Web Worker Daily

Procrastination and time wasting are, in many ways, easier traps for web workers to fall into than they are for many other kinds of workers. You’ve probably seen the alarming numbers on how much time Internet connected workers tend to waste on everything from personal surfing to reading online news. If you use Firefox all day, install the free MeeTimer extension to start taking control of your time sinks.

MeeTimer keeps a running log of the amount of time you spend on each visit to web sites. It sits in your Firefox tray at the bottom of the screen, and your log can be pulled up at any time by hovering your mouse arrow over a small “T” in the tray. You group the sites you visit by the type of activity they represent: procrastination, search, work, communication, etc.

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Microsoft is not a name particularly associated with remote web work. And yet, some people within the company happily telecommute. One notable example is Chris Sells, a Program Manager in the Distributed Systems Group. Chris recently posted a series of articles to his blog detailing some of the challenges he’s faced in his years of working remotely for Microsoft, and the strategies that he’s used to overcome them. The whole makes fascinating (and instructive) reading for any corporate web worker.

While some of the points in this series are specific to Microsoft’s own peculiar corporate culture, others are more widely applicable. He starts by identifying the #1 issue for telecommuters as whether you can focus on work at home. This agrees with my own experience; some people are naturals at balancing the competing pressures of working in the same space with family and other distractions, while it drives others crazy. If you can’t get over this hurdle, all the fancy technology and email tricks in the world won’t save you. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably read a few articles on how to get your email inbox to empty (if not, read David Allen, Merlin Mann, or even a couple articles by me). Clearing your inbox and keeping it clear is just a tremendous boost to your psyche and sanity, if not your productivity.

Getting it clear is one thing (be prepared to spend a day or two doing this if you have thousands of emails), but keeping it clear if you have dozens of emails coming in every hour can be a real challenge.

First, you should try following these simple rules:

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Microsoft is out with a new beta 2 version of its Sharedview screen sharing and collaboration application. If you’re a Windows user and haven’t tried it, and especially if you collaborate online with other web workers, it’s worth a look. It’s an easy way for up to 15 people at remote locations to view each other’s screens and applications, chat with each other, exchange handouts, and more.

Beta 2 is free for anyone to try. You need a Windows Live ID and password to sign up, but a simple Hotmail address and password will suffice. I used the first beta of Sharedview and found that it had a few performance problems, and it was a little kludgey to invite others into Sharedview sessions. Both of those problems are cleaned up in the new version, though.

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As a web worker, you’re likely loaded up with gadgets of all sorts. There seems to be a pretty good correlation between those of us who work on the web and those of us who accumulate things that beep, buzz, light up, transmit, and receive. But this also means that our homes are filled with consumers of vampire power - or, if you prefer a less seasonal and more neutral term, standby power.

Simply speaking, standby power is all the electricity used by things when you’re not actively using them. Take a walk through your house at dusk and look at all the digital time and temperature and channel displays, all the pretty LED lights, all the remote controls listening for your commands, all the wall chargers humming away, all the instant-on appliances: those are all standby power users. Depending on who you believe, they’re responsible for somewhere between 3% and 20% of your electricity bill (and a corresponding percentage of your contribution to global warming, strip-mining, and other energy consumption-related ills). Read the rest of this entry »

Applying for a job without knowing somebody at the company first often feels like a quixotic mission. You throw your resume into the faceless online job site grinder and hope a human being somewhere along the way recognizes your obvious talents and relevant life and work experience. Good luck with that, Don!

Here’s how to put keyword optimization to work getting your resume discovered.

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Do you regularly collaborate online with other web workers? If so, you and your fellow collaborators should look into the free online networking service offered by Leaf Networks. It lets you and a group of co-workers or friends instantly create your own private, secure network right on the web. It’s akin to having a LAN that you share resources on, except you can think of the Leaf Networks service as an online hosted LAN solution.

After you go through some easy steps to set Leaf’s application up, you and your co-workers can share files, photos and more with all the sharing going online. Additionally, if you frequently use public Wi-Fi hotspots, Leaf’s application essentially functions as a VPN (Virtual Private Network)—giving you private tunnels to communicate and share within.

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Now that Apple’s new Leopard version of OS X is shipping, you may be wondering whether it’s time to upgrade. Certainly the $129 price tag is enough to give some people pause for a minor version increment - especially knowing that Apple will be back in another year or so asking for another swipe of the credit card to upgrade to OS X 10.6. Sure, there are those 300 new features to think about - but how many of them are really going to make a bottom line difference to the average web worker?

Well, like most things in the computer world, it depends. If you’ve already spent a lot of time and effort setting up third party software to optimize your connected life, and you’re happy with the way that everything fits together, you might not find a whole lot more than eye candy in Leopard. On the other hand, if you’re open to trying new integrated functionality, or haven’t dug deeply into add-ons, much of this might be new to you. Here’s our pick of the best Leopard innovations for the OS X user on the go. Read the rest of this entry »