Luggage Handling

Many injuries are caused by improper handling of luggage. Of course, wheeled luggage is a must these days, but there are times when you must pick up your bags. You can reduce the possibility of strains by avoiding twisting motions while lifting bags.

• Keep it light. We all know how tempting it can be to want to take the laptop, the tablet, the smartphone, the camera, the MP3 player, and all the paraphernalia that goes with them. But the heavier the bag, the more likely you’ll be to strain yourself while lifting it. (And you’ll pay more to the airlines in luggage fees!)
• Avoid unbalanced bags. Many pieces of luggage have lots of pockets and compartments, which is great for stowing lots of gear, but pack carefully. Top- or front-heavy bags can compound the potential for strain.
• Bend your knees. When you pick up a bag, brace yourself by bending at the knees. Don’t let your back do the work.
• Lift carry-ons carefully. When putting a carry-on bag in the overhead compartment of planes or trains, face the aisle, lift the bag close to your body, then move your whole body through a 90-degree turn to face the overhead compartment, and put the bag in the compartment.
• Avoid twisting while lifting checked bags: Similarly, when putting checked bags on the scales at an airport ticket counter, lift the bag while keeping it close to your body, then turn your entire body and place the bag on the scale.
• Be careful at baggage carousels: It can be crowded at baggage carousels, but don’t rush. Wait to pick up your bag until it is directly in front of you, pulling it off the carousel straight toward you. Hold the bag close, then turn your entire body and put the bag on the ground.

Neck Support

It’s important to support your neck while traveling, since your body responds to even imperceptible bumps by continually keeping your eyes level with the horizon. These involuntary adjustments can cause neck and shoulder strains.

• Wear a pillow. An inflatable, horseshoe-shaped pillow similar to this one will help support your neck. Wear it at all times while traveling, even when using a laptop and while sleeping.

Back Support

Most seats in planes and trains don’t provide lumbar support for your lower back, and the seats aren’t set in the optimal position, which is flat or slightly higher in the back.

• Use a travel seat with lumbar support. Frequent travelers might want to invest in a travel seat, like this one.
• Make your own travel seat. If you want to save money, or if you only travel occasionally, you can make your own lower back support by folding a heavy wool scarf or muffler and placing it behind your lower back and folding your jacket to fill in the seat.

Exercises

Even in the close confines of an airplane or train seat, there are several exercises you can do to keep yourself relaxed. These are also good for long meetings and conferences:

• Ankle circles. Point your toes out, raise one foot and rotate your foot in a circular motion for 30 seconds. Repeat with the other foot.
• Foot pumps. Point toes of both feet out, then back — repeat for 30 seconds or until muscles or tired, whichever happens first.
• Foot lifts. Keep your heels on the floor and lift the front of your feet as high as you can. Return feet to relaxed position on the floor. Repeat for 30 seconds.
• Heel lifts. Keep the balls of your feet on the floor and lift your heels as high as you can. Return feet to relaxed position on the floor. Repeat for 30 seconds.
• Leg “march.” While staying in your seat, contract your thigh muscles and move your legs as though marching in place for 30 seconds.
• Leg raises. While staying in your seat, with your hands on the armrests, slowly lift both legs, keeping your knees bent. Hold for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 8-10 times.
• Torso/back arch. Slowly move your shoulders forward while arching your upper body backward. Reverse the movement, slowly moving your shoulders backward while arching your upper body forward. Repeat a few times.
• Shoulder circles. Gently bring your shoulders up and around, as though drawing a circle with your scapulae (shoulder blades), also known as “angel wings.” At the end of the circle, let your shoulders drop. Repeat 4-5 times.
• Relax your back. Once you’re off the plane, you can relax stiff and tight muscles with a device like the Backnobber, which is easy to use, light and comes apart for storage in your luggage.

Final Thoughts

• Try not to work all the time. Just because it’s possible to get internet connections in airplanes and trains doesn’t mean that you have to use them! Working while traveling should be a last resort. Use plane or train time to catch up on sleep if you can!
• Reset your body clock. When you get to your destination, and when you get home, you may need to adjust your body’s rhythms. Celine has some great suggestions on how to get back on schedule.
• See a professional when you get home. If you know that you’ll be unable to avoid stressing yourself on a trip, make an appointment with a health professional before you leave. I find that a good massage therapy session can really help ease the stress of business travel.

How do you avoid strains while traveling?

Image courtesy Flickr user Noël Zia Lee

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Like a lot of small-business owners, it won’t be possible for me to disconnect entirely; I’ll need to be on call, and to have access to my work. But I want to carry as little as possible, and make the transition from the office to the train as painless as I can.

Luckily, I’ve been taking advantage of cloud services, so preparing for this trip has been easier than those in the past. I recently bought a 13″ MacBook Pro at around the same time Scott did, but since I’ve been using a Mac mini as my primary machine for the past couple of years, transferring my data and settings to the laptop was pretty easy.

For mail, I have several IMAP-based Google Apps and Gmail accounts, and I was able to use the Migration Assistant to transfer my Apple Mail settings. It was actually easier to re-download the messages from Google’s servers than to copy several gigabytes of messages from the old mini.

Similarly, it was easy to back up and restore calendar and Address Book settings; I did make an abbu file backup, then restore it to the new machine, since Apple includes some data that Google Contacts doesn’t.

For IM, it was easy to copy Adium settings. For passwords, I had already set up Dropbox to sync 1Password data; as backup, I also use the cloud-based Lastpass. I use Xmarks to sync Firefox history, and I could have copied other settings too, although I chose not to, in order to do a little spring cleaning.

Once I’m on the road, I’ll stay connected to the mini in my office through Apple’s Screen Sharing and to my company’s Windows servers through Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection. I’ll be using the Sprint Overdrive hotspot for connectivity, and although I’m sure that there will be places with no signal, Sprint has just activated 4G service in a couple of the places I’ll be.

I’ll also be taking the Bookeen Cybook Opus e-book reader, which has grown on me since I wrote about it, and a Belkin surge protector/USB charger; Amtrak has pretty reliable power, but it never hurts to be safe.

Of course, lots of things can go wrong, but I think that I’m pretty well prepared for my trip. So…all aboard! I’ll let you know how it goes.

How do you prepare for travel?

Amtrak image by Flickr user lazytom.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

A disaster of a different variety hit many corporate environments this week when McAfee pushed an update to computers that sent computers crashing to a halt, crippling many systems. As a Mac user, I was spared, but I watched co-workers and friends at other companies trying to figure out how to fix their dead computers. Days later, many corporate IT departments are still dealing with the aftermath. Needless to say, this past week was a tough one for many corporate web workers.

While web workers tend to be able to work on the road, extended unexpected travel delays can be difficult and stressful, especially for people spending days in airports just waiting for a seat to open up. This can be a huge drain on productivity when you are focused on managing a difficult situation instead of being focused on work. Likewise, computer issues that result in a non-functioning system can be bad enough for employees in an office, but it can be devastating to the productivity of a remote employee who can’t just walk over to the IT department for a quick fix. I was in the office during the McAfee issue, and watched as people wandered around looking lost and wondering what they could possibly do without their computer.

These are just a couple of examples of things that can be very disruptive, but here are some ways to be a little more prepared and stay productive during those difficult times.

• Contact information. Is all of your information about how to contact the IT department sitting on on your computer or on a network drive somewhere? In this case, be prepared by going old school and carrying a piece of paper in your wallet (or a note in your phone) with contact information, especially phone numbers, for your IT department, corporate travel agency, manager and other key people. This helps to ensure that you can get in touch with the people you might need to contact for a work emergency, regardless of where you are, whether you have an Internet connectiot or whether your computer is working.
• Alternatives. If at all possible, try to make sure that you always have some kind of alternative system that you can use when your primary computer is out of commission. I know this isn’t always practical, but even an old laptop, a netbook or smartphone can work in a pinch when you are having critical systems issues. Just make sure that you know what caused the first issue before booting up that other device and letting it suffer the same fate.
• Adjust. Don’t hesitate to adjust your work day to accommodate these disasters by running errands during the day and finishing your work in the evening when your equipment is back up and running. In the case of extended travel, work in chunks when you have some downtime in between focusing on catching that next flight. Make the best of a bad situation by getting some other personal tasks out of the way so that you can focus on work when you get things back under control.
• Think. Most of us are probably working on projects that require some time to think, plan or strategize. Forget about the computer for a while, and sit down with a piece of paper to sketch out some ideas or plans. While you may be used to thinking in front of the computer, I’ll bet that you can still make progress without it.

What are your tips for staying productive in tough situations?

Photo by Flickr user qmnonic used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

iPass has just weighed in on which side of that debate its enterprise clients fall on. The enterprise mobility service just announced that it has added Aircell to its available network of services. This means that iPass Mobile Network users will be able to connect to Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi, while staying within the iPass network. Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi is available on all AirTran and Virgin America flights, and on limited American Airlines, Delta, US Airways, United and Air Canada flights. Customers will be charged $4.95 for flights less than 1.5 hours, $9.95 for flights 1.5 to three hours, and $12.95 for flights more than three hours long for using Gogo through iPass.

In the product announcement, iPass explained that this will benefit employees of iPass Mobile Network customers, as connecting to Gogo will be more convenient with iPass, since they will be able to avoid the multiple steps of paying via credit card and filing expense reports after the fact for reimbursement. For enterprises, it should simplify accounting, allow companies access to detailed reports on in-flight network usage, and allow enforcement of VPN and security policies.

For regular users of other airlines, iPass says it expects to add more in-flight Wi-Fi services to its offering in 2010.

iPass leaves no doubt in its announcement that mobile workers are now expected to be working constantly when traveling — even when they are at 30,000 feet:

“The age of inflight Internet connectivity is here and is a huge productivity win for business travelers who need to stay connected and work securely online while in the air,” said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of iPass. “Airplanes have been the last bastion of mobile worker downtime and iPass and Gogo Inflight Internet provider Aircell are here to close this gap in a way that meets the simplicity, visibility and control requirements of the enterprise.”

Say goodbye to the days of settling back in your seat and watching a movie or reading a book and getting some recharging before that big meeting while you cruise at 30,000 feet. When enterprises consider in-flight Wi-Fi a needed function of their mobile networks, the writing is obviously on the wall (or in the clouds): your airplane seat is now an extension of your office.

Does in-flight Wi-Fi make you feel obligated to work? Would that change if it were part of your employer’s mobile network?

After iPad announcement day, I provoked a lot of controversy by writing that I felt that the iPad could serve as a travel computer for me. After handling it and trying out its features, I’m now even more convinced that is true.

I’m a writer, more specifically a professional blogger. I’m not doing heavyweight computer tasks when I travel. In fact, I’m usually not even writing when I’m on the road except for brief updates to my web sites. I’m answering email, conducting text-based research on the web, taking notes, and doing other lightweight tasks.

I’m not the only writer or blogger who thinks the iPad can help in their work. After a week with an iPad in hand, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Ihnatko raved about how useful the gadget is for his workflow on TWIT last week. Mashable’s Ben Parr wrote one of his recent posts completely on the iPad, although he admitted that a few things were a pain, like working with images.

The only real processor- or software-heavy task that I did during my last extended business trip was edit photos in Adobe Lightroom on my return flight, which could easily have waited till I got home. It certainly wasn’t worth hauling around a computer that weighs three times as much as an iPad for almost a week just to get a two-hour head start on my photo processing.

The first thing I noticed when getting my hands on an iPad was how big it was. The size was surprising. I had expected the screen to feel smaller than it does. This was good news for its usability for many of the tasks that I do. Many of these tasks, such as web browsing, can also be done on my iPhone but the small screen makes them awkward. The iPad provides the screen real estate to take notes, browse and read without getting a headache from it.

Besides being large, the screen is also gorgeous. The resolution is wonderful and it is just a joy to look at. As spoiled as I am by using my iPhone screen on a daily basis, the iPad screen is even more beautiful, although it obviously gets streaky easily.

Another thing I noticed almost immediately was the speed of the device. It responds to commands lightning-fast compared to my iPhone. This kind of processor power raises interesting possibilities for what the iPad may be able to do in apps that the iPhone can’t, such as in the area of photo editing. There is already at least one photo editor out for the iPad, PhotoGene, that looks to be very robust.

A lot of commenters on my previous iPad article suggested that instead of an iPad I get a netbook for my travel needs. While there is a price penalty for buying the iPad over a netbook, I see the iPad as a better option for me for several reasons:

• Weight: The iPad is half the weight of most netbooks — an important carrying consideration for someone with arthritis in their back.
• Compatibility: Since I’m already heavily embedded in the Mac OS ecosystem (I use an iPhone and MacBook with iCal, Contacts and Mobile Me, for instance), all my data will sync natively very easily with another Apple device. I use the iWork suite, so having a device that can use those files is definitely a plus. I can design presentations at home in Keynote and then take them on the road using the iPad. I can take transfer text notes back and forth in Pages.
• Speed: The tablet format and quick-boot OS will make it much easier to do quickie tasks (such as making a short note in an application like Evernote) than a netbook. Juggling a netbook for such tasks while standing would be awkward at best, and I could be done and have the iPad put away again before the netbook would probably even be booted up.
• Connectivity: For me, the 3G iPad, with its no contract pay-as-you-go connectivity, is the one to have. To have cellular system access with a netbook, I’d have to pay for a connection device like a MiFi or wireless card, which means paying every month for an expensive service whether I really need it that month or not. With the iPad 3G plan, I can have (and pay for) connectivity only when I need it.
• Battery Life: Both the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Andy Ihnatko are on record as saying the iPad can get 11 hours or more of battery life using power saving settings. This far exceeds the average netbook and is just one more reason the iPad is a superior travel device.

So, how do I imagine utilizing the iPad on my next business trip?

First, I have to gear up. I’ll have an iPad with 3G. I’ll install the following apps: Evernote, iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), Things and WordPress (please see disclosure at the bottom). I’ll take the camera connectivity kit and an external keyboard with me, but the keyboard can stay at the hotel during the day which means I save the weight of hauling it.

Some preparation at home will make my life easier on the road. I’ll add to the iPad’s onboard photo library any photos I think I may want to use from my archives while at the event. I can export my Notebooks from Circus Ponies’ Notebook program to view as web sites in Safari if I think I’ll need them. I’ll also prepare in advance blank draft blog posts that are pre-completed with thumbnail photos (for instance, the event logo) and any advertising banners I intend to use. This will save cutting & pasting and photo editing on the road, and will make posting faster in general. All I’ll have to do is write content and use the camera connection kit or my iPhone camera to add pictures to my posts.

Once on the road, I’ll use Evernote and Pages for taking notes, WordPress or Safari for doing my web posting, Things for editorial planning and Keynote for any presentations. Any contact or calendar changes that I make will be synced to Mobile Me for backup. I can store and pull files that I need from Mobile Me or Dropbox.

I am really looking forward to the day that I can leave my laptop at home when I pack my suitcase.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Atlanta Hartsfield’s Minute Suites is located on Concourse B in a space that was formerly a business center, and bills itself as a “traveler’s retreat”. Minute Suites offered me the chance to give them a try during a layover on a recent cross-country trip.

Although my flights were not arriving or departing from Concourse B, the location was convenient to reach. Minute Suites is close to the intersection at the center of Concourse B, where passengers can board the train that shuttles people between Hartsfield’s concourses. It was a two- to three-minute trip each way from Concourse A where my flights were arriving and departing.

The Minute Suites host on duty when I arrived, Michael, was cheery and welcoming despite the extremely early hour and my jet-lagged, exhausted demeanor. He lead me to my suite and gave me a tour of its amenities.

Minute Suites are 7ft x 8ft units that are entered through a sliding door. I was told the five suites are sanitized between each use. Each suite is furnished with a sofa that pulls out into a bed, and a desk with a chair. The suites could easily accommodate three adults or two adults and two children.

The only amenity that Minute Suites doesn’t have is plumbing. If you are looking for the restroom, you’ll have to step about 100 feet down the concourse to find one.

In the wall next to the desk is an HDTV that serves as the unit’s entertainment system and Internet terminal; the television service offered is DirecTV with the NFL package. The TV can also be used to check on the status of your flight, since it can display the airport’s Flight Tracking system.

If you have your own computer along, Minute Suites offers ethernet and Wi-Fi internet access included in your suite rental in addition to the provided Internet terminals. I used my MacBook to try out the Wi-Fi access. Getting on was as easy as entering the password I was provided, and the connection felt snappy enough (at least for the web surfing and email that I was trying it out on).

There is very nice attention to detail in the Minute Suites. There is a hook with two hangers for hanging up jackets, and each unit has its own thermostat so each visitor can set their own comfortable temperature. The desk chair rolls and is nicely cushioned. There are controls for the lights and sound system in the wall at one end of the bed.

Since I had just gotten off a red-eye flight, I was particularly interested in trying out the daybed for a nap — something that I would normally never do in an airport. Pillows and blankets are provided. The suite contains an alarm clock on a ledge behind the bed, or the Minute Suites staff will provide you a wake-up call (or actually, knock). Michael was extremely prompt with my wake-up knock, although I had set my iPhone alarm as a back-up.

The bed was very comfortable. I tried out the Nap26 program that is built into the entertainment system, which is supposed to make you feel as though you’ve had three hours of sleep in only 26 minutes. I found the program soundtrack so annoying that it actually kept me awake instead of putting me to sleep even though I’d had only two hours of sleep in the previous 24. I turned it off after only a few minutes and promptly fell asleep.

A key component in my ability to sleep was the suite’s sound masking system. Essentially a giant white noise machine, the masking system’s volume is adjustable by the suite’s occupant. Thanks to this system, I was able to sleep completely unaware that I was in the heart of one of the world’s busiest airports, in a suite 10 feet away from a congested concourse. The only sounds I heard were a few loud bangs that I believe originated in the service area below the concourse.

If all of this sounds like a wonderful way to spend your airport layover, it is. But there’s a catch to this luxury: the luxury price. Minute Suites rent for $30/hr, with a one hour minimum. Eight hours costs $180, since at eight hours a rate decrease of 25 percent takes effect.

But if you aren’t turned off by the price, Minute Suites can be a great place to recharge or get some privacy to do some business on the go.

Would you try a “traveler’s retreat” if there was one available ton your trip?

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I work as editor of the trade journal Scrapbook Update, and travel several times per year to attend trade shows and other events to report on them for my readers. When I’m on the road I need to be able to access email; keep up with news and do research on the web; update and maintain my site; and upload content to various platforms such as Flickr and Facebook.

I currently haul a 13” MacBook and an iPhone, along with a dSLR, a Flip camera and various peripherals with me when I travel. After closely examining the specs on the Apple iPad, I believe that I could probably function fairly effectively on the road using the iPad as a MacBook substitute. Here’s how I reached that conclusion, and why I like the idea.

Weight: One of the biggest appeals of the iPad is how lightweight it is. While the iPad weighs only 1.6 lbs, my current white 13” Macbook weighs in at 4.7 lbs. I could save 3 lbs — or a whole two-thirds — of the weight I’ve been toting around by using the iPad while traveling instead of my MacBook. True, a protective case would add some weight to the iPad, but I already use a neoprene sleeve on my MacBook now.

Battery: According to Apple, the battery life on the iPad is ten hours when it is being used on Wi-Fi. My MacBook is rated by Apple for seven hours, but in reality is good for about four. Outlets are still hard to come by, especially on aircraft, and more battery life for my mobile computing would be useful.

3G: As I wrote recently, I have been looking for a back-up system that will give me a way to bypass our local cable company to access the Internet in emergencies. I’ve been shopping around, looking at various types of tethering and access cards for my laptop, but the price seems prohibitive for the amount of use I would get from it. The iPad’s built-in 3G at a reasonable price point with no contract seems like a great backup solution.

The 3G would have another benefit as well, in saving me money on Internet access while I’m traveling. On a trip like the one I just took, I encountered Internet access fees everywhere I went: at airports, in flight, in my hotel, and at the convention center. I had to make hard decisions about when to limit my activities to what was possible to achieve on my phone and when to pay as much as $12.95 for a “day” of access to spend possibly just a few minutes doing what I needed to do. Obviously a 3G device doesn’t help at 30,000 feet, but purchasing Wi-Fi on this most recent trip for all the places I could have used 3G would have cost me $120. Those savings add up quickly, and the always-on access would make my workflow easier while traveling. No more having to make hard decisions about where and when to pay to connect, and no more having to wrestle with connecting to unfamiliar networks.

Form Factor: This particular trip I just got home from was transcontinental, involving a five-hour flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles. A trip like that provides plenty of time to work in transit, but anyone who has ever tried to open a laptop on an airplane tray table knows that is easier said than done. With the seat in front reclined, even my 13” MacBook doesn’t want to open to a comfortable viewing angle and feels claustrophobic as I try to type with your hands trapped between the keyboard and the angled screen. The iPad’s tablet form would sit flat on the tray for typing (or at a slight angle on the accessory case) or could be propped directly on my legs.

There were admittedly a few sticking points for me in the initial description of the iPad as it applied to making it my mobile computing device. Initially, the lack of a camera seemed like a deal-breaker. Then after thinking about it, I realized that when I am mobile I only use a camera for two things: taking pictures, and to make video calls. For taking pictures, I have my iPhone and my dSLR. As for the video calls, more times than not, it seems that the bandwidth in the locations I am using WiFi at won’t support a video Skype call. So having the camera or not is moot, since I don’t have the services available to utilize it very often.

Another sticking point, initially, was the seeming lack of a way to get pictures from my camera into the device, since a major activity of mine on the road is often taking pictures and uploading them to my web site. This was solved with the announcement that one of the accessories will be a Camera Connection Kit that includes two components: an SD card reader that plugs into the iPad’s dock connector; and a Camera Connector that attaches to the dock connector, designed to let users connect their camera via USB cable. Despite its camera-specific name, it appears to be simply a USB adaptor for the dock connector, not necessarily camera-specific. If that is the case, it raises questions about what else might be able to be plugged into it, such as thumb drives containing iWork files to edit or a Flip camera to upload videos to YouTube.

I currently use Lightroom and Photoshop Elements on my MacBook to deal with photos and create web site thumbnails while I travel. But I could probably live without those by dealing only with the JPG files of my photos in iPad apps (I shoot RAW+JPG when working on the road to save time processing hundreds of RAW files when I am rushed to write a story), and by using something like the online version of Photoshop to edit the pictures.

One of the reasons that I’ve stuck with a 13” MacBook is that I need my computing to be very portable. I can barely imagine hauling a 15” MacBook around an event like I attended this past week, and could never take a 17” on the road. Yet my laptop is my primary computer, and having a larger screen would be nice. Leaving a bigger laptop at home in favor of toting an iPad when I travel would let me get that larger screen without having to worry about how portable it was.

The iPad is tempting because, looking at it, I can see the day where my computing line-up consists of three devices: iPhone, iPad and 15-17″MacBook Pro. My iPhone would be always with me. My MacBook Pro would be my primary heavy computing machine, with a large screen but still portable to move around to various places in my house or to other places in town (like for coworking). Then for being ultra-mobile, such as going to trade shows, I would have my iPad to use alongside my iPhone.

Would the iPad solve your mobile computing needs?

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In the last year, I had the pleasure to work with some amazing clients, bring out my first e-book and attend some great conferences. I saw my own blog grow and even if there was a disappointment or two, I managed to buy a house, so I think 2009 went pretty well.

While I don’t have any resolutions, I’ve made some big plans for the new year, though — and I’ve already made some progress on them!

I’m My Own Client

I’ve been operating several small sites as passive income sources for quite a while, but they tend to get neglected in favor of the work I do for clients. Don’t get me wrong — I love the writing and blogging I do for my clients — but I want to make sure that my projects don’t get ignored. To that end, I’m working on changing my frame of mind: when it comes to my own projects, I’m just as much of a client as everyone else I work for. I’m tracking the time I spend on my own projects and treating them just like any other project a client asks me to work on.

Busting Out of the Short-form Rut

I write a lot, but the majority of my writing is on short projects: blog posts, articles, a page or two of web copy. But I learned last year that I enjoyed working on longer projects — even though I don’t get to work on them that often. I’m planning several long-form projects, including more e-books. I’ve even already brought out a new e-book this year, so I’m well on my way to meeting that goal.

I’m also experimenting with other forms of writing, like scripts for a web series. Right now, I’m not really concerned about finding a successful project, but I’ve found that changing up the projects I work on makes a big difference in my ability to write. It’s also one of the fastest ways past writer’s block that I’ve found. In order to explore some of those options, I’m also planning on taking a class or two.

Attend More Conferences

Most of the conferences and events I attended last year were local, but I’m looking for opportunities to get out on the road in 2010. I’ve already got a ticket for SXSW and I’m looking for a few other conferences to put on my schedule. I’ve started looking specifically for conferences in places I want to visit, where I can meet clients that I’ve been working with for years in person. Of course, I’ll keep on going to local events as well — it’s one of my favorite ways to get out of the home office.

I do have some non-work travel planned. I’m actually expecting to be on the road pretty much constantly from March through June. I’ll be taking the laptop along with me and working from wherever I happen to find an Internet connection.

How about you? What are you planning for 2010?

Image by Flickr user Doug88888

While I don’t have any resolutions, I’ve made some big plans for the new year, though — and I’ve already made some progress on them!

I’m My Own Client

I’ve been operating several small sites as passive income sources for quite a while, but they tend to get neglected in favor of the work I do for clients. Don’t get me wrong — I love the writing and blogging I do for my clients — but I want to make sure that my projects don’t get ignored. To that end, I’m working on changing my frame of mind: when it comes to my own projects, I’m just as much of a client as everyone else I work for. I’m tracking the time I spend on my own projects and treating them just like any other project a client asks me to work on.

Busting Out of the Short-Form Rut

I write a lot, but the majority of my writing is on short projects: blog posts, articles, a page or two of web copy. But I learned last year that I enjoyed working on longer projects — even though I don’t get to work on them that often. I’m planning several long-form projects, including more ebooks. I’ve even already brought out a new ebook this year, so I’m well on my way to meeting that goal.

I’m also experimenting with other forms of writing, like scripts for a web series. Right now, I’m not really concerned about finding a successful project, but I’ve found that changing up the projects make a big difference in my ability to write. It’s also one of the fastest ways past writers’ block that I’ve found. In order to explore some of those options, I’m also planning on taking a class or two.

Attend More Conferences

Most of the conferences and events I attend last year were local, but I’m looking for opportunities to get out on the road in 2010. I’ve already got a ticket for SXSW and I’m looking for a few other conferences to put on my schedule. I’ve started looking specifically for conferences in places I want to visit, where I can meet clients that I’ve been working with for years in person. Of course, I’ll keep on going to local events as well — it’s one of my favorite ways to get out of the home office.

I do have some non-work travel planned. I’m actually expecting to be on the road pretty much constantly from March through June. I’ll be taking the laptop along with me and working from wherever I happen to find an internet connection.

Image by Flickr user Doug88888

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While I’m not sure how much of my advice applies this week (since, according to the TSA, “Passengers should not expect to see the same thing at every airport”) I do have a few tips and loopholes to make your travel easier. Many of them revolve around food, since airport food can be unpredictable. Last weekend in the Columbus, Ohio airport, I was limited to the food that I brought with me and what was available in a single vending machine, as none of the stores in my terminal were open.

Smuggle Spreadable Food

I recently learned that peanut butter in a jar is a “liquid”. It seemed pretty solid to me, but that didn’t stop it being confiscated in the Seattle airport as possible liquid contraband. Dangerous stuff. However, if you spread peanut butter between crackers or bread it then becomes a “solid” and can be brought through security. This works for any other spreadable food: hummus, jelly, etc.

The Quart-size Bag isn’t Just for Shampoo and Lotion

This is a good way to smuggle small amounts of hummus, jelly, peanut butter, salad dressing, or any other condiments that you might want to have in the airport: You can put any liquids in the quart-size bag as long as you adhere to the 3.4 ounce per bottle limit, and you can squeeze everything into one bag.

Fitness Training

With all of the delays this holiday season, it can help to practice your running / sprinting before your trip just in case you need to make a tight connection. Last weekend, I managed to make a 5-minute connection in Minneapolis by sprinting between gates. Luckily, all of the running I’ve been doing lately helped me prepare. However, I did learn that running with a backpack containing a laptop and a couple of books while not wearing tennis shoes is way harder than my normal run. If nothing else, I got in a quick little workout combined with an adrenaline rush.

Your mileage may vary with these tips, but we wish you safe travels this holiday season from the WebWorkerDaily team.

What are your tips for making travel easier during the holiday season?

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But then one day, standing on a deserted platform having missed my train by seconds (and facing a 70-minute wait for the next one), I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to make wait time into work time.

Here are my tips for not wasting the time you might spend in a bus, train or plane terminal, or actually on public transport without decent web access. Carry a compact notebook and pen, and you won’t even need a seat. You can undertake most of these work tasks without power, too.

1. Brainstorming

In my work, there are always new ideas that need to be conceived. But we all have professional problems to solve, or solutions to ponder. Whatever the case, time spent waiting for your next scheduled service can be seen as quality free-thinking time — if you let it!

I often use this time to brainstorm, usually wildly, and jot ideas down for later revision and refinement. This kind of brainstorming has a light, casual feel to it, so I tend to think more freely, and write down less concrete, less thoroughly-thought-out ideas than I might if I was sitting at my desk on “work time”. Interestingly, these casually conceived ideas usually lead to productive  projects — as you might have guessed, the idea of writing this post came to me while I was waiting for a train.

2. Work reading

Carrying a magazine or reference you’ve been meaning to dig into for work? Now’s the time to sit back and take the good advice in. Often, I find it difficult to justify simply sitting down and reading a text — even for work. It just doesn’t feel like “doing.” But if you’re stuck on a bus with no alternative but staring blankly out the window, reading might be a very productive pastime.

These days, I carry a few work-related magazines with me at all times — they’re light and thin, so I can carry more than one, and they provide me with ample food for thought while I’m on public transport.

3. Returning calls

Usually, my travel time occurs before or after a meeting and often I’ve received a call or two while I’ve been in the meeting. Rather than be frustrated that I have to wait forty minutes for the next train to my town, I can use the time productively by returning those calls, scheduling resulting meetings, and noting any to-do items that come out of the discussions.

This task doesn’t require you to have a seat — though you might prefer a quiet, reasonably private spot, so a platform at a station may not be the ideal location from which to return those calls.

4. Voice note-taking

If you’re not into physical note-taking, you might find a voice recorder — or voice recorder app for your phone — an extremely handy addition to your travel kit. Speaking rather than writing notes can be an easy way to track your thoughts and make yourself reminders. Best of all, you only need one spare hand.

Voice recording can be a good way to capture more elusive, less-concrete thoughts, so it can be great for brainstorming, as well as noting reminders, drafting emails and so on. Of course, you might not feel comfortable to do it if you find yourself with a seat-buddy on your public transport option of choice.

5. Responding to email and online communication

This item comes last, because frequently I find myself without web access when I’m waiting for, or traveling on, public transport. But if I do have access, I can make the time worthwhile by checking my email, formulating and sending responses, scheduling tasks in my online calendar, commenting in forums, and so on.

Again, you may be able to do this on a platform or in queue, though if you want to respond to a message with a call, you’ll need a quiet space to do so.

I usually carry a notebook and pen, my phone, and some work-related reading material with me when I’m out and about. This way, whether I have a seat, a traveling companion, or a quiet place, I can use my travel and transit time to my advantage. And for me, this means less travel-induced overtime.

What tricks do you use to ensure your travel time isn’t wasted?

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The typical hotel room is currently vastly lacking in power. Usually there are two desk-level outlets, a pair of vanity outlets, and a couple of inaccessible outlets behind the nightstand. Typically, none of them have transformer-friendly positions or spacing.

Here’s where I would put power in the business traveler’s hotel room of the future:

• Desk. I’d put four outlets, spaced to accommodate transformers.
• Nightstand. I’d embed transformer-friendly outlets in the top for overnight charging of cellphones and similar devices.
• Wall. Outlets would be placed near any seating area or surface that could hold charging items.

Many business hotels have beautiful common areas such as atriums that would be wonderful alternatives to being trapped in your room, working all evening if only they had power points. Many of these areas currently advertise they are Wi-Fi equipped. How about wiring these areas for power as well?

Internet

Just as important as power is Internet connectivity. “More, better, faster” is my mantra for the business traveler’s hotel room of the future, because most current hotel Internet access is designed to handle only basic tasks such as checking email or surfing the web. Current hotel systems usually quickly choke on bandwidth-heavy tasks such as video or graphic file transfers, or VoIP calls.

The hotel of the future should have Internet access that is:

• WiFi
• Secure
• Truly high speed
• Smartphone-accessible

And Internet access should be included in the base room rate. Hotels don’t treat water and power as optional add-ons. Internet should be treated as a basic utility as well.

Gadgets

Now I want to get a little fancier than just basic services. I want some gadgets!

• Monitor. I get tired of squinting at my portable but sometimes too small 13” MacBook screen all day when I’m on the road. A monitor on the room’s desk that I could plug into would be a nice amenity.
• Notebook Safe. I do sometimes leave my hotel room without my laptop, such as for an evening’s entertainment. Leaving it unsecured in a hotel room makes me nervous, though. A notebook-sized safe (currently, a rare room amenity) would make me feel more secure.
• Accessible TV Inputs. A few forward-thinking hotels have installed flat-panel TVs that have front-facing jack panels for easier guest access. This is great for viewing media from an iPod or practicing presentations, and should be a standard business hotel feature.
• iPod-compatible clock radios. A few higher-end hotels are installing units such as the iHome for their guests. It’s both a nice home-like touch and a practical way to charge your unit.
• Surge Protectors. Quality surge protectors from a generally trusted company would be a great amenity in a room, just like hairdryers and irons are frequently offered.
• Equipment Rental. The tradional business center is rapidly losing its usefulness. How about renting equipment to travelers like MiFi units, portable scanners and Flip cameras instead?

What would make your web worker life on the road easier? What is your hotel of the future wish list?

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The entire process of essentially working double-time before and after my time off is so exhausting and stressful that most of the time, it completely offsets any benefit I might get from the time off itself.

But we do all need mental breaks to recharge. I can’t just not take breaks because taking them is too much work. So to cope with this challenge I’ve developed a system of being able to partially dial back my level of work activity. This gives me some of the mental feeling of taking time off without the break itself causing a stressful workload.

There are essentially two partial activity levels I can use to manage my workload while giving myself a mini mental break:

Light Day Mode. I still work on content but only on “fast and easy” items that are low effort. These are typically light reads, so this is a good mode to keep me in touch with my readers after a heavy news cycle, without wearing them out, too. I also manage feeds and emails, but leave routine site maintenance tasks for full work days.

Avalanche Prevention Mode. This is the mode I use on weekends (or any other day that I take a complete break from maintenance and producing content) to keep from having a massively full inbox awaiting me on my return to work. Essentially, it consists of just staying on top of incoming feed and email items. This work can be done from either my computer or my iPhone, making it easy to keep up with no matter where I am or what I am doing.

These modes aren’t just helpful when I need time off for rest and relaxation. They are also useful when I am working but not on my usual schedule, such as when I am away from my home office traveling for a trade show. Some days at trade shows I am working full speed and producing content. But on days like in-transit travel days, I adjust to one of my partial activity levels to try to avoid returning from an exhausting business trip to a mess of built-up work in my office.

Breaks are necessary, but if preparing for them and recovering from them causes more stress than they alleviate, it pretty much becomes a self-defeating exercise. I find that instead of long, complete breaks from work that are hard to prepare for and recover from, that mini mental breaks work better for me.

Do you have a way of taking a partial break? How do you sneak a mental break?

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Handling email through Voice on the Go is a relatively simple process: Once you dial into the system, you can have it read individual emails to you, as well as transcribe any replies you want to send. You can forward and compose emails with equal ease. The voice recognition software used by the system is fairly reliable — I’ve yet to find one that was completely without fault. In particularly noisy places, the system does have some issues, but you do have the option of using the keypad to give the system instructions.

Voice on the Go interfaces with most web-based email accounts, as well offering the option of accessing your email through POP3 or IMAP. The company has also gone to some lengths to provide encryption and security for email and other data. The price tag on a Voice on the Go account is $5.99 per month, plus taxes, and the site makes note that your calls are subject to normal carrier rates. In comparison, Jott offers a similar service for prices ranging from $3.95to $12.95, but has some limitations as to how much you can record.

There’s also some disparity between the services available from Jott and Voice on the Go that may tip the balance in favor of Voice on the Go. Jott does not offer an easy transition between checking your email and making a phone call, while Voice on the Go allows you to break into an email currently being read and have the system call a phone number in your address book. Voice on the Go also offers you the ability to access traffic, weather and travel information, along with news, through the same system that you use for email and text messaging.

It does seem like a smart move to invest in a headset if you don’t already have one, but what hardware you use is up to you. Even if you have the most basic cell phone, it will work just fine — you can even call into Voice on the Go from a landline if you need to or through Skype if you use a Skype-enabled phone.

At this time, Voice on the Go has local access numbers for approximately 40 U.S. area codes, as well as almost 20 Canadian phone numbers. There are also 25 international numbers available, for such countries as Australia, Mexico and even South Africa.

What’s your current in-car setup for handling calls, emails, etc? Do you think a voice over solution is something that you will make regular use of?

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As the first generation of coworking spaces, such as IndyHall, Old Broadcasting House and others, enter maturity while new locations and communities start up, it’s useful to reflect on some measures and metrics of success.

Marc Harrison at the Urban Workspaces blog — seeking to establish a local coworking space and community — recently published some thoughts on measuring the success for his proposed space. Marc’s goals are very personal, though universally applicable to anyone looking to bootstrap a coworking community for themselves.

Here are Marc’s key indicators of success:

• People would rather come into the coworking space than work at home, even when they have no work to do.
• Successful residents will eventually outgrow the community and need to move out.
• Corporate workers will use the space to jump from being employees to entrepreneurs.
• New businesses are formed based on relationships between residents.
• Residents become evangelists for the space.
• The space becomes a catalyst for other social groups and clubs.
• There is diversity in the range of professions and disciplines practiced by residents.

Perhaps what’s most striking about Marc’s goals are the absence of solely profit-driven motives. Coworking really does seem to be driven by non-commercial imperatives — social good, deepened collaboration, a sense of belonging.

Elsewhere, the global Coworking Community Blog recently covered the state of coworking in Southern and Latin America, with a post called “How is coworking doing in Argentina.” Interestingly, a Buenos Aires coworking community had difficulty appealing to local geeks and found the bulk of its membership to be international travelers, adding an undoubted cultural value to the community. Perhaps the ability to attract out-of-towners, business travelers and international travelers is another goal worth tracking across coworking communities worldwide.

How would you measure the success of a coworking community?

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It’s always worth taking a network cable if you’re staying in an unfamiliar hotel because it might have expensive Wi-Fi, poor Wi-Fi reception in your room, or no Wi-Fi at all. This cable took a little room in my bag, but I’m very glad I packed it.

Share your travel tips in the comments.

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So what can we do to make the most out of slow Internet connections?

Tune up your laptop before you leave. If you’ll be taking your laptop with you, make sure that it’s clean of spyware and adware. These programs tend to slow down your Internet connection since they use it to send data to third parties or load unwanted pop-up ads via your browser. I use Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy to make sute my laptop is clean of malware.

Also, it won’t hurt to de-clutter your hard drive and installed programs to ensure peak performance.

Make your Internet browser lean. Tweak your browser settings to automatically block ads, images, Flash, and JavaScript. In Firefox, you can do this by going to Tools > Options, then fiddling with the settings under Content. Uncheck Load images automatically and Enable JavaScript. As for blocking ads and flash, add-ons such as Adblock and Flashblock can handle that.

At this stage, you might be tempted to install speed enhancing add-on, such as Fasterfox. Remember that if you’re going to use such a third-party add-on or program to make your browsing speeds faster, make sure that you disable prefetching of web sites. Prefetching lets your browser automatically download and cache linked sites, unnecessarily consuming bandwidth.

Get rid of slow-loading add-ons. Browsers like Opera and Firefox allow you to use themes, extensions, and add-ons to customize your browsing experience. But these things can also consume memory and make your browser a little slower. Deactivate or disable any extensions that aren’t essential to your work.

Find a source of portable connectivity. One of the gadgets I bring with me on the road is a small 3G HSDPA modem with prepaid Internet access (which cost me around $40, including a prepaid card). This allows me to have access to 3G Internet where available or a much slower GPRS connection, which is available wherever there’s a cellphone signal.

Loading a WordPress Dashboard can take around 5 minutes on a GPRS connection, but as a blogger, the fact that I can access it at all is important. Most digital nomads (including myself) can sleep better at night knowing that they can access the web for basic work tasks, even if the connection is slow.

Know the rates you’ll be paying. Unless you’re only planning to take advantage of free Wi-Fi, you need to know if your Internet providers will charge you based on bandwidth or time, otherwise you can end up with a nasty surprise when you get the bill.

Divide your tasks into bandwidth-heavy and bandwidth-light. Evaluate your routine web tasks and see which ones you can do with a slow connection, and which ones require a faster, more reliable one. This is especially important if your mobile Internet provider charges based on bandwidth usage instead of time. Aliza Sherman did something similar in a previous post, to help her work around bandwidth limits.

Obviously, the bandwidth-light tasks are the ones you can do on your slow connection. For the bandwidth-heavy tasks, you’ll have to wait until you get to an Internet cafe or an area with a reliable connection. Separating your tasks into these two lists will allow you to schedule and batch them according to what kind of connection you can access.

Have backup plans. Even if you think you’ve covered all the bases, it helps to have a backup plan in case you really can’t get a decent connection. Some tips include:

• Having a friend or a virtual assistant do some web tasks for you (uploading and formatting blog posts, research, checking your email,etc.)
• Doing as much work as you can in advance.
• Researching your connectivity options (net cafes, Wi-Fi hotspots, etc.) before you arrive at your destination.

Slow Internet speeds might be a traveling web worker’s nightmare, but with a bit of research and planning, you can make it easier on yourself and the people who work with you.

Do you have any connectivity tips or techniques to share with traveling web workers?

Image by runrunrun from sxc.hu

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