Like over 300,000 other Mac users who downloaded the MacHeist nanoBundle (as covered by Simon), I received WriteRoom as part of the package’s bevy of software. This lightweight word processor promises distraction-free writing. Having read about it and the productivity concepts underlying it in the past (here’s an old WWD post from Leo about distraction-free writing tools, for example), I was interested in giving it a spin to see if it could help me.

In a word, I found WriteRoom distracting. Here’s why:

Green Text on a Black Background. Perhaps it’s because I wear bifocals, but I find the green text on a black background to be very distracting (it hurt my eyes!) — and don’t get me started on my flashbacks of Matthew Broderick in 1983’s action thriller,  “War Games.” While some usability and productivity pundits do sing the praises of an all-black screen, the strain the screen contrast put on my eyes was a distraction unto itself.

No Visualization. Whether I’m writing my next post for WebWorkerDaily, an article, or a technical document for a client, I need to be able to visualize the final product as I’m writing. Like many writers, I like to see how my writing looks both on the screen and on paper in order to spare myself surprises at deadline time. Writing in WriteRoom doesn’t let me do that because it’s not WYSIWYG, and it doesn’t give me access to print preview or similar tools . As a technical writer, I’m probably not the right customer for WriteRoom. However, my work as a technical writer plays a heavy influence on my composition process, even when it comes to articles and blog posts.

However, while I didn’t find a productivity boost with WriteRoom, it doesn’t mean you won’t find one. As I often advise other writers, you have to find the composition process, workflow and right mix of tools that works for you and your projects.

WriteRoom is available with a free trial ($24.95 to purchase) from Hog Bay Software and — despite my experience — I recommend you giving it a try if you think it may help you with your writing.

Do you write with WriteRoom? Share your experience below.

There’s one thing I can count on having on me at all times, and that’s my iPhone. It stands to reason, then, that in a pinch, my Apple wonder device is what I turn to in order to keep track of stray ideas and thoughts that might otherwise go unrecorded, lost forever to the ether. Imagine where we’d be if the Snuggie inventor hadn’t been able to record that gem.

Idea Organizer is an app for the iPhone that I recently discovered that makes logging those ideas incredibly easy. There are other ways to do what it does, some via built-in tools offered by Apple itself, but no other solution brings all the features and functionality together in the same place.

Idea Organizer combines an audio recorder, a text notebook and an image capture tool to help make sure that you can not only keep track of any ideas that pop into your head, but also the ones you get from the world around you. You can create an idea using any type of media mentioned, and then add other types of content later to provide context.

The other reason I prefer this app to any other is that it keeps thing simple and has an intelligently designed user interface. The app opens directly to a screen that presents you with a button that gives you access to your most recent idea, and three big buttons that allow you create a new idea based on text input, photo or audio. Idea Organizer’s developers were clearly thinking about the fleeting nature of good ideas when they designed the app.

Finally, you can email any ideas to yourself at any time, for easier editing on an actual computer. You can also batch email all your ideas at once, which is a terrific convenience feature.

For $1.99, Idea Organizer (iTunes link) is great bargain for a very handy little app. Sure, you can approximate its function for free, but in many more steps and with a lot more hassle.

How do you make sure you don’t lose track of great ideas you have while out of the office?

As an amateur photographer, I like to have a nice image as my desktop wallpaper to provide me with some inspiration throughout the day. Thanks to a post on freewaregenius, I just discovered that National Graphic magazine makes a huge selection of inspiring images available for desktop wallpaper use for free.

You can get National Geographic wallpapers from two locations. The first is in the main photography section of the site. Wallpapers here are handily categorized (Adventure & Exploration,  Nature & Weather, Underwater, etc). Unfortunately, the images available in this section are only a maximum of 1280 pixels wide, which isn’t big enough for many of today’s monitors, although they should be fine on most laptops.

Fortunately, you can also use images submitted to National Geographic’s International Photography Competition, and these are available in larger sizes (up to 1600 pixels wide). These photos aren’t categorized — you need to browse by month, but flicking through the range of beautiful images isn’t much of a chore. I currently have this image of melting ice set as my desktop background.

If you’re still looking for more images, another great location to try is Flickr’s Explore page, which always has a huge selection of interesting and inspiring pictures.

Where do you get wallpaper images from?

WebWorkerDaily readers are a diverse bunch. Every week, I profile a different reader and ask them to share what they do, how they do it, and some of their favorite hints and tips.

Who are you and what do you do?

For my main job, I am a dentist. No kidding! But in 2001, I got a Palm m100 as a gift. I knew nothing about tech stuff or the web. However, I fell in love with that device, because it helped me a lot in my work. Now, nine years later, here I am: mobile tech-savvy, with the largest blog about mobility in Brazil, a podcast, writing in some magazines, talking on the radio and reviewing gadgets on a TV show. That was completely unexpected, because I started blogging in 2002 as a hobby. But mobile tech changed my life and gave me an opportunity to expand my original business. Today, I give dental home care to elderly and handicapped people, at their homes, hospitals or retirement institutions.

This year, I had to make the most difficult decision of my life: to take my hobby seriously. I don’t have a dental office any more — I just provide home care. I made this change so that I would have more freedom to travel for lectures and consulting. I talk about using mobile tech to improve productivity and social media as a marketing tool for non-IT professionals. I also spend a lot of time writing and reviewing smartphones and software.

What’s a typical day like for you?

While I don’t have a dental office anymore, I needed to improve my organizing and working tools. The weekly review (from David Allen’s GTD) is very important to keep so many activities under control. It’s done every Friday or Saturday, depending on my schedule. Running two businesses (www.odontopalm.com.br and www.garotasemfio.com.br) demands a lot of planning.

Once or twice a week I visit my patients around the city. The other days I am at my mobile office, or at a TV/radio studio, or in meetings with my mobile consulting clients and some press events. So as a mobile enthusiast, the world is my office.

On a typical non-dental day, I wake up, grab some coffee, feed my cats and write my web and magazine articles in my home office. I try not to check email before 11 a.m., as it always delays my writing plans. Even if I don’t answer them, thinking about the still-upcoming tasks spoils my focus. So no checking the inbox until the writing tasks are done! The rest of the day is spent testing new gadgets and software, reading the news and doing chores. I am also a housewife, and like to prepare our meals. Some days I also have a press event, radio or TV appointments or meeting to go.

On a dental day, I don’t have a set time to visit my patients. It depends on their health and needs, but visits are usually in early mornings or late afternoons. A single visit may take three or four hours. I arrive home very tired! The rest of these days, I usually spend reading a book and doing chores. I like to listen to podcasts while doing laundry or cooking as it helps me to relax.

My husband is an engineer; he is out all day and some nights teaching at the university. When he is not working, I try not to be working, too. So I plan my week with my husband’s schedule in mind as well. We subscribe to each other’s calendars.

What gear and software do you use, and why?

My smartphone is my main daily working tool. I am not tied to a specific one — I am always testing and reviewing new ones — but as an Omnifocus user (for Mac and mobile), the iPhone is always with me.

I live in two cities. In one, I keep my MacBook. In the other, the iMac. I subscribe to MobileMe in order to keep the two Macs and the iPhone in sync, like magic. MobileMe (for calendar, contacts and iDisk), Evernote and Dropbox are the tools I cannot live without. I also have a Nokia Symbian phone to type longer texts, with a Nokia bluetooth keyboard. This setup means I can keep my luggage very light while commuting — I even dumped the netbook as my smartphones fill all my mobile needs!

My digital daily tasks are mostly done with my smartphone: managing the patients’ database with Bento; reading RSS in NetNewsWire; saving interesting articles in Instapaper Pro; working with Office documents with Quickoffice; chatting with Nimbuzz; and tweeting (at twitter.com/garotasemfio) with Echofon Pro. I also carry tons of ebooks and dental reference material in iSilo, Stanza, Skyscape and Medscape.

Sometimes I’m away from any kind of computer for one or two whole days. These are very overwhelming days, so it’s important to get things done through my smartphone. Most of my email is managed on the go. I would hate to come home and have to spend the evening working in front of a computer!

What’s your favorite web working tip?

Be organized. Always. Plan your week, schedule all your activities, but be careful: Keep some gaps in your calendar. You will always have to deal with urgent tasks and unpredictable issues along the week, and these gaps will help keep you sane. I love the freedom mobile tech gives me. It would be impossible to do all the (many) things I love without it.

If you would like to be profiled on WWD, get in touch with me at simon (at) gigaom (dot) com.

A flowchart can be crucial for explaining certain tasks or ideas. SlickPlan’s goal is to make sure that you can put together a flowchart quickly, no matter where you are. The web-based application also enables you to put together site maps and interact with your existing designs. It was created with web designers in mind, but anyone can quickly learn to use SlickPlan’s flowcharts.

SlickPlan doesn’t really differentiate between creating a web site plan or a flowchart, which can be a little confusing at first. But once you realize that it uses the same tool for both, you can quickly start adding items to a chart. The tool is fairly simple: You click the “Add a New Page” to add a bubble (whether it represents a page on a web site or an item on your chart) and select the page or item under which it will be located.” You also have a side bar listing each element and allowing you to move, edit or delete individual pieces. There aren’t a lot of fancy bells and whistles — but you won’t miss them. Instead, SlickPlan does one thing particularly well, allowing you to create a chart in no time flat. Even better, any project you put together with SlickPlan is clean and attractive enough to send out to clients comfortably.

Once you’ve got a chart or site map put together, SlickPlan offers you a few different options on what you can do with it. Most importantly, you can save it and work on it later. You can also save multiple versions of a project. By opening up individual projects, you can access an HTML embed code that allows you to add your chart to other sites, export your project as a PDF and send a link to anyone you need to look at your chart. You can save an unlimited number of projects to your SlickPlan account at this point.

There are a few places where SlickPlan could use a little bit of polish. The application itself is easy enough to use, but the way certain buttons are labeled can make it seem like you can only create site plans, rather than use it for flowcharts and other options — uses that are specifically mentioned on the application’s web site. The application was developed by Atomic Interactive, a web development studio. SlickPlan was not created for a client, however; instead, it’s more of an internal tool meant to eliminate the frustration of trying to build site maps in Illustrator or InDesign. The resulting application makes knocking out a fast chart easy.

You may find that SlickPlan is not quite so useful if you want to add notes about individual elements or need to make more elaborate charts. In such scenarios, you may want to consider a more robust tool. Otherwise, it’s a useful tool at the right price. SlickPlan’s developers intend to keep it free, as well, relying on ads and donations to cover the site’s costs.

What tools do you use to create flowcharts?

I’ve long been looking for a Windows-based Twitter client that can delight me as much as its native Mac counterparts. Too many clients for Windows depend on Adobe AIR, something which isn’t an ideal arrangement, in my opinion. TweetDeck and Seesmic are both powerful tools, but why can’t someone make a Windows-native app that works just as well?

Seesmic apparently saw the wisdom in that idea, because it recently revealed a new Windows-only Twitter client that doesn’t require AIR to run. I jumped at the chance to take the software, which is currently only available as a preview edition, for a test run.

Feature-rich

Seesmic for Windows has just about every bell and whistle I could ask for in a professional Twitter client, but without a lot of the unnecessary frills that I feel get thrown in with something like TweetDeck. It seems closer to Tweetie for Mac, which is still my favorite client, independent of platform concerns.

You can use multiple accounts, and customize your columns in the main window however you like. By default, your Home feed will display tweets from all the accounts you have registered with Seesmic, which is a great thing for people who use different Twitter accounts to organize the people they follow, like groups. For those who don’t, Seesmic includes support for Twitter lists, so that you can organize those you follow that way instead.

My personal favorite feature of Seesmic is how the compose window uses your first-entered account by default. That means regardless of what post I reply to, and in what stream I find it, the reply originates from my main account. This is ideal for me because it’s my primary publishing identity, while the others are mostly for monitoring.

Searches can be initiated at any time using a field intuitively placed at the top right-hand corner of the Seesmic window, but I couldn’t find any way to find trending topics. While I don’t generally have cause to check the trends, not having the ability to do so does rankle a bit.

Good-looking and Functional

This is the best-looking Twitter app I’ve seen on Windows, and possibly one of the best-looking Windows apps I’ve seen, period. Especially using a dark-tinted Windows 7 glass visual theme, it just looks designed to fit its surroundings, which is more than I can say for any AIR application.

The tabbed sidebar and light-colored stream backgrounds make it a very usable interface, in addition to helping with aesthetic effect. I would appreciate an option to turn on color-coding for @ mentions or conversations between two people you follow, but with columns designed for the purpose, I guess the Seesmic team figures that isn’t necessary.

Advanced controls for each tweet can be brought up by hovering over a user’s portrait, or by right-clicking on any individual post, so you have options in terms of replying or retweeting. You can also create user lists on the fly from anyone in your stream, or add people to existing lists, which makes it very easy to create functional groups quickly. You can even drag a user’s profile pic to the group of your choice to add them to it.

If there was a feature I’m missing most with Seesmic, it’s the ability to follow/unfollow people from within the client. It’s something I use regularly with my iPhone Twitter clients, and something I enjoy being able to do at a moment’s notice without visiting the web-based interface for Twitter.com.

Client of Choice for Windows

I won’t mince words: Seesmic’s dedicated Windows app has become my go-to software for using Twitter on a PC, even though bugs are present in the preview version. It’s just that good, and it’s not Adobe AIR. In fact, it might be reason enough for me to spend a little less time in OS X, and a little more time working in Windows 7. I’ll stress the might in that last statement, though. If you want a copy, for now you have to sign up for the Seesmic newsletter at Seesmic.com, but turnaround time for a download link seems to be less than a day for most.

Have you tried Seesmic for Windows? Let us know what you think of it below.

Corporate email is becoming increasingly less effective for project communications in today’s geographically dispersed work teams. It’s gradually being displaced by solutions like Microsoft SharePoint, instant messaging and even social media tools.

Following the lead of Twitter, microblogging has began to enter the enterprise with Yammer and Present.ly leading the way. Over on GigaOM, Jennifer recently wrote a post entitled “Social Network Use in the Office Could Spur Better Enterprise Technology” about the value of social media inside the enterprise and some of the benefits for companies.

The next step is taking corporate microblogging tools mobile. Both Yammer and Present.ly offer iPhone apps (available for free download from the iTunes App Store):

Yammer: The open-source Yammer iPhone application works similarly to many iPhone blogging clients. With Yammer on the iPhone, you have options to view your Yammer message feed securely; view received messages; view Yammer feeds including direct messages, sent messages, liked messages, bookmarked messages and RSS feeds; access to the directory of users;  and settings where you can view your push settings. The app is clean and easy to use.

Present.ly: Present.ly for iPhone provides secure remote access to the Present.ly microblogging platform. Its features include the ability to post updates; send direct messages to individuals or teams; view a timeline with replies, direct messages and updates; and support for attachments.  While I like using the Present.ly web interface, during testing it took me a couple of tries to get the iPhone app to connect to my account I set up for this post.

Do you currently use Yammer or Present.ly from your iPhone? Share your experience below.

The second wave of H1N1 swine flu is here. Vaccine’s in short supply, so we need alternate strategies for coping with the pandemic, the consequences of which could include a lack of Internet bandwidth capacity if large numbers of workers opt for staying home and telecommuting via the web, according to a new report prepared by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Many of us work from home already, which does afford distinct advantages for infection avoidance during rampant epidemics. However, many web workers operate at least part of the time out of offices, call centers, and institutional settings where some colleagues will imagine they not only have a “right,” but even an obligation, to show up at work with the flu so long as they’re able to stagger in — a problem known as presenteeism, which Karen has written about previously.

So what can you do if you can’t operate entirely from home?

The usual advice to wash hands frequently and thoroughly, to wear gloves as much as is practical when touching common access surfaces and protective masks when within six feet of infected people is sound. Avoid touching your mouth, nose or eyes with hands unless they’ve just been washed and not re-contaminated by contact with taps, door handles or other surfaces that may have been touched by infected individuals. Influenza A and B viruses can survive 24-48 hours on hard, nonporous surfaces such as metals and plastic, and 8-12 hours on cloth, paper and tissues. Frequently disinfect shared-access surfaces that may have been touched or sneezed/coughed on by victims of the virus.

Computer input devices and especially cellphones used by more than one person can be efficient disease vectors. An Apple Knowledge Base article on the topic advises:

“In addition to regular cleaning of your computer and input devices (keyboards, trackpads, and mice), you may find it necessary to disinfect them.

“Multiple people using the same computer, people using the computer when they were ill, and the particular environment where the computer is used, are a few reasons you may wish to disinfect areas of the computer that people come into contact with the most.”

The article goes on to suggest: “In order to properly disinfect these areas, you should use Lysol Wipes, Clorox Disinfecting wipes, or Clorox Kitchen Disinfecting Wipes…”

Another strategy of prevention in the office is use of keyboards, mice, mouse pads, wrist rests and even cellphones that have been coated with antimicrobial agents, either organic (this means antibiotics, which are possibly not so good for you) or (preferably) silver-based.

If enough of us employ these precautionary and preventative strategies, we can hopefully get through this flu season with a minimum of disruption.

What flu prevention strategies are you using?

Image credit: stock.xchng user mzacha.

One of my favorite and most often-used features in Microsoft Word is Track Changes. For the uninitiated, Track Changes lets the document creator see what changes an editor makes to an original document. Unfortunately, while PowerPoint has a Review tab, it is limited to adding comments — it has no Track Changes feature. So reviewers have to get creative in referencing the original content and then making note of suggested changes using comments.

Workshare Compare for PowerPoint gives you the ability to compare two PowerPoint files and see the differences between them. While it doesn’t track changes while you edit the PowerPoint file, like Word does, it does give you the ability to see the changes that have been made between versions of a presentation.

You can select which version of the slide (either original or modified) you wish to keep right inside Workshare, much like Word’s accept/reject feature. The interface clearly shows which is which, and outlines the changes in the detailed summary at the bottom. The easy-to-use interface takes no effort to figure out, so you can get right to work. I made a quick screencast to show you how it works:

The biggest drawback to Workshare is the cost of a license. (A 14-day free trial is available.) One license of Workshare Compare for PowerPoint retails for $199$145 per license per user for one year. If you don’t renew the license, the software stops working. (Note: There are two editions of Workshare Compare, one of which is for PowerPoint and the other for comparing PDF and Word documents.)

Personally, I don’t edit PowerPoint presentations enough to justify this cost on an annual basis, and I believe that many people will agree with me. Those who edit and share PowerPoint presentations on a regular basis and frequent presenters will benefit most from the application, but the subscription-based fee may be a barrier.

Have you tried Workshare Compare for PowerPoint? Do you think it is worth the cost?

Twitter lists are a great way to group people into various categories, filter conversations, keep up with experts within a specific field and track a topic without needing to follow all of the relevant users — and can even be used as an RSS reader replacement. Despite being such a new feature, people are already using lists as a measure of influence.

I’ve spent the last few years working with online communities and collaboration technologies, and have come to expect to be able to collaborate with people when using online social tools. As a result, I wish that Twitter lists were more collaborative. Right now, Twitter lists and accounts have a one-to-one relationship. I create a list, and I’m the only person who can edit it. I started thinking about this limitation when Rael Dornfest created his Portland Food Cart list. I’m a huge fan of the Portland food cart scene, so I decided to follow his list instead of creating yet another one. The downside was that as there were some food carts missing from his list, I needed to send @replies to Rael to get him to add them — I couldn’t just add them myself.

The collaboration features that I propose would allow the owner of each list to open them up to allow collaboration/editing from other people. The list owner could always make tweaks, revert changes and have the final say on changes made by other users.

My wish list for Twitter lists includes:

• Open lists: These lists would be open for anyone to edit, and would be a great way for people to add themselves to, say, a conference attendee list or to collaborate on lists of industry experts. To cut down on spam edits, moderation features would be a nice addition.
• Lists open to the people I follow: Anyone that I follow could contribute to my list. This is probably the option that I would use most often. Since I only follow people that I already know, this would be a great way to collaborate while automatically reducing the amount of spam entries added to a list.
• Specific people can edit a list: In the case of the food cart list, Rael could open it up to a few specific people who are passionate about the Portland food cart culture and have those people help him maintain it.
• Copying/cloning: This would be similar to how Yahoo Pipes lets you clone another user’s pipe as a starting point for something that you’ll repurpose for your needs. If someone has the start of a great list, but with a few things that I don’t like, I’d want to be able to copy it and add or delete people from it as necessary.

I’ve focused my wish list around community and collaboration features. What’s on your wish list for Twitter lists?

Today marks the start of the fifth birthday celebration of my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox. I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble getting my head around the fact that it’s 5 years old — that makes me feel a little old myself!

In 2004, when Firefox 1.0 was launched, the first browser wars were all but over. Microsoft (msft) had beaten Netscape, Internet Explorer was — by far — the dominant browser, and those of us who actually cared about things like web standards were looking on in despair.

That changed when Firefox came along, showing the world that it was possible to produce a lightweight, fast, extensible and secure standards-compliant standalone browser. In those five years, it has grown from being a scrappy open-source upstart the geeks use to the second-most popular browser in use, taking about a quarter of the market, according to Net Applications (and on more technical sites like this one, Firefox is by far the most popular browser). Firefox’s rapid growth was helped in part by grassroots promotional efforts like the Spread Firefox campaign, but primarily thanks to Microsoft’s glacial rate of development of IE and its glaring security holes. Without the competitive pressure of Firefox, Microsoft might not have seriously developed IE beyond IE 7, and without browser development and innovation, some of the great web apps that we rely on today might not have been possible. Firefox’s own development continues apace, as the second browser wars — between Google and Mozilla this time — really start to heat up. Version 3.6 of the browser, which is currently available in beta (and works very well, I might add), should be released in December.

So, join me in raising a glass (or latte/tea cup) to Mozilla, the Firefox team, and everyone who has contributed to Firefox and its extension ecosystem over the years — it is a great product that many of us are truly thankful for.

Add your Firefox birthday wishes below.

Bill On Site offers the ability to manage invoices from your mobile phone. No matter where you are, as long as your phone has a web browser, you can send an invoice to your client immediately — you don’t need to have a computer at hand.

Invoicing on the Go

To make preparing invoices on your phone as easy as possible, Bill On Site allows you to set up clients ahead of time, although you can access client information via your phone. You will need to provide an email address in order to make sure that your invoice makes it to the appropriate client. You can also set up your invoices so that your clients can pay you immediately if you happen to be meeting with them when you send the invoice, as well as accept payment by PayPal, check or money order. You can automatically add taxes, fees and discounts to specific clients as well, though they do need to be set up before you start using your phone.

Bill On Site offers a mobile interface that you can use on any phone that allows you to access the web. It is a relatively easy interface to use, and you can turn out invoices on the spot.

The service has three separate pricing plans, ranging from $15 a month to $45 a month. The basic account is limited to sending out 25 invoices a month and is for solo users only. The other plans offer more invoices each month, as well as staff accounts so that multiple members of an organization can access the invoicing system. Each of the three plans includes a 30-day free trial.

Using Bill On Site

The ability to send an invoice from your phone is very useful — if you’ve had to go on-site to see a client or you’re otherwise away from your computer, it’s a practical feature.

However, many invoicing tools can be used on a smartphone. Some have created applications (like Freshbooks’ Minibooks iPhone app, for example) or mobile interfaces, but with a little perseverance, even those that have not can still be used.

One thing I’d love to see from Bill On Site that would make it really stand out from other invoicing apps is a way to send invoices from mobile phones that aren’t smartphones (maybe via an SMS or voice interface).

In general, Bill On Site stacks up well against other invoicing tools. It does encrypt all invoice and client information and transmits it over SSL. Data is backed up in three different locations, according to the company’s web site. The system also records all changes to each invoice, so that you can review how an invoice has been updated and changed at any time. The question worth considering is how different the mobile interface is for Bill On Site when compared with other invoicing tools, but if invoicing from your phone is a concern, it’s worth giving Bill On Site’s free trial a go.

What do you think of Bill On Site’s mobile interface?

Yesterday I took part in my first Jelly session — and I’ve got to say it was a fun and productive experience that I will be repeating in the future. Jellies are informal, free coworking events that are open to anyone. There were 10 participants at the Jelly I attended, from a range of different backgrounds although they were mainly freelancers, as you might expect. At times, particularly in the morning, the atmosphere was studious and productive, but there was also some interesting chat and opportunities to make new connections.

I always find that a change of scenery does me good, but considering that I was working in a room with 10 other people, sitting around a conference table, and occasionally getting stuck into conversation, I was surprised at the amount of work I got through (and that’s despite the speed of the Wi-Fi connection getting a little slow with 10 people working away).

If you’re feeling a bit isolated at home (or perhaps you just want to brainstorm some ideas) and would like to try out the coworking experience, but perhaps aren’t quite ready to commit to membership of a coworking space, attending a Jelly would be a good first step.

The first Jelly was started in New York back in 2006 by roommates Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford, who originally wanted to recreate some of the benefits of working from an office (without having to work from an office): brainstorming, sharing and camaraderie. So they started inviting people over to work from their house occasionally, and thus Jelly was born. It’s an idea that has spread worldwide.

The Jelly I attended was organized by CoWorkingWest and held in the nice office space of The Office, Bristol, UK, but Jellies are held in over 100 cities all over the world. (Some of them are even held weekly.) If there isn’t one near you, you can always start your own — you just need to pick a venue and get some people involved. They are often held in people’s houses, but also take place in other locations, like coffee shops and offices. As long as there is space for everyone, power and Wi-Fi, you can have a Jelly.

Have you tried working at Jelly?

37signals’ Haystack promises to make finding a web designer easy, offering a simplified way to search for clients looking to hire a professional. While it’s a useful tool for someone with a web design project, it can also prove useful for web designers.

Landing Work

While your first visit to Haystack may leave you with the impression that the site is only meant to help out clients, it’s already proved useful for many designers. Some web designers report landing projects within hours of posting a listing on Haystack. The general idea is that the site can better match prospective clients to your services who are browsing online — you might not be highly ranked enough to be found through search engines, but your skills can make you stand out among other web designers on Haystack. 37Signals takes care of promoting the site via advertising, blogging and marketing to its user base.

Any web designer can post a listing on Haystack for free. That includes anyone from freelancers to big web design companies. The basic listing includes one portfolio image, the type of budgets you generally work with, the nearest big city to where you work and a contact email for your company. A Pro listing, priced at $99 per month, allows you to post more images, change placement and place for your logo. The Pro listings do seem to show up first in search results. Clients can search for web designers based on budget and location.

Scoping Out the Competition

You’ll find that Haystack has a few uses beyond landing clients. It’s an easy way to get an idea of what your fellow web designers are up to. You can check out prices, portfolios and services offered for a whole list of web designers in one place. You can tell quickly how well your prices fall in with your competition’s, as well as learn about how they’re landing clients — valuable business information no matter how you look at it.

There are some design reasons to look at what other designers are up to, as well. Need a little inspiration? Browse through some of those designs that have been posted on Haystack. You might see a technique or style that sparks a new idea for a project you’re working on.

Haystack’s Background

The minds behind Haystack are already well-known for creating tools. The site is a new offering from 37signals, the same company that created Basecamp, Backpack and other well-known tools. Haystack is a logical extension of these tools — 37signals’ original application, Basecamp, grew out of a tool that the team designed for their own use. With the 37Signals team’s roots in web design, it’s easy to understand how they would come to create Haystack.

That background has definitely contributed to the site’s overall usefulness. While it takes a slightly more subtle approach to inviting web designers to join than it does to inviting prospective clients to shop, Haystack is built to be an effective tool for the web designers posting listings.

Have you listed your company on Haystack? Has it generated any leads for you?

Israel “Izzy” Hyman’s passion is video. He’s a video podcaster who makes a living producing three different online shows:

• Izzy Video — How to shoot and edit video. It covers a wide range of topics like cinematography, lighting, recording good audio, gear, editing and distribution.
• Paperclipping.com — This show is hosted by Hyman’s wife, Noell, and it’s all about scrapbooking and design principles.
• Rolling R’s — This show is hosted by Hyman’s friend, Larry Keim, and teaches people the Spanish language.

All three are membership sites where some of the content is available for free, but the majority of the material is available to paid members only. I caught up with Hyman to ask him a few questions about the work he does, and how he does it. Below is an edited transcript of our interview:

Simon: How did you originally get into video? And what made you decide to start blogging about it?

Hyman: I’m one of those people who started with video as a passion. I got my first video camera when my first son was born nearly 12 years ago. A few years later, I got my first Mac and found iMovie, so I started doing some basic editing. Then I upgraded to Final Cut Express, upgraded my camera, and started getting other gear like microphones and lights. Eventually I moved to a Mac Pro, Final Cut Pro, and now the camera I use is the Sony PWM-EX1.

When I got into video, I did a lot of reading on the subject. I was shocked there weren’t a lot of great places to learn video on the web, so I started making videos that showed the principles I was learning. That was how Izzy Video got started. It filled a need.

Simon: What’s a typical day like for you?

Hyman: The days vary, but on days when we’re shooting video (once per week), it goes like this:

1. Clear out the furniture in my living room.
2. Set up my studio gear like lights, C-stands, microphone and background.
3. Shoot video for a couple hours, depending on the subject and what shows we’re shooting.
4. Transfer the footage into the computer.
5. Edit the video, and while it’s rendering I take down the studio and move my furniture back into place.

Between shooting, editing and posting the videos, that keeps me busy for the day. On other days of the week I keep my load pretty light. I work from a coffee shop probably three times per week, answering emails, researching, outlining, writing, tweeting and doing other social media stuff.

I’m also working on creating a resource that shows other people how to create profitable video podcasts like we’ve done. We’ve done it three times, using a business model based on what Don McAllister did with ScreencastsOnline.

One of the reasons I became a full-time video podcaster was so I could spend more time with my family: I do things like take my kids to and from school, help them with homework, and run them to dentist appointments. Also, I exercise every day, and right now I’m participating in NanoWriMo, so I’m writing a novel in November. I frequently joke with Noell that I feel as if I’m retired. When I’m working, I do the stuff I love to do. And my work leaves plenty of time with my family.

Simon: Your blog is based around the message that video is not a “black art,” and is accessible for nearly anyone. The barriers to entry for aspiring video shooters/producers are getting lower. What gear would you recommend to someone just starting out; I’m curious as to whether you’d recommend a video-capable DSLR over a dedicated video camera?

Hyman: The biggest mistake I think people make when they’re buying gear for video is they spend too much time and money on the video camera, and not enough on audio and lighting. What kind of gear should a new person get? That depends on what they’ll be shooting, but for someone who just wants to post video on the web, something like this might work:

1. A basic three-point lighting setup such as three Rifa lights from Lowel. Lighting is critical for a good image, and many people don’t spend any time or money on it.
2. A wireless lavalier (lapel) microphone setup like the Sennheiser Evolution G2 series.
3. Any video camera that shoots HD, has an external mic input, and records to a solid state media like an SD card (I capture to SxS cards). I don’t recommend someone buy a tape-based or hard drive camera. Tape is going away, and hard drives have too many problems.

A video-capable DSLR can be an excellent choice if you’ll always be shooting short video clips and you don’t mind spending more on important accessories that make the camera usable as a video camera. I just bought my first video-capable DSLR a few weeks ago. I love the imagery I get from it, with the shallow depth of field, color saturation and overall film-look. Still, for professional gigs, it’s probably a good idea to stick with dedicated video cameras. That might change over the next couple years, though.

Simon: I suppose it varies with the project, but what gear do you like to use?

Hyman: Some favorite pieces of gear I use:

• My camera is the Sony PMW-EX1, and I adore this thing. It shoots amazing HD footage, and it shoots true slow motion. It’s incredible.
• My favorite microphone is the Sennheiser ME66 shotgun mic.
• For lights I use several Chimera lights inside of Chimera soft boxes.
• I also love my Scrim Jim set of diffusion panels and scrims. I use this for controlling light outdoors.

I could go on and on, because I do tend to be a gear hound. I enjoy the tools probably a little too much. Here’s a list of most of the gear I use. By the way, I’ve created video tutorials on how to use all this gear. They’re on my web site.

Simon: With modern computers and software, video editing and production can be added to the list of careers that are “web worker compatible.” What’s your office setup like, and if you work on the road, what makes it possible?

Hyman: My office is in my bedroom. I work at a table with a Mac Pro (8 cores). I edit in Final Cut Studio, which means Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Compressor, and other tools. I have a closet full of gear, and as I mentioned earlier, I periodically convert my living room into a studio.

If I’m just doing Internet work then I use my MacBook Pro and a Verizon card, and I’ll usually head to Starbucks for that. Sometimes I’ll do mobile video editing, but not often. That’s a good thing, because I have an old 17″ Macbook Pro, and it’s a little slow for video these days.

Simon: Finally, video is being used in a lot of places on the web now (on web sites, in advertising, as part of multimedia projects). What is an interesting use of commercial video you’ve seen recently?

Hyman: One of the most interesting things I’ve seen lately with video is the Apple ad running on major web sites like the NY Times. Along the top of the page there’s a video banner, and in the sidebar there’s another video ad that interacts with the video ad at the top of the page. That’s brilliant.

The browser war continues to rage unabated, with the end result being better products for us, the users. This past week has seen significant beta updates to my two favorite browsers: Chrome and Firefox. I’ve been playing with beta 1 of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.6. This new version of Firefox boasts improved performance, personas (the ability to easily switch between different skins for your browser), and updated support for web standards, including support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF).

Firefox 3.6b1 seems quite stable and certainly feels a wee bit faster than 3.5, so to test it out I ran it through the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on my test machine. This new version got a score of 1996 ms, which is quite an improvement over 3.5’s score of 2500 ms.

Meanwhile, as reported by Kevin over at jkOnTheRun, the new beta of Google Chrome 4 on Windows sports a fancy mechanism that syncs bookmarks across devices almost instantly — very handy if you work on a few different machines. The bookmark syncing mechanism uses XMPP (the same technology used by Google Talk) to share the bookmarks. As Kevin notes, surely secure sharing of passwords and cookies must be in the cards as well.

Running the Chrome 4 beta through the same SunSpider benchmark test, I got a score of 1122 ms, which beats Firefox by a considerable margin and is even faster than the last version of Chrome that I tested.

While in real life usage it doesn’t feel like there’s much difference between the two betas, as we come to rely more on JavaScript-heavy web apps, performance becomes increasingly important — so the great improvement in the benchmark scores shown by both of these new betas is encouraging.

If you’re trying out either of these betas, let us know what you think of them below.