There’s nothing worse than walking down to the cafe or office with your iPod on singing away with Britney Spears when suddenly… sound is gone, the battery is dead, and you still have another 15 minute commute. Imagine if the same thing happened with your cell phone and you didn’t have your charger!
What are your choices? You can walk it out listening to cars zoom by, or pull that MintyBoost out of your bag. What is a MintyBoost? It’s a little convenient USB battery pack and recharger made from a mint tin, USB port, and a few AA’s. This little pack can be used to power anything that has a USB connection from cameras, cell phones, iPods, to any other USB gadget. Its small and easily portable and when tested was able to last for 3hrs on 2AA batteries watching video on an iPod video, or 26 hours with an iPod mini.
The kit has been tested on multiple devices, and has been reported to work on iPods, Zunes, Sony PSP’s, Blackberry, Treo 700, Garmin Edge, and Palm TX among others. The kit is listed at $19.50 US.
Ok, let’s face it, as far as web workers are concerned, Starbucks is an almost daily pitstop. We usually hit the same one everyday, or maybe have a few locations that we love to work from. But what happens when you are on vacation, working from a new location, or in another city?
How on earth can we hunt down our beloved latte headquarters? Usually we would power on our laptop and hunt a Starbucks location down from their official site. Well now there is a better way, built exclusively for web workers in mind, almost. Caffeine addicts can now send a text message with a zip code to “MYSBUX”. You will get a text back with three of your nearest locations with their address and phone numbers. What would be interesting if there was a Google Map mash-up of Starbucks, and a link to the map is embedded in the SMS we receive.
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For a lot of people, ideas flow throughout the day, and if we don’t snatch them and write them down, we usually end up forgetting them. Then there are the multiple hours spent trying to regain our thoughts. I have found that carrying a simple notebook wherever I go is an easy way to alleviate losing ideas. When it comes to packing light however, my trusty Blackberry MemoPad does the trick. When I get to my computer, I can easily sync and store it in my Outlook. However, it’s not always easy to search using tags to locate a specific note when needed, and sharing is impossible with this route. Enter Acorn.
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One can’t underscore the importance of backing up data. We have all had a terrible experience when we have lost our data. Of course there are hard drives, and other data back solutions. Lately online storage solutions like Box.net and Xdrive, DivShare, Crashplan, and Dropboks have become popular. Add hosted file service for sending large data files called YouBackItUp to this ever growing list of solutions.
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You know 37 Signals for their famous Basecamp project management application, and the Ta-da List to do manager. Get ready for their new application, a Contact manager called Highrise, likely to be released very soon.
Highrise is a shared contact manager, and similar to Basecamp, and is built around the concept of collaboration. It can be used as a personal contact directory, or as a shared address book between co-workers.
The application can be used to keep track of contacts, what they said, and make notes attached to contacts. It sounds like a fully rounded address book application that is done right is going to make a lot of people more productive.
Jason Fried recently wrote about the new application on the 37 Signals blog, and gave a run down of their development and launch process. The next few weeks, 37Signals will release screenshots, concepts, and videos until the team is happy with the product. They are currently using the product and ironing out the kinks. To get an early preview you sign up on the site to be notified.
Highrise sounds pretty exciting. It better be because one thing the world doesn’t need is yet another online address book!
Everything takes batteries, from phones, cameras, mp3 players, and that wireless mouse on your desk. How many times do you carry a few spares when you travel? Sadly, I never do, and always kick myself when my wireless mouse starts getting jumpy from low juice. In devices like my digital camera I usually have rechargeables powering it. Now how often do I have the charging base with me? Never.
That’s why I’m so excited about coming across USBCELL. This company offers batteries that charge conveniently by USB. As web workers we always have our laptops with us, so what better way to utilize power, and always have it accessible when we need it? Supposedly just a few minutes of charging AAs is all a wireless mouse needs for several hours of usage. These AA batteries are priced at just over $17US for a pack of two. USBCELL also has 9V batteries, AAAs, and a range of batteries for major phones, handheld devices, and of course Blackberries that will be released shortly.
[via scifitech]
Music is at the core of a lot of peoples lives. Being able to listen to music on the go wherever you are is also extremely important. I for one find it an absolute must when pounding away at the keys of my computer. But what happens when you’re on the road and don’t necessarily have access to your important music collection? That’s where MP3tunes new Oboe music locker can come into play.
The new music locker has free unlimited music storage, and an unlimited streaming service with a web player that streams a user’s personal music library from within any IE of Firefox browser window. The Oboe Sync software syncs up the users Oboe locker with their PC music collection, along with album artwork, allowing users to enjoy their music collection wherever they are. Not only can Oboe be accessed with any computer that is connected to the internet, it can also be accessed via web-enabled devices.
If you choose not to listen to music in your browser and prefer to use your trusty Winamp or iTunes music players, thankfully you can do that as well. To do this, you require a special media plug-in that MP3tunes offers for download. For instance, if you wish to stream into iTunes, you need the Oboe for iTunes Media Player plug-in [available for Mac or PC] and version 6.0 or newer iTunes. Once the plug-in has been installed, you can instantly start using your iTunes to listen to your streaming remote music library through the Shared Music panel.
The free version of Oboe has unlimited space in your music locker. The unlimited storage for $39.95 allows users to store music that is up to 50MB each, backs up DRM tracks, shows album art, and takes off all advertising from the online player.
Imagine walking into a cafe, ordering a coffee and a biscuit, grabbing a seat and plugging away on your laptop. Then at the end of the week you drop a $20 into the anonymous drop box. Notice the missing step? The coins and bills to pay for your order when you receive it? Welcome to the Terra Bite cafe. It’s all about pure karma.
Terra Bite plays on the term “terabyte”, and references earth and food. It’s a dream turned into reality by Google programmer Ervin Peretz. Ervin came up with the idea of the pay-what-you-can cafe located in downtown Kirkland Washington, while arguing in a bar with a friend. Peretz put his money on the fact that people are for the most part good, but can be influenced by their environment. If people see good, they’ll do good as well.
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
