Mathew Harwich

If you're near Ontario, CA on Saturday, come and see the show!!! Performing with the Southland Wind Ensemble #trumpet #onstariocalifornia #uplandcalifornia #freeconcert

Saturday, October 26, 4:00 PM
Bethel Congregational Church
536 N Euclid Ave
Ontario, CA

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

Mathew Harwich

Bread Quintet

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1 year ago | [YT] | 2

Mathew Harwich

Discovered today that unfortunately there is no native ability to create dividers between finder favorites, so I used a practical approach by just placing folders there that are named "-------------------" #technology #macOS

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 0

Mathew Harwich

Ultimate Cloud Storage Solution!

Alright, this week I have been through the wringer. Imagine, long nights of trying to answer these questions with one solution

How do we get cloud storage cheaper than dropbox, with more storage?How do we get the same important capabilities (to us) from dropbox on a less expensive cloud storage solution?How do we get full finder integration, with context menu features to make these files cloud-only or local with ease. How do we we effortlessly transfer files from one cloud storage to the next?

I have the answers (I think), and it wasn't very pretty to find this out. The following answers to these questions was done with an accumulation of long AI convos, forum skimming, article reading, video watching, software trial installations, strained eyes and migraines. 

Let's start with transferring from one cloud storage service to another. What you need is a cloud storage unifier, one that can bring these cloud storages into one place designed for easy transfers. Online options like Multcloud suffer from slow speeds. The best solution I have found is "Owlfiles". Which gives you iOS access from the files app or its dedicated app, and a very aesthetically pleasing Mac OS interface. Worth it to just buy the pro lifetime version that includes both desktop and mobile apps for $49. Owlfiles is NOT the solution for working with the files themselves, but is critical for getting Webdav access on the Files app in iOS (which is not natively supported there). This leads me to the next conclusion:

Opendrive. If you want cheap but "unlimited" cloud storage, you basically only have one choice and that is opendrive. Jottacloud throttles your upload speed to a crawl after reaching 5 tb. and Sync.com only has unlimited storage with their teams plan, not to mention is not possible to connect to with Owlfiles or a better finder integration solution. To connect to Opendrive on Owlfiles you connect to your account through "webdav", which so far seems to be fine. This leads me to the next big question:

How do you get better finder integration on your cheaper-than-dropbox-unlimited-cloud-storage-solution. The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is Cloudmounter. Cloudmounter lets you mount your cloud storage as if it's a local drive, accessible from finder with the ability to offload or make files cloud-only as you please (think, Dropbox Desktop app on finder). Now I tried its competitors, StrongSync and Mountain Duck. StrongSync seemed promising with its APFS Spotlight Integration, but for now is too good to be true. It was buggy, and I could not get the trial to run properly at all without the program freezing up and demolishing my CPU in the process. It came down to cloudmounter and mountain duck. I'll say, this was a little tough, but I ultimately chose cloudmounter over mountain duck, despite the latter's robust integrations and features. The reason is simple really, it all comes down to that little cloud icon to the right of the files (in list view). Cloudmounter make's any cloud behave just like iCloud or Dropbox Desktop in Finder. You can see what files are in the cloud, and which ones have been dubbed local. And you can switch between these quite easily, which is exactly what I wanted with open drive. If you are on OS you can forget about their own desktop macfuse drive solution. It only does fully local syncs (meaning what's on the hard drive is what's on the cloud, meaning I can't make cloud storage online only, meaning I run out of hard drive space, meaning I don't like this solution). 

Conclusion: To Summarize, here is the breakdown of software you will want to replicate this workflow of cheaper-than-dropbox unlimited storage and a way to transfer all these clouds from one to the next, AND access from the IOS files app. 

1. "Owlfiles" for quick switches between cloud drives, and iOS files app accessibility ($49 lifetime price, mobile and desktop included)

2. "Opendrive" for cheap unlimited cloud storage ($99 a year)

3. "Cloudmounter" for mounting opendrive (and other cloud storages for that matter) onto finder with the ability to make files cloud-only or fully local. ($79 lifetime account)

There you have it folks. I'm giving the full solution here a try myself for the first time today, only time will tell if it truly works out. I can't expect this to work as crazy fast as dropbox, but then again, upload speed is not that crazy important to me. For actual interfacing with colleagues I will still use the free version of dropbox and google drive, especially now that I can switch files between clouds so efficiently. As long as I can access everything and get things up on OpenDrive is reasonable amount of time, I'm happy. This for now does seem like the answer to fill up my drives with all the important projects and files I would like access to anywhere, anytime, on any device.:

1 year ago | [YT] | 0

Mathew Harwich

check out my new custom GPT!
chat.openai.com/g/g-qtjyhcAzU-simple-tags

1 year ago | [YT] | 0

Mathew Harwich

no more sitting at the desk! Always standing. Takes about a week to get used to this, but wow, the benefits are being felt already!

1 year ago | [YT] | 0

Mathew Harwich

this is so useful on the Mac: ⌃ ⌘ SPACE (character viewer) totally recommend memorizing this one!

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 0