Top 5 things you need to work from Home today

The entire world is scrambling to save its people from Coronavirus and governments are taking extreme steps and precautions to save more and more people getting effected.

To be frank we have not seen this kind of devastating situation in a long time. People are panicked to even go to their nearby Grocery store. Its better to be safe than sorry later. In this extremely sensitive times, even companies have come out and taking precautionary measures to take care of their employees and stop the spread among their peers. This essentially means more and more are opting for Work from Home.

Most firms today have empowered their employees to WFH where-ever possible. But we as employees are we prepared for that? Do we have the effective tools and gears to stay and home and do our day job with full efficiency?

Let’s see the 5 basic things we need today to make sure we can  give our 100% doing WFH during this time of crisis.

Desk

Yes we sometimes forget the very first thing we need. A basic desk. If you plan to work 8-9 hours a day you need a place to sit, relax and concentrate on your work. If you want to give the same output which you generally do at workplace, then invest in a desk from where you can sit, put your laptop / desktop and other tools and work. A simple but and extremely important thing. A quick search on Amazon got me desks as low as 80$. Pretty cheap for something you will spend more than 1/3rd of your day for weeks or even months to come.

Phone Stand

Work from home means a lot of calls or specially video calls. Most companies even have some kind of messenger they use as office communicators like Skype business, Face-Time, Jabber, Zoom etc. Every-time you are on a video call your hands are busy. And sometimes corporate scrum calls and meetings take long hours. Which means you need to keep your phone with video on from where you can take a call without engaging your hand. A simple standing phone stand of 15$ will do the job.

Headphones / Ear-Phones

Calls means voice and for voice calls or even video calls you will need a good pair of

Razor hammerhead

headphones. Now the problem is since most phones don’t have headphones, you can’t charge and talk at same time. So better to get a good wireless earbud.

There are a lot of choices but from my experience, specially for calls, the good ones are Apple Airpods, Razor hammerhead Earbuds or Jabra Elite 75t / 65t. All of these have very nice call quality and will last quite long on a charge.

There are some budget options available as well from Mi and other contenders which will get the job done.

 

Tea / Coffee maker

Now its not funny but if you are planning to work 9 hours a day on a desk you will need tea/coffee for sure. With everyone shutdown its better to invest in something which is simple for home use as well as cheap. Personally I use a Nescafe Dolce Gusto. It always has offers going on and tablets are pretty cheap (less than a dollar for a cup). Just buy few boxes of coffee tablets (has multiple flavors) and you can get buy easily for weeks to come.

Nescafe Dolce Gusto

Has dozens of flavors to choose from. easy – peasy to make a great cup.

Keyboard and Mouse

If you have a desktop computer great but not all of us use one. Most use laptops and monitors at home. With laptops getting thin and keyboard getting more finicky its good to purchase a nice Keyboard and mouse. Personally I am a fan of Surface Keyboard or Apple Keyboards. They are small handy and the experience is great. Buy either based on your OS though both can used in either platforms. If thin keyboards are not your cup of tea then get a good keyboard with decent key travel. Logitech makes some great office purpose keyboards which won’t stretch your wallet.

Surface Keyboard

Lastly stay home, stay safe and keep your family and yourselves healthy.

 

How to use node version manager on linux (ubuntu based distros)

If you are into any kind of web development, you will need node, yarn or npm for day to day work. The issue is sometimes we work on multiple projects and its very much possible that some of them are not compatible with latest and greatest version of nodejs. So it becomes necessary to keep switching between different version of node while doing development.

But installing and uninstalling different version everytime we switch project is tedious. The best option is to use node version manager. Here is the github project link for that: https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

Here I will put up a simple guide how to install any version of node using that.

Step 1:

Install the nvm to your linux distro. Open terminal and type the following:

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

Now once that done, restart the terminal.

Step 2:

Check the installation of nvm.

command -v nvm

you should be able to see the version of nvm installed like above.

Now last is to use that and get the needed version installed. Once nvm is in your system with one command you can install any version of node.

Step 3:

This command lists all node version available:

nvm ls-remote

Pick the needed version and install. For normal usage prefer the LTS version.

Step 4:

nvm install v14.17.4 // you can use any version from the list above

Thats it.

Everytime you need to change the node version , just change the version in nvm install and you are done.

How keeper security became my password manager, notes app and even a document repository for me

Over the years I have used multiple apps for note taking. I really love to explore apps for my use cases and see which fits the bill.

Now my idea of note taking apps is probably a bit different from others. While most people use it to jot down quick notes, an idea or a phone number etc, I use it for other purposes as well. My primary use case was document storage and receipt storage.

I am a kind of guy which went complete paperless for many years now. Except other than contracts and warranty cards or very important documents I don’t keep any hard copies. Whenever I buy something or get a bill, I quickly scan the receipt and keep it in the app. My utility bills, phone bills, internet bills, other receipts everything I store as soft copies which I can search anytime anywhere and on any device. This use case of mine, meant that I create more notes on my iPhone than on my PC. Which further means the mobile app has to be fast and friendly to use for my use case. OneNote was doing great in this ground for few years now and I had no intention to move to anything else until recently.

My recently switch to Linux changed everything. Now the concern is how to use it on Linux. Of-course I can use the web version of OneNote, but I am not a fan of web apps in general. Simple reason being is unable to switch apps using “Alt tab”. Can’t do that on browser. And the Web version of OneNote had a lot of limitations. So I needed an app which existed on all platforms (including linux) and which works great on iOS. I should be able to scan receipts and store on it. I should be able to share any document and store on it. And most importantly it should have encryption functionality and best if it has a zero knowledge architecture.

Miraculously, I found keeper to fulfil those. I was using Keeper solely as a password manager for close to a year now, but never did anything else on it. Never even thought about using it for anything else. I only purchased the password manager service. But recently, I found out that it did much more. I found out that Keeper not only can store documents but also it even has an awesome scanner within its iOS app. Not only does it can scan documents but it also has OCR which means the text from the document will be extracted as well which will makes it super easy to search later.

This was really a fantastic option I never imagined will be inside a password manager.
Simply perfect for my needs. There is even option to view files separately when you want to search for an attachment later. Individual notes can have multiple file attachments so I can have the context and the documents in a single note. It kind of checks all the ticks for me:

I can write text inside the app – check
Note can have multiple attachments – check
I can share files and store it inside the app – check
I can scan receipts – check
Is it encrypted and safe to use – check
Is it zero knowledge – check
Does it exist on all my platforms – check
Do they have individual plan – check
Does the document scan has OCR – Check
Can I increase storage size in future if my needs increase – check

files section on Keeper iOS app

Strangely no other app I found had everything I needed. I don’t know how did I even miss this for so many years.

You will be even amazed to know that this whole article I am actually writing within keeper on iPad. I know I know that keeper is not meant for this. But if that works for me, why not. Ofcourse if someone needs a purely writing app with markdown support then probably Keeper is not the right fit. But if simple writing with attachment support and encryption is a need, I am not sure there are better options than Keeper.

Writing this article on Keeper

The most important for me is to have all these features on all the devices I use – Windows, iOS, Linux and Keeper does it. I am yet to find one app which has all these features on all platforms and has good sync.

The best part, even if tomorrow I change to say a Mac or Android I still can keep using Keeper since its there in all the platforms.

Pricing wise – Keeper has a yearly subscription pricing and you can even choose the storage size based on your needs. Starts with 10gigs of document storage. Head to their website for the pricing details.

https://keepersecurity.com/

They do have a trial period as well so you are freely explore the app in all its power.

So you see the this beautiful and simple app turned from being a simple Password manager to a powerhouse of features for me. A password manager + Notes app + File storage app all in one? Isn’t that just great.

Now of-course I am not saying this can replace OneNote or Evernote for everyone because the concept of these apps are completely different. I mean oneNote is like a infinite canvas where you can visually put things and use it as a notebook. Keeper was never probably meant for that use case. But if secured note is a thing for you then I highly suggest you to take a look at keeper.
For basic note taking and file storage this is the best system which works for me.

Try for yourself and see if this works for you.

My small experiment of moving to Linux from Windows 10

One fine afternoon, I was working on my Windows PC. It’s a i7 9th gen CPU with NVIDA 1660 GTX Ti and 16 gigs of RAM. It was already an extremely fast PC. No complains for last 1 yr of my purchase.

Anyway I wanted to do a partition and installed a 3rd party software to do so.  I was really a fool to do so and while partitioning, the system crashed comletely. It wouldn’t start. I was running latest version of windows 10 but sadly didn’t have an ISO or a recoverable disk. But good that I had the file backups done a day before. So data was not a problem. Plus I store most items in my cloud providers as a 2nd backup.

So I though that instead of re-installing W10 again why not try Linux. I mean I have used ubuntu as my development environment many years in the last organization I worked. So I thought since I have already used ubuntu before why not try linux at home as well, something which I have never considered before. So I went and read some reviews and with the help of a friend downloaded an iso of “Linux Mint” and made a bootable USB drive. Prior to this I did some research and settled with debian based systems because of my prior experience. Now had to choose between the top contenders, ubuntu, linut mint or elementary OS. Settled for Linux Mint since it was easy to add snap store and the look and feel was more windows like.

Linux – mint:

So by the same evening I had the bootable usb in hand. Plugged it in and installed it. It took like 15-20 mins to do full installation. The install speed was pretty fast I must say. I configured my online accounts and then installed snap store. I loved the concept of app store on Linux similar to what we have on Mac. The collection was pretty good from development perspective. I installed VS-Code, Sublime, git, nodejs, npm etc..

Awesome so in half hour, my dev env was ready.

It had firefox in-built which is what I was using primarily on my Windows as well. Also went ahead and installed Chrome since I use that to cast youtube / Netflix to my chromecast.

Now was the time to install other stuffs. This is where things started to become a bit challenging.

Documents:

The whole office suite was ofcourse not there, instead it had Libreoffice. Its nice but not as powerful as Microsoft office nor the formatting is same. The word documents open up but with messed up formats.  Also I couldn’t install OneDrive or google drive since they didn’t have dedicated builds. Had to opt for web version.

Video Editing:

Second problem was installing DaVinci Resolve. I managed to install it and install all drivers but never was able to run it with proper drivers. Somehow never worked on my PC. On windows 10 it used to work flawlessly. I know it could be some dependencies I needed to be installed. But shouldn’t softwares “just work”. Anyway there were some others alternate apps, but somehow none of them were as smooth or powerful like resolve. Left it as is for the time-being since I am not doing much editing nowadays.

Mail:

On Windows 10, I used Mailbird as my primary email app and “Newton” for all other accounts. Both of them doesn’t exist on Linux. Nor does Postbox. The only email app which is as good looking UX wise is “MailSpring”. But since I already pay for Newton and mailbird is lifetime paid, I didn’t want to spend on Mailspring. So switched to “Evolution”. Its surely not pretty or has any superpowers, but works fine in general. I mean lets face it companies don’t invest their time to build apps for linux since the user base is so small. So they stick to Mac or Windows. on Mac we have Spark, Airmail, Newton, Superhuman and host of emails. On windows also there are some decent ones but finding a good one on linux is almost impossible.

Notes:

I have used Evernote for about 7 yrs now and recently starting using OneNote more often. Both works perefectly fine on all my devices. Now on linux, neither have any official apps. Evernote still is accessible on web but OneNote web is almost unusable since it doesn’t even have a search option on web. Its very limited. There are some decent other apps like joplin or simplenote but neither they were seemless to use not functional like evernote. So I decided to keep using Evernote on Web. That works for time-being.

Task managers:

I was using Microsoft To-Do on all my devices. It super smooth and free. Again sadly this doesn’t exist on Linux. I went with the web version again this time. Todoist also doesnt have an official app. But anyway as long as web version exist its not a deal breaker.

Password manager:

I was using Keeper as my password manager of choice. And yes, that exists on Linux as a desktop app. Ofcouse the browser plugins as well do exist so had no issues atleast in this section. Password fillup also works smoothly. Even 1Password does exist on linux store.

Other than these I think most other softwares I used ones in a while has good replacement on the store. So was not an issue. Plus with firefox all my bookmarks were synced. Most apps have web based access so usability was not a problem.

I don’t play games on PC (use X-box) so gaming was not of a concern to me. Development wise didn’t have any issues since all the tools very well exists on linux. Linux is the de-facto for most developments anyway. Lack of some apps like Netflix, To-Do, Evernote, OneNote, newton, Google Drive, OneDrive etc though were an initial hiccups but I settled with web based versions anyway. Had to give up on OneNote as daily driver and use Evernote more because of web accessibility.

So now the primary question is will I keep using this?

To be very fair, I have still not decided. Will give it a go for maybe a month or two and then decide. I can anyways come back to Windows 10 whenever I want.  The lack of apps on linux is ofcourse not a good sign but as long as the system runs smoothly with no hiccups I am ready to do some minor adjustments to my workflow.

Fingers crossed and really hope I can move into the open source community as far as my personal computing goes !!

Best iPad Apps to work from Home

Fear of Coronavirus has pushed almost each and everyone of us from our office desks and forced us to work from home. But for effectively doing our daily work and to produce the same level of productivity we need the right set of tools and gadgets.

Personally I think having a Laptop/Desktop, a Phone and an iPad is the right set of tools needed because that helps to see a lot of information together with a lot of real-estate to work with.

In my previous blog I have mentioned about the Top 5 things you need to Work from Home.

Today I will continue on that with the Top 5 apps you need on your iPad to work from Home effectively.

Here are my top List of apps which are my daily drivers to work from home:

Spark – https://sparkmailapp.com/

When working from Home, Email is probably the most used form  of communication we use. And spark simply rocks for being one of the best looking and functional tool for this purpose. I mean from the look, to the position of buttons, functionality and everything speaks about the quality of the app. Features like snooze, separation of Newsletters from emails, pinned emails, minimize email while composing are some of my favorite features some of which even the native Apple mail lacks.  It even supports split screen on iPad while composing. Plus the dark theme is simply gorgeous on Spark. Readdle has definitely created a wonderful app which sparkles in this area. This app has been sometime on the AppStore and is completely free for personal use. There is a team plan but before you purchase that you can install and use it for yourself.

Platforms – iOS, Android, Mac

Scanner Pro

As the name screams, this is Pro level scanner app built for iOS devices. Its a fantastic scanning tool  which helps convert your iPad into a solid scanner. You can take pictures of multiple documents and combine them into a single PDF. Super easy to scan docs which is very much needed when you are working from home. Signing or digitizing contracts can now be done all on your iPad Pro. Pair this with Readdle’s PDF expert app, and now you can do wonders on your iPad.

Platforms – iOS

PDF Expert 

Lets say you have a document which needs your signature and post that needs to be send to someone. Now during work from home, you always don’t have a luxury of printing the document, signing it and send a fax or mail to someone. Here is what PDF expert makes life. Another fantastic app from Readdle which is specially useful if you own an iPad Pro or the new iPad (any iPad supporting Apple pencil).

---

This app not only helps you sign on PDF files but also create new ones, merge multiple files into single PDF, rearrange pages in a pdf as well as convert any document into PDF. I mean if you need to deal with PDFs this is an absolute must. Scan the document using Scanner Pro, port into PDF expert, fill the forms or sign on it, flatten it and send it via email to anyone. simple, no messy printer scanner business.

Platforms – iOS, Mac.

One Note – https://www.onenote.com/

Working at home, means a lot of self co-ordination which again means taking notes, keeping on top on things to remember, action plans etc. One Note is a very powerful productivity app from Microsoft which is accessible via web, Mac, Windows, Android and iOS. It even works great with Apple pencil on iPad if you plan to use one. Taking digital notes of things is very cool plus with super power search including OCR there is nothing you can’t find later – including searching your handwritten notes. Something you can’t get with pen and paper. When remotely taking meetings or zoom calls, One note is a boon to take down notes on.

Platforms – We, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS.

Trello –  https://trello.com/

Trello is a very old player in the game of Kanban boards and it has changed the way smaller teams do their work. With Trello all you do is create a “Board”. Thing of this as a Project you are working on. Example, say you want to create your portfolio or a website. Now create board named “Launch Portfolio”. In this case say I have created a Board called “How to Use Trello on iPad”.  After that you can creations list. These are like columns or swim lanes. Within those list you can add cards with any content your heart please. Here is a sample of what I have just created. Now as your work progresses you can move these cards around. Typically for projects I use a “Done” list in which anything which is completed is moved to. You are free to create as many lists and cards as you please.

Todoist –  https://todoist.com/

When working from home, its very important to keep you personal and professional life separate. And for that personal life, you need a separate tool which will help your keep track of those items which are completely personal in nature. It can be a simple grocery list, paying bills, adding recurring lists or anything which can be put into personal bucket. Personally I have been using todoist for few years now and during this time when we are all working from home, todoist is really helping me get my personal chores done.

For almost all of the above apps there are good alternates available as well. But personally I think these are one of the top used apps and used by millions of people worldwide. Try these and probably you won’t regret.

Let me know what you use on your iPad to make life easier and getting the job done.

Kudos!!

Arindam from TechDaily24x7

What on my iOS device – Top 5 apps for 2020

App are the fuel of smartphones today and they really make our lives easy by making tasks easy which would otherwise be complicated. From making online purchase to paying bills to ordering food to paying utility bills, life has been a bit easier with the advent of smart phones or more specifically apps.

Today let’s discuss about the top 5 apps on iOS which will make your lives a bit more easier !!

Keeper

With hackers trying to break into our accounts almost every moment and millions of accounts getting hacked on and on every year its high time you take security of your accounts in your own hands. And that means having strong complex passwords for each and every of your accounts be it social media, banking, email or entertainment. This is where Keeper comes into picture.

Keeper is a zero-knowledge SOC2 compliant password Vault. If you don’t know what that means, to out simply put, Keeper helps you store your passwords in a vault which you and only you can open and see, neither Keeper not any employee of keeper or 3rd party can snoop into your vault because the key to the vault lies with you and only you. This is true for most well known password managers. But Keeper’s pricing is decent and has been around for many years, if reliability is a concern.

 

 

 

OneNote

A beautiful and well designed cross platform note taking app which comes from Microsoft. Yes Microsoft, but don’t think its for Windows only. In-fact the app is available for FREE for all devices be it Mac, Windows, Android or iOS. It has an app Store of rating about 4.6 making it a very popular option. You can not only store text notes, but audio files, PDFs, docs, images and store them in separate notebooks under sections. Hugely popular app and has been there for many many years on Windows platform but is now available for everyone to use. Oh yes and you can make annotations and draw as well. Perfect to use on iPad Pro with Apple pencil.

 

 

 

 

 

Scanner Pro

Smart Phones camera have become extremely powerful and so has the app which take advantage of them.

One such app is called Scanner Pro.

It use the iPhone camera to take a snap of a document by automatically detecting the border and then converting into PDF. The final rendered PDF is far better than a normal picture and almost looks as good a a professional scanner. Of-course after taking the scan you get option to adjust the borders and even play around with few settings. But generally even without doing anything it takes amazing scans.

 

 

 

 

 

Gboard

Bring the power of google search right within your keyboard. Gboard is built for iOS and brings you not only an awesome keyboard but you are able to search for emoji and gif images right within your keyboard. Its like iOS keyboard on steroids.

WhatsApp

You may be an iMessage fan but that not true for everyone on the planet. Billions of people use androids and don’t use iMessages. In-fact outside US, most people don’t use iMessages even when they use iPhones. Yes even me and my friends here in Singapore chat on WhatsApp even with everyone being on iOS. I don’t know why but that’s how it is. So if you have people to connect to from all over the world then WhatsApp is something everyone is already using. No matter who the person is; chances are he or she is already on whatsapp. So just save the number and you can chat /call/ video call with the person. Simple.  There are some other alternates which people use like Facebook’s own Messenger, Telegram or We chat but in terms of sheer popularity whatsApp is probably on top.

So that my top 5 apps I use everyday and can’t live without. Let me know if you have any favorites and I will love to explore them as well.

 

 

Window 10 Search broken – here’s the fix

There has been a global outrage going on because of a sudden Windows 10 search seems to be broken. When users are trying to search something, all it shows is a black screen with nothing inside. Something like this:

So what’s the fix?

Apparently Microsoft has fixed it and it was a issue on their end. But even if it doesn’t work for you, here is what you can try:

Step 1:

Search anything

Step 2: Open Task Manager (right click on dock and click Task Manager)

You will find a process with the name “search” inside. Its a read icon. Screenshot below.

Now right click on it “End Task“.

Step 3:

Now try searching something. This should start working for you now.

Note: This trick worked for us, but again it may vary from PC to PC. Let us know if it fixed the issue for you.

Thanks !!

 

Novel Coronavirus – everything you need to know

This is off topic to most of my blogs, but considering this as a Global emergency I felt that something needs to be put out for everyone.

What is Coronavirus? What are other names of it?

The full name is “Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) “. First reported from Wuhan, China on 31st Dec 2019. Its also hence sometimes called as “Wuhan virus“.

This virus is a part of the family of virus called as “Coronavirus” which typically consists of different variety of viruses leading to normal cough and cold to more severe effects.

People on the internet are calling it with different names, like “Coronavirus”, “Wuhan virus” or even “China virus”.

What are the symptoms?

General symptoms are :

Fever

Cough and Cold

Runny nose

Shortness of breathe

Though this doesn’t mean anyone having these symptons have been effected. These are symptoms for almost all types of cold flu as well. So its best to visit a doctor and take advice.

How many have been impacted yet?

Official numbers are changing with each passing day, but as of today, around 258 people have died from this deadly virus. There are about 7 to 8 thousand people who have been effected by this in China.

People in China have taken extreme precautions to protect themselves.

Is it spreading to other countries?

Depending on how many effected individuals have traveled globally it has been transferred to other countries. Most countries at this point has strict protocols for people traveling from China or have recently been to China.

Outside China, there are about 140 confirmed cases yet, but no reported deaths due to Wuhan Coronavirus.

All the effected individuals in other countries are either Chinese nationals or have recently been to China. There are yet no confirmed cases of man to man transmission outside of China.

Do I need to be careful ? What precautions are needed ?

Transmission is most likely through close contact with an infected person via particles in the air from coughing or sneezing, or by someone touching an infected person or object with the virus on it and then touching their mouth, nose or eyes.

Depends on where you live and if there has been any reported cases in your vicinity.

Generally speaking the precautions needed are:

1. Wash your hands at intervals and specially before and after any food consumption.
2. If you yourself feel sick, immediately visit a doctor and avoid spreading it to others via wearing a surgical mask.
3. Don’t go to work if feel sick. This way, if at all you have been effected, it will stop spreading it to others.
4. Be vigilant – if you spot someone with cold flu in your vicinity or office, politely ask them to visit a doctor. By working together people can stop spreading and saving others who are effected.
5. Companies should allow their employees to work from home specially those who are sick or recently have been to China.
6. Do not panic. If you are not sick, then you do not need to wear mask at all times. This will build a shortage or masks and people who actually need it wont be able to get the masks.

Lastly, do not spread rumors about it and read fake news or spread them. This causes unnecessary panic and will not help anyone in any way. Stick to government websites or WHO website for updated information. Stay healthy and keep your loved ones safe.

What is the next Best email App now since Newton shuts down !!

Email apps are disappearing like Tortillas on a beer bash.
Everyday we see a wonderful app declaring their shutdown.

Newton just shut their doors on September 25. Inbox from Google announced they will shut down around March 2019. Astro shut down after being acquired by Slack.

The best and top apps are just closing down one by one.

I was a Newton user for more than an year and now they are gone. It was undoubtedly the best email app I have ever used. Sync was great and it was a cross platform app working on all my devices. But now they are gone.

For many people, like me, that means their favourite email app is going away. An email app which used to be my and their daily driver, an app which we used on our iPhones, iPads, androids, laptops, tablets or desktops. An email which had super powers like Read receipts, snooze, send later, remind if not replied plus having a fantastic clean interface. Now all those powers are going to vanish in thin air. Puff…

So who will fill that void? An app which provides similar powers, works across every platform and has a great clean interface like Newton. Frankly speaking after a week of digging and installing almost every app on iOS I couldn’t find a worthy one. There is not even a single app which is there on every platform and has these features. There are alternates on every platform but gets messy as the integration simply is not there.

In simple words, after so much digging I settled with different apps on each platform. I sincerely hope someone takes this sweet spot soon.

Well first I tried with apps on iOS. Installed Spark, Edison mail, Airmail, Canary, Inbox and the native gmail app. Then Google announced they are closing down Inbox as well. A great blow to email lovers.

So how does these stand up?

Spark –

Spark is a great app, looks crisp, fast, smooth and gets the job done. It will probably click the boxes for most users. It has built in smart categorizaton of emails, the emails are automatically separated into Personal, Notifications and Newsletters. It has Smart Inbox which inteligently pulls important emails for you. Ofcource the option can be tunred off. Swipe gestures, Bulk Actions, Snooze, send later and even Group Compose an email, or chat with others over an email. As of today, it is probably the most feature packed email app on iOS. Soon its coming on Android (as per their tweet).

The problem – It doesn’t have read receipts. That’s kind of an important feature. Maybe not so much for me but for people in Sales and Marketing this may be a deal breaker. The hurdle for me, I cannot make the app fetch only for some accounts whose emails I do not want to pass via a third party server. So security wise it didn’t tick all boxes for me. All your emails will pass via their servers, which is required for Push notifications as well as for their smart assistants to work. If these two points doesn’t mean much for you, spark is a fantastic app. You cannot go wrong with it. Readdle (the makers of this app) own this and has been in the game from the day App store exists. They have been too long to disappear anytime soon. As of now its on iOS and Mac only but will very soon be on android. The app is free on iOS and Mac for personal use and they charge for groups. Check their website for pricing. Give it a shot and maybe it will soon become your favorite.

 

Why I still Trust LastPass

After the 2015 potential security breach at LastPass many people became paranoid about lastpass. Even some deleted their accounts and moved to alternate solutions or pen and paper.

Truly speaking even I was scared about my data beig secured and for sometime went back to a small pocket notebook and a pen. using a small pocket notebook, a password generator on phone and a pen was all I needed for sometime until “I lost my pocketbook“.

Ofcourse my passwords were not all in plain text, somehow I had a random text after all my passwords which only I knew so someone logging to my sites using that notebook was not much of a concern but loosing all my accesses was. Kept wondering how did all this hassle of writing down passwords helped me as I have to begin all over again. If I would have used a password manager, atleast I could have taken a backup of some sort.

So finally it was time to move back to a decent password manager. Choices were many. Lastpass, 1Password, Dashlane, Enpass etc. For weeks I went through reviews, tech articles, blogs etc. after which became all the more puzzled. But then I found out that 1Password released their 6 months account free for new users. I jumped on it, created a new account; installed 1Password on all my devices and was extremely happy with the service.

Everything was magically getting synced to all my devices. All about 6 months my trial was over, now it was time to pay for the service. Ofcourse they also need to make money, I can’t expect something like this for free (there’s no free lunch). Their desktop app (without account) was extremely expensive. I switched to iOS app version and used that for sometime. But everytime on my Mac I had to manually type those long passwords. So I decided to give a shot to lastPass or Dashlane.

I checked the prices, and LastPass was cheapest among them. Dashlane was a solid product but was expensive and it didn’t have a file upload feature which Lastpass premium and 1Password has. So lastpass became the no brainer choice. It was even free for personal use and with premium you get some extra benefits like family sharing, priority tech support and 1GB of file storage. Went with Lastpass finally. The migration was a breeze with import utility.

The plugins were all installed on all my browsers and I started using Lastpass inspite of all the paranoid articles. Ofcourse I am no security expert and no knowledge of server side code, but since last pass had web access I decided to give it a shot and see the API calls.

I tried some random email/passwords combinations, and found that the Master Password, as claimed by them is NOT transmitted to them. Only the user Email and some device keys, encrypted userId and some Hash gets transmitted.

Here is a screenshot:

Though something made me uncomfortable. When I tried a random test Id (but with valid domain like abc123@outlook.com which may have been someone’s actual id on LP- (apologise if someone has similar id and got a notification for failed login try – I was just typing random id which was something like this) I saw that the error message was “Invalid Password”. I couldn’t understand as I had typed gibberish and that email should be invalid. So I tried my test email with wrong password, and same message of Invalid Password was given. But when some complete junk email was provided ( xxxx@something.com ), Lastpass gave a popup asking whether I want to create an account. Now I am not sure if its because of the valid domain or lastpass validates the email in their database and provided the error message.

    

This doesn’t look right to me. I think LastPass should not give any hints whether an email id valid or not. If someone tries my email id even without knowing my master password, he/she will know atleast that I have an account with Lastpass even without asking me (they can’t login to my account without knowing my Master Password though).  But this may result to phishing attacks.

But other than this small concern, the Network calls looks pretty ok. Everything is done on the device and personally speaking I liked what I saw or atleast what I understood. They really have made a solid,secure product and probably I will soon sign up for their premium version.

Thanks to lastPass for keeping us safe and taking a lot of burden for us.