Web Worker Daily

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to use Google Alerts all the time to keep me apprised of what was going on in the world of Apple tech, for another gig I have writing online. It was a great solution, but eventually, Twitter’s real-time information flow became much more useful for me.

But the problem with Twitter is that it’s kind of unwieldy. I follow a lot of people, and even though I have multiple accounts to follow different groups of people, a lot gets lost in the stream. Twitter clients with built-in search help, but at a glance, Google Alert-like results would be ideal. Thankfully, there’s a service that does almost precisely that. It’s called TweetAlert. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a tip for anyone who wants to get any web working done while you’re traveling and/or in transit for any reason. If you’re going to be in areas of questionable network access, you’d better have the ability to get work done offline at your disposal, and you should also be ready to dig in for extended periods of time without a connection.

For some tasks, you absolutely need network access, but for others, a rich and varied stock of offline-accessible information and research resources should provide plenty of fodder for getting things done. Your iPhone or iPod touch can be a great supplemental resource for exactly this kind of thing. Here’s how to turn your device into an offline road warrior. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever wanted to do more than just send someone a web page, or post a link on Twitter? If I could, I would present every link I ever wanted to share in person, so I could explain to the person I was sharing with exactly what it was I wanted them to see, and why I thought they might enjoy it or find it useful.

You can always provide a covering letter in the body of your email when you send something along, but a recently launched web app provides a tool that’s much more useful in sharing that context along with the web content you choose to share. Layers.com allows you to layer images, text and video on top of any site of your choosing, and then to share your annotated version with whomever you choose. Read the rest of this entry »

I was lucky enough to get my grubby mitts on a Wacom Bamboo Touch tablet recently, one of the newly-released models from the popular input device maker that supports multitouch finger input. It’s the basic model that only supports touch, which is ideal for me, because I already have a Cintiq and don’t need the pen tablet functions. Read the rest of this entry »

Filemaker’s Bento software for the Mac is meant to be a database management program for users who aren’t much interested in keeping databases. At least, as someone who shudders at the very term, that’s how I see it. The program receives its third major iterative upgrade today, and there’s a lot for web workers to get excited about with this latest version.

I haven’t used Bento since it was first released, so a lot is new to me. For the purposes of this review, I won’t be detailing what’s changed so much as what strikes me as most useful about the program from a web working angle, since I imagine many of you will be new to the software as well. Read the rest of this entry »

As I noted over at TheAppleBlog, Google has turned on push for Gmail on the iPhone. That means that your incoming messages will be pushed from the Google servers to your phone, instead of your phone having to call in periodically to check for new mail. It means you’ll be more up-to-date, and your phone will use a lot less of your battery’s power than if you use Apple’s Fetch alternative.

For Gmail users with an iPhone who work from home, this is great news. Often, those of us not plugged in to the corporate world miss out on the little niceties like Exchange information syncing. Google Sync, now that it includes Gmail, offers a great free alternative for those of us who’ve left our office working days behind. And it uses Microsoft Exchange technology to do it. Read the rest of this entry »