There seems to be a mad rush at the beginning of every year to find ways to be more productive. New Year's resolutions, the itch to start the year off right, and of course, an "out with the old, in with the new" attitude all contribute to this. And the usual round of recommendations is heavily biased towards closed source and proprietary software. It doesn't have to be that way.
Here's the third of my picks for 19 new (or new-to-you) open source tools to help you be more productive in 2019.
Sandstorm
Being productive isn't just about to-do lists and keeping things organized. Often it requires a suite of tools linked to make a workflow go smoothly.
Sandstorm is an open source collection of packaged apps, all accessible from a single web interface and managed from a central console. You can host it yourself or use the Sandstorm Oasis service—for a per-user fee.
Sandstorm has a marketplace that makes it simple to install the apps that are available. It includes apps for productivity, finance, note taking, task tracking, chat, games, and a whole lot more. You can also package your own apps and upload them by following the application-packaging guidelines in the developer documentation.
Once installed, a user can create grains—basically containerized instances of app data. Grains are private by default and can be shared with other Sandstorm users. This means they are secure by default, and users can chose what to share with others.
Sandstorm can authenticate from several different external sources as well as use a "passwordless" email-based authentication. Using an external service means you don't have to manage yet another set of credentials if you already use one of the supported services.
In the end, Sandstorm makes installing and using supported collaborative apps quick, easy, and secure.
Comments are closed.