Web Worker Daily

Yesterday Google introduced a ‘remote signout’ feature for Gmail, providing a capability that sets an inportant precendent for web-based applications and indeed web workers.

Most web workers tend to hop between multiple devices to access our web applications; Gmail is a great case in point with multiple interfaces mechanisms spread across web, mobile, IMAP and POP3 formats, however it’s easy to lose track of where you’re signed in and compromise a little of your privacy and security if you’re not careful.

Remote Signout enables Gmail users to keep track of recent sessions by IP address and remotely logoff from any of those sessions if the time or location seems suspect.

Gmail inboxes, where the feature is being rolled out progressively, will include a new item in the footer labeled ‘This account is open in x other locations’ with a link to a more detailed view, as illustrated here to the left. Of course, you’ll need to know your own IP addresses to understand if any unauthorized usage is taking place, so it’s not the best user experience, though it works and is a welcome feature.

More significantly Remote Signout sets an important precedent for all web applications - namely that such a feature should be a design pattern employed in all web applications.

Oftentimes the only indication a user has of malicious use is when unusual things begin to happen within their services, in real life, or the arrival of unsolicited password reminder email in their inboxes! By wiring in the means to audit access usage of an application, one of the barriers to policing your personal security and privacy is lowered, enabling us all to be just a little more preemptively vigilant.

Learn more about Gmail’s remote signout feature at Google’s Gmail blog…

One of the great strengths of the global coworking community is the willingness to share knowledge and best practice without restriction and with openness wired into the very values of this community.

Recently a member of the global coworking mailing list, Joseph Holsten) recently created what’s essentially a recipe book of ‘how to’ guides for those seeking to setup a coworking community, coworking space or simply better operate the communities and spaces they’re already running.

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WWD’s Mike Gunderloy covered Mozilla’s Weave project back in December, noting its usefulness in synchronizing bookmarks between a user’s various installations of Firefox…essentially moving a Firefox user profile into the cloud.

Monday saw the release of a major update to Weave, bringing in several new features and, tellingly, locating Weave at a subdomain of Mozilla, named ‘services‘, implying that Weave will be the umbrella for a number of web-based service coming from Mozilla’s commercial arm. Also telling is the hackable and very social URL issued to a user on signup (in my case, http://services.mozilla.com/user/imran)

So what’s new?

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With Gordon Brown’s fiscal reputation following Dubya’s own battered rep into a swirling black hole of oil prices and crunchy credit, it’s heartening to know that (sometimes) Her Majesty’s government can still do its subjects a few financial favours here in Blighty.

A couple of weeks ago, the UK’s tax authority - Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs Service - announced a number of measures that may benefit Britain’s web workers, and more broadly, any Brits working from home.

Those working from home whom have a portion of their residence setup as a dedicated work area or office can claim that portion as a tax rebate. Also, they no longer have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of their home.

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The New York Times continues its love affair with the notion of coworking with last Friday’s Working Alone in a Group by Lisa Belkin.

Quickly realizing her home is not conducive to a productive working environment, Belkin experimented with coworking at Stamford CT’s Soundview Coworking, (actually a little more formal than regular coworking spaces, probably due to it’s location inside a lounge at the local Marriott).

Belkin goes on to explore some of the downside of coworking, relating the story of Cubes & Crayons founder M. F. Chapman:

“I wasn’t getting any work done when I was there,” because clients wanted to stop and chat. When she has real work, she now heads home.“

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Only the FON-ely...FON-liness Of The Long Distance Runner. Yes, I had a whole bank of puns to title this post. They’ll all aptly tragic in telling the tale of a promising piece of web worker infrastructure that has in essence become a network of very lonely and isolated hotspots…

I first came across FON at O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony 2006 conference, as then company evangelist Ejovi Nuwere outlined a vision of a global wifi network built from the grassroots, owned and operated by its users. Ejovi explained that users installing a FON hotspot would be able to earn revenue from its use or, if they agreed to charge no access fee, use every other FON hotspot at no cost when travelling away from home.

A few months later I recieved a complimentary La Fonera router, becoming the 4089th ‘Fonero’ (currently there are 671′363 users). A few days ago, I switched off my La Fonera, packaging it for an eBay bidder that paid just $17. Now the thing is, none of those 671′362 other Fonero’s hotspots were in places I where I needed connectivity…

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Tommorow sees the long-awaited release of Clint Eastwood’s Firefox 3, the third movie in the popular series of Craig Thomas novels, including Firefox, Firefox Down and Winter Hawk.

As with most cinematic releases, the movie will be available as a Usenet file or BitTorrent, however Eastwood is celebrating the release by - get this - attempting to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours…finally Hollywood is learning to embrace DRM-free digital downloads and user-generated piracy! I wonder if Eastwood’s next movie Release Candidate will also be similarly released into the wild?

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much in the public domain abou…oh, um…I may have misunderstood some of the facts <gulps> of Om’s briefing…

M’kay…lemme start over…

I guess everyone’s aware (thanks Mike!) that tomorrow sees the long-awaited release of Mozilla’s Firefox 3, the third browser in the popular series of open source browsers, including (um) Firefox 1 and (ahem) Firefox 2?

Mozilla is celebrating the release by - get this - attempting to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. All you need to do to help contribute to the record is download Firefox 3 during tomorrow’s Download Day and pledging that you’ll do so at the official world record site.

So far 1,385,062 individuals have pledged to download our ubiquitous foxy friend, including 56,300 of my fellow Britons! Accompanying the launch and the record attempt are a global series of launch parties - check for local parties at Mozilla Party Central.

Most importantly - and I can’t stress this enough - Think In Russian!

I’m constantly surprised at the cutely obvious names of some web services - finding a brand name that’s sublimely obvious but if successful is very likely to be as linguistically ubiquitous as ‘googling’ or ‘hoovering’. Shoeboxed may just well be one such brand - I wonder if in five years time, we’ll be ’shoeboxing’? Infact, most of us probably already are…

Launched around a year ago, Shoeboxed provides a simple service for uploading, storing and organizing all those paper receipts that are stuffed into real shoeboxes around our homes and offices, into over-sized wallets and purses, largely lost or disorganized until summoned by our accountants and tax authorities!

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