Digital Empath

Tools for Online Privacy

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has a nice list of tools for protecting your privacy online.
Check it out!

Hide My Ass

I remember back in the day there was the IP blocking browser - what was it? Safeweb?  Then it went away.
Now here's Hide My Ass.

Life Goes On Offline | Can you do a Media Fast?

Novelist Stephen Elliott writes about his month offline. Can you unplug from the Matrix and do a media fast?

The Unblogosphere

Following the style of "un-conferencing" - Kent Newsome coined the term "The Unblogosphere" - knowledge sharing amongst the non-A-list blogger crowd, who basically just cross link to each other anyway.

The RSSblog has further comment here.

G-Cal versus 30boxes: FIGHT

I don't even have to review this challenge, because WebWorkerDaily already has.  Check it out - their comparisons between Google Calendar and 30boxes.  I myself prefer Google Calendar. In fairness, I never gave 30boxes more than a 5 minute trial.

How to stay Productive if you're working from home

Lifehacker has a new thread about productivity tips from/for telecommuters.  I work from home about 95% of the time, am currently 7.5 months pregnant, and I don't have a proper office/desk set-up available to me at the moment.  I work from 2 laptops (well, trying to consolidate to one personal and another work machine) at the dining room table.

I do have tips on how I maintain motivation, deliver on deadlines, and keep multiple clients/projects on track, when I work alone, at home, with no manager or co-workers around me to get me in a "worky mode."

I submitted my comment to Lifehacker, but in case they don't approve/post it, here it is:

Pregnant hyphenate telecommuter recommends:

1. Eat first so you're not distracted by low blood sugar.
2. If you're on deadline or need to log some serious hours on a project, then I would suggest   a) put on headphones,
b) set your chat client status to "Unavailable for Chat except for emergencies" (Mine says "Hyper focus Productivity Sprint - do not disturb)
c) Use a digital egg timer like Minuteur (Mac) or Google Timer (PC kind) and set it for 1 hour.
d) Queue up some droning techno or whatever you can find at 130+ bpm minimum. Press play.
e) Put an autoresponder on your email letting people you know you only respond to email at certain times of the day. (respect to Tim Ferriss for that one)
f) Close down all unnecessary web browsers.
g) With timer ticking, WORK! Focus isn't so hard in "sprint" mode. 

2. (**GTD-speak follows) Select a "context" to work in, after you've done your time/date "hard landscape" deliverables.  Whatever next action you feel like doing. 

• Feeling chatty? Make calls.
• Just wanna click around and do research on the web? Cross some things off your @web list. 
• Wanna go shopping? Check any shopping or @errands list. 

These are some of my standard operating procedures for working from home, in between offering snackrifices to my gestating Pod, power naps and marching in place for exercise. 

Dapper versus Pipes: FIGHT

Dapper - the Data Mapper versus Yahoo Pipes.  I'll be messing with these all weekend. Will update this post with my opinions afterwards.

Study: 82% of Americans Trust Social Media Before Corporate Sites

A key conclusion of the study:

"... in the battle for the hearts and minds of the American public, companies will have to communicate more with them online, especially on such social networks as blogs, MySpace, and YouTube. These are places where companies cannot control their message."

What that really means: More and more, people refuse to take a corporation's word on its record. They search blogs and social media to get the story as others see the company.

It's a train that's left the station, but it remains to be seen whether corporations will ever believe what Bob Dylan so elegantly told them back in 1964: "

Source: Whatsnextblog.com

Wifi Art Insanity

One of my two best friends, Jim Sottile, Jr., is an artist and an Info Tech nerd.  His most recent obsession is mapping wifi router names throughout the city of San Francisco, and he's looking to spread this EVERYWHERE. For no reason.  Just art's sake.  He doesn't want to break into wifi networks, he just wants to map them, and observe all the funny network names.

Here's more from Jim on his VOX page, describing this art piece, and here's more on his .mac page.  He is obsessed.

Here's a link to his warchalking map of San Francisco, wherein Jim observes that "One of the more popular unique word used in naming home wireless routers in San Francisco so far seems to be the word "monkey"."

Modding A Macbook into a Tablet??

I just got a new Lenovo Thinkpad X60 tablet for work.  It's got Vista on it, which pains me.  But it's a lovely machine, and a tablet too.  The tablet thing is cool, but I am still quite attached to my Powerbook.  Then Heather told me about this "Modbook."  You buy a Macbook or a Macbook Pro, and then ship it to this company to turn it into a tablet. Whoa.  Pricey. But if you can afford the fetish and you are dying for a Mac tablet, then shudder. . . it's awesome.