Mobile Living: 50+ Tools & Resources

Glen / 16 Comments / August 11th, 2008 / Subscribe via RSS

One of the biggest goals and aspirations people have is to be able to travel the world while earning a passive income. That’s partly what we are aiming for here at PluginID (whilst working of course) as we expand our horizons on the world and experience different types of people and cultures that inhabit this planet.

Therefore, we have put together this list of over 50 tools and resources to help you ‘live online’.

Backup & Storage

Mozy: this is a great solution to backup your PC or Laptop and all contents. You never know when a hardware failure might occur

Carbonite: understand that “your life is on your computer” and have an automated and secure solution for file backup

iDrive: is your encrypted backup drive and starts with 2GB of free online storage or plans for as much as 150GB of storage

iBackup: allows you to schedule automated backups and is also accessible from the iphone and other handheld devices

Box.net: is a very popular and easy to use online file storage service that allows you to backup and access you files from anywhere in the world

ADrive: gives you a whopping 50GB of free storage before you have to move onto one of their payment plans and offer a desktop backup client

Omnidrive: aggregates your web and desktop files into one simple solution so you can backup your photos and your RSS feeds

Divshare: gives you 5GB of free storage so that you can host your videos, photos, documents and more via a safe online solution

Communication

Skype: is an excellent tool for both chatting via text and via microphone. Data plans also allow you to make cheap calls around the world

Twitter: twitter allows you to keep up to date on your niche and friends via micro-blogging. This works better for live communication

VoipStunt: offers free* calls around the world using the Voice Over IP technology. The software provided here enables you to stay up-to date

Gizmo5: works with both your PC and mobile phone to offer solutions such as voice calls, instant messaging, file sharing and video calls

Gmail: is my favourite free, email solution from Google. This client features more space than you’ll ever need and is very lightweight

Yugma: is one of the most useful communication tools out there with its free web conferencing solution, it’s just like being back at the office

Facebook: and other social networks are great ways to keep up to date with what your friends and family are up too and show them what you have been doing

Trillian: with Trillian you can chat to people who are using any instant messaging client. Adium is the same solution for mac users

Document Creation & Managing

Google Docs: this offering from Google is by far my favourite solution. It is highly customisable, features imports of the most common files and integrates well with Google Apps

Zoho: Zoho was one of the first in the field and has always been a reliable, feature-packed solution. It also boasts some nice collaboration features

Scribd: this service provides an easy way for anyone to upload files in the most popular formats, receive feedback and embed them elsewhere

Docstoc: a relatively new service that describes itself as the place to “find and share professional documents” which can be a handy resource

Live Documents: brands itself as the solution to having a “office on your browser” and an “office on your desktop” that work together seamlessly

Darkcopy: resembles ‘WriteRoom’ for Mac and is a free, simple solution to a text editor that is also very easy on the eyes

Thinkfree: is an online office solution for all your documents and also integrates nicely with the iPhone, an all round terrific solution

Misc

Delicious: keep all your bookmarks in one place with this social offering from Yahoo. Never again will you be lost without your favourite links

Google Reader: do you use a desktop RSS reader? If so, consider moving to this online offering from Google to access information your news from anywhere

Flickr: taking photos while on the run or want to share things with your family back home? Upload your photos to Flickr

Passpack: with all these websites you are going to be joining, you’ll need an online password manager to remember your login details

Netvibes: create your own customised start-page so that you can have everything accessible to you in just one click

LogMeIn: allows you to remotely connect to computers from anywhere with an internet connection. WakeonLan is a good Mac alternative

Outsourcing & Freelancers

Freelance Switch - the freelance switch job board is viewed by many of the world’s best talent who are web savvy and trustworthy

Elance - where businesses hire and work with qualified professionals is a great resource to cover all your freelancing needs

Get a Freelancer - one of my favourite resources and a great way to get cheap services for the likes of programming and web design

99 Designs - this is an excellent marketplace if you are looking for any graphics work from logos and business cards to web design and flyers

Guru - Guru claims it is the “worlds largest online service marketplace” and is great for finding others to do the jobs you hate (or can’t do)

iFreelance - is another popular general freelance resource whether you are looking for work or need the services of others

Smashing Jobs - the job board from smashing magazine allows you to find staff to work on freelance jobs or full-time

Task & Project Management

Basecamp: probably the most popular of its type, basecamp has over 1,000,000 members and has a great support community

Clarizen: although I’m not a fan of the look, clarizen is a functional solution which boasts the fact it helps you spend more time working on projects instead of organising them

Actionize: the Switzerland based company helps you manage your contacts, projects and documents all in one place and has a few cool features on the way

Action This: is a solution which integrates very nicely with the task feature of Microsoft Outlook, something that will be beneficial to a lot of companies

Zoho Projects: despite having a great online documents tool, Zoho also passes with flying colours with their project management tool

Go Plan: an elegantly designed and feature packed solution, looking at the pricing options you can also get quite a lot done using the ‘free’ version

Huddle: Huddle is another popular project management and document sharing website which also integrates nicely with Facebook

To-Do Lists

Ta-Da List: One that I personally use the most often. I love how quickly I can update and edit my list. This is fast but also very basic.

Todoist: This is a minimalist but feature-packed to do list which features a calendar and multiple email services integration.

Remember the Milk: It took me a little longer to get used to the interface but once I did I was impressed. Also comes with date setting and reminders for tasks.

Rough Under Belly: This is a very pretty way to organise your tasks online, comes with a built-in points system and a timer.

Toodledo: Another very attractive to do list, what I like about this is that it also features collaboration options so others can join in.

Tudumo: Tudumo is actually a desktop application that you can download and help you manage your tasks, very handy if your internet connection drips

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