Web Worker Daily

With all of the fancy technologies we use today, it’s easy for web workers to overlook the importance of the telephone. I communicate with my two colleagues at our home offices by email and IM, and through our project management system, but we still spend a lot of time on the phone. And, of course, current and prospective customers need to call us, to discuss projects and get support.

Many web workers are looking at services like Google Voice and 3jam, which allow you to have one business phone number that can be configured to forward to cell phones, to voice mail, or to colleagues if you’re out of the office. Google Voice, however, isn’t really designed for business use, and 3jam has only limited business-oriented features.

If you need more robust features, there are many business-oriented “virtual phone systems.” I’ve recently taken one such product, Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail), for a spin, and was impressed by it. But its cost is higher than Google Voice and 3jam, so you’ll need to see if the feature set is worth it for you. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m quite pleased with my Gmail Tasks GTD solution — it’s working very well and might turn out to be more of a long-term solution than I had originally thought. However, one of the problems with a computer-based GTD system is that when you’re away from your computer — at the gym, say — you need a way to store ideas, which you then have to remember to transfer into the Inbox on your computer-based system later.

There’s a simple way to do this using Memo, a service from Spinvox. Memo is a note-taking service you can use with your phone. Call a number, leave your message, and Spinvox converts the speech to text and emails it to a designated account. This is really handy for use with GTD. I’ll explain how I’m using it with my Gmail Tasks system, but you could also use it quite easily with any other GTD app. You could also use Jott, a similar speech-to-text service, but that’s no good for me as it’s only available in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia (LibSyn)

Before I fell asleep last night, I started thinking about what I’m spending on Web applications. I take advantage of the free levels of apps whenever I can, however, in some cases, I have to give in and pay for the services.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have buyer’s remorse, but I do think I need to get a firm grasp of what Web apps or SaaS’s I have on autopay on my business credit card because it is getting to be too easy to charge these things.

Here is the list of Web apps I’ve been paying for and why I pay for them:

Read the rest of this entry »