Google Chrome Browser and my Brother printer Scanner

As part of my move to Google Drive and all it entails, I have been wondering how I might get on with my brother Printer Scanner. The printing side is just not a problem, but and here is the usual BUT, I at present have no way of connecting my Chrome browser to the scanner, I have to use the Apple interface and scan in that way save and then use the imported pdf file.

But there is a work around that seems to work. that is to use the scan button on the printer and set the destination to either mail or file.

Here's how it works. for mail, I have my printer connected via  USB link, so the Brother printer can see mac mail and uses that to link up, I send that to Gmail and all as before. Why it picks mac mail when I have it set up for Gmail is beyond me, yet this works so not a problem, although I managed to correct this simple by going into Mac mail and setting the default mail to Google Chrome.

The other method, and the one I shall use in the future, is to save to file, here as I use a Mac it saves it to the Photo folder, must be a setting somewhere that says save here, but no worries it's a simple drag and drop to the right google drive folder.

I don't have, a Chrome book, so can't test it, but if anyone has can they do a swift trial and let me know.

Google not Apple

I have made the first of many moves I expect to make as I set up my computer system for the next few years. I have been Apple mostly from about 1985, with the odd lapse into Windows at some one else behest, namely an employer.

But now I am setting up for a life with Google, I have transferred all of my emails over to gmail and I now use this as my main email services, I have moved my calendar over. Both these were remarkably easy to do, next was all my main files, again this was no more than a drag and drop, plus a short wait for it to complete a large move. Adding Google to my mac as an account on Mail, and pulling folders across made this job so easy, as for my calendar, I just had to add google tags to my Apple cal appointments and all was good, I could see them is Google calendar.

Next were my photos, again Google made this easy and for some time I have had them copied across, I use Chrome for almost all of my surfing, and google drive for my slides and now writing, Blogger is my preferred domain, and sheets my spreadsheet of choise. I now prefer Keep to Evernote, simple because it just as easy to use, and easier to find stuff.

It's not that I don't like Apple, I have a Macbook Pro 15" and an ageing iPhone 5s its that they are a closed wall system, and don't like me sharing as much as I want, Google on the other hand do. Attending a google show in Excel London a few weeks ago, did little to sway me away from this, in fact its was the final nail. As for the phone thats going soon, I fancy a Google Nexus, but could so easily take the Samsung 8, its just down to the best deal.

For the time being, I will stick with my Mac, its a good machine, and I need it for my CAD software, plus a couple of items I like, such as Skype, although I am fast liking google Talk and hangout. but there is little else to keep me on such an expensive machine, even CAD is migrating over to a web based environment, both Sketchup who are still in Beta, and more so Autocad who are in a different league, Which brings me back to my Mac, I don't need it if I go on a trip, I can so easily go online via a Chrome book and do most if not all of what I want to do, take into account the way airlines seem not to want us to travel with laptop, then hiring, or even buying a chrome book at the destination seems feasible.

As for my office phone, well thats linked to Skype, but outgoing land line calls via Google are easy and good quality. Google just have to get the UK sorted.

I look after several web sites and use a Mac based program to do this rather than hard coding, but I will eventually move even this to Google Drive. As you might imagine I have rather a lot of files, and what not, in Drive, so had to upgrade to 1Tb, in doing this I seem to have all the benefits of a G Suite account. My existing Dropbox account will go as I migrate all my files across to Google Drive, but here lies a small problem is the way I share this drive with my business partners, I will have to trial it with Google drive and make sure they are happy with the syncing before I go ahead.

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Online Storage

I, like so many, have a lot of digital information, and its growing, from simple letters and emails, through to the vast number of photos I now have dating back to about 1989, Then there are a load of presentations, research documents and scans, and thats just my private side, the business is just as big, with drawings, letters and site photos, plus other research and industry digital catalogs.

My private life is spread across several methods of storing all this stuff i keep, from Google Drive, to my Mac account, and evernote. Google holds the most, and what prompted this particular blog, was a note I got from Google telling me I am very close to my present limit of 116GB. I will increase it, I see no option, I rely og Google for so much, more on this later.

Apple, I have used for so long, their iCloud is ok, but sharing in any form is just impossible, compared to Google, so all I have there are backup of photos and some email, but the more I use Google, the more I want back into Gmail, so I have moved all my private mail, into gmail, even though I still use Apple Mail, next will be my business mail, the reason being, is I am going to have to up the limit to 1TB so to make full use of this space I am moving almost all over to drive.

I have a 1TB solid state drive on my Macbook Pro, but fairly use is as a permanent drive, having lost several over the years I just will not trust  them to hold important information, having lost a lot on the previous failures. Its more a buffer for Dropbox.

My business account is stored in Dropbox, it have been there for some time, and it works well, I share it with my business partner, who sees changes almost immediately, but here's the rub, they have a min space of also 1TB. I want to move this to Google Drive, but fear it will be a little more difficult to share files like Vectorworks, so for the time being its a hit I will have to take.

Apart from some small drives that these days hold nothing, I have a couple of large pen drives, but distrust them completely so apart from a simple transfer from one machine to another, I stay away from them as permanent drives for information.

So for now its Google Drive, and I stay for so many reasons, the suite of tools within drive are excellent, and sharing is so good, unlike Apple who just will not allow it or make it difficult.

So I sat back and thought about this whole storage thing, is this the end of storage in private servers, well at least for the general public, Google seem to think so, in fact they have moved their business more into cloud storage than many with their drive, and the Chrome laptops, it relies upon good wifi or a hookup to the net, but all you want is their in a Chrome browser. Apple might get there, but why wait, Google is offering what I presently want.

But having spent some time in an environment thats hit and miss with wifi, it can be a pain when your not connected, and makes me wonder about some local permanent storage.

As a futurist, I took time out and cleared my head, is this cloud storage really going to be the last evolution of storage, certainly the vast amount I have which I suppose is small in comparison to some and infinitely small when compared to many companies, currently needs cloud storage, it's safe, they offer backup, and apart from certain period in a year, I generally have very good wifi connection.

Is it all about compression, can I get more data into an ever decreasing storage space, are there better ways of storing all my data. Looking at a search I did, the answer is yes, there is a lot going on, but not at my scale, what I did see is more for the big boys.

So thats it, I stay with Google for my main, Apple for limited backup, Dropbox for business files, and my laptop for little else.

Todays photo is all about dust, and how it spreads about to globe.

2017 awaits - what will it bring

As I write this first blog for 2017, I am suffering, all self inflicted I might add, they say never mix your drinks, I didn't, all were consumed separately, beer first, then red wine, followed by a small night cap to welcome the new year in.

I have so many projects building up in my head, some are just floating, some are a little more than this, I need to expand my notes and see if they might be viable, some are, so the notes I have made need to be expanded, and things put in place, to trial them. I never have had a problem with failure, without it  i just don't learn, but it would be nice to get one or two paying wins !.

I can see that 2017 is going to be a busy year, its going to involve travelling a lot, something I enjoy enormously, so the Mac is going to get a new bag, my trusty Kensington is showing signs of wear, to the point of failure. So I an looking, as yet nothing stands out, but I can't delay to long.

My Mac is still ok, its not due for replacement just yet, although I am reviewing what I need to make it work better when traveling, spare cables, a new power cable and spair video dongle and mouse, plus travelling keyboard, I like to sit back from the screen and type.

For so long, I have used Dropbox as my main storage in the cloud, thats not changing, but I am separating my private life away from business, and all my personal files have been moved to Apples iCloud, it works and its as safe as anywhere, perhaps a little safer. I made several different dropbox accounts to do this, but seeing them all at the same time evades me, so Apple iCloud wins. I tried Google Drive, and again it works, but as most of my files are Apple, it kind of needed more time to convert than I wanted to give.

Evernote still remains my archive library, it works so well, and although I tried out the others, it still remains the best.

My photo's are still in Apple iPhoto, its so good, although for sharing I tend to allow Google Photo to take a copy, and its here I let people share sets I have made, I an using Pinterest, don't ask why, it's just easy to use and it has a lot of really interesting users.

Apple pages is not the best writing program, but it works for me, so most of my papers, articles and general writing start here, ok I often export to word, simply because its the medium most other are using. Google Docs just keeps being there, is easy to use and if I asm writing lectures then this is what I prefer to use, my personal lectures I use to consult with remain as Apple, but the University lectures remain Google Slides.

Whilst I talk Apple, my iPhone is definitely up for renewal, I have an iPhone 5s, but articles on the new iPhone for 2017 sound so good, I'll wait.

Vectorwork is, and will remain, my CAD package, this year I will get to grips with 3D, I use it, but not in anger, so my next job no matter what size, will be 3D. with all the bells and stuff of BIM. I need to get to grips with Revit, but I feel a conflict might arise with Vectorworks, i'ts one or the other, and Vectorworks will probably win.

I have a huge list of academic papers I want to write, so head down. I want to complete at least two before the spring, plus get my book into shape.

Thats it, no great revelations, just getting things in order and making a few plans

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Data, Data & more Data

As Technologists, we are being inundated with data, lots of it from almost everything we do. The easy route is to just delete, or make a folder on your hard drive, and dump it in there thinking you'll sort it later.

But there are a few simple tricks that will solve you problem and make it easy to retrieve.

First is Email, I use gmail its still the leading service, despite its age,  I get so much, some important and these get tagged and put into a correct folder, the rest just get marked as read, I never ever delete emails. Important ones that I want to keep out side of Gmail, I send to my Evernote account, via the secret email address they give, more on this later.

Never ever rely on your hard drive to store important things, I have, like so many done this and lost it all when the disk failed, and it will. With the cloud now so easy to access, I store all items in one of two places, first Google Drive, this has to be a no brainer, its easy to set up, easy to use, and you get so much free space, and is so well integrated with gmail, next comes DropBox, a paid for service, well there is a free service and its quite large, but my needs have gone beyond this, and it's here I store almost every working file, most are cad files and project documents we use daily, the beauty of DropBox is the sharing, I share all my business files with my partner, and he sees the updates almost instantly.

Now lets get back to Evernote, a product with a difference, here I store any document, scanned or otherwise, my new printer has such a sweet scanning facility, and used with PDFpen, if I get paper in the post, I scan it, and use the builtin "send to Evernote" function and dump the paper. Evernote has the best search ever, the OCR scans the pdf ready for me to search, I pay for the premier account, so its almost instant, free accounts wait for a while, but its done. Don't forget to add the app to your browser, searching for anything from say Chrome will show whats on the web, but also whats in you private archive in Evernote. Your private archive of data will be the subject of a more detailed blog later.

Books I have a problem with, I buy so many, I am a sucker for a good book, my collection, and I will not pass on any book, sorry, is growing, my construction books in particular I scan, not all of them, but the index, and important pages, these I send to Evernote, ready for search, I'll write a new blog on this very soon as there is more to this than just scanning, Kindle and ebooks spring to mind and my highlights.

Photos and my video's used to be a problem, but now I have four different safeguards, Google Drive, Flickr, dropbox, and iPhoto on my mac, all store any electronic photo I take, its automatic and I just don't ever have to think about it, most of my photos are taken with my mobile, the quality is just fine for most things, it auto syncs with all the above, and best of all, it has lat long embedded so search is so easy, which brings me onto my favourite, which is Google Photo, is was with no question iPhoto, but the service google offers is so much better. so all nicely backed up. In many practices, I used to get stinging emails from the IT department, saying I had yet again filled up the server with photos, not any more.

I still have to keep paper, its a pain, and defies the new search and find I am so used to in computer land, and is hosted in an old filing cupboard in my garage. Most are scanned, but the law seems to say keep, so I do.

With all the above, its hard to say no to data, now its more the better, OCR has opened up search to all the content, learning how to use this now becomes the next holly grail, tagging and to some extent, adding files to folders, although I do this simply to allow sharing specific sets of data.

I write profusely, with this blog and the others I looks after, a service I find invaluable is ifTTT look for it or follow the link, its an automated service thats free, which has rules, if I write a new blog it will copy the blog to Evernote, same goes for a lot of other services like diary events.

Todays photo is a vey old detail I like, neat and so full of design.