Web Worker Daily

Posted: 28 Aug 2008 04:00 PM CDT

With the tremendous number of ways to get your files online - from Dropbox to FolderShare to Box.net to SugarSync - there’s one big issue for consumers: how do you choose? Over at our parent blog GigaOM, Om Malik things Sugar Sync has a new edge in this market due to their announcement of an iPhone interface. But is that enough to tilt the balance in their favor?

Part of the issues is that the market is so fragmented: there are backup solutions, replacements for email attachments, synchronization solutions, and more. Trying to pick one “best” provider from the confusing variety out there is tough, at best. If you’ve had to choose a way to get your own files online - who did you choose? And why?

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5 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting an iPhone

Posted: 28 Aug 2008 01:00 PM CDT

As you’re all aware by now, some of the staff at WWD have gone the iPhone 3G route - and are still happy about it. But we don’t have any sort of official “iPhone only” policy, and we’re a diverse bunch. Speaking for myself, I’ve taken a long, hard look at iPhone ownership, and decided against it. Here’s why.

1. 3G Coverage - I’m in that big middle part of the country where, apparently, all the technologically backwards people live. None of the major carriers have anything like comprehensive 3G coverage out here. With the iPhone, that means I’d be paying 3G prices for a device that didn’t get 3G speeds - not much of a bargain.

2. Missing Flash - I’m not a huge fan of Flash user interfaces; I use Firefox add-ons to disable most of them in my browser. But there are a few spots on the web where Flash is an essential part of the site functionality, including Grand Central, which I use to manage all of my phone numbers. As long as there’s no Flash on the iPhone, that’s a deal-breaker for me.

3. Apple Control and Censorship - It’s bad enough that Apple is managing the App Store as a tightly gated software portal with apparently arbitrary rules and poor developer communication. It’s bad enough that they have a “kill switch” that lets them remove any software from your iPhone at any time. But now they’re getting into content censorship as well. The notion of having a computer where Apple dictates, now and forever, what software I can install rubs me intensely the wrong way.

4. Gadget Regret - As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve got some history with gadget regret. I’ve learned over the years to step outside the reality distortion field and ask whether I really need a new toy. With the iPhone, the answer is currently “no” - the amount of money it would cost, balanced against the amount of difference it would make for my ability to enjoy life or bill more, makes it a bad deal for me.

5. The SDK NDA - Apple appears to be bending over backwards to make it tough for developers to build useful iPhone applications. Besides their control issues on software delivery, they’re also still keeping the iPhone SDK under a restrictive NDA. This goes beyond closed source to closed knowledge, and strikes me as a bad idea and one that I do not care to support.

So, no iPhone for me. For a phone, I’m still happy with my old, beat-up, not-very-smart Nokia. Your mileage may vary, of course, but if you’re thinking of plopping down the money for an iPhone I’d urge you to think carefully about whether it’s really a device that will make your life better.

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Working On The Road - Literally!

Posted: 28 Aug 2008 12:00 PM CDT

A couple days ago, WWD’s Mike Gunderloy commented on the New York Times’ coverage of Chrysler’s UConnect technology, bringing internet connectivity to their vehicle line up.

As the NYT rightly pointed out, road safety is becoming an increasingly diminished quality as legislation duels with user’s desire to remain connected (but distracted) on the road.

Coincidentally, Volkswagen recently revealed its T-6 concept vehicle - quite literally an office on wheels - that appears to be larger than a VW Camper and a cross between Tom Cruise’s ride in Minority Report and Tron’s Lightcycles!

Alexander Zhukovsky’s design explores the notion of a full functional office and conference room on wheels - admittedly a well executed design, but perhaps missing the rising trends of telecommuting, coworking and a better civic infrastructure. Adding larger, more featured vehicles to strained road infrastructures isn’t really a solution to a problem many cities face.

Great design is about solving problems and imagining a path to better futures - the T-6 symbolizes all that’s wrong with auto-centric, workaholic cultures. Your experience as a passenger is more likely to resemble Tom Scott’s hilarious Tea Party In A Transit than an orderly business meeting!

Read more about the T-6 concept at The Design blog…

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QuarkBase Dissects Web Sites

Posted: 28 Aug 2008 10:00 AM CDT

Newly-launched QuarkBase makes the somewhat grandiose claim of providing “everything about a website.” But it turns out that this mashup of various information into a single (extensive) page actually does a pretty good job of delivering on that claim. It’s as easy to use as you could hope: jsut enter a URL and hit the search button. Quarkbase will go out to a bunch of services and pull together information to help you get an overview of the site’s purpose, traffic, and importance.

Among other things, you’ll get a snapshot of the current site, links to related and similar sites, popularity measurements based on social web tracking, del.icio.us bookmarks, traffic from Alexa, and mentions in other blogs and on Twitter. There are a few areas that could stand improvement - for example, tweets aren’t linked, and the technical info isn’t as deep as that provided by, say, Netcraft’s page. But overall, it’s a fast way to get a birds-eye view of any site on the web.

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Getting Delinquent Clients to Pay You on Time

Posted: 28 Aug 2008 09:00 AM CDT

“Where’s my money?!”

That’s a phrase that I used to scream at my monitor whenever difficult clients would skip payments for weeks at a time or, worse, if they would skip paying completely.

Many things have changed since then, and my experience with such clients early in my web working career has made me savvy to such escape tactics. In the end, only one client was successful in evading me. I didn’t let him get out scot-free, either - I reported his company to the Better Business Bureau.

When it comes to money, I believe that prevention is better than cure. Having a mutually signed-contract is the first step you need to take to ensure that the client will be taking your agreement seriously. I also find that a ‘layman’s version’ of the contract can help clients better understand what they’re signing if the legalese gets in the way. However, don’t forget to add a disclaimer that the layman’s version in no way replaces the actual contract.

Sometimes, this stage can be a litmus test to see if the client will have payment problems later on. Red flags go up when potential clients are reluctant to sign a contract because “It’s only a couple of weeks’ work anyway”. But if the deal pulls through, there are other things you can do to ensure that you get paid on time.

Have a clear schedule of deliverables. It’s important to write a list of deliverables for both you and your client - including the payment. Note the following example for an ebook writing project:

August 28 - Client sends materials and initial deposit.
August 30 - You send your proposed outline to the client.
September 2 - Client sends you comments/suggestions for outline.
September 3 - You send the finalized outline to the client.
September 15 - You send the first chapter of the ebook to the client.
September 20 - Client makes second payment, and sends additional comments.

Also, when you send each invoice, don’t forget to note the payment due date. While some clients won’t need reminders, be mindful of which clients tend to be too busy to forget the due date so that you can send them a reminder the day before.

Find a way to make early payments beneficial to the client. One of the things we’ve decided to implement is to give a client a 5% discount if they pay the invoice within 24 hours from the time it was sent. Another alternative you might want to try is giving a discount or promo coupon for the client’s next order.

Have template emails ready. To save yourself some time and the stress of composing payment reminder emails, it helps to have ready templates. I make templates for payment reminders the day after the due date, the week after, and two weeks after. I just adjust the details of the letter to the situation.

Call the client. Emails are easy to delete and prone to misunderstandings, which is why for clients who make delinquent payments, it’s important to call them if you aren’t paid after two weeks - especially if they haven’t replied to your emails. There could be a completely valid reason behind this, but it’s important to hear it from your client directly.

Make yourself indispensable. I had a client who, even after signing the contract and getting satisfactory work from us, decided to leave us hanging when it came to his final payment. The above methods didn’t seem to work - until he needed us to make a minor change on his website. Of course, we only made the changes he requested when he paid the remaining balance. Sometimes, being indispensable can be good insurance that a client won’t run off without paying you for your work.

However, once you realize that a client has this kind of habit, it’s best to stop working with them. You don’t want to risk being left unpaid for a project should they decide one day that they don’t need you anymore.

Don’t be a fool. If a client is notorious for making excuses and avoiding you during payment time, it makes no sense to trust them for succeeding projects. Use your instinct, and if you think chasing them for your fees isn’t worth it, suggest that they find someone else (to annoy).

Have you ever had problematic clients who left you unpaid? How did you try to get your money?

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Two Time-Saving Firefox Extensions Get Nods from Mozilla

Posted: 27 Aug 2008 06:00 PM CDT

The other day, we covered the winners in this year’s Extend Firefox contest, which is Mozilla’s annual effort to recognize the best extensions for the Firefox browser. In addition to the new ideas that won, though, Mozilla has also recognized a couple of strong updates to well-known Firefox extensions. Two of them can be very handy for web workers.

Read It Later is a quick way to save web pages of interest to read later, for when you don’t have time to stop, including offline reading. Many Firefox users simply bookmark pages they want to read later, but that can quickly turn your Bookmarks list into a giant mess.

When you access “Your Reading List” with ReadItLater you get a list of the pages you’ve flagged, and you can also see when you flagged them. You can also sync your reading list with other computers. Read It Later initially had some problems with cookies and JavaScript, but the developer has addressed these with a recent update, and Mozilla liked what it saw. I haven’t experienced any problems with Read It Later, and it is definitely a fast way to save a reading list.

Since we just mentioned how easy it is to clutter your Bookmarks menu in Firefox, Bookmark Previews is also worth a try. If you’ve ever used an iPod with Cover Flow enabled, you’ll instantly recognize how Bookmark Previews lets you see an album-like animated view of thumbnail versions of the web pages in your Bookmarks menu. You can also choose to just view thumbnails of the sites.

I happen to have a very long Bookmarks list in Firefox, including macros that I store there with iMacros. How useful you’ll find Bookmark Previews depends on how many bookmarks you tend to have. If you have a lot, it’s a useful way to scan them and get alternative views.

For many more good Firefox extensions, see the Firefox Superguide over on OStatic.

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