The Stuff I’m Using, Early 2016

It was less than a year ago that I wrote an article discussing my tech setup at the time. In my closing paragraph, I noted that I didn’t see myself upgrading unless something came out that knocked me on my feet. As luck would have it, three somethings came out to knock me on my feet.

I’m now using a Nexus 6P for my phone, a Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop, and just got a Vector Watch. I’m not going to spend too much time talking about these specific devices since I’ll save them for individual articles. Instead, this write up is going to focus more on the services I’m using on a day to day basis.

I’m living in a mesh of Google and Microsoft services, and even though the products are from two different companies, everything works together well. I’m writing this article on the Universal Microsoft Word app for Windows, and the default save location is in my Google Drive. Without any effort on my part (minus the minute or so to initially set that up), I can write away without worrying about transferring things to my other devices. If something is wrong with my laptop and I want to write on my tablet or (heaven forbid) my phone, it’s as easy as opening the Google Drive app and all my documents are already there. I’m not going to do any long form writing on my phone, but it’s easy to open a document, add a quick note, then take care of things once I get back to my laptop.

To set your default save location in Google Drive (or Dropbox or other cloud storage service), you need to download the syncing program. Once installed, you can choose which files get synced between the cloud servers and your laptop. If you’re in an area without Internet, you can save to these folders and it will sync when you get a connection again, as well. My favorite part of this ties in with the next service I’ll talk about. For those wondering why I don’t just use Google Docs in a browser, Word’s autocorrect is better, and I like the option to save things local if need be.

Google Photos is amazingly simple to use. Set up backup within the photos app (on either iOS or Android), and your photos will be uploaded to Google Drive. Since I have the Photos folder set to sync on my laptop, they’ll automatically show up in my Windows file explorer. The best part is how fast all that is: I can take a photo for a review, and by the time I’ve walked back to my laptop, everything has synced and I can insert it to an article.

Some folks will point out that all this can be done with Microsoft’s OneDrive. I’ve tried a few times with that, but it always takes to long to force it to sync, while Google Drive will sync without any interaction. Most of my tech friends also use Google services, so sharing something is much easier using Google Drive.

For telephony matters, I still have my number residing in Google Voice. I planned on this being temporary while I was overseas, but I’ve kept my number there for a few reasons. The biggest is being ale to send texts from my computer by going to the Hangouts website. This isn’t very important while I’m at home, but I work in an area that prohibits cell phones. So, I can head to the Hangouts site and message there and take care of a few personal things during my downtime. Similarly, I love being able to have my incoming calls forwarded from my Voice number to my work phone.

For TV stuff, I still have my XBOX One and recently upgraded my TV itself to a Sharp model running Android TV. Both systems are for very different things, so there’s not too much to say for this section.

The key theme here (except for TV stuff) is flexibility. I can work on articles on any of my devices and have it sync to my other devices. I can take a photo with my phone and almost immediately use it on my laptop. I can receive a call to my number and be able to answer it whether I’m actually near my cell phone or not. I may not use all the same services and set up in the future, but I hope to keep the same level of flexibility.