I came to instant messaging (IM) late by many web worker’s standards. Spending time on some locked-down client sites meant that IM was never part my communications toolbox. However, when I started working with ISP and telecom clients, everybody wanted my IM details. At the time, I settled on Trillian because it supported multiple IM protocols, so I didn’t have to keep switching clients to communicate with clients and project team members.
Now that I am getting to grips with my new iPhone 3Gs, I have been looking for an IM client for it. The good news is that Trillian for the iPhone is now available ($3.99 from the iTunes App Store) — and it’s good enough for me to come back to Trillian, at least on my iPhone. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the weekend, Adobe launched a revamped version of Acrobat.com, its web office and collaboration suite. This is the first major upgrade to the service since it left beta last summer (as covered by Thursday) and provides some much-needed productivity enhancements to this service.
An early concern of mine when Adobe made the leap to web services with Acrobat.com was that it was trying to be everything to everybody, but this latest version of Acrobat.com quells that doubt. Acrobat took the step of “crowd sourcing” its requirements gathering process for this new release, and incorporated over 35 ideas from Acrobat.com users into the latest version. Read the rest of this entry »
To coincide with the release of the desktop Office 2010 beta, Microsoft is finally embracing the web office with today’s release of Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps beta, a web version of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that augments or even replaces the desktop version of Microsoft Office.
With Google and Zoho adding new features and winning customers from the venerable Microsoft Office suite, putting Office on the web is a move that is long overdue. It has the potential to offer users a better way to collaborate with their employers, clients and project teams. Read the rest of this entry »
As of today, Microsoft Office 2010 has officially left Technical Preview and is now in public beta, meaning that anybody can download it and take it for a spin. I was able to get an early look at the beta and want to relay some of the changes you can expect in this upcoming release. Microsoft is really stepping up its game with this release, and even though there are scattered reports of performance issues, I am not seeing them on my Vista test machine.
We covered the release of the Office 2010 Technical Preview and the Office Web Apps Technical Preview. This beta smooths out some rough edges in the Technical Preview releases and adds some new features: Read the rest of this entry »
Last year, I attended a professional workshop where the instructor asked us to write out our worst habit. Unfortunately, more than one answer flooded my brain, and I had to seriously consider which to choose. In the end, I decided that my most unabashed, shameless and ubiquitous bad habit is impatience.
My impatience invades every aspect of my personal and professional life. For instance, I constantly find myself wondering, “Why do these people take so long in line at the grocery store?” Counting out each precious penny, then pulling out a coupon, then deciding they don’t really want the milk after all. Instead of an express line for 12 items or less, I think grocery store lines should be divided up into only two lanes — a line for those of us who move fast, have somewhere important to go and something worthwhile to do and a line for those who don’t. See, I told you I was impatient.
In terms of how it’s affected my productivity at work, I’m embarrassed to say that my impatience has led to countless instances of emails sent in a hurry, which only needed to be retracted or clarified latter; decisions made on quick assumptions — that turned out to be wrong — and occasional crankiness with those around me who are not moving fast enough. Read the rest of this entry »
WebWorkerDaily readers are a diverse bunch. Every week, I profile a different reader and ask them to share what they do, how they do it, and some of their favorite hints and tips.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Adam Valuckas, and I have an awesome full-time job creating online video advertising for a newspaper. My second full-time job is my startup VJIX Creative. At VJIX I make online videos that highlight how applications will befit their customers. I have two projects completed and a few more on the way.
What’s a typical day like for you?
When working on VJIX projects, my days are spent animating motion graphics. It can be painstaking work — I imagine that watching me work is about as exciting as watching my girlfriend knit. To keep myself entertained I stream films from Netflix on my Xbox nonstop unless I’m editing audio. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the banes of many writers’ existence (including my own!) is inheriting a slew of documents where the people working on them previously haven’t paid much heed to document versioning, leaving you trying to make sense of a mishmash of documents. On more than one occasion, I’ve been left hoping for a tool that would enable me to compare documents in bulk so I can get a mess of a documentation library under control before I can begin the real work on a project.
While word processors like Microsoft Word often include a one-to-one compare documents feature, what if you inherit a whole library of documents? Enter CompareMyDocs.com, a new web-based service from Nordic River, the makers of TextFlow, a version management tool. It enables you to compare multiple .rtf, .doc, and .docx documents. Read the rest of this entry »
I work with a number of nonprofit organizations and associations. A common theme among them is their reliance on fundraising efforts to gather money for their projects.
While some groups may use a content management platform like Wild Apricot (which includes built-in features to help with donation management) for many groups such tools are unavailable or insufficient.
Minds on Design Lab has taken its experiences working with fundraising groups to develop Giving Impact, a web-based service that allows groups to create and track fundraising campaigns, and then take them viral with social media integration.
Read the rest of this entry »
I came to instant messaging (IM) late by many web worker’s standards. Spending time on some locked-down client sites meant that IM was never part my communications toolbox. However, when I started working with ISP and telecom clients, everybody wanted my IM details. At the time, I settled on Trillian because it supported multiple IM protocols, so I didn’t have to keep switching clients to communicate with clients and project team members.
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
