With a pen-like stylus and a “physics-enabled” virtual workspace prototyped by BumpTop, you can organize electronic files into piles just like you do on your real desktop. I’m not sure whether this shows radical innovation or utter insanity; either way, it’s impressive.
We’ve considered the virtues of messiness before, but you’re probably wondering just why we’d want to bring the mess of the real world into cyberspace. Well, this system is not really about messiness, but rather about a different kind of order than the folders and files metaphor used by desktop operating systems today. The idea is that the way we organize papers and other items on our desk into piles holds meaning — we might, for example, create a pile for each project we’re currently working on.
The prototype workspace shown in the video has a bunch of cool features. When you “pick up” a file with the pen, it’s attached to the pen position by a spring, to give it a physical feel. Pushing a file up against another file bumps it out of the way. You can crumple up a file to represent an intermediate step towards eventual deletion. You can also fold the corner of a file to distinguish it from other files.
Whether this represents a viable way of dealing with electronic files is not clear, but it does show how cool future user interfaces will be.
HiTask is a spiffy-looking new web-based task management application that I really want to like. The user interface is full of Ajaxy goodness and well-thought-out functionality that makes it both easy and fun to use. But alas, in the current run of web applications a great user interface isn’t enough to make an application compelling, and there are a few other areas where HiTask doesn’t quite make it for me.
You may already know that you can tune your productivity with music — why not make it easy on yourself and do so with your cell phone? I get excited when I see announcements about fancy new music-playing mobile phones like the twistingly cool Nokia 5700 Xpress Music and the Sony Ericsson W580 Walkman with integrated pedometer and hot orange accents. Unfortunately, neither is available today. Don’t even get me started about the iPhone, because I can’t buy that today either, even if I did want to spend almost $500 while locking myself into two years with Cingular.
There are some pretty nice music phones that you can get today, fortunately, and for a lot less than the iPhone. Here are four possibilities in the under $100 range (that’s with a service contract, natch), one for each of the major U.S. carriers.
Peer-to-Peer file exchange is nothing new. Enthusiasts have been getting their media (and getting sued over getting their media) via P2P services for years. What’s a more recent trend, and one that keeps the lawyers away, is P2P-like services that are personal and direct. Instead of opening your data up to the world, you are directly connected to the digital media carried on your friend’s computer and you have total control over who connects to you and downloads what you have to share.
Tubes is one such Friend-to-Friend service, treating your collections of connections to your friends/colleagues as if they were IM buddies. It’s that simple. GigaOM covered the application’s launch a few months ago. Instead of exchanging text snippets of thought, you’re “conversing” in files. Read on for an overview of the latest Tubes beta. It should also be noted that Tubes drew WWD’s attention by recently announcing that the service now caters to Mac users. But there’s a catch…
As web workers, most of us are steeped in Web 2.0 throughout our working day (never mind that we can’t agree on what “Web 2.0″ means). Many of us have embraced online applications from Google, Yahoo, and elsewhere to do the bulk of our work, and we rely on a mishmash of social media sites to stay in touch with our peers and build our extended networks. But this connectivity comes at a cost: the internet is filled with bright, shiny distractions.
Content security firm Clearswift recently tried to quantify the magnitude of the problem with a survey of 827 employees in organizations of 1,000 people and up. Among their findings:
43% of office workers access social media sites from their work computers several times a day
51% spend an hour or more a week on the sites; 13% spend five hours or more
46% have discussed work-related issues on social media sites
46% regularly access Wikipedia during work hours
50% believe they have a right to use work computers for personal internet access
The Opt-Out Revolt by Lisa A. Mainiero and Sherry E. Sullivan is not just about women leaving the workforce to care for children, though the title might lead you to believe that. Packed densely with the results of research into the shape of people’s careers, this book offers insight and perspective to independent web workers and corporate employees alike.
The vast majority of businesses choose Microsoft Windows as their operating system but if you’re an independent web worker you don’t have to. Whether you run Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS X, or Linux, you’ll have to make some serious tradeoffs. However, they’re all viable choices these days, especially if you do the majority of your work online with web apps.
If you go with Windows, you’ll have to take special caution against spyware, viruses, and adware. If you go with a Mac, you won’t have as much to choose from in the way of hardware or software. If you go with Linux, you may be trading off ease of use against the philosophical and technical pleasures of open-source software with a venerable history.
Despite our strained relationship with the tax man, most Americans don’t balk at paying their fair share. But there are limits. How would you like to be taxed on 200% of your income, for example? As a telecommuter, you could easily end up in that nasty position simply by choosing the wrong employer.
Live in California and work for a New York company by internet connection, for example, and you could be in a world of hurt. California will properly consider you a resident and want state taxes on your full income. But then New York will apply a charming thing called the “convenience of the employer” rule and demand resident income taxes on 100% of your income too, on the grounds that you were a New York resident in disguise for all those long telecommuting hours.
HiTask
You may already know that you can 
Peer-to-Peer file exchange is nothing new. Enthusiasts have been getting their media (and getting sued over getting their media) via P2P services for years. What’s a more recent trend, and one that keeps the lawyers away, is P2P-like services that are personal and direct. Instead of opening your data up to the world, you are directly connected to the digital media carried on your friend’s computer and you have total control over who connects to you and downloads what you have to share.
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
