But what to do with these backup copies? Well, I have a Dropbox account (that’s my referral link) that I can use for safekeeping. Dropbox is a great app that lets you synch files and folders on your hard drive with an online file-sharing service, even keeping files synched across multiple computers if you want. You can share files and folders with others, so, for example, your wife and you could use it to work on your Christmas letter. Each time one of you made a change, it would be synched across all computers. It’s great for larger documents or things that are more complicated than Google Docs can handle.

So I have a place to store my WordPress backups, but I don’t really want to manually save the new backups every time they arrive. How could I make this process automatic and invisible?

After several failed attempts, here’s the process I created.

When new backups arrive, I’ve created a rule in Mail.app that shuffles them into their own folder, so that I never have to see them. That was easy, because all of the emails are from “WordPress” and include the word “Backup” in the subject.

I tried to create an Applescript to save the attachment to my Dropbox folder, but Applescript doesn’t work too well with Mail.app attachments. Instead, I created a new Application in Automator that would:

1. Find mail messages in the new “WordPress Backups” folder I created.
2. Filter those messages to deal only with any messages that arrived today.
3. Save the mail attachment to my Dropbox folder

This is important: I saved this Automator workflow as an application, so that iCal could open it. Here’s a version you can use. Just change the mail folder and the destination folder, and save it as an application.

Last step: I created a recurring event for every evening at 11pm. In iCal, you can set the alarm to open an application, so I just set it to open and run this new, hyper-specific application each day. (I also use this application-as-alarm feature to automatically open Skype or iChat if I have an online meeting scheduled with someone.)

In theory, I should never have to worry about my WordPress backups. Even if something happens to my computer, they’ll be accessible from “the cloud” via Dropbox. The backup files are very small (less than 1 MB), so Dropbox ought to be able to hold as many as I need. I let you know in a few weeks if it seems to be working correctly.

Here’s the problem, though: I’m cheap, I haven’t added substantially to my music collection since college, and I get bored listening to the same stuff too much.  I purchase maybe 2 CDs a year, usually for my wife, and I worry that if I get too used to buying stuff from iTunes, I’ll blow my entertainment budget.  So where do I find music? 

That’s where Last.fm comes in.  Last.fm provides free music streaming (among other things) based on artists that you like or tags (such as “bebop” or “cool jazz”). You don’t even have to join to start using their service: you can start a music stream from their home page.  That’s how I started using it.  Have I mentioned that I love software or websites that give you a free trial period or offer a free level of service without commitment?  I really don’t want to pay $150 or give you my entire life story before I know whether I like the program.  Like I said, I’m cheap. 

Here’s the home page:

Last.fm also lets you download a free program to your computer that acts as a client for their webservice.  It also connects with iTunes (also free).  If you register for Last.fm, you can build up your profile, storing tracks that you listen to, so that you can show your friends or connect with people with similar tastes.  I’ve never been much for making friends over shared musical tastes, but I know that’s important to some people. 

The desktop client:

I especially value Last.fm for introducing me to new music or new genres.  For example, I love John Coltrane.  While listening to a John Coltrane station a few weeks ago, I was introduced to Horace Silver, and now I love Horace Silver!  Earlier this week, I heard some soul on the Muzak of a restaurant, and thought, “Hm, I think I like soul music.  Do I?”  A couple of hours of listening to soul at Last.fm, and yep, I do indeed like (most) soul. 

But I learned that I don’t like all soul music.  Some, in fact, I hate. What to do?  Last.fm lets you “love” or “ban” tracks and save them to your profile.  Banned tracks will never be played for you again.  Nice. Sorry Chaka Khan – you just aren’t my type.  

There’s a lot more that you can do with Last.fm, but I love programs that I can dip into, use for my purposes, and that’s it.  I just want some nice music to help me stay happy and productive, and that’s exactly what Last.fm provides.  

Ta-da Lists, by 37signals, is a 100% free list service.  If you can list it, you can put it on Ta-da Lists: to-do items, shopping lists, things to pack, etc. It’s very simple to use, which is one of my primary concerns with software like this.  I’m not talking rocket science here – I just want to make a list! 

Some screen shots after the jump.

First, the overview screen.  The bigger the dot in front of the list, the more uncompleted items you have. Nice.

Here’s what an individual list looks like. 

To be completely honest, I stopped using Ta-sa Lists a while back, because I started keeping my to-do lists in another application.  But a new feature brought me back: Ta-da Lists for the iPhone.  I LOVE keeping my shopping lists all in one place. 

Here’s the iPhone list in action:

Nice. And free.  Which is nice. 

Backpack is an online organizational tool, a place to keep your notes, lists, ideas, events, photos, files — basically, any bits of information that you would want to keep track of.  You can create separate pages based on whatever categories you feel are useful, and then fill those pages with your notes, lists, photos, etc. (Full disclosure: If you sign up using the link I provided, I’ll get discounts to my own Backpack account.) 

Here are some pictures that might help make more sense. 

Backpack is based around pages.  You create these pages based on whatever categories you want.  They are listed in a sidebar, generally in alphabetical order, but you can “cheat” on that order by adding numbers or blank spaces to the front of a page name. 

Once you’ve made a page, you can add your content – text notes, lists, photos, even dividers so that you can further organize your life. Here’s the top of my home page, where you can see the different items you can add.  As you can also see, Backpack includes a calendar feature (which can read Google calendars), a reminders function that will email you one-time or repeating reminders, and integration with 37signals’ Writeboard, an online document creator. 

Then, you just start adding!  Here’s a page that I create to help me keep track of books that I want to read. 

(iBackpack is a little snippet of code so that I can use Backpack on my iPhone – cool, eh?) 

What makes Backpack so great, as opposed to say, oh, any of the other organizational tools out there? 

• It’s free.  Actually it’s free for your first 5 pages, but that’s very useful in and of itself. That’s how I got started – created a free account and set up a few pages.  I used the free account for months before I upgraded.  And the upgrades are not expensive.  The lowest level upgrade is $7 per month. (All of 37signals’ products are based on monthly subscription rates.) 
• It’s easy. It’s very intuitive, and there’s really nothing to learn.  There are certainly some tricks that you can pick up from the user forums, but you can start using Backpack out of the gate without any kind of learning curve. 

Is there anything else you need to know other than it’s free and easy to use? There is one more cool feature that will make it very useful to anyone who has to share information with colleagues in other offices.  Recently, Backpack added a multi-user feature, so that it can act like an intranet for files, notes, or other things you need to share.  You can also make Backpack pages public, making it a very easy way to create simple webpages.  Here’s a public copy of my reading list, so that you can see exactly how behind I am. 

Office suites – not physical offices, but stuff like word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software, etc. – are necessary for conducting business.  Microsoft Office dominates this field, but can be expensive ($150 for the most basic package, $400 or more in other incarnations).  Fortunately, there are some excellent free alternatives.

OpenOffice/NeoOffice

OpenOffice is an open-source office suite (NeoOffice is a version for Macs).  It’s similar to Microsoft Office, but 100% free.  If you’re accustomed to using Word or Excel, then it will not take you long to get used to OpenOffice.  

The next two options are both based online – they are great options if you have a good internet connection or need to collaborate with others, but maybe not so great if you are still using dial-up or tend to edit documents while out and about. 

Google Docs

If you have a Google account, then you already have access to Google Docs, their free, online office suite.  Google Docs includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation creator.  Its interface is simple and easy to use.  While it doesn’t include as many options as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice, it will be sufficient for most users. 

Zoho

Zoho is not as well-known as Google Docs, but offers an incredible array of software options.  I use Google Docs because the rest of my team uses it.  However, if I were starting from scratch, I might use Zoho instead.  It offers the same word processor/spreadsheet/presentation trio as Google, and then adds an note taking program, database,  project management, CRM software, online meeting software, invoicing and more.  All of Zoho’s products are free to start using.  The business-oriented products – like CRM, invoiving, project management – start off free, then add fees if you increase your usage.  

Both Google Docs and Zoho are web-based, but Zoho added offline access and syncing in 2007, and Google introduced offline access earlier this year and is in the process of rolling it out to its users. 

Since all of these are free, I actually use a combination of Google Docs and NeoOffice.  When I have documents I need to share with my team, I use Google Docs, but use NeoOffice if I’m editing, say, a Microsoft Word doc or Excel spreadsheet that someone emailed me.  I use Apple’s iWork for presentations and for “nicer” publications (like my prayer letter).  iWork is not free, but is still much cheaper than Microsoft Office ($79, $99 for a family pack to run it on up to 5 computers in the same house).  

For the first post in this series, it seemed right to begin with the software that I use to manage this website: WordPress.  There is lots of other software out there that will let you write a blog or manage a website, but I have been very pleased with WordPress.  

What’s so good about it?

• It’s free.  WordPress is open source software, which means that downloading and installing it is completely, 100% free.  You can either create a free WordPress blog on WordPress.com, or install WordPress on your own website (more on that in just a moment). 
• It’s easy to use.  WordPress offers a straightforward dashboard for writing new posts and pages.  It was recently updated to version 2.5, which (IMHO) improved the dashboard quite a bit.  If you want to try it out, I would suggest creating a free blog at WordPress.com so that you can get a feel for the software before committing to it.  
• It’s highly customizable.  WordPress has an enormous community of developers and designers who create themes and plugins for it.  A WordPress theme lets you customize the layout, colors, and overall look of your website, and there are hundreds – maybe thousands – of themes available for free.  (For example, my theme was created by N. Design Studio.)  Plugins let you add new capabilities to your website, like podcasting, stat-tracking, or linking to related content on the web, like I do with my Sphere Related Content plugin. 

Like I said above, there are two options for using WordPress.  The first is free blog hosting at WordPress.com.  If you would like to have your own website (like www.mikehickerson.com), you will generally have to pay for it, but the prices are low (e.g. $10/month or less) for a personal website.   We’re not talking CNN.com here, so there’s no reason to pay an arm and a leg. A lot of website hosts will install WordPress for you, and, as long as the hosting company meets the minimum requirements, you could install it yourself.  WordPress provides a list of recommended hosting companies, and there is also a group of WordPress experts who can install WordPress for you.

To keep it easy, I’d recommend finding a web hosting company that provides a “one click install” of WordPress.  It’s just like it sounds: you click a button, and the hosting company does the rest.  I use DreamHost, and I have been very happy with them.  (P.S. If you sign up for DreamHost via this link, I will receive a 10% referral fee for the life of your account.)  But DreamHost is just one of many excellent web hosting companies.  Shop around so that you can find a decent price and the features that you think you’ll use.