How-To — GigaOM

How-To

When you work with a virtual team, good Internet access is crucial. One person with a spotty connection can slow down the whole group. This issue is becoming a growing concern as companies hire employees around the world; Internet access isn’t consistent in every country. Read More »

Working in teams with members spread out across various time zones around the world can be a challenge. Even when your team is located in the same building, sharing and collaborating on documents and content can be tricky if you aren’t using the right tools. Read More »

 
 

Twitter for Mac is one of the great apps introduced alongside the Mac App Store. Since then, it’s been updated twice and the app’s icon changed (some would say for the worse) both times. Here’s how to change the icon back to whichever you like best. Read More »

Marketing is an area where many business owners flounder. You may have ideas for how you might promote your business, but figuring out if your strategy and tactics are worthwhile and then organizing your ideas into a workable plan of action can be overwhelming. Read More »

Creating and using QR codes is so easy, it struck me that they could also be useful for enterprise deployment, especially if your office still uses paper for some communication purposes. Here are some sample applications of the kinds of implementations that I’m now using. Read More »

One of the best things about the iPhone is how easily you can set your own custom ringtones. Creating those ringtones from music from your own library is incredibly easy, too, and doesn’t require any paid third-party software. All you need is Garage Band and iTunes. Read More »

The Rapid Evolution of Digital Language

The web has provided a hothouse for the blossoming of fad language, jargon and discipline-specific words. How do web workers keep up with the evolution of online language? And how do we avoid sounding out-of-touch in a field where being connected is the most basic … Read More »

MobileMe offers subscribers a terrific level of remote access to files and applications stored on home Macs when on the road. You may be a MobileMe subscriber and not even be aware of this feature. Here’s how to go about setting up Back to My Mac. Read More »

Don’t want to wait until iOS 4.3 becomes publicly available to share your iPhone’s data connection? There’s a way to do it, but you’ll need to also have a Mac handy. It isn’t the most portable solution, but it gets the job done. Read More »

At CES my employer, Intel, hired Hugh MacLeod (aka gapingvoid) to draw custom cartoons, hang out in the booth and give out signed copies of those cartoons. It got me thinking about other ways to incorporate fun into our work events. Read More »

When you add a new tool to the set you expect your team to work with every day, it takes more than just a little bit of training to get the ball rolling. You have to sit down and talk about the tool. Read More »

As the social media industry matures and best practices continue to refine, I’m struck by how too many people tend to get caught up in the numbers — or at least the wrong numbers — and let those numbers dictate how and when they use social … Read More »

More Must Reads

The latest Apple TV has a built-in update function that downloads and installs new software, accessible via the device’s Settings menu. But if you’d rather not update over-the-air, you can always do it via USB through iTunes, and restore your device, too, if you’re having problems. Read More »

While there are definitely benefits to having the freedom of working from home, one downside for me has been the development of several bad habits. Breaking those bad habits is a real challenge, which in my case I knew would require a complete system reset. Read More »

Choice is now here when it comes to U.S. iPhone service providers, so if you’ve decided that you’ve had enough of AT&T, there are a few options available. Keeping in mind that you may not escape unscathed, here are a few options for breaking your contract. Read More »

Living in the cloud isn’t without its risks. Gmail outages are rare, but they do happen. Your Gmail password could also get stolen or hacked. You can make sure that you don’t lose any important data should these things occur. Read More »

When there’s so many different things vying for our attention, and especially when we’re feeling more than a little burned out with our current efforts, a little “stick-to-itiveness” can go a long way. Here are a few ideas for developing the trait. Read More »

As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good time to take a step back and look at some data to see which of your blog posts have been getting attention and which ones have been mostly ignored. Read More »

Generally, we come up with plans, ways we’re going to market our businesses, manage them, and keep things growing and moving along smoothly, but what are we missing? Are there blind spots that could potentially be fatal to the success of our companies? Read More »

As an organization grows, certain tools don’t scale particularly well. One common scenario a company can face is that as new employees or team members are added, collaboration tools can falter. How can you make sure the transition to new tools goes smoothly? Read More »

Thanks to the excellent Erica Sadun, you can now easily set up your Mac to receive AirPlay streaming from an iOS device. Check out our simple guide to getting the new utility, called AirPlayer, up and running on your Mac. 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 »

Parental Controls in Snow Leopard are an absolute hit with parents. But the usefulness of those tools don’t just stop at the kids. From blocking websites to tracking time, they can also be used to increase your own personal productivity. Here’s how. Read More »

Over the weekend, the servers of Gawker Media were hacked. Account data, including usernames and passwords of blog commenters, have been stolen. If you have an account on a Gawker blog and use the same password anywhere else, it’s imperative that you change those passwords immediately. Read More »

We’re right in the middle of the holiday season, when the stress starts to accumulate until it reaches a breaking point. Start taking steps today to make some positive changes that will help you manage our stress over the next two or three weeks. Read More »

ProofHQ has worked as a remote team since the company was founded two years ago. It’s a topic that we have much experience of and feel passionately about, so we wanted to share some of the lessons that we’ve learned along the way. Read More »

As a community manager, my role at many events is to make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for community building: getting people talking and spending time together. I wanted to share some suggestions for both attendees and organizers. Read More »

We are all connected in business. It’s through the cloud that we collaborate and connect with our colleagues, employees and customers around the globe, no matter their time zone. Here are some tips and strategies getting the most out of the cloud: Read More »

Web geeks rejoice! 24 ways, an advent calendar for web designers and developers, has returned for its sixth year. Every day until Dec. 24, a new article will be published on the site, covering topics such as design, CSS and JavaScript techniques and business development tips. Read More »

Undergoing continued health treatment while you’re working full-time remains a challenge — especially for the freelancer or contractor. The good news is that balancing work and ongoing health treatment isn’t impossible. These are a few of the techniques I’ve used to make it easier. Read More »

Running a meeting virtually presents some special challenges that you simply won’t encounter when you’re able to round up your staff from within the building. The more you can do to streamline the process ahead of time, the better your meeting will flow. Read More »

Online performance review tools are designed to make the oft-dreaded review process more “efficient” but often have a dehumanizing effect. It doesn’t have to be this way. A new type of people management software can free us from these bonds. Here’s what it looks like: Read More »

I’ve heard mounting complaints about the Google-centric focus of web workers from those using other scheduling tools, but the fact is that the plethora of tools designed to make scheduling easy can actually make it more difficult. Are you guilty of these scheduling faux pas? Read More »

A few weeks ago I wrote about what crowdsourcing is useful for, breaking it down into three main categories: Work, Input and Organizing. Here are some ideas for tasks that can be crowdsourced and links to sites that can help you with those tasks. Read More »

Some teams are made up of some members who work on-site and some who work remotely. While most research shows that little difference in performance between the two groups, this kind of team poses a challenge, because the on-site workers tend to ignore the remote workers Read More »

As we face up to the holiday season, many of my colleagues are beginning to feel the pressure of deadlines. Time is running short, and suddenly they need my contributions to their projects immediately. These are the tactics I use to manage this need-it-yesterday mentality. Read More »

OS X includes a great tool called Automator, which makes it really easy to take the sting out of repetitive tasks. Recently, I ran into a situation where I had to combine a bunch of PDF files into one. Luckily, Automator makes it dead simple. Read More »

The work I do is generally solitary, but in the last couple of months, I’ve had to work with teams more than usual, and it’s been Dropbox to the rescue every time. Here are some examples of how Dropbox has come in handy for me lately: Read More »

I hate spending time on email. But for those of us who do most of our work online, we can’t escape it. When was the last time you took a hard look at the emails you send to other people? Are your emails helping or hindering? … Read More »

This morning I was reading an article on American Express Open Forum entitled, “5 Reasons Why You Need a Social Media Dream Team,” which got me thinking about my own company’s own “dream team,” the people I want on it, and how I’m building it. Read More »

I sometimes find myself taking over other people’s projects, like rewriting existing website content or finishing website designs. But taking on another person’s project can be challenging, especially if they are no longer around. So how can you make the transition as smooth as possible? Read More »

I recently switched from my iPhone to an Android device. I was happy with it, but syncing Mac and phone provided some obstacles. So I set out to find a way to replicate the iOS/Mac sync experience for media, contacts and calendars. Read More »

How can you find people that share your passion and vision for the company without breaking the bank? Thankfully, there are numerous online networks and tools that can help you find the ideal candidate without spending a fortune on recruitment agencies: Read More »

One way to help to keep everyone up-to-date with the project is to use an internal blog to share information with your team members. It can mean a little extra work, but being being able to keep everyone on the same page can be invaluable. Read More »

If you run a service-based business, you probably have some horror stories to tell about bad clients and projects that have gone wrong. There are some things you can do to better manage client expectations, which can help keep these problems to a minimum: Read More »

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