Web Worker Daily

I needed to get out of the house. And I needed to get some work done. A friend emailed and told me to come check out an open house for the Hat Factory, a Coworking community space in San Francisco’s semi-industrial Dogpatch neighborhood — making it a choice no-transfer commute. Less Muni drama that way.

The idea isn’t entirely new, but it’s no less interesting for it. Similar arrangements exist for artists’ studios as well as VC-funded incubator space. Visiting The Grotto, a writing community space in Downtown San Francisco was a revelation. “That’s what I need,” I thought to myself (and not just about a writing job).

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The Washington Post ran an article about a new internet-enabled social space — Buzz in Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Besides offering hot coffee, drinks, desserts which sound decidedly scrumptious, what was really intriguing was the mention of a toy-stocked play area for kids.

“I can already picture it as a parking lot for strollers,” writes a reviewer on Yelp. Imagine if they offered short-term supervised daycare, similar to what IKEA shoppers enjoy! While there are lots of wifi cafes here in San Francisco, it’s hard to think of any that could be described as “kid friendly” — though that could be said of The City, generally.

Does one really want kids around while trying to get some work done?

Ubikuo offers an AJAXy, socially networked, mobile accessible system for virtual sticky notes. Lockergnome wonders what was wrong with, you know, sticky notes.

Looking for gadgets, or looking to get rid of your gadgets? Flippid allows you to post gadgets for sale or post a wish list. With tags!

Word Shoot should help you become a more charming IM conversationalist by improving your typing. Think Mavis Bacon meets The Terminator.

Fauxto, an online image editing tool built with Flash, has an impressively Photoshop like user interface and, even more impressively, allows you to work with layers.

I can’t imagine I’m the only person who’s ever spilled a drink on my laptop. And if you’re hauling your deck from dining table to cafe to conference, then you might want to think about getting something a bit more rugged. To be released in January, NEC’s “ShieldPro” FC-N21S is a ruggedized tablet PC weighing 2.5lbs with an Intel processor clocking in at 1.2ghz.

More importantly, as the video above demonstrates, you can lean this machine against a tree at a dog park without a care in the world. It even promises to withstand drops of nearly three feet. Consider the estimated $2,600 price tag as paying an insurance premium on your data.

A new article in The Economist details a transition by Arizona State University IT director Adrian Sannier from the school’s application infrastructure to Google’s “Apps for your domain:”

For Mr Sannier, however, a bigger reason than money for switching from traditional software to web-based alternatives has to do with the pace and trajectory of technological change. Using the new Google service, for instance, students can share calendars, which they could not easily do before. Soon Google will integrate its online word processor and spreadsheet software into the service, so that students and teachers can share coursework. Eventually, Google may add blogs and wikis—it has bought firms with these technologies. Mr Sannier says it is “absolutely inconceivable” that he and his staff could roll out improvements at this speed in the traditional way—by buying software and installing it on the university’s own computers.

This is a great example of how even larger organizations can take advantage of the consumer-facing online tools that independent contractors, startups and small businesses have embraced.

[via Broadstuff]

By Pierre Khawand of People-OntheGo

A radio announcer was talking once about the qualities that he is looking for in a life partner. In summary, he said that he was seeking someone who has the looks of Cindy Crawford, the heart of mother Teresa, the brain of Einstein, and the wealth of Bill Gates. If I had to take this approach with smartphones, I would go for the look and feel and features of the BlackBerry Pearl, the full QWERTY keyboard of the Dash, the reliability and high-speed of the Verizon network, and the international support of T-Mobile or Cingular. But until such a smartphone is available, here is how I went about selecting my smartphone.

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Spotted over at J.D. Lasica’s New Media Musings was a link to this article by Scott Goldberg of Digital Media Wire on “12 Unwritten Rules of Cell Phone Etiquette.” My favorite is number 11:

11) Lengthy Voicemail Messages
If I reach your voicemail, don’t you think I already know you can’t take my call right now and want me to leave my name, number, and a brief message? Do you need to waste my time telling me that? The whole process of leaving a message to begin with is too long. The last thing I want when I finally reach your personal greeting is a lengthy description of what you want me to do. We’ve been using cell phones long enough to know the drill. Just as you want my message to be brief, so too do I want you to keep your personal greeting short.

Now, I’ve certainly broken a few of these rules. What are your pet peeves when it comes to cell phones?

If you happen to be in Berlin on December 23rd, check out Fabienne Serriere’s workshop on how to mod a cheap WiFi signal strength detector into your backpack or messenger bag strap. If, like me, you won’t be anywhere near Berlin on December 23rd, you can follow along at home with this Engadget How-To.

What would be even more boss would be to hack the LED display of the Canary Wirless Digital Hotspotter to the strap, so that you can check specifically for open networks.