Herr
Herrmann
Only showing posts with the tag Review.

Migrating 1 terabyte of files from OneDrive to Nextcloud

The OneDrive logo and the Nextcloud logo connected with an arrow going from OneDrive to Nextcloud.

This post documents my journey to find a cloud storage provider that is better than Microsoft OneDrive and migrating all my cloud files there.

In general, I want to store (some of) my files in the cloud for these reasons:

  • I want to have the data available on different devices (mostly a MacBook and an iPhone).
  • I want to back up the most important files, so I don’t need to worry about losing access if I lose or break my devices.
  • I want to share specific files and folders with other people from time to time (for collaborations or just to share a folder with images or videos).

All in all, I’ve accumulated around 1 terabyte of files in the last years. This includes:

  • Photos from different cameras and smartphones (~750 GB)
  • Music projects, including recorded and processed audio files (~170 GB)
  • MP3s with music that’s not available on any streaming platforms (~45 GB)
  • Design projects, including assets and exports (~25 GB)
  • Backups from other devices, video game save files, etc. (~22 GB)
  • Videos and video projects (~17.5 GB)
  • Text documents, scans of letters, etc. (~1.5 GB)

With this amount of data, I’ve run into the storage limit of my current storage provider, Microsoft OneDrive. With my Microsoft 365 Personal subscription (69€ per year), I’m only entitled to 1 TB of storage (plus some extra gigabytes from some special discounts or events).

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Some thoughts on “Maintaining Creativity”

I recently read “Maintaining Creativity / Psychology for Designers” by Frank Berzbach (currently not yet available in English but in German and some other languages) and it helped me think about and discover many insights about the topics creativity, productivity and different work environments. I want to share my main insights here.

As the title suggests, the book is mainly targeting designers who work in (or for) agencies and most of the examples align with that. However, in my opinion this knowledge can easily be applied to any job that revolves around working in an office environment and interacting with other people (i.e. software developers, project managers and many others). I recognized many of the situations described in the book during my time as a web developer at startups and also during my short periods as a freelancer and working remotely (the book also features a chapter about “properly working alone”).

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Using Canon EOS Utility without a CD

3 February 2015

A few years ago I bought a DSLR camera by Canon and I’m very happy with it. What “grinds my gears” is that Canon users are required to keep and use their packaged software CD whenever they need to install the corresponding software for their cameras. Because all you can get online are “updaters” that would update the previously installed tools (which you’re supposed to install via CD only).

Luckily there are easy ways to alter those updaters in order to properly install the tools without the need of a CD. I’m just wondering what the motivation behind this installation/update policy is. Does it really hurt to give proper installers to everyone via the internet and forget about putting CDs in the boxes? (Let alone four thick manual books in four different languages.)

Canon EOS Utility

Lenovo T420S: HDD vs. SSD

26 January 2015

Yesterday we pimped the laptop of my good friend Nicolas. In order to improve its performance we replaced some hardware components so that the laptop could now access twice as much RAM (4 GB → 8 GB) and boot from an SSD instead of a slow HDD.

The laptop model is a Lenovo T420S and I must say upgrading its hardware was very easy. It took us less than 5 minutes to replace RAM and HDD (no comparison to upgrading a MacBook Pro)! We put the SSD in the primary SATA slot and moved the original HDD to an UltraBay cartridge in order to gain maximum performance and keep the HDD easily exchangable. The performance boost was massive, of course: Instead of taking nearly 2 minutes to power up, the system now launches in about 20 seconds. And thanks to the still-remaining HDD in the UltraBay slot there will still be enough (slower) space to store data like movies and music.

If you consider giving your laptop (or desktop computer) a speed boost, switching to an SSD for system-relevant applications definitely does the trick – especially with SSDs getting cheaper and cheaper nowadays.

Another surprising (or rather annoying) fact though: Windows 8.1 took an awefully long time to finish doing random stuff like installing apps (that nobody likes) on its initial launch. The installation that happened before with a bootable USB stick only took a few minutes though! Hopefully Microsoft will streamline this process for Windows 10 and maybe let users decide if they want bloatware like “Contacts”, “Calendar” and “News”. Aside from being a usability nightmare, Windows 8.1 is at least a fast and reliable operating system.

You'll see this for hours, days or even months.

Update: Changed “ExpressCard” to “UltraBay” (thanks to Felix for the hint).

Evernote vs. Springpad

11 March 2014

Nunja, besonders lange hat mein Testlauf von Springpad letztlich nicht gedauert, denn schnell musste ich mit großen Bedauern feststellen, dass eine für mich selbstverständliche Desktop-Anwendung bei Springpad gänzlich fehlt! Mit dem Smartphone lassen sich Notizen zwar offline verwalten, allerdings möchte ich das auch weiterhin oft mit dem Laptop tun – außerhalb von Browser und Internetverfügbarkeit.

Evernote vs. Springpad

Springpad erschien mir anfangs wegen der netten ToDo-Listen als sehr interessant, allerdings ist diese Euphorie nun schnell verflogen. Zudem musste ich feststellen, dass mein Springpad-Account durch die Anbindung an facebook ungewollt mit zahlreichen Einträgen gefüllt wurde – nämlich zu allen Musik- und Filmeinträgen, die mir auf facebook gefielen. Eine Funktion, die ich nicht brauche, nicht möchte und die sich kaum komfortabel wieder rückgängig machen lässt (offenbar können diese Einträge nur händisch nacheinander gelöscht werden).

Hier wurde eigentlich alles weitere zum Vergleich Springpad/Evernote gesagt. (Link ist mittlerweile offline.)

Fazit: Ich bleibe vorerst bei Evernote, welches mir nette Anwendungen für Android, OSX und Windows bietet und alle Funktionen beherrscht, die ich für meine Notizgeschichten brauche – mittlerweile sogar mit Handschriftfunktion.

P.S.: Als Konkurrenz könnte noch Microsofts OneNote in Frage kommen, allerdings möchte ich weiterhin kostenfrei Notizen erstellen und generell auch ein wenig von Microsoftprodukten Abstand nehmen (vielleicht sollte ich noch etwas zu meinen Erfahrungen mit Windows 8.1 und Office 2013 schreiben?).

Update: SpringPad ist mittlerweile offline!