As a web worker, you have the freedom to work from anywhere that has an Internet connection. A coffee shop or a library can make for just as good a workspace as a home office. But workplaces are not created equal. The differences between individual coffee shops can turn one into the perfect place to plant your laptop, while making another an impossible place to get any work done. The trick is learning to recognize what makes the best workspace for you before you buy a cup of coffee and find a chair.

More Than Just Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is crucial to a web worker’s ability to work on the road, but just knowing a that your local library branch offers free Wi-Fi isn’t enough to tell you that it’s a great workspace. Knowing how good the Wi-Fi is will tell you how much work you’ll be able to get done, especially if you’re working on something that requires a lot of bandwidth. If you’re working in a coffee shop when someone has to reboot the router every hour or in a co-working space where everyone is a heavy Internet user, you may not be able to get the kind of access you need for your work. Unfortunately, it can be hard to figure out the status of the Wi-Fi until you sit down and turn on your computer. It may be worth booting up and trying it out before you settle in for the long haul.

Depending on how long you plan to work, you may also need an electrical outlet to plug your laptop into. You’ll find different policies on just outlet usage, depending on where you go to work: at most chain coffee shops, there are at least a few outlets that customers can use. In some independent coffee shops, though, it’s becoming more common to find outlets taped over, unavailable for your use. Keep an eye out for accessible power on your way in — if you look around and there are no outlets you can use, it may be time to move on to the next place on your list.

Think Ergonomically

When you’re choosing a place to work, it’s important to make sure that you can sit comfortably for a long period of time. If you wind up hunched over your laptop, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, it’s much harder to get work done than if you find a comfortable chair that allows you to easily reach your laptop. Being able to use a table can make a big difference in how comfortable a workspace is, but other factors can be more personal. Look for chairs and arrangements that match your own preferences for comfort.

Coworking spaces can often provide a step above other options when it comes to comfort. Coworking spaces are usually designed from the ground up to provide guests with a place to get their work done, as opposed to a restaurant that may want to encourage customers to move along so new customers can sit down.

The Cost of the Workspace

Despite the fact that some people view being mobile as a way to avoid paying for office space, there are still costs associated with going into a coffee shop and sitting down. You’ll order at least a cup of coffee, and most people consider it polite to keep ordering food and drinks as long as they are taking up a table. A library may have no cost associated with using it as a workspace, but the library staff may ask you to limit your time if there’s a lot of demand at a given time. A coworking space will have an upfront fee.

It’s important to consider the cost of working at a particular location. Even if such expenses are tax deductible (remember to keep receipts!) they can quickly add up.

What do you look for in your mobile workspaces?

Photo credit: Flickr user theregeneration

Like many web workers, one of my challenges is keeping my data in sync between the various devices and apps that I use. I stopped using my Palm handheld over a year ago, but I’ve continued to use the Palm Desktop application, because it’s one of the easiest-to-use and most mobile-friendly applications ever, even though I now have a BlackBerry. Finding a solution that can keep my data in sync between Palm Desktop, my BlackBerry and the other apps that I use has been difficult.

For a while, I’d sync Outlook and Palm Desktop, and then Outlook would update the BlackBerry (I didn’t actually use Outlook at all, it just acted as the middleman). It worked great. But then my dependence on Google Calendar  grew, because I could access it from any computer as well as my BlackBerry, and it wouldn’t work with my sync setup.

I investigated many tools and synchronization applications to find a perfect sync solution. I didn’t want to use lots of different applications to syncing needs.

The almost perfect solution was to find a dedicated synchronization app. Mine comes from CompanionLink. This method cuts out Outlook for good. CompanionLink now has a Google edition available that synchronizes all of Palm Desktop’s features with Google, too. For updating my BlackBerry, I use Google Sync for Mobile. It’s still not perfect, but it works and I can access and update my information in Google or Palm, while my BlackBerry just has access to the information.

If you’re struggling to find the perfect syncing app, here are some options (some free and some paid):

• Chapura: PocketMirror has been around for a long time, and syncs Palms with Outlook. Its Echo and PocketMirror work with Palm Pre.
• CompanionLink: Syncs Google, Palm Pre, ACT!, LotusNotes, Outlook and many others.
• Google Sync: free Google syncing applications for Mac, Linux, Android and others.
• gSyncit: Syncs Outlook and Gmail.
• Mark/Space: Sync apps for Macs.
• Sync’Em: Connects Macs with Exchange and Outlook.

How do you keep your data in sync?

Photo credit: djwudi

If you own a BlackBerry and use Twitter as much as I do, you’re more than likely frustrated with the experience of using the Twitter web site via your phone’s browser. With more Twitter applications available for the device, do any succeed in turning the BlackBerry into a great Twittering tool?

I compiled a list of the current free BlackBerry Twitter apps and tested them out to find the strengths and weaknesses of each. All of the apps have the basic features (timelines, replies and direct messages), with some standing out more than others due to speed, ease of use, or additional functionality.

All of these apps underwent an obstacle course on my BlackBerry Curve 8310 to test their strength, agility and durability in order to find the better-performing apps.

Blackbird: Easy to use text-based interface that works with older BlackBerrys

What Blackbird lacks in looks and features, it makes up for in speed and usability: BlackBird performs fastest out of all the apps tested here. It only includes the basic features: timelines, replies and direct messages.

Pros: Fast. Easy to use.

Cons: Fewer features. Unclear error messages.

TinyTwitter: Works with any device that can run Java apps

TinyTwitter has a smooth timeline that scrolls fast, even with avatars. It can pull latest trends, do searches, copy/ paste tweets for easy retweeting in one move, as well as handling the basic Twitter functions. However, even with shortcuts, some of the actions take two clicks when one would do, a problem with many BlackBerry Twitter apps.

Pros: Efficient timeline. Runs on any Java-compatible device. Shortcuts. More than the basic features.

Cons: Too many steps to get where you want to go.

Twibble: Tweet photos from your BlackBerry camera

My first impression of Twibble was soured by the troublesome login screen. The app kept capitalizing the first letter of my username and password, causing the login to fail. Once past that, though, the rest of the experience wass Tribble-free. You can save time with shortcuts and by entering and saving often-used words as text templates to use in search or tweets. Screen shots are available from the Twibble site.

Pros: Runs on any Java-compatible device. Text templates. Share photos.

Cons: Not user-friendly. Location tool doesn’t work well. Sluggish.

TwitterBerry: Attractive interface with average features

4 

TwitterBerry looks easy on the eyes, but sacrifices load time for looks. Features include the basics that you find in most Twitter mobile applications, without any extras. If you go to Pictures, you can select a picture to send to TwitterBerry, but this option may not appear if you have other Twitter apps loaded on your BlackBerry. With few extras, you’d think the application would run faster than it does.

Pros: Sharp look-and-feel. Easy to use.

Cons: Slow. Lacks search and unique features.

Ubertwitter: Wealth of features

If you have multiple IDs, you’ll have to go through the wizard to change the login credentials, something that should take fewer steps (Tip: after you change the ID, hit the BlackBerry button to the left of the scroll wheel to save changes and exit rather than finishing the wizard). Despite this, most features take fewer steps to access compared to other apps and you can use shortcuts. You can take a picture from within UberTwitter. A map of your location appears with the photo. You can find people near you and view them on a roadmap, satellite map or hybrid map.

Pros: Take pictures within update. Control location options. Feature rich.

Cons: Time-consuming to change IDs and options. Sometimes dawdles.

Viigo: Add a new channel for every Twitter ID and search word

You can use Viigo to get news, local information and other customizable content. The Twitter app lives in the Social Networks tab, where you can create a channel for each of your Twitter IDs and frequently-used search terms. For example, if you participate in a weekly chat, you can create a search for the chat hashtag. Its performance is notably slower than its competition. Viigo has neat features, but the sluggishness tested my patience.

Pros: Set up multiple Twitter IDs and search words. All-in-one app.

Cons: Slow. More steps to reach Twitter channel.

The Verdict

UberTwitter offers the most features, while BlackBird has the best performance. But none of the free tools tested here really stand out; I’d still rather use a Twitter client on my PC or laptop.

What is your favorite BlackBerry Twitter app and why?

Online organizer and notepad tool springpad is one of those apps that has impressed me from the start. I love the ready-made springpads and the ability to clip items in to my notebooks as I move about the web, but the recent introduction of mobile access makes the service eminently more useful. The ability to view and modify my data from any web-enabled device makes those shopping and other lists available without the need to print them out before my trip.

Once you have your account set up, visit my.springpadit.com to view the pages from your mobile device. The mobile site isn’t as feature-rich as the main site but it’s quite usable for quick access to your springpads while on the go.

I did receive error messages about lack of support for Opera Mobile, which I hope they will address soon. The minimalist pages I was directed to using that browser pale in comparison to the full mobile app that displays with Pocket IE on my Windows Mobile.

With an eye to being a “whole life” organizer, springpad has always been more than just a productivity app. The addition of mobile access goes a long way to making it much more ubiquitous, and thus much more useful.

How do you use your mobile springpads?

Earlier this week Simon asked us to share what we carry with us when we go mobile. Unlike Aliza, my forays out of the office tend to be short, usually for things like client meetings or local presentations, so my needs are pretty sparse. I bring with me what I need to accomplish my trip’s goals, plus the general tools that I find I may need no matter where I am headed.

There’s nothing particularly fancy inside, but it is all functional and each piece fits its required role perfectly.

The Bag

Like Simon, I’m a big fan of the backpack. I’ve had a Targus Sport for going on five years now and it is holding up quite well. Easy to sling over my shoulder, well padded for the laptop and filled with miscellaneous pockets for all sorts of supplemental stuff. Padded shoulder straps make it a comfortable carry even on a long walk.

The Laptop

My current laptop is an IBM ThinkPad R50e, which I’ve had for a few years. I prefer a 15-inch screen for a good mix between portability and usability. I’ve bumped up the RAM to the 2GB maximum, but otherwise it still works quite well for everything I can throw at it.

I’m a big fan of the ThinkPad line of laptops in general. In my experience, they have proven to be very reliable and offer a lot of functionality at a good value. I imagine my next laptop will also be a ThinkPad.

A lot of people tell me I should go Mac, I say I’ll consider it when I can get one with a TrackPoint , as I honestly can’t imagine my primary machine not having one (yes, I’m “the guy who likes the TrackPoint,” mock away…) My current model doesn’t even have a touchpad, which is ideal for me.

I do have an extra battery I bring along for long trips and a power brick that is easily accessible.

The Connection

For connectivity, I use the Sprint Mobile Broadband service in conjunction with a Novatel S620 card. The coverage here in my area is excellent and the speed is good enough to avoid any frustration. It’s nice to not have to worry about finding hotspots and just knowing that I can connect anywhere. I wish I could avoid the monthly fee but on more than one occasion it has proven to be indispensable.

The Phone

I just recently moved into the smartphone era with the purchase of a Samsung BlackJackII . In addition to phone calls, it also works quite well for handling my other data needs. It syncs beautifully via IMAP with Gmail, my calendar is kept up to date with the help of GooSync, and Tiny Twitter keeps me connected to my friends there. I don’t do much browsing on it but I do recommend the upgrade to Opera Mobile, which I prefer over IE Mobile. My phone was cheap through AT&T and has proven to be a good mobile companion.

I have a Bluetooth headset but I find it so horribly uncomfortable that except when I’m obligated by law to use it (like when driving in Chicago) I tend to forgo it. The lack of a good headset tends to keep me off of the phone while driving, which is probably a good thing anyway.

The Camera

I’m not much of a shutterbug, I guess. I take the miscellaneous photo with my phone or for “heavy duty” needs I’ll borrow the Nikon E3100 from my wife.

The Tunes

To keep myself sane in a noisy environment or to grab myself some entertainment, I use a set of either Shure E2C or E3C sound isolating earphones which do an amazing job at both. They have been discontinued, but the SE210 appears to be the logical replacement. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with them.

I also have an ancient MPIO FL100 MP3 player which continues to serve me well for the limited times I need it.

The Extras

I also keep handy various power bricks and adapters to keep things charged. I’ve got a USB key with PortableApps on it which can let me be productive on someone else’s machine if necessary, and there are always a couple of blank CDs handy as well.

The Non-Tech

I take advantage of the multiple pockets in my backpack to carry along the basics like notebook, pens, tissues, mints, hand sanitizer and I usually try to remember to bring along a book for “offline” time.

That’s what I carry. What’s in your bag?

There’s a new application in town for those who want a simple approach to maintaining their appointments: Deadline. They boast of being “the simplest calendar ever made,” though a variety of features are already in place or being planned.

After signing up for a free account, you’ll get a web interface with a box to type. Put in something like “Feed the cat next week” and it will strip off the “next week” part, parse it to get the date, and make the rest the text of your reminder. Then it adds it to the rest of your reminders on the web page. A search box lets you find reminders with particular text, and brighter white is used to highlight the more immediate tasks.

Other features of Deadline include reminders via email or Jabber-based IM, the ability to set reminders by sending email to a personalized Deadline address, and a mobile user interface. For the future, they’re planning an iPhone application, customization, and an API, among other things.

I found Deadline easy to use, though its parsing of English was less full-featured than I’d like (“in a year”, for example, seems to be giving the wrong results). It’ll pop up a box for direct date entry if it doesn’t see any date at all in your entry. Overall, Deadline has less functionality than the most similar service I know, I Want Sandy, but Deadline’s user interface is easier to navigate if you just want to track dates.

As a Canadian I have been in the fortunate position of having experienced a BlackBerry Bold since its launch on Rogers in late August.

It’s not simply a new smartphone or “replacement” for an older BlackBerry. The Bold, finally available at AT&T, is a game changer when it comes to not only exchanging information but also its role in both your personal and business life.

So what drives this new mobile life?

The BlackBerry Bold’s screen must be seen to truly appreciate how stunning it is. As I worked with emails, web pages, Google Maps, Twitter and other applications, the screen’s text fonts and photo and video renderings “grow” on you. For example, Wall Street Journal for Mobile and New York Times have a quality that extends their renowned website visual branding as a quality publication to the BlackBerry. Crisp, often small, fonts and vibrant colors make the reading experience just as good as, if not easier than, a newspaper. Google Maps satellite views distinguish buildings while showing street names in small, yet sharp, fonts.

The most important game changing feature of the display is the half-VGA display resolution.

It means you can follow most web pages without horizontal scrolling. It eliminates the constant urge to boot up a laptop while on the road to keep current with not only email but also time sensitive documents, Skype chat sessions via iSkoot and Twitter message streams as well as blog activity and news.

Combining the enhanced keyboard with BlackBerry’s reputation for robust, secure and reliable email is just the start. Entries for Twitter feeds, document editing, instant messaging, website URLs and application purchases at the CrackBerry.com application store all benefit from the speed and accuracy associated with having a keyboard. The trackball pointer is a valuable assistant for precisely accessing text insertion points; a magnifier icon assists zooming.

But two way communications is more that text and media exchange. During recent neighborhood cable outages, I was able to access a daily one hour Calliflower conference call via iSkoot and its support for Skype-based calling with the only cost being local wireless minutes. I quickly realized that it was actually more convenient to have the device mobility when interrupted by activities that took me away from my desk.

The Bold’s 3G mobile connectivity is complemented by its support for WiFi when in an accessible WiFi zone. It means faster download of web pages and multimedia, eliminating or reducing buffering of streaming video, such as available on YouTube.

One example demonstrates the power of the combination of display quality, connection speed and processor performance. Previously I mentioned the quality of Google Maps satellite views; however, recently Google Maps Street View became available for the BlackBerry (for U.S. locations only). Stroll down a street or rotate about an address, the Bold’s connectivity and processor come into play for downloading and rendering the resulting images. The result is not only high quality images of the surrounding buildings and scenery but also rapid image updating with minimum pixelating as you move about.

The Bold also includes a media player supporting both stereo audio and video; its support of microSD memory cards allows easy memory upgrades as your media collection builds. Music can be synchronized from iTunes via BlackBerry MediaSync. During a recent flight I was able to transcribe an interview, recorded from a Skype call as an MP3 file via Pamela (and added to iTunes), where the Bold’s trackball pointer provided the required precision to easily access and replay segments of the interview with an accuracy no touch screen can approach.

So what’s the downside?

While the display provides the ability to keep up with much more information than via email exchanges, the browser still needs some work to come up to the quality of the iPhone browsing experience. But it never prevented me from executing time sensitive work activity. While the Bold readily switches between WiFi and 3G when entering and leaving registered WiFi access points, registering those WiFi access points is not quite the single step stress-free iPhone process.

There are many features left to try out; I am constantly downloading applications and shortcuts. But the overall experience is best summed up by a business professional aquaintance who, after six weeks with the Bold, reported that “I’m beginning to think my Bold is more powerful than my notebook.” A sentiment I started to feel during a recent trip to California where all these factors came into play and I found I was ignoring my laptop, yet keeping fully current. But BlackBerry Bold is a device you have to see to truly appreciate its full potential.

A little over a six weeks ago, I finally switched to an iPhone 3G – I’d been holding out for the white 16GB model to arrive in the UK and pounced as soon as they started to arrive at O2 stores.

I’ve been as enchanted with the mix of goofy and useful applications from the iTunes App Store as anyone else. Initially, I sought to find and install the mobile counterparts of my desktop and web-based applications – eBay, Facebook, Twitteriffic, Last.fm, WordPress, etc

Of course, the real value of iPhone applications are in areas which truly leverage mobility – eBay as an iPhone app is only marginally more useful than eBay running in Safari on an iPhone.

However, there’s a class of iPhone app emerging that seeks to exploit mobility in ways that were previously difficult to conceive.

Mobile Safari has illustrated that phones can simply be conceptualized as handheld windows into the wider web. What applications such as Mocha VNC and G.ho.st illustrate is that a mobile handset can also be a window into remote computing resources.

Both applications enable users to remotely access a computer’s desktop; Mocha VNC is iPhone-specific and based on the VNC protocol (the virtues of which Samuel Dean covered recently) whereas G.ho.st supports a number of handsets, by dint of its browser-based client. Of course VNC servers can run on Linux, Windows and OS X desktops, bringing a kind of virtualization-lite to the iPhone platform.

I paired my new iPhone with my MacBook Pro’s desktop using Mocha VNC and my domestic WiFi network. The results were surprisingly responsive, with the iPhone rendering a legible, zoom-able, thumbnail of my Mac’s desktop. With some tweaks, Mocha and G.ho.st could enable mobile users to tap the full power of desktop computers from a handheld device…albeit with a cost in battery life, data charges and network latency.

Mocha is currently available as a free app, accompanied by a paid, more fully featured edition. You can learn more about Gh.os.st here and Mocha VNC here.

Image via Wikipedia

I can’t get the Who’s song “Going Mobile” out of my head, and it is driving me crazy.

The other day I came across VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2008 list of companies and have been stressing out ever since. Combine that with attending the latest BlogHer conference and watching several power mobile device users in action (Blackberries implanted in hand, fingers flying at breakneck speed), and no wonder I am starting to feel the pressure of change.

As a Web worker, I can see that my industry is already moving toward being at the forefront of adopting mobile technologies, but I’m not sure exactly what that mobile work looks like.

I’m even less sure how to equip myself properly to handle the technical requirements of mobile work as I’m still trying to get my mobile communications equipment up to snuff. I think I need a technology consultant who can assess my current devices, suggest affordable upgrades, and provide me with a strategy that can help me avoid penalties and too many additional fees from my telecommunications companies not to mention some advice on how to adapt to mobile work. Otherwise, this move toward mobile is going to break my bank not to mention blow my mind.

Can I really go mobile?

Now before you start labeling me a Luddite or of a generation that cannot adopt well to technological change, let me just lay out for you my current tech equipment landscape so you can see my quandry.

My Equipment

1. Two cell phones. When I moved to Alaska, I kept my Wyoming cell phone through Verizon, partly because I still have clients in Wyoming and partly because I didn’t want to change my number. I got a second cell phone through an Alaska company so I could have a local number for my business. I can’t get out of either contract without hundreds of dollars worth of penalties, but I just managed to upgrade the Verizon phone to the LG EnV2 which isn’t even available here in Alaska through the local telecoms. And since I’m in Alaska, I’m unable to use any of the photo or video features on the phone so upgrading from a bare bones phone to a sexy one with a keyboard and camera may have been a bad strategy. My local cell phone is a bare bones LG with zero bells or whistles, only capable of calls and SMS.

2. An iPod Touch. This is a very recent purchase and was meant to be simply an iPod upgrade, but in truth, it was due to iPhone envy. I can’t move to AT&T without a severe penalty so I got the next best thing. Unfortunately, without the cell service, an iPod Touch is mostly inert because even though wifi is proliferating, it isn’t always free and isn’t ubiquitous enough to make the Touch useful in most settings. And in the settings where there is free wifi, I usually have my MacBook with me which, let’s face it, is easier to work on than a hand held device, at least for me.

My Web Work

Looking what I do most days, I can break my work down as follows:

1. Writing. I write for web sites, and I still write for print magazines, but at least I can email my drafts into all of my editors.

2. Blogging. I post all of the blog posts I write, although some clients still have publishing control.

3. Social Media Marketing. On any given day, I’m writing proposals and plans for clients as well as helping to implement plans including setting up social networking accounts, posting multimedia content to social networks, and linking a client’s social networks together for more efficient marketing.

4. E-Coordination. As I continue to hire and work with virtual teams, I’m doing almost all of my coordination via web sites like Basecamp.

5. E-Communications. I’m barely scratching the surface of my email inboxes these days and seeking new ways to manage the constant stream of email communications between clients, vendors, editors, team members, and independent contractors, not to mention my subscriptions to industry newsletters and RSS feeds.

A Mobile Reality Check

Here’s how I see the mobile aspects of my current work:

1. Mobile Writing. I have finally gotten used to composing all of my content on a computer using a laptop keyboard and screen. Now you’re telling me I’m going to have to squint to see my content on a miniscule screen and relearn keyboarding on a tiny excuse for a keyboard? I’m already in need of reading glasses. What next? A magnifying glass? Microscope? Not to mention the new cramps and numbness I’m getting in my hands just from texting more now that I finally have a mobile phone with an augmented keyboard. Scary.

2. Mo-Blogging. Putting aside my stress over trying to see on a tiny screen, typing on a eensy weensy keyboard, and pain and numbness in my hands, some of the blogging tools I use do have a mobile component to them. I could actually “phone in” the posts via SMS, but I haven’t tried that yet. The barrier for me is composing 250-500 words on miniature equipment.

3. M-Marketing. Because of my own tech limitations, I haven’t even begun experimenting with mobile social networks like Peperonity, Zannel, Qik, or ItsMy. I’m beginning to feel the weight of guilt for not being far enough ahead to give my clients the benefit of that experience. How much are we missing without that mobile exposure? I’d argue that unless my clients are trying to reach the audiences who have the right devices and are using these networks (they aren’t), we still have time. Still, I feel I need to be testing these sites out now yet don’t have the tech capabilities to do so.

4. M-Coordination. I’m barely using SMS for anything else other than texting friends and family. If I need to contact someone related to my work, it is email first, project management web sites next, and by phone – as in voice – as last resort. I’m sure I could make a shift, but I think I’d have to start with email communications, and that in itself is still going to be a big leap.

5. M-Communications. Even if I could get my email on one of my mobile devices, I’m still not sure I could process it properly through my squinting eyes, even wearing my reading glasses. I’m not even willing to get any of my Twitter messages on my cell phone because I fear the flood gates will open, and I will no longer be able to control the information overload. But if I’m going to start somewhere with my mobile workability, this is definitely the place to start. If I can get the right equipment and then wrap my head around email on a mobile device (much less be able to read it), then I think the rest of this mobile landscape will come into focus for me – both literally and figuratively.

What I’m really wondering is: Is the pressure I’m feeling to go more mobile because it really is the new way of working or because I’m simply in an industry where I need to stay as close to one step ahead as humanly possible to be viable and to be taken seriously?

What is your mobile device landscape and how are you the ways you are really working with your handhelds?

Like a lot of Web Workers, I have come to rely on Twitter to stay connected with friends and colleagues. We’ve covered ways to use Twitter as a productivity tool, and as I do become more reliant on it, having access while away from my PC has become more attractive to me.

I have never been a big user of text messaging and have always found it to be a bit of a klunky way to work with Twitter. Luckily, one of the things that makes Twitter so attractive is the myriad of connectivity options available.

The folks over at Simple Help recently published 20 ways to use Twitter from your mobile phone which is a great overview of apps and services available to help feed your mobile Twitter addiction.

One not appearing on their list though is Tiny Twitter, which I have been using for the last couple of days and recommend highly. It’s a java app which means it runs on a huge array of devices. On my Windows Mobile phone the interface is crisp and clean and Twhirl like.

I can see and browse through my timeline and tweet, reply or direct message easily. Options let me choose how often it checks for updates which is great with the ever changing API limits that Twitter seems to be imposing.

I prefer this sort of interface to the kludgy text messaging. An added bonus is that I already have an unlimited data plan so I can stay connected without needing to add a messaging package to my account.

You can download Tiny Twitter for free for a variety of different devices. Set up is quick and easy.

ed. Jury is still out as to whether or not Twitter is a toy or a productivity tool. What say you, web workers? Should we review/cover more Twitter tools?

Only the FON-ely...FON-liness Of The Long Distance Runner. Yes, I had a whole bank of puns to title this post. They’ll all aptly tragic in telling the tale of a promising piece of web worker infrastructure that has in essence become a network of very lonely and isolated hotspots…

I first came across FON at O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony 2006 conference, as then company evangelist Ejovi Nuwere outlined a vision of a global wifi network built from the grassroots, owned and operated by its users. Ejovi explained that users installing a FON hotspot would be able to earn revenue from its use or, if they agreed to charge no access fee, use every other FON hotspot at no cost when travelling away from home.

A few months later I recieved a complimentary La Fonera router, becoming the 4089th ‘Fonero’ (currently there are 671′363 users). A few days ago, I switched off my La Fonera, packaging it for an eBay bidder that paid just $17. Now the thing is, none of those 671′362 other Fonero’s hotspots were in places I where I needed connectivity…

FON showed great promise, attacking the fragmented wifi hotspot market and placing pressure on 3G broadband providers by harnessing the energy of the very people that would benefit from its service. The promise of a disruptive user-owned global wifi network was a large part of the company’s marketing, playing on the iconography and language of revolution. With $22m in funding from Google, Skype and venture capitalists, the company seemed poised for success…so what went wrong?

• Mobile broadband providers have wised up with 3G plans and hardware available for as little as $20/month here in the UK. Also users have a plethora of reasonable HSDPA and Wifi options. Though, incidentally, O2 won’t be letting UK iPhone 3G users use their phones as modems to the 3G network!

• FON-liness! FON is not where you need it despite their partnerships with telcos and municipalities, I’ve yet to find a FON location when I needed one. Airports, railway stations, gas stations are well served by national wifi providers. These are the location owners FON needed to align with. I’m not going to need broadband parked up outside some guys house, but I’ll need it waiting for a train to London.

• Crazy ass distractions at FON labs with the development of Gmail uploaders, URL squeezers and Facebook status tools are an unneccessary waste of resources. 20% time is only valuable when the other 80% is making a real difference to the business. It also indicates to investors that the founders are bored with the core business of the company.

• Basic hardware has been a constant frustration for Foneros, with the inexpensive La Fonera lacking many features common to Linksys, Belkin and other cheap routers (like more than one port!). Indeed, FON missed a strategic blunder in failing to convince those very manufacturers to add FON-like capabilities to their products out of the box. It can be argued the FON’s firmware is its core asset and proliferating that – agnostic of hardware – was a keystone strategy.

In 2006, I argued that my employers, Orange UK, could partner with FON to create the world’s largest hotzone. My superiors convinced me that if Orange wanted to do that, they could simply upgrade the firmware of all their domestic hotspots – without FON. FON’s potential role as a organisation that could enable roaming between multiple wifi networks was sadly unexplored.

So sadly the promise of FON’s $5 wireless router and it’s community-grown network is almost irrelevant. However, Web workers have many more options available to them. Take my advice and eBay that La Fonera…I’ll be putting that $17 towards an Airport Extreme :)

I don’t know about you, but I vividly remember the day I learned HTML. I took my first HTML course in the fall of 1994 for $10 given by a guy who was building Web sites in Santa Fe for local artists. The entire world opened up to me and that alone was worth every penny of the ten bucks spent.

Now, the whole world is going to be made compact enough to fit on my mobile phone or device so a book like Mobile Web Development (by Nirav Mehta, 2008 Packt Publishing) is a useful read even though it has been a long time since I’ve rolled up my sleeves, squinted my eyes, and dug into code.

If I were still coding, this book would probably mean as much to me today as Teach Yourself HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay meant to me back in the 90s. Even as the person who hires the coders on development projects, it was an interesting read, particularly getting a glimpse of how far HTML has taken us and where it seems to be going.

Mobile Web Development covers building Web sites, configuring SMS and MMS messaging, setting up mobile payments as well as voice call systems. The gist of the book is to help you create mobile-friendly sites and mobile-ready apps. The book covers programming in XHTML MP (Extensible HTML Mobile Profile), WCSS (Wireless CSS) and mobile AJAX (asynchronous Javascript and XML).

The book uses a ficticious pizza business – Pizza on the Run – as the guinea pig for a mobile site and mobile apps development which covers the planning process and decision-making that needs to happen before programming. An example used in the book is looking at creating Multimedia Messages for special offers for Pizza on the Run. The book is written in a conversational and accessible tone with a clear format for all of the code so while I may not be digging into this code any time soon, the basic concepts made sense to me.

While you don’t need any special software or hardware to gain knowledge from this book, you do need a Windows system to install mobile emulators and IVR software and then a PHP/MySQL setup to run any of the book’s examples.

If you are curious at all about the behind-the-scenes code that brings the Web and applications to mobile devices, this is a good primer. The book whets your appetite for upcoming trends, mentioning Open Handset Alliance and Google’s Android system, and it also lists some Web resources so you can stay up-to-the-moment on mobile Web developments.

Google Apps for Your Domain offers many of Google’s core applications to be accessed through your own custom domain, a boon for productivity.

Gmail’s mobile application is amazing, but Google Apps subscribers could be left out because you are required to login with [username]@gmail.com, not @yourdomain.com.

Read on for one easy way to get your Google Apps account to work with the mobile utility.

The Steps

• Sign up for a regular Gmail account.
• Login into your Google Apps e-mail.
• Go to Settings – Forwarding and POP/IMAP
• Under “Forwarding” choose:
  • Forward Copy
  • Fill in your new Gmail account
  • Then select “keep [domain]’s copy in the inbox”
  • Save changes
• Login into Gmail
• Go to Settings – Accounts
  • Under “Send mail as…” click “Add another email address”
  • Enter the name you want, and enter your Google Apps e-mail
  • Go to the next step, and verify your e-mail
• You can then download the Gmail app on your Java-enabled phone and use it

Now whenever you’re on the road you get a copy of the e-mail on your mobile that you can respond to with your Google Apps account, and when you go back to your Google Apps account you’ll have those e-mails, including the complete conversation, saved!

Update: Steve pointed out in the comments that Google has made their Gmail mobile application available for Google Apps. Just point your phone to m.google.com/a and download it. Thanks Steven!