Sending and sharing files is a daily routine. If you have the need in your working, or personal, life to send and share large files easily without tying up your email, senduit could be a service for you to try out.
The senduit service allows users to upload up to 100MB of data, and create a unique URL to share in two steps. This data is then given an available time frame in which users can access it. So if it’s somewhat private or sensitive material you can set it to be available for 30 minutes, and all the way up to one week of availability. A better known provider of this type of service includes yousendit, who allows for sending sizes up to 2GB with a subscription.
I find this type of service extremely useful when I do send large files to multiple individuals. I prefer them to download the files on their own terms when they have time to do so, while not interrupting their valuable business email service.
Whether you call them conference calls or telecons or excruciatingly dull time-wasters, multi-participant phone conversations are as important to most web workers as email. If you can’t meet face to face or arrange video conferencing, the conference call is the next best thing. But just as with email and instant messaging, people don’t always agree on how to use them as effectively as possible as a tool for collaboration.
Try these tips for your next telecon whether you’re the leader of the call or just a participant. And share your own ideas for making conference calls worthwhile and productive in the comments.
Read the rest of this entry »
After what feels like years…okay it was years, the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system is finally launching to the public on Tuesday.
In a typical office environment, there’s usually an “IT guy” who is thinking about whether it’s the right move for the company’s computers to upgrade. As web workers, we’re on our own to read the thousands of articles and reviews and decide whether it’s worth the downtime for all the backing up and reconfiguring necessary in an operating system upgrade. We also have to figure out whether our current hardware can handle it. Some even say the best way to upgrade to Vista is to buy a new PC with it preinstalled.
If after reading all those articles and checking your hardware you’re still not sure, there’s always the Windows Vista Test Drive.
Personally, I run Windows inside of Parallels on my MacBook Pro so I’m not in any rush to upgrade from Windows XP Home. While I’ve always upgraded to the latest Mac OS X version quickly, I’ll take my time on this one.
Are you the early adopter type when it comes to operating system upgrades? Do you think Vista will be a success out of the gate, or will Vista only be widely adopted as folks replace their computers and have no other choice?
“Infomania” has been in the news over the past few months, starting for most people with the rather silly story about too much e-mail being worse for your concentration than smoking dope. More recently, and in a more serious vein, researchers from Microsoft, Google, Intel and other corporations gathered at a workshop to discuss what might be done to tame the relentless interruptions that plague the modern office life. From ways to better prioritize incoming e-mail to snooze buttons on interruption generators, these researchers brainstormed ways to help workers spend more time focusing on their primary tasks.
Living as we do in a sea of e-mail, Blackberries, cel phones, Twitter, instant messages, forums, RSS feeds, newsgroups, conference calls, WebEx’s, and videoconferences, web workers may be more familiar with infomania than just about anyone. Some people thrive on this, of course, and wouldn’t change it for the world. Others have, in the words of Dr. Strangelove, learned to stop worrying and love the interruptions. But the rest of us have had to evolve our own defense mechanisms to cope.
What’s your strategy for dealing with infomania? Do you limit your e-mail to specified times? Stick closely to the way of Getting Things Done? Keep a secret second cel phone that only the really important people get the number for? Here’s your chance to share your best tips with other web workers.
For me, the best part about being a web worker is that I can listen (and watch) podcasts and videos on my second display as background noise while I get work done and no one complains. While it’s easy to have hundreds of feeds in a text-based aggregator, you do have to be a bit more selective in selecting audio/video feeds. There’s only 24 hours in a day, and you can’t skim it over like you can do with text. But on the other hand, you can’t read a text feed while you’re driving to a client meeting.
What’s worth your listening/watching time? A few of mine are after the jump…share yours in the comments.
Read the rest of this entry »
If you are like us – walking around with a Macbook Pro and a Novatel EVDO Express Card modem, you don’t really have worry too much about being disconnected. However, when you congregate with friends or colleagues and find them in a disconnected state, you want to share your connection. You can do that on a Mac, though it takes a little effort.
Well, the fine folks at FON, a wireless services company based in Barcelona has come up with a nifty little Mac app that turns your machine into an instant FON Spot.
Read the rest of this entry »
I do all my banking online. I watch my transactions carefully and I’m confident that if any of my accounts were compromised, I’d know soon enough to stop any damage. False sense of security? Maybe. My Aunt refuses to make a single online purchase, much less do her banking online. Is she being overly paranoid?
Aside from banking sites and places we enter credit card information, we put a great deal of trust into the sites we visit, giving them a lot of personal information. We are learning how to protect our children online, but how reckless are we being ourselves?
Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
