance from one file to another is a major productivity win. You can work on the part of the application that matters while having other parts of the application that you need to know in other views. You can even have your command line open in one view and your code in the other.

In Firefox a similar view can be achieved using Firefox's open in sidebar property in your bookmarks. What happens is that a second browser window will open to the left of your main window.

I spend most of my day on the web. Feedbin, Trello, Todoist and GitHub are where I spend most of my time. Siwtching between these tabs can be a pain if you require two of them open at once. Using the sidebar in Firefox though means that I can have one site open in the sidebar for taking notes or collecting information as well as allowing me to still focus on the immediate task at hand in my browser.

An understated feature of Firefox, but one that makes a productive difference to my day.

It's unreasonable to expect extraordinary work from someone who isn't trusted to create it.

— The fruitless search for extraordinary people willing to take ordinary jobs by Seth Godin

The Intercept summarises the recent passing of the USA Freedom Act. Good to see change happening as a result of the work of Jon Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald.

The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies.

— One Small Step for NSA Reform, One Giant Leap for Congress by The Intercept

Ever since going Google free, I've tried a number of different services to cover my needs. In this post I'll highlight seven alternatives to Google's own products.

Search Engine - DuckDuckGo

It's been two years now since I stopped using Google for searching needs and started using DuckDuckGo. Overtime I used DuckDuckGo's bang methods to redirect search queries to Google if DuckDuckGo didn't have what I was looking for, but overtime I've had to do that less and less. I'm not sure if DuckDuckGo's search results are improving or my searching needs have lessened over time. Either way, I'll be sticking with DuckDuckGo for the foreseeable future.

Email - FastMail

This is another service that I started using two years ago and I continue to use today. FastMail's email service isn't free for those with a moderate sized email archive, but paying for a service helps ensure that it stays around for a long time. Gmail is free, but with an email client that integrated a whole bunch of other Google services, it started to feel less like an email client and more like a communication centre. Gmail's spam filtering was also once the best spam filter in the field, but I'm glad to say that FastMail's own spam filtering is great and I've no complaints.

Cloud Storage - Dropbox

I never used Google's own cloud storage product, Google Drive. I've been a user of Dropbox since it first came out. What I like the most about Dropbox though isn't its pricing, or it's synchronisation across devices. I like the fact it isn't part of something bigger. I think if Google or Microsoft were to buy Dropbox then I would have to look at another cloud storage solution. I don't like the idea of having all my Internet eggs in the one company basket.

Document Management - Pages, Numbers & Keynote

Desktop apps can be just as efficient as cloud solutions like Google Docs. In fact maybe even more. I use Pages, Numbers & Keynote for all my document needs. I usually have my MacBook with me most days when I am working so using these native apps is a no brainer. If I needed remote access to my documents to edit them I would maybe consider using something else, but for my needs this is sufficient.

Analytics - Gauges

I was a long term user of Google Analytics for various websites over the years, but after a while I simply got overwhelmed by all the metrics and stats that Google provided. My needs were simple. I wanted to see how much activity my website was getting in terms of clicks and people. At the time Gaug.es was a product of GitHub, but the service has changed hands. It's still the same service that GitHub made and nothing has changed much over the time since the handover. Gauges isn't the only alternative though, there are a number of alternatives that serve different needs.

Blogging - Heroku & Jekyll

Who says you need to replace one service with another. What about combining products? My blog has been through lots of different iterations but since 2013 I've been using Octopress which is just a nice layer over Jekyll. Recently I switched to just using Jekyll. I didn't need the extra layer of functionality that Octopress provided.

With my blog catered for I needed a host as well for it. Given my website is static, I could use Amazon's S3 storage, but I wanted to be able to extend my site with Sinatra if needed. In the past I've used Linode to host my blog, but with Heroku's recent pricing change towards cheaper dynos, I'm now hosting my blog there. It also means that when I commit my changes to GitHub, my blog is automatically deployed to Heroku.

Rolling your own blog isn't difficult to do but for those that want a simpler way to publish, there's a number of good alternatives.

Calendar - iCloud & Fantastical

Lastly it's the turn of the calendar. I used Google's calendar service a lot. Probably second in line in terms of daily use to Gmail. I use Apple's Calendar app to keep my calendar synced between my laptop and my phone, but I also use Fantastical to manage my calendar on a day to day basis.

Going Googe free is a big move if you have heavily invested your time and needs in Google's own line or products and tools. I was fortunate in that I used mostly Gmail and Google Calendar and they required minimal effort to move across. Two years later, I'm still happy with my own chosen stack of apps that are outside of Google's borders.

This is the kind of technology innovation I like to see. "Killer apps" are common as muck these days. Technology like this extends the life of your gadgets (good for people in remote areas) and reduces the amount of batteries being dumped in landfill sites.

This is where Batteriser comes in. It’s essentially a voltage booster that sucks every last drop of useable energy from ostensibly spent batteries. So, instead of using just 20 percent of all the power hidden inside of your Duracells and Energizers, Batteriser makes effective use of the remaining 80 percent.

— Batteriser is a $2.50 gadget that extends disposable battery life by 800 percent
by MacWorld