I don’t let my family mess with my home office. Sure, they can borrow my stapler and tape as long as they promise to bring it back: one sneak held on to my stapler for a week! At least it’s not a red Swingline stapler (I wish). But no leaving toys and backpacks behind. It’s also the tidiest place in the house, something important to the neat freak I am.

The home office also sets aside a working space that sends a message to the family that I’m working. Moms and Dads can keep dreaming that their office space will keep out children. However, kids will disrupt your work less often in a dedicated office than if you work in a bedroom or living room.

Though a small space, the setup works well. Let’s just say the master bathroom has more room than the office. Every web worker’s office space requirements differ based on their jobs and space available.

Before I became a full-time web worker, I had my “office” in the family room. This let me keep an eye on the baby — now five-years-old — and the other kids. I moved into my current home office when the youngest was two and I switched to full-time freelancing.

This post lists things I have that make me feel “at home” in my home office. Maybe they’ll inspire yours. For more inspiration, see 5 Inspirational Workspaces.

Desk. Not just any desk. The desk housing the computer, keyboard and mouse must feel comfortable. This includes the right height for the mouse, keyboard and monitors. Ergonomics do matter: I’ve worked on someone else’s desk for a while and my wrist and arm ached. That signaled to me that my desk setup was right for me. A good setup makes a real difference. If you feel pain within an hour, keep adjusting. My desk is a cheap one with wheels (leftovers from working in the family room), and it works. The fancier L-shaped desk facing the wall sits to my right and behind me. It holds supplies, files, paperwork, laser and color printers, stationery and décor.

Shelves. I only need one bookshelf because the L-shaped desk contains the needed shelves (see in image below) for supplies, papers, folders and other knickknacks. I used to have two bookshelves (the other sat below the picture you see in the above image), which made the office space a tad uncomfortable and tight. After rearranging things, I moved my lesser important books upstairs where most of the books live.

Supplies. As much as I limit paper use, I’ll always need staplers, tape, rubber bands, scissors and stamps. I don’t waste time hunting down for these little items because they wait for me in the right spots. A little container holding pens, pencils, highlighters and scissors sits to the left of my keyboard (proud southpaw here) for easy access. The tape and stapler sit on a shelf behind me because I don’t use them as much as the writing tools. Next to the pencil holder is a small three-drawer container that holds the checkbook, sticky notes and little items needing to be within reach without turning around. It prevents clutter — muy importante!

Equipment. An all-in-one printer saves space. I have two printers: a laser printer and an all-in-one that includes a scanner, copier and color printer. I also have a fax machine. Two monitors sit on my desk side-by-side and I’d make room for a third. Having items on two screens at the same time makes me more efficient. Since I don’t want to turn up the heat or air conditioner just for me, I keep a portable fan and heater in the office. That’s one advantage of a small office — it’s easier to control the temperature. An ergonomic chair makes a difference and is well worth the investment. That and a footstool support my ergonomic setup. Also a lamp ensures I have the right lighting when it’s a rainy day or nighttime.

Books. As a writer, I rely on many reference books even though many web sites provide similar references.

Personal items. My walls hold my college diploma, several career certificates, my skydiving certificate from my first skydive, my spouse’s military awards and two art works, one of which contains famous Fort Worth buildings — where I was born and raised. While my spouse doesn’t work in this office, I like having his awards here because it’s his home, too. Besides, his awards don’t have a logical place anywhere else in the house.

The L-shaped desk contains photos of the kids, little toys, a Donald Duck clock that belonged to my father and other mementos. Not all employees like to have personal items in their cubicles or offices and that’s OK. I hardly look at these items, but they provide a personal touch and the occasional smile.

A home office provides the right environment to ensure productivity. The colors, the windows, lighting and décor create the atmosphere. The desk, equipment and supplies support daily work activities.

What do you have in your home office? How does it make a difference in your work?

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Here’s what you’ll find at these useful travel sites.

I’ve written about SeatGuru before, but it’s been steadily adding user-interaction features and more. On each page for any plane SeatGuru.com lists, you’ll find an In-Flight Amenities list, which can tell you what kinds of audio, video, Internet and power options your seat will offer. You’ll find complete instructions for making selections on the site at the bottom of the home page.

The real strength of SeatGuru, though, comes from its ever-growing database of airplane seat maps, which now hosts 535 maps for more than 75 different airlines, according to AltSearchEngines. Through a “Submit Comments” button on each seat map page, users can contribute comments about the particular planes, where to sit, what your Internet options will be, entertainment options, and more. If you tend to accept random seat placements, especially for long flights where you may want to work or be entertained, check this out.

I’ve also written about FlightAware before. It’s very good for its huge, nearly real-time tracking of flights via data from air traffic controllers. However, the sheer amount of information may be overkill if you just want to see if a flight of interest is delayed or not.

FlightWait, a new site that I found at AltSearchEngines, has simpler goals than FlightAware does. It lets you enter a zip code, a city or an airport code (such as SFO for San Francisco), and get a graphic depicting any flights that are not delayed in green, while delayed flights are shown in red and black. For example, this afternoon if you typed SFO in, you would see most flights not delayed, but a San Francisco to Chicago flight showing a one- to two-hour delay. This site is useful for a view that takes seconds to get at, and FlightAware can give you more information if you find that you are looking at a delay.

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Here are two notable examples, where you can show your stuff.

Zooppa has been referred to as a “YouTube for advertisements.”  The site works like this: Regular contests seeking grassroots online advertisements are held, and they are sponsored by large and small companies around the globe so that winning entries get cash prizes. A typical prize is a few thousand dollars, and site officials claim that over $300,000 in prize money has already been awarded.

At Zooppa, you work with your own grassroots tools–such as video editing software, graphics applications, and the like–to build an advertisement. Guidelines for content are typically provided in short creative briefs, just as they are for big Madison Avenue ad firms. Then you upload your advertisement to the site, which encodes video, and winning entries are determined from the pool of submissions.

You can find out more in Zooppa’s blog. The blog notes that the Doritos advertisment that ran during the Super Bowl was created by two “nobodies” who won a million dollars for their creation.

In another example of this trend, SpotMixer recently secured $9 million in venture funding for its site encouraging templated creation of viral videos.  The site supplies tools and templates for producing advertising and marketing content. When your advertisement is completed, you upload it to YouTube and SpotMixer’s business model, starting at $49 a month, is built around helping you reach customers online or through cable outlets. If you’re a creative type and know your way around video editing and graphics applications, these sites could spell opportunity.

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Part of the beauty of When is Good is its absolute simplicity. At no point do you have to even register for an account, which is great because I’ve registered for so many sites that I lost track of them long ago. In fact, at this point, lack of registration alone is a feature I look for in a web app. On the other hand, if you are the registering type, you can create an account to track your events and meetings history.

All you really need to do to access When is Good’s main functionality is click the “Get Started” button on the web site’s homepage. From there, you’ll be taken to a default calendar with the next 21 days displayed, with each day broken down into 1-hour blocks  from 6 AM to 8 PM. All of this is customizable, including the number of days displayed, as well as which times and which days of the week are shown. For those of us working with multiple timezones, you can check the “Use timezones” box, and everyone can work in their own local time.

Once the grid is set up to your liking, you simply click on times that you would like to schedule the event, type in a name for the event in the field designated for that purpose, and click “Create Event.” Write down or copy the code displayed on the next page, and then you’ll be given a link that you can send to people you want to attend. They can then mark which of the times you’ve selected is good for them. You can opt to be notified of responses by email, or just periodically visit the public link provided  to see what time invitees are choosing.

You can also edit the event using another customized URL provided by the site. And, if you’re feeling really fancy, When is Good offers the ability to sync your event with an iCal file or URL. Not a bad list of features for a free service that requires no sign-up or sharing of personal information.

Obviously, this service is better for smaller events, since it could quickly become unwieldy with a long list of invitees, but there’s not limit to the type of event to which it could apply. A business meeting, a meeting with clients, teleconference, sales call, promotional event, tweetup or party would all benefit from When is Good’s help, and best of all, if your invitees can use email and a browser, they can use this app.

Have any good tips for scheduling meetings? Share them in the comments!

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A car in the snow

Large parts of the UK have been seriously disrupted by snowfall today, with the South East of the country seeing its worst snowfalls in 18 years. With many people unable to make it to work – or in some cases, making it to work only to find their offices shut – we may see the ranks of web workers swell temporarily over the next day or two (in fact, there have been anecdotal reports of webmail services running slowly today under increased traffic)

One of the advantages of web working is not having to deal with the stress of the daily commute, but on days like today, with trains cancelled, chaos on the roads, and snow continuing to fall outside with more forecast to come, it makes me very glad that I can work from the warm comfort of my kitchen.

Have you been affected by the weather in the UK?

(photo by stock.xchng user Mattox)

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The day-to-day responsibilities of a community manager contain an interesting mix of tactical tasks and strategic planning for most community managers, and the work usually falls into four areas:

Facilitation. Community managers spend a large amount of time sifting through discussions in the community to make sure that people are getting answers to questions and helping to make sure that the right people are being pulled into conversations.

Content. As a community manager, I have created various types of content in the form of blog posts, new discussion topics, tweets, videos and more to help make sure that the community members have the information that they need to be productive members of the community.

Evangelism. Unless you want to have a community of one (or a very small number of people), getting out and talking about the community to get people interested is part of the role of community manager.

Evolution. Topics of conversation change, software changes, and people change, which all requires changes to your online community. This is the strategic piece where you get to think about what the community should look like in one year or five years and make changes to the community to make sure that you achieve your goals for the community.

It was also interesting to see which parts of the presentation people found most interesting during the discussion, and they tended to gravitate toward the data. The presentation had several slides from an August study conducted by Bill Johnson in Forum One’s Online Community Research Network focused on Online Community Compensation. The study showed that community managers tend to be very satisfied with their jobs with an average job satisfaction of 4.2 on a scale of one to five with five being the highest. Many community managers are also paid very well with a median salary of $72,500 per year; however, the salary data from the report looks a little like an inverted bell curve with many people making very little money or large salaries.

For people who are interested in community management careers, I also wrote two blog posts this summer from opposite perspectives on the community manager career: Hiring a Community Manager and How to Get a Community Manager Job.

What suggestions do you have for someone who wants to become a community manager? What skills do community managers need to be successful?

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• Career Opportunities in the NewNet
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This morning, those of us still using a GrandCentral number are logging in to our accounts to see this:

An expired SSL certificate is not a big deal. Just accept the expired certificate because you trust the site and move on. But that’s not the point. It’s yet more evidence that if the GrandCentral folks are still at Google, they’re working on something else. The GrandCentral support forum is filled with questions and problems, and there has been no official answer to anything.

The challenge for those of us left behind is number portability, or lack thereof. I like my GrandCentral number. It’s easy to remember. It’s in the area code I want it to be. I would gladly use another reasonably-priced service if I could take the number with me (I do use PhoneFusion for my local contacts). Yes, GrandCentral has always been “beta” and was never meant to be used for mission-critical contacts. But it’s a little difficult to “test” a service like GrandCentral without giving the number out to contacts, isn’t it?

It’s about time for Google to do the right thing. Shut GrandCentral down once and for all, and give us a way to port our numbers elsewhere.

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You can find out more about it in this blog post, and here are my impressions.

According to the Twingly blog, which includes an unusual collection of word choices (such as “we keeped it”), Twingly is designed to search Twitter, Identi.ca and many other microblogging services. These include some European and Scandinavian services. It even searches Pownce, which has closed, but the folks behind Twingly kept an index of its content.

You can do Twingly searches from the application’s home page, or you can install a widget on a blog or web site. I found the application to deliver a lot of targeted Twitter tweets very quickly, but the most useful aspects of it are the natural language-based search features. If you’ve used the equivalents in Google, you’ll quickly come up to speed with these.

For example, if you want to search for tweets and other microblog entries posted since the beginning of this year, you would use this search syntax: since:2009-01-01 twingly. By using “until” instead of “since” you can search for results that came before the first of the year. Likewise, you can search for microblog posts sent to a particular user, or sent from one. To do this you just type from: or to: and the user’s name. You can find a list of the commands and what they do here.

One of the best uses I’ve found for Twingly is seeing what readers of my blog posts have to say about them when they don’t post directly in the comments. For example, I recently wrote a piece about open source resources for cloud computing. Kent Langley apparently liked the post enough to tweet about it, but he lamented the fact that I didn’t mention OpenQRM. That application right there–searching multiple microblogging services for off-the-cuff reactions to blog posts–will make Twingly a keeper for me.

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The point is that the internet is a distracting medium, by and large. As web workers, we need to either practise rigorous self-discipline, or arm ourselves against it with a clever cache of sophisticated weaponry. Since my self-control is sometimes lacking, I want to explore the second option with you today.

For The Compulsive Surfer

As in my example above, I’m sure many people have trouble avoiding a certain list of sites that are prone to constant refreshing throughout the day. If you’re very good, you can allocate time for these so that they don’t cut in to your work day. If you’re not so good, you might want to check out URL Blocker from computerhelp.com.

URL Blocker is a program that lets you block sites of your choosing during times that you specify. It’s like having one of those company wide keyword blockers, but controlled by you and for use at home. The only problem with this program is convincing yourself that you don’t have the power to just turn it off.

If you don’t feel like downloading a dedicated program, or if you’re not running Windows, you can achieve the same basic effect using the Public Fox add-on for Firefox. Again, you’re in complete control, but the bother of having to disable the add-on might be just enough to prevent you wandering.

For The Visually Distracted

Another problem I have with working on a computer is that there’s just too much going on. So many pictures, so many moving, pretty things! How to focus with that kind of thing going on? You could mentally block it out, or you can physically obscure it. I choose the latter, since, as we’ve already established, I’m weak.

The solution? For me, fullscreen word processors do the trick. There’s a couple options for the Mac, with one very recent newcomer to the field. I was in the habit of using Bean or WriteRoom, the benefit of the latter being customizable color schemes, but with the release of iWork ’09, I’ve switched. The reason for the change is that despite the cost, iWork.com is far too appealing.

For Windows, you can get the same effect with Q10 or Darkroom. And if you want to stick with a web-based solution, there’s always Writer.

For the Sound Minded

I realize that my neighbor is doing their renovation work during the day because that’s when most people are away at work, but when you work from home, that drilling is being done during my peak productive hours. I could just turn up my iTunes to drown it out, but I prefer a less-damaging-to-my-ears hardware solution.

After some very disappointing experiences with cheaper models, I’m currently sporting a pair of Sony MDR-NC60 noise cancelling (NC) headphones I picked up for a bargain in Japan. Where I to do it all over again, however, I would opt for the more expensive, but more effective Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones. Not that the Sony’s don’t work but they do produce a faint background hum that can get fairly annoying. With NC headphones, I find that it truly is a matter of getting what you pay for, so be prepared to shell out some cash for true piece of mind.

Once you’ve done away with all the distractions, they’ll be nothing stopping you from getting your work done, except for yourself. Which is actually a scary thought, so I never use all of these nuissance blocking strategies at the same time. Better to keep a scapegoat around than have to take full responsibility, right?

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Targeting your professional development, however, in a preemptive rather than reactive way, is not always easy. Usually freelancers and consultants just roll with the punches and learn what they have to depending on client requirements. A little forethought, though, can go a long way to making you the applicant of choice before any contracts are awarded.

Skill 1: Working Knowledge of HTML and CSS

This is an oldie but goodie, and it will become even more important as companies start to streamline their IT departments. It happened to traditional freelancers and consultants when they were expected to bring desktop publishing skills to the table along with their analytical abilities, and it will happen with online workers as well. For employers, it’s simple math: fine one who’ll do the job of two. Here’s a useful free resource to start with.

Skill 2: Transparent Reporting

When spending is the key deciding factor behind any and all business decisions, good reporting practices can make all the difference. Show your prospective client that you have a solid, consistent reporting process that’s simple, straightforward, and transparent, and they’ll thank you by awarding you more contracts. Things to think about are the level of detail you put into your activity logs, what increments you use to account for your time, how you list and back up your expense claims, etc.

Skill 3: Twitter Networking

You may be a networking whiz, with all the LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace contacts one person can handle, but that doesn’t translate into instant Twitter success. That’s because Twitter’s a different beast altogether. Case in point: the overwhelming majority of my Facebook contacts have never even heard of Twitter, yet it boasts among its members the most powerful and successful people working online today.

Succeeding here means learning to converse instead of broadcast, giving people a reason to follow you beyond your portfolio, and treading the thin line between self-promotion and spamming. Check out Darren Rowse’s Twitip for some help getting started, or refining your Tweet-Fu.

I’m sure that as the year progresses, many other valuable skill sets will emerge, but you can bet that these three, at least, will continue to be relevant well into the future.

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When you first open Classics, you’re presented with a bookshelf with your available choices. The current version offers you eleven books including: Alice in Wonderland, Flatland, and The Metamorphosis. You can rearrange your books to your liking, but as it stands, there is no option to add or delete books. Once you’ve decided on a book, you just tap to open it.

The developers took great care in giving you the most minimal of interfaces so the words can shine. All there is, is a title bar (that also acts as a progress bar for how far along in the book you are), a Home button, and a Table of Contents button. Beyond that, everything else is the beautifully formatted page.

When turning the page, you can either go forward by swiping your finger right-to-left or clicking the top-right/bottom-right corners, and to go backwards you just swipe from left-to-right or click the top-left/bottom left corner. Each turn is rewarded with a beautifully realistic page turn animation that was rendered by CGI designer, Kevin Capizzi. If you have your sound on, there is also a rustling of paper.

Admittedly, there was a minor learning curve for me, as I was always constantly trying to scroll the page, but after about four page turns I got the hang of it. When you’re done with your book you can just click back on the home button and you get a lovely bookmark animation that indicates that your page will be saved.

Probably the most important aspect is readability. While the Apple’s touch devices obviously don’t have the advantage of e-ink’s high resolution, it is high enough that you could read for an extended period of time without experiencing much fatigue and strain on your eyes. That is to say, you most likely won’t be reading any of these books from cover to cover, but it’s a nice option when you’re looking for something to pass the time. There’s also the added benefit of curling up with iPhone/iPod touch, something you can’t really do with a laptop.

Overall, if you value a good user experience and enjoy literature’s classic novels, then Classics is well worth the $2.99 price of admission. And with more books to come with each update, there’s sure to be something for everyone.

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The purpose of A.I. Disk is to provide access to your online MobileMe storage via your iPhone, across any data connection (Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE are all supported). The app works much like the popular Air Sharing, allowing you to view multiple document types, including Office (both 2007 and earlier formats), PDF, iWork, and TXT files. Files are copied from your iDisk to your phone for offline viewing, and can be attached to an email and sent from within the application.

A.I. Disk’s viewer itself offers a lot of nice features, including the ability to zoom through touch and by manually setting the percentage, and to set bookmarks within documents. It’s actually a very capable eBook reader because of this last point, although it doesn’t perform that job as well as dedicated software like Stanza.

During my test run I found out just how useful it is that A.I. Disk doesn’t require Wi-Fi. My office doesn’t have wireless networking (yes, I work in the 1950s), so I haven’t been able to use Air Sharing here, and have to depend on flash drives for file transfers. Now, however, it’s incredibly easy to transfer files via iDisk over 3G, so my pockets are finally free of USB sticks. My test document was a fairly large PDF (1 MB) and the document loaded and displayed without problem. Closing the app and going back in reveals a short delay while the file is redrawn, but it’s a minor convenience at worst.

Even if you’re not a MobileMe subscriber, A.I. Disk works using the WebDAV protocol, and supports any storage service that employs it, including Box.net.

For me, this is an incredibly useful iPhone app, and at $7.99 (App Store link), quite the bargain too.

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We mentioned in an earlier post that the Mini hasn’t seen an update since November of 2007, and it shows its age in hardware specs. Slower processor, slower wireless networking, and dismal integrated Intel 945GM graphics all stand as signs of an old work-horse put out to pasture. Or was it more of a pony?

Sales of the Mini exceeded expectations early on, but have tapered off more recently, to the point where the bare bones computer is the weakest link in Apple’s chain of Mac offerings. When introduced at Macworld 2005, it was positioned as a key weapon in the battle to convert Windows users, since it was affordable and could easily be swapped into an existing PC set up in place of a Windows-based tower.

Many users have found a place for the Mini as an effective home theatre PC, since it offers similar functionality to the Apple TV while providing the expanded feature set of a computer, with a nearly identical physical footprint. The potential for the device to cannibalize Apple TV sales may have figured in the rumored decision to axe it.

Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz suggests the product line’s demise could be announced as early as the Q4 Earnings conference call happening today at 2:00 PT/5:00 ET, so if you’re interested in the fate the once mighty box, tune in here for the webcast.

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Qik, featured over at sister-site NewTeeVee.com back in June, is one of several video apps that owners of jailbroken iPhone’s have had access to for some time now. The interesting thing about QiK is that it streams live to the web — it means whatever you’re doing, where ever you may be, you can now broadcast live to the masses direct from your iPhone.

Fountain of Apple rumors, Kevin Rose, claims that QiK is very close to arriving at the App Store. “This is not a hacked or jailbroken version, this is the real deal. It’s not out in the App Store yet, but I hear it’s coming very soon.” Bringing serious substance to his rumor mongering, Rose actually broadcast the news live using the official QiK app itself.

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The first is for the Open XML File Format Converter, which bumps the version to 1.0.1 and fixes a remote code execution (rated by Microsoft as “important”) associated with security bulleting MS08-057. The Open XML Converter allows you to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac. The download is 44MB and should be installed by anyone running Office 2004 or Office v. X on OS X 10.4.9 or higher.

Next up is Office 2004 with a 13MB patch to version 11.5.2 which addresses vulnerabilities which could allow attackers to run code on your system.

Similarly, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac kicks it up to version 12.1.3 which addresses similar vulnerabilities as the Office 2004 update in this 154MB download.

You can avoid all this work by letting Microsoft do the work for you with their auto-update.

In Good Company

Apple also posted Security Update 2008-007 on October 9th, which addressed nineteen (19) groups of vulnerabilities across a wide spectrum of OS X 10.4 and OS X 10.5 built-in software. Of particular interest are:

• fixes to QuickLook crashes for users of Microsoft Excel
• a patch to a local privilege escalation issue with the network stack
• a fairly gnarly problem with launchd (specific to OS X 10.5.5) that can result in improper sandoxing of some scheduled applications
• correction to a buffer overflow situation with ColorSync that can be taken advantage of with maliciously crafted images (those evil images again)

Apple also updated trusted root certificates (which are an important component of ensuring secure network communications).

You can check out the other vulnerabilities that were corrected and grab them via Software Update or Apple Downloads (between 31MB & 200MB depending on your system).

Firmware Updates Join The Frey

Apple also posted MacBook/MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2 which — true to form — nebulously “improves compatibility with external displays and includes a variety of software fixes” (would anyone let Microsoft get away with this?). The 45MB update is available now.

The updates caused no issues for me, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone else experienced any problems or post-install issues.

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According to John Nack, Principal Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, the entire Creative Suite 4 is now shipping.

Announced in September, the release date itself was not initially specified.  Those looking to test out the new programs before deciding whether or not to upgrade will have to wait, as trials are not yet available for download on Adobe’s site.  You can however sign up here to be notified when the downloads do go live.

All products in the suite have received some nice feature additions, including the Application Frame for Mac versions, which allows users to opt for a a single window display if they prefer, rather than the floating pane configuration of CS3 and earlier products. The new mode addresses the complaints of some users regarding accidentally clicking through to background applications, and the visual distraction and clutter of the independent pane UI.

The products shipping today, available in profession-specific packages, all together, or individually, are:

• InDesign CS4
• Photoshop CS4
• Photoshop CS4 Extended
• Illustrator CS4
• Acrobat 9 (Previously available)
• Flash CS4 Professional
• Dreamweaver CS4
• Fireworks CS4
• Contribute CS4
• After Effects CS4
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
• Soundbooth CS4
• Adobe OnLocation CS4
• Encore CS4
• Adobe Bridge CS4
• Adobe Device Central CS4
• Version Cue CS4

We posted a thorough preview of the new featuresets available when the suite was officially announced.  Check it out here.

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