Web Worker Daily |
| Posted: 13 Aug 2008 02:00 PM CDT
New features include auto uploading of photos to Twitpic along with your tweet, and a hook into a GPS if available to provide location services. I’m particularly pleased with the Twitpic integration options as I have never really taken full advantage of the camera on my mobile. Being able to snap a quick photo and do a quick tweet makes it really simple to capture and share those moments. Look for more photos from me moving forward. Tiny Twitter is a free download and works on many mobile devices. How do you access Twitter from your mobile? [via Geek in Disguise - Thanks Steve!]           |
| Posted: 13 Aug 2008 01:00 PM CDT
Like Jungle Disk’s other products, the basic idea here is to install a pipeline to Amazon S3 storage that hides all the details of the local/remote divide. To users, a Jungle Disk drive looks just like another network hard drive, whether they’re using Windows, OS X, or Linux. But when you copy files to that drive, they get encrypted and sent off to Amazon. Jungle Disk doesn’t charge you directly for storage; you just get billed your 15 cents per gigabyte per month directly from Amazon. The Workgroup edition adds some additional features specifically aimed at groups of multiple people who need to share one storage account (single users with multiple computers are already covered by the basic Desktop edition). Most notably, this includes the ability to create subaccounts and apply access controls, while still having everything show up on one unified bill from Amazon. For example, you could create an “Accounting” bucket that could only be seen by management and accounting users, and a “Documents” bucket that most people have Read access to while authors have Read/Write access. In addition to the shared storage, Jungle Disk Workgroup still supports timed backup jobs for individual users, using the same engine as in the other Jungle Disk products. It also gives administrators unified reporting, so they can track both storage usage and the success (or failure) of individual backups. The pricing for Workgroup edition is $2 per user per month. That includes the features that are found in the $1 per month Jungle Disk Plus account, with web-based file access and upload resume. If you find yourself in need of a painless way to transfer files between team members spread around the world, and would like to get desktop backup as well, it seems like a bargain price.           |
| Congratulations, You’re a Market Posted: 13 Aug 2008 10:20 AM CDT
In fact, Dell has even launched a new Digital Nomads community site. Though it has the Dell tie-ins you’d expect, they’re also trying to reach out to working nomads through everything from Facebook and Twitter to blogging to writing a crowdsourced white paper. We’re happy to welcome Dell to the web working blog community.           |
| 3 Simple Ways to Add Creativity to Our Web Work Posted: 13 Aug 2008 09:00 AM CDT Creativity is an important aspect of a web worker’s life. From creating original designs to composing an apologetic letter to a client, we need to include a dose of creativity that gives additional value and originality to our work. Inspiration may not always be at our side and, even if it is, we still risk coming off as predictable if our clients or audiences are too familiar with our work. In other words, there’s no “oomph” factor. So how do we get creative when we’re stuck in a routine?
For example, I generally read books that require so much introspection and analysis. The darker the themes were, the more I liked them. As an attempt to add variety to my reading material, my teenage sister lent me her copy of “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. Now that was a paradigm shift, if I ever saw one. Since I also write about personal finance and have a very frugal mindset, that book gave me clear picture of how compulsive shoppers think. I could then reach out to a segment of my audience that was feeling largely ignored. Think through another person. Sometimes, it can get boring or predictable when you’re always thinking of the same old things from the same old perspective - yours. Because of this, it can be refreshing to ‘borrow’ another person’s point of view. This person can be your weird uncle, a historical figure, or even a cartoon character. How would they tackle the problem? How would Picasso design the website you’re working on? What points would Charlie Brown bring up when blogging about football? The further your personality is from the personality of your chosen character, the more interesting or unexpected your answers will be. Get enough sleep. Research shows that proper sleep improves creativity, and, conversely, creative people get more sleep. In other words, it wouldn’t hurt to get 8 hours of sleep (or more, if you’re lucky) a night. Some web workers might find this difficult, since we’re just as prone to working long hours as office workers are. In the end, the formula for creativity includes seeking out the new and the random, as well as getting enough rest. As for me, if my blog posts fall short of the average reader’s standards it’s a sign that I’m not getting any of the above (but I should start getting creative before everyone rushes to unsubscribe). Come on, web workers - let’s find something new and random today, and let’s sleep well and long tonight. How do you add a dose of extra creativity to your thought processes, and how does this apply to your work?           |
| Keep an Eye on Your Software Updates Posted: 12 Aug 2008 06:00 PM CDT Users of the Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 suites for the Mac will want to get a hold of newly issued updates for each suite. They’re available for download now and Microsoft confirms that they enhance not just security but stability and peformance. It’s also increasingly a good idea to track where you can find out more about the updates you receive, as they arrive. Remember when Apple landed in hot water a few months ago for slyly slipping a copy of Safari for Windows into its software updates that it sent to Windows users? As you’ll see from the chart shown in the link I just supplied, that gambit worked, in spite of the charges of sneakiness that it drew. Here is why it’s good to look into the contents of your software updates. With many of our operating system and productivity suite updates coming to us in automated fashion these days, we have a right to have some knowledge of what’s being placed on our computers. As I wrote about recently, Apple and Microsoft are both atop the list of reported security vulnerabilities among software vendors. They also do disclose most of what is in their updates. However, most users don’t take the extra step of looking into these disclosures. Microsoft’s Mactopia-based information on the latest updates to its Mac Office suites provides little information about them. However, the site does link to more complete descriptions for both the 2008 suite update and the 2004 suite update. As Apple recently demonstrated with its sneaky Safari-within-update move, software providers can go as far as putting entire applications on your computer without your knowledge, through updates. Apple has also demonstrated that this sneaky move worked. I prefer to have clear disclosure about these updates right in front of me as I get them.           |
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