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Yet Another Reason Our Readers Rock

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:15:19 +0000

After unexpectedly being offline for most of yesterday to handle some estate affairs, I’m just starting to get caught up on mobile tech news of the day. But first thing this morning, I tweeted a picture of something I found last night. It’s not mobile, but there is a mobile aspect if you bear with me. I found my father’s old Kodak slide projector along with tons of family slides ranging from 1971 to 1984. In one of the early slides, I’m a toddler on the Staten Island ferry and you can easily see the World Trade Center under construction in the background. What an amazing picture to have! Of course, it’s on a slide, so I’ll have to make the image more mobile by digitizing it.

Wouldn’t you know that not even 30 minutes from the time I tweeted my find, I was contacted directly by one of our readers? He offered to loan me a USB device that can read the slides and digitize them into .JPG format. This way, I can share the images with my family, post some of the non-personal historical ones online and carry around any that are near and dear to me. The offer to borrow a digitizer isn’t the first time I’ve had a reader try to lend a hand either. I can’t count how many times folks have offered to loan me a netbook, notebook, camera lens and various other bits of gear. Each is a kind and generous offer.

That’s what makes jkOnTheRun what it is — it’s not what James and I write, nor what we do — it’s the camaraderie and community that offers the real value. It’s the readers that make this site what it is each and every day and for that, I’m sincerely grateful!

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Can You “Pay It Forward” In Memory of My Dad?

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:04:19 +0000

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Kevin Tofel needs your thoughts and prayers

James Kendrick — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:46:35 +0000

My good friend and your co-host here needs your prayers. Kevin Tofel unexpectedly lost his father yesterday and he needs our help. He’s in my thoughts in this difficult time and will you please join me in wishing Kevin and his family the strength to help each other through this trying time. Life can be hard at times, and this is certainly one of those, but we are here for you, Kevin.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin’s father, and he was a sweet man. It’s obvious that Kevin didn’t fall far from the tree and if you’d ever met his father you’d understand why Kevin is a great guy. My meeting Kevin’s father was just like meeting Kevin himself, first over Skype and later in person; he was a nice man and very proud of the work that Kevin does here. He told me that with a big smile on his face.

You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers, Kevin. Be there for them so that you all may get through this together. I’ll keep things going here but know that this is just a gadget blog and not important in the overall scheme of things. Your family is what really matters and may you all get through this together. My heart is heavy for you and Barb and your kids. Peace be with you my friend.

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Sponsor post: Thanks to Our WebWorkerDaily Sponsors!

Edit Staff — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:00:54 +0000

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s WebWorkerDaily sponsors:

BrainKeeper: Collaboration that works
FreshBooks: Online Invoicing for freelancers
Mozy: Back up your photos, music, and files with Mozy for as low as $4.34 per month.
Voxel: Mix & Match CDN and Hosting Bandwidth — only from Voxel.

Free Tools and Best Practices for Site Translation

Samuel Dean — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:00:17 +0000

For many of us who produce and oversee content on the web, the job of accurately translating it into other languages is an extremely difficult one. There are quite a few tools available to help, though, including many free ones that can automate the process. Today, Microsoft released a new Translator Widget that can be put on a site to let users get at translations without leaving the pages they’re viewing. It was developed at Microsoft Research. We’ve also done a series of posts on translation recently over on the OStatic blog.

Here are details on several resources you can get for free.

Microsoft’s Translator Widget is enabled through a small HTML script available here. It offers a pull-down menu to allow users to translate a web page into several languages. The widget is seen above.

On the OStatic blog, we recently ran a two-part series of posts from Brian McConnell, of Worldwide Lexicon and Der Mundo. Brian is an expert on web site translation tools and best practices.

You can find his input on best practices for translation in this post. In this second post, he covers various tools and services available for translation, including the free and open-source tools gettext and Pootle. His input is very good if you’re interested in reaching a wider audience online through translation. “By combining technology, people and a few shortcuts, it is possible to build sites, blogs and web apps that are accessible in many languages,” he writes. “If you’re clever about it, you can do quite a bit at little cost, but it’s important to understand what’s feasible and not.”

Brian’s site Der Mundo is a collection of resources for social translations. “It enables people to read, create and share translations for their favorite web sites, blogs and news feeds,” Brian says. Check out much more in his series found above.

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What's Your Favorite Web App, Guy Kawasaki?

Aliza Sherman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:00:13 +0000

I’ve been at SXSW attending sessions, seeing product demos and interviewing tech company founders. I’ve also been asking anyone who identifies themselves as a web worker about their favorite web app and how it helps them with their work.

Here is the first of a series of short interviews with a variety of web working types, starting with venture capitalist and co-founder of Alltop, Guy Kawasaki, who reveals his favorite web app: the “ultimate marketing tool for Twitter.”

What’s Your Favorite App, Guy Kawasaki? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

You can find Guy Kawasaki on Twitter: @guykawasaki.
Stay tuned for links to upcoming video sound bites from SXSW by following us at @webworkerdaily.

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Clearing The Cache

Scott Blitstein — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:20:21 +0000

Like many of us, I spend quite a lot of time on the web and come across a staggering number of interesting things. In Clearing The Cache, I pull out some of my favorites and share them with you.

Record and search voice notes on your Windows Mobile phone – Our friends over at jkOnTheRun alert us to the very cool Microsoft Recite preview.

Looking for stock photos? Mike at Two Guys Tech says Get Free Images at Free Range Stock. Give a listen to their weekly podcast while you’re there.

Bring idea management and collaboration for your team with Kindling.

When taking questions after a presentation or on a panel, Michael Wade explains why it’s important to Let Your Answers Be Wise and Brief on Execupundit.

@sbbuzz, the weekly Twitter tech talks I mentioned earlier have been a great success. If you’ve missed the buzz, you can still catch a summary of the Feb. 10th Edition.

Ben Barden, developer of the Injader CMS asks entrepreneurs: How Committed Are You?

What interesting finds do you have in your cache? Share them in the comments.

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Get More Out of Facebook With My Web Portfolio

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:00:58 +0000

Facebook is a great tool for web working. It makes networking simple, offers loads of opportunities for promotion, and it boasts a massive user base. Still, it’s not designed to foreground your work, and sometimes it can be a little difficult to draw attention to the things you want people to take notice of using only your basic profile options and Facebook’s native Page and Group tools.

My Web Portfolio is a Facebook application that’s designed to help web designers at least strut their stuff on the popular social network. Just as the name implies, it allows you to build and share a portfolio of your web sites and share them with other Facebook users.

Once you add the My Web Portfolio application to your FB account, you can access the dashboard, where you can see a random featured website, and the most popular, largest, and most recently added designs from users. Currently, My Web Portfolio has 40 users, which is a farily large number considering it’s only recently been launched.

Right away, you probably noticed a significant drawback of the application, namely that it is a Facebook application. That means that, in order to take full advantage of the service, users have to add the application to their own profile. You can still show off by adding the My Websites tab to your profile, though.

For me, the main advantage of the app doesn’t actually reside with its usefulness as a promotional tool. Instead, I like it for its ability to inspire and provide a space where ideas can be shared. As a web designer community with a focus on actual products, it has a lot of potential. Whatever your motivation, it’s free easy to set up, so there’s not much arguing against adding it to your existing toolset.

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Say hello to my new granddaughter

James Kendrick — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:04:39 +0000

This is a totally selfish post but I want to welcome to the world my new granddaughter, Serenity Lyn. Serenity came into the world on 12/04 and mother Morgan and baby are doing fine.

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Demand for iPhone Developers Up 500%

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:00:43 +0000

The SDK and the success of the App Store have combined to create an emerging professional category, that of iPhone application developer.

According to oDesk, a technology outsourcer billing itself as the “leading marketplace and global IT platform for outsourcing technology jobs to certified, freelance, Apple iPhone developers”, demand has risen for iPhone-related positions from 30 to upwards of 140 jobs per month over the past six months.

While the numbers are drawn from internal oDesk records only, such a steep increase is unlikely to be an isolated phenomenon. Nor is oDesk’s sample pool a limited one, since they have representation in over 100 countries worldwide, including major markets like the U.S. and China.

Though some of the growth followed immediately after the announcement of the iPhone SDK availability, the most significant growth came after last July, when the App Store officially opened for business. No doubt the impressive download numbers that continue to come out of Cupertino are beginning to catch the attention of the wait-and-see corporate crowd.

If the numbers are a good representation of a wider trend, then there are a few things to take away from this rapid growth.

First, it might indicate the specific nature of Apple’s recent educational initiatives. As the marketplace becomes more discerning, accreditation will be more important to potential employers. Considering Apple’s pick for the Apple U job, they are clearly getting serious about academic laurels, and a new field hungry for certification is a good reason to do so.

Second, expect to see a lot more movie and product tie-ins like the Dark Knight’s Jokering-app, and the recently released Bolt-related game from Disney. For companies, hiring freelancers to develop a quick iPhone application is a cheap way to heighten brand awareness.

Finally, expect more conflict over intellectual property. Stringers and freelancers always bring in issues of confidentiatility and proprietary information, and with so many in the fray, the iPint/iBeer situation is unlikely to be just a one-off.

The question now is whether the demand for developers continues to grow, or plateaus and shrinks once the App Store loses its novelty value or competitors like BlackBerry and Google gain ground.

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