I've just about finished the setup of the infrastructure for my new gig.
I'm super-cheap - when I raise money from investors, I like to spend it
on getting stuff done, not on gold-plating my IT. If the company gets
through the rough early days, there will be plenty of time and money to
build a more robust infrastructure layer.
My needs:
- mobile, push email that has good search functionality
- qwerty keyboard on my mobile device.
- easy collaboration on docs and calendar
- widespread wifi access
- laptop for quickbooks, powerpoint, etc.
- music to keep me from getting bored in the airport
- distributed, hassle free and continuous file backup
For less than $1000, here's how I met all the needs:
- laptop from Best Buy that was on clearance for newer models ($500)
- Tmobile Dash running Windows Mobile 6, with Tmobile Hotspot access and
a full data plan. The device is full qwerty, plays music, has good
battery life, and can open MS Office docs. ($200 for the device, $80 a
month for the voice, data, and Hotspot service)
- Wiki from Google, with judicious use of Google Docs and Calendar
- emoze for push email (free). The architecture is a bit less robust
than Blackberry since you need a desktop to pusher the email, but the
price is a heck of a lot better
- Twitter for group messaging. Blogger and del.iciou.us for sharing
thoughts online, Google Analytics to see traffic flow on the blog (all
free)
- all in one fax/copier/printer ($150)
- an old laptop running Fileshare from Microsoft (free - or maybe
another $500 if you need a second laptop). Fileshare is a continuous,
over the internet, backup/filesharing program. It's free and simple.
- gmail as my email aggregator, then pop access from Outlook.
- Napster to go subscription with music synced to the Dash
Now I'm all set - Hotspot access almost anywhere, can travel without my
PC easily, full email with good search capabilities, plenty of music for
my travels, collaboration and file access from any pc. Very simple and
very cheap.
Today, while on the Dumbarton bridge en route to the airport, I was able
to search through my email, find a backup number for a meeting I had,
and reschedule everything. Maybe not the safest way to drive, but
super-efficient.
Infrastructure is complete. And cheap.
(No hyperlinks because I'm blogging over email on the Dash from the
plane - not sure yet how to add links that way.)
Backlinks haven't been working. I've updated my setup here.

0 comments:
Post a Comment