Google’s new CEO, Larry Page may shake some things up – we’ve heard that kind of thing before, but we certainly hope so. The Groupon deal fell through for them, and now they’re doing Google Offers – it’s the right move, but they still need to put more thought into the entire social media fabric. [...]
I’ve used two video cards at a time for years to have three monitors – at least one card always being a dual head card. The productivity boost from multiple monitors is well-documented; by comparison, working with one monitor is like trying to drive with both side windows blocked, and only the front windshield clear. [...]
When I went out on my own, it was for the reasons a lot of people do. No one telling me what to do, being able to make the best decisions and act quickly on opportunities, and generally being able to improve upon what I spotted as corporate inefficiencies. Corporations made good training grounds for [...]
When I go, I’m going Google: I still have one of those old fashioned televisions that nothing plugs into. I can’t plug a DVD player in directly, or Apple TV, or a Netflix box, or Google TV. But all I really want is Google. I recently chose Android over iPhone – it’s cheap, more apps, [...]
FAS-TV [Free Agent Source TV], is a Youtube video based program of discussion of the world of work by Steve Pruneau and Daniel DiGriz of Free Agent Source (yours truly from the Rules of Work blog). Far from a sales pitch for FAS, the discussion runs the gamut of issues related to contracting, freelancing, solopreneurship, [...]
I liked my Nook. I really did. It had the usual minute frustrations one expects from technology that isn’t user-tested extensively enough among real users in the real world, but what would you rather have – an FDA-like wait for technology approval (they just wave through all kinds of dangerous things, anyway, if you’re a [...]
I’m starting a corporate wall of shame to jot down the silliness experienced in various corporate venues that just keep on sucking out there without an adequate degree of ridicule in response. I’m doing it in honor of Borders – that’s right, the bookstore that used to have decent coffee. When my coffee shop closes, [...]
The inertia of the anvil used in a forge allows the impact of whatever tool you’re working with to be transferred to whatever material you’re working on. In this way, energy is transformed in the process of workmanship. The clothing company, Anvil, offers lines of organic clothing that perform a similar function. They reduce the [...]
I’ve decided the Moleskine is the perfect notebook. Someone said, ‘if you don’t write it down, it never happened’. That’s my life. But my life is also photocopying years’ old piles of napkins and post-its at staples, so I can scan them in, or pulling out less portable but dirt cheap notebooks, like the bound [...]
California Company Free Agent Source says, with Monty Python, “And now for something completely different…” It’s one thing to get a new cereal, a new TV show, or even a relatively new kind of car (like the hybrid). But there are areas of our lives where newness is almost unheard of, or even considered wrong. [...]
If you live on the web, or work on the web, or both, you know you need bookmarking. Yes, I know that google is the ultimate reason why you wouldn’t. After all, why bookmark if it’s all already stored in google. But even google results aren’t quite *that* personal. And bookmarking is a productivity device. [...]
Have you heard about Kiva? Kiva is a free web site that lets you provide micro-loans (in amounts of $25) to impoverished entrepreneurs needing investment to make their businesses thrive. The entire loan amount goes to the entrepreneur and is facilitated through Kiva’s partnership with local micro-lending organziations in each country. The micro-lending organization collects [...]
As we talked about in an earlier post, you can’t afford technology slow-downs (let alone melt-downs) with the equipment you use for work. There are three tools that are superb for keeping it lean, mean, and screaming faster than the day you bought it. What all of these do is clean your registry which, if [...]
I’ve tried nearly all of them, and settled on Backblaze. Jungle Drive: I found it impossible to set up. Too many separate logins and setting up the connection between the software and the storage servers, albeit rock solid amazon servers, threw several hurdles at me. After a couple of hours, including forum entries, I gave [...]
I’ve reviewed this phone before, and now it’s available cheaper than ever (information courtesy of edealinfo.com): Motorola F3 Slim Unlocked GSM Basic Phone » only $23.99 One Day Only J&R is carrying this Unlocked Cell Phone for $23.99 This item receives Free Shipping Final Price: $23.99 + Free Shipping
The contrast is startling. Average of 5mb/sec internet connections in the US – average of 60mb/sec in Japan [source] for about $25/month. South Korea, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Portugal… basically most countries that might deserve the term “wired” have faster, better internet.The US, birthplace of the personal computer and the internet, now ranks 28th in [...]
Have you ever owned a piece of equipment for which you had strong emotional feelings? It might have been that 65 Chevrolet, or your first mitre saw, or an early lugabout PC. For me, most recently, it’s the ScanSnap S300 scanner. Before I explain why, allow me to explain how this scanner differs from all [...]
What is Pixily?: Pixily is a service that scans your documents with a high degree of privacy and archives them securely online, or makes them available for download as PDFs. By documents, we could be talking about almost anything. I tried the free trial, and put them through their paces, sending the prepaid envelope with [...]
Daniel writes prolifically about subjects ranging from work to social justice, does literary writing, and is Marketing Director of Free Agent Source. Daniel founded JobHacker (formerly the Rules of Work) blog when the bottom fell out of the mortgage market, and the US economy started its death rattle.
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