Web Worker Daily

Suddenly, everyone is talking about Video conferencing. Cisco Systems just announced an uber video conference system – you could buy that or a tricked out Mercedes Benz. Microsoft is cooking up one of its own. There are other options, of course, and we have written about them on GigaOM. All this attention has sparked off a small controversy. Andy Abramson writes about his clients SightSpeed, and channels Cisco CEO John Chambers as saying:

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If there’s a more annoying aspect to going mobile than keeping all your gadgets charged, I’d love to know what it is. Sliding your notebook in a slim, fashionable carrying case is great. But where do you put the beastly transformer, bulkier still from being wrapped in its cables? Not to mention your cell phone charger, MP3-player charger, digital camera charger, rechargeable battery charger… Not to mention adapters for international travel. And all of the above is predicated on finding an outlet.

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Thanks to our ever-insightful readers, we received a number of great answers and tips to our post asking, How Do You Time Track? A couple of readers offered links to other sites where solutions were discussed in detail, including LifeHacker’s post and comment thread on logging your workday, and engtech’s discussion of time planning for projects and web-based solutions for keeping track of hours.

One popular solution was the popular project tool Basecamp and its open-source clone activeCollab. Stunt Software’s On The Job was recommended for Mac users, and made our recent list of great Mac productivity apps. Another Mac user even offered his own custom time tracking script after reading the post and getting inspired!

FreshBooks was also recommended both for tracking and billing (and promises to offer new features geared toward freelancers), while a Linux user recommends GnoTime as an open-source solution. MyHours, another web-based solution, offers mobile time tracking — which seems especially useful if you’re on the road meeting clients or out of the office on conference calls and want to make sure you don’t lose a single billable hour.

Check out all of the recommendations in the comments.

By Nitin Borwankar

One of noticeable differences between working in a conventional office and a cafe is the complete absence of printing and faxing capabilities in the latter. Most of the time this is not an issue as we WebWorkers are primarily working on electronic content for execution (software), publishing (articles/docs) or communication (email/IM).

But, every so often arises, with irritating insistence, a need for printing something, signing it and faxing it back. At this point I have to either work out of home – and plug in that printer and fax machine for a bit, or going to FedEx Kinko’s or something similar locally. Every time I do that I find myself wanting a better way.

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I work mostly from home, so if a company is coming from out of town and wants to meet up, I choose one of a few cafes in the neighborhood. I live in an area of San Francisco where the only businesses are restaurants and laundromats. Laptops aren’t rare at our little cafes, but collared shirts and ties are. Much of the jeans-clad clientele comes to read novels or the paper.

But here’s my dilemma. When a team of CEO, VP Biz Dev, and PR person shows up, the four of us crowded around a small table overflowing with laptops and precarious lattes, the CEO using his demo voice…we definitely stand out. At one meeting few weeks ago, it was particularly bad; the guy giving the presentation seemed to have overdosed on public speaking classes. I tried to apologize with my eyes to my neighboring novel-readers when he reached the climactic PowerPoint slide. Oy vey.

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I just found this cool open source application which allows you to synchronize your Google Calendar and your mobile phone. It works for most phones including Blackberry, though I guess its best served on Symbian (considering the source.) I plan to test it out later today and get back to you with more information. You can download it from a WAP browser as well if you go to wap.gcalsync.com.

Last week, Sony announced a deal with T-Mobile, that allows Mylo users free access to T-Mobile’s Wifi network, most visible inside Starbucks’ coffee shops, which at least for some of us represent “Office 2.0.”

Mylo, which stands for My Life, is a special device that allows users to instant message each other, make skype phone calls and do light browsing along with email. It sounds like a pretty promising, and has impressed folks at Skype Journal and my dear friend, Andy Abramson.

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There is a lively discussion around an Apple-sponsored study that conteds that 30-inch monitors make people more productive.

The productivity gains, he said, occur because workers using larger monitors can avoid repetitive tasks such as switching between overlapping application windows. Instead, they can have more windows open side-by-side on a larger monitor.

I am not quite sure.

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