AnyMessages, an online service designed to replace those pink “While You Were Out” messages, allows coworkers to send an email or text with a caller’s message and contact information. The service is easy to set up and use, but still has some kinks to work out. Read more »
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and in my workspace,
The tech gear was taking breaks from the rat race.
The smartphones were plugged into USB,
And the laptops were waiting for “press any key.”
The servers were nestled with heads in the cloud, Read more »
Google Voice, which offers voice calling from mobile devices and from Gmail’s web interface, has announced that it will continue to offer free calls in the U.S. and Canada through 2011. Google had previously said that free calling would only be available through December 2010. Read more »
No matter what other presences you may have on the web, your own website is still a must. Professionally-designed websites should, of course, look good no matter what browser a user has. But it’s surprisingly tough to test all the ways that your site may look. Read more »
Following the success of the MacHeist offerings, time-limited bundles of software seem to be popular these days. The Fusion Ads Holiday Bundle includes a number of programs that may be of interest to Mac-using web workers. The collection includes the following software: Read more »
Cloud-based note-taking apps are proliferating. Newcomer Catch has joined Evernote, Springpad, Paprika and Simplenote in this space. Like a lot of my WWD colleagues, I’ve been using Evernote. So does Catch offer any features that might induce me to switch? Read more »
Facebook can be a great tool for web workers, but you need to be careful about how much information you’re sharing. To stop inappropriate photos being displayed on your profile page, you may want to change who can see photos of you that others have tagged. Read more »
Most email providers have filtering systems that do a pretty good job of catching spam messages. But every so often, there will be a surge of spam messages that get past the filters to pollute our inboxes. Here’s a tip that may help reduce future messages. Read more »
For organizations to successfully recruit and retain the best people, human resources departments must move beyond the typical command-and control management structure and unleash their people and processes, according to speakers at GigaOM’s Net:Work conference. Read more »
Virtual Office Pro 2.0, from telecoms company 8×8, is a web-based suite of communications services. It includes phone, fax, web conferencing, call recording and chat, and has functions that are standard with many VoIP systems, such as call forwarding and three-way calling. Read more »
I’ve recently bought an HTC EVO 4G and have been busy trying out apps for it. So if you or a loved one are in line to get an Android phone for the holidays, here are some of my favorite apps to get you started. Read more »
The web-based presentation application SlideRocket has enhanced its tools for interactivity and collaboration. Users can now incorporate interactive elements — like real-time Twitter streams, widgets, commenting tools, polls and audio narration — into their presentations, in addition to traditional graphics and text. Read more »
The folks at Egnyte have released a survey indicating that over 80 percent of small business professionals plan to work over the holidays. For those folks, the company has now released an Android app, to manage, access and share files while on the road. Read more »
Launched at the weekend, new “social browser” RockMelt promises to make it easy to share and keep up with your friends. It caused quite a lot of discussion after Om wrote about it. I’ve had a chance to take it for a quick test drive. Read more »
Adium, the open-source IM client, has been updated to version 1.4. I’ve been using it in beta for what seems like an eternity, but the delay in its release is hardly surprising, given the huge number of new features included in the new version. Read more »
I enjoy reading lots of different kinds of books, from fiction to travel to humor to, of course, tech-related books. Here are a couple of books that web workers may find enlightening: David Kirkpatrick’s”The Facebook Effect” and Karen Anderson’s “Take Control of iPhone Basics” Read more »
In recent days, a new tool called Firesheep has become available to “sniff out” login information that’s being sent over wireless networks. Such tools have always been available, but this one makes it easy for anyone to collect other people’s private data. Read more »
Vanilla Forums, which I wrote about last year, has added several new features. Notably, forums can now be embedded in other website using simple JavaScript code. The embedded forums can use your site’s theme and CSS, or can use one of the many Vanilla themes. Read more »
Much as I like Mac OS X, I’ve never been happy with the native Finder, and for some reason, I’ve never liked the best-known Finder replacement, Path Finder. So I was interested to see that there’s now another replacement for Finder, called TotalFinder. Read more »
I’ve really been enjoying reading books using e-book readers. But while many e-readers are good at what they do, they are either tied to a specific vendor, or don’t support Adobe’s widely-used DRM. For reading such books, the free Bluefire Reader for iOS is now available. Read more »
Many people like the open source VoIP software Asterisk, but it’s tricky to set up, even for tech-savvy folks. Aretta has developed a hosted version of Asterisk called NetPBX PRO, which offers a friendly setup and has a full range of sophisticated features. Read more »
Clearwire recently introduced a pay-as-you-go Internet connection service called Rover. Its plans work similarly to prepaid cell phone services, except that Rover doesn’t sell phone minutes, it sells data, delivered through the Clearwire network. One of the devices available is a mobile hotspot; the Rover Puck. Read more »
If you like the idea of having remote access to your files, but aren’t comfortable with cloud storage services, then Pogoplug Biz may be worth considering. The Pogoplug hardware allows users to connect up to four external hard drives directly to the Internet. Read more »
As file storage in the cloud is becoming ubiquitous, Egnyte has chosen to stand out from the crowd by incorporating both old and new technologies to improve the usefulness of its services. As of today, Egnyte supports FTP file transfers and integration with Google Docs. Read more »
The developers call Ringio a “new approach for call collaboration.” When a call comes in, users are presented with a real-time popup showing data about the caller, so that one can decide to take the call, redirect the caller to voicemail or to another team member. Read more »
Liaise, an email-based project management and collaboration system, is now available publicly, and its developers are offering 100 free one-year subscriptions to WebWorkerDaily readers. Liaise is intended for heavy email users who collaborate with many different people both inside and outside their organization. Read more »
I really like the new (third-generation) Amazon Kindle as an e-book reader. It’s by far the best reading device that I’ve tried. But because it’s focused on being such a great e-reader, its usefulness for web working may be limited. Read more »
Technology workers are often called on to donate our services, which most of us are happy to do so. For example, five years ago, I wanted to help those affected by the floods caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, since I have connections with New Orleans. Read more »
When the new “make phone calls from Gmail” service was announced, I wasn’t expecting to see it any time soon in Google Apps. However, when I logged into one of my Google Apps accounts last night, the new option to “Call Phone” appeared under Chat. Read more »
It’s now possible to make and receive phone calls to the U.S. and Canada at no charge directly from Gmail’s web interface. I’ve been testing the new service, and so far, I’m very happy with it. As always, Google is rolling out the new service gradually. Read more »
