Which apps do you trust for remote work?
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So many of us are suddenly working remotely. To pull this off, a lot of things have to fall into place. One crucial thing is to find trustworthy apps and tools.
- Which apps are making remote work possible for you?
- Are they apps you’ve been using for a long time?
- Are there apps you came across just now?
We’re putting together a list of useful, trustworthy tools to use in this crisis – all based on the experience of our community.
Thanks for your insight. -
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Although I don't work as a retiree, perhaps a utility I've been using for a long time can come in handy. It is to send files of any size and type, without host between, direct from PC to PC.
O&O FileDirect, from a German software company, is free and standalone
https://www.oo-software.com/en/filedirect -
Chat Apps
- Discord - Generally good for one to one chat, haven't used groups for a professional use. Voice chat seems to be a bit poor these days.
- MS Teams - Had some hiccups earlier this week, but I trust it well. Much friendlier than skype.
- Whatsapp / Signal - I trust signal more, but I'm not sure how useful either of them are for professional "work"
- Slack - I have less experience with this one, but it seems fairly useful the times I have used it
- Email - old but reliable. I access it via Opera Mail or other software
Source Code
- Git - good for source code collab. trustworthy as long as no-one --forces it ️
- GitHub - Good for source code management in the cloud
- GitLab - Good for source code management in the cloud, plus it can be self-hosted on site if need be
Remote Access
- SSH - Classic remote access on linux & Windows 10 now has built in SSH support. It's also available through WSL.
- VS Code with Remote Extensions - Super useful and works very well to manage code without me having to clone entire repositories and keep them & their environments in sync across multiple machines
- PuTTY - As a fallback if I ever need to use Windows 7 (thankfully I don't need to any more
- Steam - This is an unexpected one, but steam supports desktop streaming of any app, not just games. So I don't have to be glued to my desk when at home. I think it can even stream to external networks too, but I haven't tried that.
Other
- Zotero - Good for managing document libraries, PDFs etc. Has sync and groups so I can collab from anywhere. Also has rich text notes.
- Vivaldi - Not so much useful for collaboration, but given what forum we're on, I feel obligated to mention it
- MS OneNote - I will be trialling this as a "shared whiteboard" - I remember there used to be such a tool in Opera Unite. OneNote has the advantage of being more powerful than that, and doesn't require my PC to be turned on.
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Oh, for chat and as a social network, MeWe is highly recommended, very advanced functionality and oriented to user privacy.
https://mewe.com/ -
eM Client - to handle my emails and everything associated with it. Non-business, with five enabled addresses. Paid and worth it
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A lot of people are just stuck with whatever solution their work provides. For my last place, it was Citrix XenApp.. It worked OK I guess
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Not strictly about applications, but methods of working safely from home.
[EDIT] More on cybersecurity implications of working remotely
When I was working we had some tunnelling application but that was over 10 years ago. A lot has changed since then.
[EDIT] Corrected the typos, Doh! -
For remote desktop and file transfers, we use TeamViewer at the radio station where I volunteer.
We chose it due to;
The ease of use for non-technical people.
Clients for almost every device you ever need.
and because they allow non-commercial use for free.I am part of a few game related projects which means obviously we use Discord.
It allows good quality voice from desktop or mobile devices though many of us opt for a lighter desktop client made with Qt5.
Ripcord supports both discord and slack, but is not feature complete yet.
I haven't tried discord video support, so no comment from me. -
A small FOSS application, which may perhaps be useful to some professionals.
Cherry Tree, a hierarchical note taking application, featuring rich text and syntax highlighting, storing data in a single xml or sqlite file. -
Project management apps like Trello
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@Dr-Flay When I'm at my remote location (1000km from here) and need something (an app or data) that I only have on this PC, I remote-in with TeamViewer. Not sure how I'd live without it. All I'm doing is operating my own PC, but the way my life is organized, that's a huge benefit.
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