Many freelancers and small business owners want to find ways to give back and be more socially responsible, but running a business can make it seem impossible to find the time to do anything other than the task immediately in front of us.
How can you find a way (and the time) to do more good in the world, while still keeping up with the demands of our businesses? One solution is to focus on one trait at a time.
First, make a list of all the positive traits you would like to have (generous, responsible, helpful, supportive, etc.). Read the rest of this entry »
Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week:
We’re looked at the productivity benefits of using more than one screen before, but Sam asks: are two enough?
Working with inexperienced freelancer brings a new set of challenges — Celine explains how to get them up to speed.
Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. Here, Meryl shares 32 ways to use Facebook effectively in your business.
YouTube can be used for so much more than just posting videos of sleepwalking dogs. Here, Meryl explains how to put YouTube for use in your business.
Georgina outlines how to make sure your teleconferences go smoothly.
Up until yesterday, one of the really annoying things about Gmail was that if you wanted to use it to send email from an address other than your Gmail address (a company email address, say), it would add your Gmail address into the Sender header in the email. This would result in your email being displayed as being from “myname@gmail.com On Behalf Of myname@company.com” in some email clients, like Microsoft Outlook. That looks quite unprofessional, and made it hard to use Gmail to manage corporate email without forking out for a Google Apps account.
Well, yesterday Google added the option to send your email using your own SMTP server, meaning that it won’t need to add your Gmail address to the Sender header. In other words, no more of that unprofessional-looking “On Behalf Of.” Read the rest of this entry »
These days, there seems to be a new product aimed at managing projects every week. Just in the last month or so, WWD has reviewed MissingLink Project Center, Zen, Zoho Projects and EasyProjects.net. Joining this parade is WizeHive, which has just released a new beta with several upgraded features.
I find a project management system indispensable. Like a lot of web workers, I’m always juggling multiple projects and clients, and such systems are the only way for me to easily track deadlines, time spent, and progress. So I’m always interested in new options, although my three-person company has been generally happy with ActiveCollab.
Thus, when I look at a product like WizeHive, I confess that I have some preconceived ideas as to how a project management system should operate. I’m not entirely sure that WizeHive would work for me, but it does include some good ideas, and the latest update offers some nice features: Read the rest of this entry »
While my first impressions of the next version of Microsoft Office, Office 2010, were quite positive, I did have one major disappointment. Why didn’t Microsoft make Outlook 2010 more social? I was hoping that the venerable email application would gain support for social media.
While email is still king in many organizations, it would be useful to be able to access Twitter, LinkedIn ,and even Facebook directly from Outlook.
Even though Microsoft hasn’t officially added support for social media to the next version of the app, you can customize Outlook 2007 and add social features yourself. Here is a quick overview of some add-ins that can help you make Outlook more social. Read the rest of this entry »
Like Simon, I use Google tools to manage just about everything I do. I keep most of my files saved as Google Docs. I use Google Calendar to schedule my time. I rely on Gmail to manage the several emails addresses I have. Having a fairly integrated set of tools makes managing my work a lot easier. I’m always looking for ways to use Google tools to manage a little bit more of my digital life, like using Google Calendar to manage invoices. A new, free Adobe Air application, Google Calendar Invoice Creator, provides the capability to do just that. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re like me, you’re probably skipping between various Google services all the time. If you use Firefox, and are looking for a simple, customizable and, above all, fast way to access Google web sites from either a drop-down menu or a toolbar, you should check out GButts, a nifty add-on with a silly name.
To get started with GButts, install the add-on from the Mozilla Add-ons site and restart Firefox (it’s compatible with Firefox 2 and later). You won’t see any changes yet, because you need to configure GButts and add the drop-down menu or toolbar to your browser. First, go to Tools -> Add-ons and open GButts’ Preferences page. You’ll be presented with a huge list of Google services, as well as a few configuration options:
Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
