I’m crazy enough to use it for everything.

OK, so I thought I’ll write this up quickly (yeah, right), simply because the latest version of Backpack seems ready enough for me to do with it what I had always wanted to do.

But, first things first.

a) I keep my own website that requires quite a bit of work.
b) I’m a teacher and also work in an administrative position.
c) I keep in touch with a very large group of people.
d) I travel a lot.
e) I’m a collector.
f) I love to write.
g) I’m notorioulsy famous for keeping things orderly.
h) I’m German. ;)
i) I’ve been online ever since the Web was invented (at that time with a PC for which 4MB of memory cost more than I earned in two months). Actually, I think I was online before the word “PC” existed.

So, I decided to get myself a “Premium” account the other day (not long ago).
Why?
Simply because I’ve always wanted to pull everything I do online and offline together in one spot. I’ve tried setting up my own website (became too complicated at some point), I tried programs like Microsoft’s One Note (really a lot better than most people say/think), I’m a member at just about every social network-, bookmarking- and whatnot- site and, please do not be offended, all of it turned to shite along the way.

I had/have several free Backpack accounts, one of which I used frequently, I’ve often used Writeboards to pre-write entries for my website whenever I’m on the road, etc., etc., etc.

I’ve finally reached the point at which I’ve given every other option/solution the axe and went with Backpack

$14 a month, as it looks now, has already saved me two major headaches plus lots of extra hours of work (it also got me a $500 wage raise; see below), simply because I had some information at my fingertips/at my mouse-click when I had, once again, forgotten to take some really important document with me. Fortunately, I had uploaded it to Backpack and could print it out for the Secretary of Education of my home state … in his office … on his notebook … via his less than optimal printer (that thing sucked!) ... then and there.

Phew.

So, what am I doing with Backpack?

a) I’ve pulled all my online activities, accounts, and data together in one spot. ALL of them. I have login data, links and other details right at my fingertips … wherever I am. This summer, once again, I needed an obscure address (why do government officials ALWAYS call when one is away on holidays halfway around the globe?) and although I was several thousand miles away from home, Backpack allowed me to hit the beaches again two minutes after I had hit the appropriate link. Last week I needed to know if I had a 1946 blowing session with Coleman Hawkins already. A link from my backpack page to my Music Collector export file gave me the answer … on the PC in a store about 300 miles away from home. It also told me that my memory sucks in a major way. I had already bought that session 7 years ago. Oops.

b) If I receive anything important electronically, or if I need a set of documents for a meeting, I upload it/them to Backpack … if they aren’t there already (standard stuff I need all the time stays put on Backpack, permanently). I have one page setup as “Incoming” (the somewhat cryptic e-mail aliases have forced me to keep it to a one-page “dump” that everything lands on when I sent it to my account) and – believe you me – I’ve started saving hours – if not days – already (in less than two weeks). Off it goes to Backpack to be either downloaded or filed away there. One address, one transmission … and I’ve got it at home when needed.

c) Teaching: I’ve started keeping lesson plans, my calendar and just about everything else on Backpack. In the past, I was less than good at keeping a calendar properly, today I’m nearly anal about it. I haven’t missed a deadline in ages. Whenever I find a decent text I can use in class, I excerpt it/upload it to Backpack. At crunch time, when we need to put final exams together for our 13th grade graduating classes – a time at which every teacher is grumpy at best (most throw heavy objects at you if you get within throwing distance) – I login to the 13th grade higher level course page on Backpack and have everything I had been collecting for the past 12-36 months in front of me. And that includes the irritating (that’s putting it mildly) government forms I have to fill out … which are usually pre-filled on my Backpack page and ready to be printed out. When I have 45 minutes to spare in the teacher’s lounge, I log-in and sort stuff, work on it, arrange and rearrange it. If a student missed something and needs a printout … it’s a two-minute, one-click job to print it out for him or her. After all, it’s on my Backpack page for that class. In the past, I usually didn’t have a copy of the text along anymore. Today, my reputation is one of a highly-organized teacher. Hell, two years ago students would have gladly thrown rocks at me (although my lessons were good, mind you). ;)

d) Although I also have a Highrise account, I’ve started keeping address lists on Backpack. On pages grouped by letters, I keep basic contact info plus just about every other snippet I come across. Want to know which shampoo Mrs. X uses? That would be “Garnier Fructis Silk & Shine”, just in case I need to bring one along. Also, I was surprised to see that one of my old friends from school has already, according to the IMDB, acted in 47 Hollywood films. How do I know? It says so in a clip I added to his address page. There are also links to his fan club, his three well-hidden e-mail accounts and the address to his chalet in Switzerland. Good to have that one for a trip there this winter. Oh, I’ve also got the driving directions via Google on there. Steve X., by the way, loves fusion music. I don’t, so he’ll get many of my CDs for Christmas. Hell, I don’t even have to think of an X-mas present for him until 3045. Plus some years. Stanley Kubrick would have loved Backpack.

e) I’m the media type. I have thousands of books, CDs, DVDs and – good grief – LPs. I also used to keep a trillion wishlists around the Net to keep track of what I wanted, needed, had to have. I now only keep three pages … on Backpack … for books, music and films. No matter where I am, I can quickly check if an item was/is on my list. I’m not kidding when I say that nearly 50 meters of music are difficult to keep track of. A few weeks ago I was at a second hand shop in Mainz, Germany, (that would be north of where I live) and I simply couldn’t remember if I had that Buddy Bregman CD already. It had been on my various lists across the Net for so long and because I had so many lists, I simply couldn’t recall if I maybe bought it one day and had perhaps simply forgotten to strike it off all of them. So, the shop owner let me login to my Backpack account (I could have also done that at the hotel) and – NO – I hadn’t bought it yet. I’m sure glad I did buy it then because “Swinging Kicks” is one damn fine CD.

f) Did I ever mention that when I want to purchase price-reduced software, books, and media for teachers, I need to whip out a document stating I am actually a teacher at the school I work at? Signed by the headmistress (funny word, that, and certainly not true in my case)? Well, I’ve got a copy on Backpack. That fact alone has saved me tons of time and nerves simply because I was at a book publisher’s office in Munich, 400 miles away from home, with a pile of books in front of me … and the xxxxxx person at the register told me to produce said document. I just managed to utter one word: “Backpack!” No travelling home, faxing said document and waiting three years to get my books. In situations like these, Backpack IS better than sex, believe you me. ;)

g) My website posts usually germinate for weeks, if not months. I start a page on Backpack, collect every snippet I can find, post excerpts, include quotes, link to interviews and upload photos. Once I get my head out of my rear end, I stare at the Backpack page for a minute or two, only to realize that the whole article is there already. A stiff Cuba Libre and one hour will suffice. In the past, an entire day went down the shute by simply starting again at … zero/zip/nada/zilch/niente.

h) I have made it a habit to upload every important document I find (try locating some more rare discographies of out-of-print Mosaic Records boxed sets online) to Backpack. I cannot stress enough how much time and effort that has saved me. I used to bookmark things and, when needed, the links were dead and gone. Now I have a copy online. For eternity (I hope).

i) Instruction manuals. Without getting into details, I need to have access to instruction manuals detailing the entry of data into some pretty complicated (and relatively asinine) proprietary software. Lots of it. Today I have all of it at my fingertips; in the past I needed to dig it out of folders and lug it along everytime I had to complete a certain task. Today I login to my Backpack page. BTW: Administrative work can be quite cumbersome, to say the least. ;)

j) I’d like to move up in the world. Today I always have access to my CV, relevant documents and a pretty cool photo on Backpack. So, whenever I’m at some conference and someone shows interest, I hit the next terminal/notebook/PC and print the stuff out. Yes, Backpack has already helped me secure a moderate wage raise of about $500 a month. Not bad, right? Hey, it’s two weeks with the new account and … counting.

I could go on forever, but I won’t. Just this:

How do you do it/organize it?

a) My start page pulls together what I need every day. Links, e-mail addresses, notes, to-do lists. It’s all there and is archived on monthly/annual pages when done. Great for putting together my tax return documents once a year, for completing print-forms at work and for proving that I’ve actually, well, worked.

b) To keep things organized, I preface my page titles with a four-digit number, like this [0110] English 2007: 13th Grade Higher Level or [0010] Private Data. That way pages are sorted properly. Satisfies my anal retentiveness as well.

c) Because I’m anal about design, each page has a header image (based on a template) that I designed. More fun to look at. So far, I’ve been linking to these images on one of my various webspace accounts (I have altogether 60 GB of webspace elsewhere). Works like a charm.

d) Pages are basically grouped to allow quick access: Homepage (links, passwords, to-do) – Incoming (I send everything there via mail etc. to be moved to different pages) – Private (Login, Private Data, Addresses & Details) – School (Administration, Subjects, Classes, Government, Notes) – Media (Music, Books, Film) – Wishlist(s) – Trips (one page per trip, also for future reference as I often have to go to the same places, hotels, etc. again and again) – Taxes (ugh) – Notes & Various. There are more, but I think you get the idea.

Again, Backpack is becoming my single place to pull together everything I do on- and offline. It works for me, perfectly, and I have started deleting tons of accounts, password safes, online lists, bookmarking accounts and lots more. It is a TOTAL relief to have it all in one place.

Did I ever mention that it helped me save hundreds of hours?
No?
Well, it did … and it will.

Cautionary Note:
Dear Backpack administrators, programmers and bigwigs. Should you ever decide to pull the plug on Backpack and bury it deep in the recesses of the white noise that is the Internet, I would be one very unhappy customer!

Hugs & Kisses to all of you.

deus62

P.S.: Why did I write this? Simple. The Backpack team has gotten a bit of flak (also from me) for delaying the new version for too long … and then changing some basic stuff which screwed up meticulously layed-out pages. I want to make up for that with this post, because I’m happier than a civil servant on holiday with this version. It comes close to real, unadulterated love … for everyone who worked on this thing.

And this:

Just friendly good-natured advice for the future:

a) do not widen pages without previously announcing the change: it screws up pages which (anally retentive) people (like me) have taken great care to layout in an aesthetically pleasing way. I needed two bottles of Tanqueray Gin to get over that last change! Grrrrrrrrr

b) Do not force dates on us where we don’t want to have dates. (see a] above).

c) Do not change font spacing, etc. It … see a)

e) For heaven’s sake, get Textile formatting right … and keep it that way. You don’t honestly want your customers to find workarounds, put them on ONE THOUSAND pages (theoretically) and then have to change each darn page separately when you decide to do things differently?
Right, thought so.

Love you. :)

f) I love to write.

That’s clear to see. :-)

Peter

Yeah, I know … ;)
I had one of those moments with too much time on my hands.

Excellent post deus62! It really shows what BP is capable of.

Also, I was interested in hearing a bit more about how you are setting up contacts/addresses in BP. You mention they are organized by letter, but do you have a single page per contact, one page per letter with multiple contacts, or some other arrangement?

Oops, I just saw this now.

Right now I have pages covering several letters of the alphabet (for example “Addresses A-E”) with the addresses sorted alphabetically (top to bottom). I use tables to layout the addresses (one table per address). I don’t have THAT many contacts, 200 – 300 maybe, so that’s a manageable part of my backpack setup.

Now that I’ve figured out the openID thing I’m thinking of using Highrise because it ties in nicely that way (I can just switch via the top black menu bar which is equivalent to clicking through my current pages). That would also unclutter my Backpack setup a bit.

BTW: I’m working on a future (January 08, maybe before) public page that illustrates everything I do. It’s 50% finished, but I’m going away for the Christmas holidays.

Check here for a link when it goes live.

Cheers!

Edit: I’ve really given Backpack a thorough spin since my first post and it’s really become essential for me, warts and all. You could say I’m a huge fan and I’m really saving time (and money) because I use it on a daily basis. Love it!

Thanks for sharing the additional info! I’m also trying to figure out how/if it makes sense to use BP vs Highrise. No easy answers there, but it is nice of you to publicize your use of Backpack as this helps others really make the best use of the product without trying to re-invent the wheel as they say:)

Thanks again, and happy holidays!

It’s taking longer than I expected to get that public page ready. Real life has a way of intruding all the time and I’ve been redesigning three sites these past weeks.

It will be done soon … I promise.

BTW: Because I’m using Backpack to reduce my online presences down to exactly one (besides my own websites), meaning I’m deleting tons of accounts around the Net and uploading and storing info and material here, I’ve also started doing the following:

I keep one page which helps me to keep track of comments I leave around the Net. There are dedicated services around for that (like there are dedicated services for just about everything you can think of), but because I have Backpack open pretty much 24/7, I simply keep some lists, throw in a href here and there and have a quick link to all the posts I left comments on. It takes me approximately 5 seconds to add/delete/check new or older ones and it’s becoming my most frequently visited page on my BP account.

The more I use BackPack, the more flexible it becomes and the more ideas I get.

Great post! Reading made me realize why I stopped using Backpack, and why I would like to starting using it again. The problem was putting everything in one place, and a sense of trust.

I bought a $5 Backpack plan when I needed to store images and docs for a group project, and let it linger for close to a year and a half or two years. I canceled a month or so ago because my credit card expired, and I realized I was paying $5/mo for nothing.

Really though, I just never put everything on my account because I was always worried that I would never have enough pages, and then I just crammed everything in. Had I just gotten a plan with a lot of pages, I would have been more comfortable. I began to compare the price against that of a wiki with unlimited pages etc… Really though, Backpack is easy to use, the reminders are the best on the web, and I forgot aout all that in the shuffle.

The trust issue is hard. I would love to put everything in one place, but I’m always concerned about security, passwords, account #’s etc…

I think I may have to re-learn Backpack and consider a plan with many pages again. I would love to have a place to share everything with my wife, but we can’t afford two paying plans. Hopefully someday, this aspect will be more like Highrise.

Well, the spammer bumped this page, but I’m glad they did because I hadn’t read it before.
bq. c) Because I’m anal about design, each page has a header image (based on a template) that I designed. More fun to look at. So far, I’ve been linking to these images on one of my various webspace accounts (I have altogether 60 GB of webspace elsewhere). Works like a charm.

That’s a great idea!

...you guys are so productive…damn! =)

deus62:

Thank you for that great post! Gave me a few good ideas.

A question first, please: You mention having your Music Collector export file in Backpack. I am also using Music Collector and Movie Collector. How do you publish your export file to Backpack? I know that I can upload files, but the HTML export folders from Collectorz.com programs consist of several HTML pages, a details folder with even more HTML files, and an Images folder filled with jpeg files.

Do you actually have the report(s) showing in Backpack? I’d love to know how you did this.

Thanks again,

Jim