Web Worker Daily

While “Internet Addiction” isn’t, technically, an accepted clinical diagnosis, there are plenty of anecdotal cases of obsessive and compulsive use of the Internet that becomes socially deletirious. And people toting around wifi laptops and web-enabled cell phones would likely be considered at particular risk. Catherine Holohan of BusinessWeek wrote a good article about the issue today.

“It’s not surprising that it is not defined yet, because these things change very slowly,” says Greenfield. “But when you are in clinical practice and you are dealing with people’s lives, you can’t wait for those issues to be addressed. There is a huge problem with Internet abuse in the workplace, and you can’t pretend that they don’t exist because there isn’t a label.”

So where do you draw the line between “use” and “abuse,” especially when being online all the time is considered a professional requirement?

One of the unintended consquences of moving so many employees out of the office is how to keep up morale and effectively manage teams when the physical dimension is removed from the equation. In a must-read article for people who manage teams of telecommuters, Network World took a look at number of different approaches by companies to solve the problems.

From large companies like IBM organizing fun activities like picnics and sports, to smaller companies like Perkett PR meeting up at Chamber of Commerce meetings to network, there seem to be plenty of excuses to get together during on and off hours to meet in person. Offline strategies include ‘water cooler’ video conference chats and simply being friendly over IM to humanize daily interactions.

While many of these solutions may seem intuitive to those of us who have grown up with all this technology at the center of our lives, it’s interesting to take a look at the tensions being created in traditional corporate culture.

Windows users of Skype can now download version 3.0 of the software, but the new features (Public Chat, last.fm integration) aren’t so much with the practical.

Put off getting that EVDO card if you’re a Verizon customer in the ten city test market, because you may want to wait for the EVDO Rev. A card required to access the public rollout rumored for Friday. This follow’s Sprint’s launch just yesterday in markets like New York, San Francisco and LA.

And Google goes open source with their Google Web Toolkit. No new features (yet), but this is still good news for developers of free, online apps and the people who love them.

Little did misguided, mid-century, sci-fi futurists know, but instead of commuting to work in a hovercraft, I don’t commute to work at all. I’m also still waiting for frickin’ laser blasters. Because every web worker needs to protect themselves from laptop theft.

And so it goes with wearable, visual overlay displays. Yes, they work. Kind of. And no, you can’t wear them in public. For all sorts of reasons. Which sort of defeats the purpose. Still, it seems every year at CES we see a newer, slightly better version demoed, and this year will be no different thanks to Lumus-Optical.

I think I’ll wait for the implants. Though I can’t wait to read the reports from the floor in Vegas.

If you’re a Simpson’s fan, you’ll remember Principal Skinner’s advice to Bart Simpson in the episode, “Bart the Murderer:”

Principal Skinner: Here’s a whole box of unsealed envelopes for the PTA!
Bart: You’re making me lick envelopes?
P.S.: Oh, licking envelopes can be fun! All you have to do is make a game of it.
Bart: What kind of game?
P.S.: Well, for example, you could see how many you could lick in an hour, then try to break that record.
Bart: Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me.
P.S.: Yes, well… Get started.

Ryan Carson of Carsonified suggests pretty much the same technique for tackling daily tasks, with the twist of counting points to weigh critical tasks more heavily. [Note: Skinner does use this system to save himself from certain death later in the episode, in case you think we're making fun.]

The system was inspired by an article on Printable CEO by David Seah which outlines the program in more detail. And because productivity nuts love a good web app, Rough Underbelly’s Geoffrey Grosenbach has written one to keep track of your score online.

Something on the PR wire caught my eye this morning — Tel Aviv startup BeInSync scored a round of funding from a trio of European and Israeli VCs. In a rare case of business deal news leading me to a cool new application, it turns out BeInSync offers software to synchronize files across a number of systems using secure, peer-to-peer file transfers without a central server.

Which is just an elegant solution to the problem of maintaining a central set of personal and professional work across a team of people with multiple machines. Sadly, it only supports Windows, so multi-platform sharing is out the window. Version 2.5 was just released, and it’s a free download, so there’s no reason not to check it out.

AppZapper, “The uninstaller Apple forgot,” announced a new release today that adds some great new features to this small but handy tool for uninstalling applications on Mac OS X. User Authentication makes sure that your kids don’t ‘accidentally’ uninstall critical applications to install the latest video game, and UnZap allows you to remove applications non-destructively, and restore them later if you like.

The problem AppZapper solves is that while it’s terribly easy to install software in OS X, finding all the support files can be annoying. Shareware, a full license is only $13, so it’s a good bargain for Web Workers like us who are always trying out and then discarding the latest and greatest apps.

A survey by MetaFacts of over 7,000 American computer users which focused on mobile computing came to some interesting conclusions. To quote the press release, “Mobile PC users enjoy their nomadic lifestyle, being twice as likely as desktop PC users to be using a handheld GPS, Apple iPod, other portable MP3 player or digital camcorder.” They gamble, blog and buy more online as well. Another recent study showed that over 30% of home machines are notebook PCs.

But it was also found that work-issue laptops aren’t nearly as mobile as personal machines, with personal users more likely to log in at libraries and cybercafes and workers at hotels and client offices, if at all. In other words, workers may be wireless, but are still somewhat tethered to their workplace, at least with the company laptop.

InformationWeek blogger Barbara Krasnoff wonders if the size and weight isn’t an issue for workers on the go, and asks for suggestions on a lightweight solution for her upcoming trip to the CES in Las Vegas. I just loved the ultra-light PC-MM20 from Sharp even if it was getting long in the tooth, and find the Lenovo ThinkPad X41 to be eminently luggable. But other than a brief caress of an OQO 01+, I’ve never tried one of the sub-notebooks, with or without a portable keyboard. Any thoughts?