I think it’s safe to say that many online workers would also describe themselves as lifelong learners. I know that personally, I’m always looking for new ways to learn, which is why I was so intrigued when I came across WiZiQ. The web service bills itself as an “Online Educational Platform for Teachers and Learners” and is available free of charge. What it provides is a virtual classroom, the purpose of which is left completely up to users.
Definitely an attractive proposition, and one which I can think of many uses for in terms of web working applications. But in practice, what are WiZiQ’s limitations? Could I, for instance, monetize the service, and offer lessons created with WiZiQ as part of a subscription or pay-per-lesson model?
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I recently relocated to Tok, Alaska from Anchorage. Being in Anchorage seemed far removed enough from the happenings in my industry, but I’ve carved out a good stream of social media and web work clients both statewide and nationally even from the Last Frontier. Now, however, I’m in the farflung reaches of the Last Frontier and am faced with major challenges and expenses getting high speed Internet connectivity.
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Facebook is a great tool for web working. It makes networking simple, offers loads of opportunities for promotion, and it boasts a massive user base. Still, it’s not designed to foreground your work, and sometimes it can be a little difficult to draw attention to the things you want people to take notice of using only your basic profile options and Facebook’s native Page and Group tools.
My Web Portfolio is a Facebook application that’s designed to help web designers at least strut their stuff on the popular social network. Just as the name implies, it allows you to build and share a portfolio of your web sites and share them with other Facebook users.
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The North of England seems to be a hotbed of coworking with not only major cities such as Manchester and Leeds hosting multiple, vibrant coworking communities, but smaller towns such as Huddersfield and Bradford now beginning to enter the field. Options are available for web workers and freelancers wishing to enjoy the flexibility and community spirit of coworking.
Huddersfield is a curious place - an old market town of just under 150′000 people, about halfway between regional hubs, Leeds and Manchester, yet a nascent hub of creative and digital talent. Recent years have seen an infusion of public money in creating a ‘digital quarter‘ for the city, as well as the local university’s school of computing taking a lead in promoting crossover between creative and computing subject areas. Now the city is set to launch not one, but two coworking communities.
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Since its first launch in early 1996 I have been a follower of SlingMedia’s SlingBox hardware and companion SlingPlayer software. At that time it allowed me to take advantage of Canadian networks’ extensive coverage of the Turin Winter Olympics while working on a project in southern California. For instance, I was able to watch the Women’s Hockey gold medal game on CBC at a Starbucks in Palm Springs.
Their initial SlingPlayer only worked on Windows-based PC’s. With today’s public beta launch of SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry, I can now access my cable TV subscription on a BlackBerry from any location worldwide where it has high speed Internet access. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week I wrote an article about Liferay, an open source portal app. Today, I’ll be looking at another option, Cyn.in, from Cynapse, an enterprise software solution provider.
Cyn.in is an open source collaboration app, and as such only offers a portion of the functionality of Liferay, but those looking for a more pure collaboration platform, and not a full-fledged intranet, may find it more tailored to their specific needs.
Cyn.in is centralized software that collects all of your basic collaboration software, like blogs, wikis, discussion boards, etc. It also supports file sharing and repositories. I tried the live demo to get a sense of what Cyn.in has to offer, with a special focus on how it might compare to Liferay regarding my specific goal of using it to help organize and grow my collaborative writing blog.
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You may be interested and motivated to become a freelance writer, but it’s hard to know where to start. First, you should write, but that goes without saying. How do you turn your passion into paid work? It’s not a simple process, and it involves a lot of searching, digging, and some luck, as well.
These resources can help increase your chances of finding freelance writing work. It’s important to remember that whatever romantic notions of the solitary writer you may have, being successful as a freelancer depends on community, and these resources provide a good starting point for building your own.
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Coffee shops with free wifi are the web workers’ digital oases, allowing us to flit from coffee to cake, sucking down bits and bites. For those without a home office, or access to a coworking community, such locations can quickly become our nomadic offices.
So with this in mind, it’s great to hear the that last week, the UK’s Pret a Manger launched free wifi access in around 90% of its stores. ‘Pret‘ is well known for its ethical business practices and healthy, freshly made food, so it makes for a nice alternative to the usual Starbucks hourly charge (as much as £5/hour!) or the unappealing McDonalds environment.
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