

Working remotely and the tools that make it possible - mp3jeep01
http://blog.braidapp.com/working-remotely-and-the-tools-that-make-it-possible

======
bifrost
I'd say its a requirement to have a VPN now as well. If you're not protecting
your network transport, you're ignoring a lot of best practices.

~~~
tomp
If they're only using web apps, there's no need for VPN.

~~~
bifrost
Because nobody has ever built "firesheep"?

I think that its unrealistic to assume that nobody is watching you (because we
know thats untrue now) and that nobody bad is looking to harm what you do. It
is trivial to inject an exploit into an unprotected webapp.

~~~
bluedino
The previous poster is talking about the 'old definition' of VPN. If you don't
have a office with a server you don't need to use a VPN to connect to it (and
each other), since it's on the web.

~~~
bifrost
What does that have to do with anything? If you're using web based services
you're even more vulnerable to 3rd party intervention than you are if you were
using a server in an office, especially if you're working from a coffee
shop/etc. Any sort of shared office space is vulnerable to this too.

------
mbseid
These are some great tools. I would also like to recommend Scumr. It really
helps our teams with our morning stand-up meetings. Notifies when we are the
meeting starts, and when everyone is ready. Allows the meetings to be
persistent too. Check it out: [http://www.scrumr.us/](http://www.scrumr.us/)

Full disclosure: I wrote the tool during a work hackathon. It has come a long
way since then.

~~~
idan
Nifty. We are still doing scrums as an ad-hoc thing, and some tooling might
make it easier. Since I'm on the far side of the world, Scrum time is about
22:30, and I can't always be online then, so something to let me "jump in"
from anywhere with an email is nifty.

------
mp3jeep01
These are just a few of the tools that help us work together, even when we
aren't all in one location. Caveat, the apps, AFAIK, are Mac specific.

~~~
ownagefool
That sort of makes it _harder_ to work together unless you force all employees
to use Mac, which I guess you can do.

A alternative list of techs that'll help (imo, despite being nothing like
yours):

> IRC

> XMPP

> Email

> Skype (alternatives welcome)

> Vagrant

> Favourite bug / productivity app.

> Your favorite wiki (if in doubt, use mediawiki)

> VPN (assuming you have need to connect to the office, you probably don't if
> you're using github type resources)

> Git

Basically, all the same stuff that'll help you work even if you're in the same
office. I've worked from home for over 3 years, the #1 problem for me is the
people in the office who don't use these tools.

~~~
thedufer
To be fair, most of the actual collaboration tools (Trello, Flowdock, Hackpad)
appear to be webapps. iMessage/Facetime is the big exception.

------
wotsrovert
For pairing remotely, I use Screenhero.
[http://screenhero.com/](http://screenhero.com/)

------
kevinflo
Our team is split across the country and we've taken to doing a quick google
hangout each day. Just a little face-to-face communication each day has helped
immensely.

~~~
mp3jeep01
Whoops! Neglected this one. Google hangouts definitely help us when we need
more than the 1-on-1 allowed via Facetime.

------
essdessy
i used to use cloud app and slingshot, but since going retina on my mbp i use
Droplr. And sometimes Dropbox's new auto screenshot to clipboard link is
great.

~~~
idan
"Sometimes"?

I've been using cloudapp for the last year, but I'm curious about the dropbox
thing.

There's also Servus ([https://servus.io/](https://servus.io/)) which is pretty
much like cloudapp/droplr but using your dropbox.

