Whether you own your own business, telecommute, or simply scrounge what you can online, chances are at some point you’ve needed money — maybe to hire temporary help, buy new equipment, or finally pay off that coffee shop tab. Credit cards often have very high interest rates and traditional lending may not accommodate the fickle nature of a geek’s back-of-napkin bookkeeping. Prosper.com could be the solution.
Prosper.com enables peer-to-peer loans. The April 2007 issue of Fast Company described Prosper as a place where:
Borrowers create listings that detail how much money they need, what it’s for, and the highest interest rate they’re willing to pay. Prospective lenders offer specific amounts, and compete on the rate they’re willing to accept. As more lenders bid, the ultimate rate tends to get driven down.
Read the rest of this entry »
You’d think nothing could be less risky than sitting at a desk and working at a computer all day. Web workers do face health challenges though. Whether it’s eye strain, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or the steady emergence of love handles to tote your disappearing six pack these maladies can collectively be called ‘deskitis.’ With a few simple solutions, however, deskitis doesn’t have to be an affliction of the mobile digerati.
Read the rest of this entry »
It was one of those times that cause people to quote the omniscient Murphy. I was not only staring at the cold, hard reality of an oncoming deadline. I was also watching in horror as the little winking light that indicated my Internet status glowed red. Like most Internet routers green means go. Red means the series of tubes that brings the Internets to my house needs some Draino. Worse yet, having a VoIP phone meant I couldn’t even call for an ETA for when things would be restored.
Many corporate clients keep their workers happily productive (or at least on YouTube) by having multiple paths to the Internet. This redundancy ensures that if one service suffers a setback the wheels of commerce continue to churn. But is this a practical expense for a home based worker? Are there flexible business options that can be purchased on a house-by-house basis or am I stuck with the consumer level DSL and/or Cable options in my area? And if I do have multiple connections to the wider web are there intelligent ways of optimizing the bandwidth? Fail over? Load balancing? Or is this the powers-that-be telling me its time to go to the local coffee shop?
Am I the only one who gets nervous about placing all my productivity eggs in one ISP’s basket? What have you done to avoid net downtime?
Entrepreneurship is a craft. But given the risky nature of starting one’s own business are there opportunities to practice the skills involved? Absolutely. Below I’ve taken five online opportunities that would be a natural extension of a web worker’s daily routine. Each does require certain skills and, in some cases, a small amount of capital. However, all are purposely picked to have the lowest barriers to entry. The goal is to learn. If something doesn’t work it’s possible to iterate until it does; the only major cost is the time invested. The exercises below probably won’t make you a Rockefeller. However, they will help hone those entrepreneurial chops and give you a greater appreciation for the issues and effort involved.
Read the rest of this entry »
March Madness is much more than a some spring college tournament. It is the nail biting, single elimination tour de force that, by months end, has crowned the NCAA’s top team. The winning squad has to out perform 63 of the nation’s other top performers.
While the action on the court is intense it pales in comparison to the drama, the tension, and the heartache of the office pools that accompany it. These coworker competitions, often for money, bring out everyone’s inner Nostradamus. Luckily, trying to guess what will happen from the 9.22 quintillion possible outcomes puts the sport neophyte in accounting on equal footing with with ESPN junkie in sales. But if you’re a web worker without an office what madness does March contain for you?
Read the rest of this entry »
The first few months of any New Year are prime cold and flu season. For web workers the consequences of falling ill are much more dire than our cubical brethren; if we aren’t working, we aren’t getting paid. Further, the frequent use of public spaces makes the web worker a target. Our exposure primes us for anything from a sniffle to Ebola’s little sister. The best way to avoid getting sick is to have as little stress, workload, and waking hours as possible. However, for most people (let alone the web worker) this isn’t possible. With the stakes high and likelihood higher what’s a digital doer to do?
Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
