Web Worker Daily

During the past month, I’ve been busy redecorating and rearranging my home office. I spend most of my time there after all, so it needs to be conducive to productivity. For all my planning, there seems to be an aspect of my home office that I’ve largely ignored — the lighting. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I woke up to find that my partner had rearranged my home office. She spent the better part of the morning turning it into our home office.

I shouldn’t have been surprised — I’d told her earlier in the week that we might become more productive if we work near each other. At that time it was merely a suggestion. I didn’t think that one day I would just wake up and find it a reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Even when you work 100 percent virtually — no pens, no paper, a laptop, and web-based tools and applications — clutter seems inevitable.

I’ll admit, I haven’t gone completely paperless (is it even possible?), and while my clutter in no way compares to what I used to accumulate in previous (non-web) jobs, it still gets in the way at times and needs to be tamed.

Here are a few tricks I use to keep it in check. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft said today that the Technical Preview of Office 2010 will start to be be rolled out to beta testers, and confirmed speculation from last week that Office 2010 will include Office Web, lightweight web app versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. Office Web will be available for free to anyone with a Microsoft Live account.

This is especially good news for web workers who have been longing for an access-anywhere version of the Office suite, many of whom have been struggling with hybrid Office/Google Docs solutions.

However, the bad news is that Office 2010 and Office Web won’t be available until the first half of next year, so unless you have access to the Technical Preview you’re going to have to wait a long time to try it out. Microsoft has hinted that a wider beta test of Office Web could be made available later this year, but that still seems like a painfully long wait in today’s “release early, iterate often” world of web apps. In the meantime, I think it’s quite likely that we’ll see some considerable improvements to Google Apps.

What do you think of this announcement? Can you wait until early next year for Office Web?

I’m not gonna lie, a big reason that I like my current freelance tech blogging gig is the gear. But even if I wasn’t in this particular line of work, I’d still take an unnatural amount of interest in outfitting my office or workspace, regardless of whether it happens to be in my home or not. Computers, gadgets, office supplies, office furniture — these are the things that get me truly excited about doing my job, from the lowliest stapler to the most extravagantly outfitted desktop computer.

While just acquiring and setting up new gear is cause enough for celebration, better still is getting great deals on new work-related stuff. For instance, re-purposing an old SLR camera bag as the perfect clandestine portable HDD/DVD-RW/cable tote, or having Best Buy match the deep discount a much smaller competitor is offering on a 16GB SDHC card. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all teleworkers are lucky enough to have a large house. This means that designated office space will be limited. In fact, many teleworkers I know work from a partitioned corner of their kitchen or living room. If you’re in a similar situation, planning your home office can be a challenge. What can you do to have an efficient workspace in a small area?

Spend time planning your space. It’s best to make a visual plan so that each square foot is accounted for. Doing this saves more time and effort over moving furniture around on the spot.

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems so alluring — you, your computer, your home office, and all the silence/Bach/Led Zeppelin you can handle. A potted palm! A lava lamp! This is the home office ideal, right? Right.

But what happens when you put someone else in the picture? What if, right next to the potted palm in your home office, your partner or work-from-home housemate materialized?

With more and more people working remotely at least some of the time, this is a very real question that many of us face. What should you consider if you’re about to embark on a multi-person home workplace?

There are definitely pros as well as cons. First up, let’s look at the cons. These are the main sticking points I’ve encountered when working from home with another in close proximity. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get into my review of Feng Office, yet another app that aims to provide one-stop shopping for calendar, email, task and contact management, I want to take a moment to address cost issues. Feng Office, like a lot of apps I’ve come across lately, doesn’t offer a free version. At minimum, it costs $10 a month. While at first, I balked at testing out paid solutions, I now believe that so long as the app offers a high degree of professional-caliber fit and finish, it may be worth the price even when compared with free offerings in the same category.

So is Feng Office worth the price of admission? To some extent, that will always depend on your available budget, but here are my impressions. Read the rest of this entry »