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This video from Skype demonstrates using the service for business: 

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FrugalTech discusses more ways to save money using Skype for business:

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Kid Guru explains how to record calls for podcasting and other purposes:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/VZBHRDsVX0E" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Betchaboy demonstrates making a video call with Skype:

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Whatever your job, if you do it at a computer you’re probably coming to terms with spending a fair amount of your day doing things that didn’t come up in your job description. (Hands up, anyone who saw “Writing and responding to email” at the top of the required tasks list?)

Ok, no surprise that email is eating our lives (not sure I even want to see the numbers on that) but did you know that you probably spend more time being interrupted from tasks than you do working on them?

This article looks at drive by interruptions and the toll they exact on productivity.

Here are a few stats:

• Interruptions crunch through 28% of the average knowledge worker’s day.
• Interruptions typically lower a worker’s IQ 10 points. (The researchers note that’s over twice as big a drop as experienced by someone who smoked marijuana. Man.)
• In a study of Microsoft employees, it took workers an average of 15 minutes to settle into a task again after an interruption.

If, like me, you telecommute you may not have the “drop-by drive-by” coworker sitting on the edge of your desk. On the other hand, family and neighbors (many, many of whom just never seem to get the “work” part of “work from home”) will typically take time out of their busy days to fill that niche.

When a friend of mine was working on his doctoral dissertation, he actually locked his door and tied himself into the chair at his computer with the belt from his bathrobe so that he couldn’t absent-mindedly wander away.

Ingenious, but it would never work today. We’re virtually strapped in at our computers but the potential for interruption just seems to get worse. Without so much as standing up, we’ve got email, IMs, RSS notifications… not to mention the siren call of the Net or even the archaic charms of the telephone.

So how to cope, get some work done and maybe even save your sanity? Well, here’s a hint: “Unplug” is number three on Lifehack’s top 50 ways to increase your productivity list. On rare occasions, I’ve closed out of Outlook and exited IM. It’s amazing how much you can get done without interr… oh, hold that thought — I’ve got to take this call…

~ Ivy Wigmore

Quiz: For Latin Lovers

Latin is a dead language,
As dead as it can be.
First it killed the Romans
And now it’s killing me.

Years ago, when Latin was taught in the public schools, all the boys and girls inscribed their Latin texts with that little ditty. Or so our moms tell us. Despite its seeming unpopularity, Latin was — and still is — extremely useful for making you look like a real smartypants. Are you a Latin Lover? Take our quiz to help you decide.

In fact — believe it or not — I’m not a fluent speaker of Latin, so I set forth to look for potential phrases that I could bend to my purposes. I found, to my delight, that there was not a lot that I could use for the quiz, but lots of things that might be handy for other applications:

Here’s a slice of the long list of common and useful Latin phrases from Dialogue on Everything2.com:

Ne plus ultra: Nothing further; perfection
Nil desperandum: No reason for despair; never despair.
Nolen volens: Willing or unwilling
Non compos mentis: Not of sound mind
Non sequitur: It does not follow.
Nota bene: Mark well.
Obiit: He (or she) died.
Obiter dictum: A thing said by the way
Ora pro nobis: Pray for us.
Ore rotundo: With full voice
O tempora! O mores!: O the times! O the manners!

Below, there’s a coordinated list from Xerces. Here’s a taste:

E contrario: on the contrary
Experto credite!: Trust me!
Extinctus amabitur idem: How soon we forget!
Fama volat: Rumor travels swiftly
Filius est patris: He’s a chip off the old block
Forte consulto: accidently on purpose – a cool oxymoron!
Hic et nunc: here and now
Hic et ubique: here and everywhere
Humanum est errare: To err is human

From systay on Everything₂, Fun Latin phrases. Such as:

Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
- If you can read this you’re overeducated

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur
- Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out

Un idea perplexi na
- The idea is strange to us

albae gallinae filius
- son of a white chicken

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum
- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am

If you look to the bottom of the page, there are links to a variety of Latin pages on the site.

The BBC’s h2g2 pages have more Latin fun. Here are just a few of the need-to-know phrases listed:

Ita erat quando hic adveni: It was that way when I got here

Nihil declarandum: I have nothing to declare

Ut si!: As if!

Canis meus id comedit: My dog ate it

Die dulci freure: Have a nice day

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam: I have a catapult. Unless you give me all of your money, I will fling an enormous rock at your head.

Utinam barbari spatioum proprium tuum invadant: May barbarians invade your personal space

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem: Stand aside, little people! I am here on official business

Or you could go to Abigail’s Big Table of Latin Phrases

Here’s a sampling of handy phrases from Abigail’s cheatsheet:

Heia, amice, utrum illae sunt sarcinae tuae, an modo Carthaginem despoliasti?: Hey, pal, is that carry-on luggage or did you just sack Carthage?

Heu, modo itera omnia quae mihi nunc nuper narravisti, sed nunc Anglice?: Listen, would you repeat everything you just told me, only this time say it in English?

hunc tu caveto: beware of this man

Id est mihi, id non est tibi!: It is mine, not yours!

Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit: It isn’t over until it’s over

Illegitimi non carborundum: Don’t let the bastards wear you down

Illiud Latine dici non potest: You can’t say that in Latin.

And with that, friends, Absum! (I’m outta here!)

~ Ivy Wigmore

Recently, with the launch of the iPhone, an RSS hack that Winer created two years ago has been getting much more attention. Essentially, he’s optimized all of the content that a news site makes available through RSS so that it’s ideal for viewing on a mobile device, removing formatting, images (read: advertising) and all other content extraneous to the simple – and potent – combination of headline, link and summary.

For Dave’s definition of a “river of news,” refer to ReallySimpleSyndication.org, where he uses a “conveyor belt sushi” metaphor to explain the concept further.

Mmm. Sushi.

[Photo credit: Biohabit.org)

To use the newsriver, just point your browser, mobile or otherwise, to bbcriver.com for the BBC or nytimesriver.com for the New York Times. To see how it works, view this video of a BlackBerry user browsing a newsriver:

.MOV

Critics of the technique and technology point out that Avantgo and other clipping services have provided similar functions to early adopters using wireless Palm Pilots or Pocket PCs years ago. That being said, the explosion of smartphones like the BlackBerry, Treo, Windows Mobile devices and now the iPhone has made quick-loading, mobile optimized news content much more compelling than the graphically-clogged homepages of many providers. Of course, the iPhone’s ability to browse the “full Internet” makes it quite possible, even pleasant, to surf through the different major newspaper and online media sites, but if you’re stuck on the EDGE network as you browse, it’s quite possible that a newsriver may be preferable.

I’m not sure whether Dave deserves credit for something entirely new. I do know that what he’s created makes it easier for me to access the news on the go, and for that I thank him. I’m not alone in that. A-list bloggers like Jeff Jarvis, Dan Farber, Read/Write Web, Scoble and Dave Winer himself have all held up newsrivers as something revolutionary. Steve Rubel, over at MicroPersuasion, recently pointed out that Megite, which aggregates blog posts like TechMeme, now provides a newsriver.

The point that Dave makes in the post that reintroduced the concept of the river – and defends it against critics – is much the same as the one I just made above. While it’s been possible to do this sort of thing on a PDA or BlackBerry for some time, no one has made it as easy as simply pointing your mobile browser to a URL.

Now, in the wake of losing my MDA on a fishing trip last weekend (RIP), my next challenge to decide which mobile device I’ll be using to paddle down the newsriver.

As is so often the case, technology and life comes in cycles. In recent years, the explosion of cheap, removable flash drives (or jump drives, so some folks call them) has allowed mind-bogglingly large sneaker-borne file transfers copied over speedy USB 2.0 ports. iPod owners have long since discovered that those giganormous 80-gigabyte hard drives also make fantastic data warehouses for easy travel and transfer (as long as you don’t forget the cord!) and of course, it’s a cinch for most PC owners to burn a copy of a file to a CD and walk it over to another desk or office. That sort of thing can result in podslurping, of course, as network admins know. Entire operating systems can be carted around as LiveDistros, along with whatever portable applications a user might desire. I won’t even touch, of course, the multitude of flash memory formats that inhabit cameras, smartphones, GPS devices and other electronica, each a potential method of data transfer in “the sneakernet.”

(BTW, hat tip for the cool sneaker image goes to ProZak on Flickr)

So sneakernet is definitely not dead (as noted in this tip from SearchNetworking from 2005). The prompt provided by the reader email did, however, recall to my biological RAM an e-column I read just last week from David Pogue, the witty and frequently funny technology reviewer over at the New York Times. David recently wrote about a trip to California where he managed to forget a folder of 2 GB of digital photos he’d taken of digital SLRs he was reviewing in that week’s paper. With the help of a marvelously patient wife, he managed to get the files transferred over to his laptop from home using a nifty little shareware application called Pando. Pando provides, as David says, “a free, cross-platform, super-simple program designed expressly for idiotproof file transfers, even big ones.”

You can learn more at (you guessed it) Pando.com.

The only snag is that for the service to work, both users have to download and install the client, a step and hitch that David rightly suggests is a potential hindrance, or even impossible for some end users without admin privileges. That being said, Pando worked well for David and is allowing thousands of users to easily backup, transfer, recover and (yes) trade quite large media files. Color me a fan.

Aside from discovering Pando (thanks, David!), the process Pogue worked through is remarkably similar to one that plays out in classrooms and cubicles daily. How to do it? Sneakernet and removable storage is certainly one way, though I hear that the “Interwebs” is an attractive method these days as well. Here’s a crack at a list of ways to make a hypothetical transfer happen. If you have more ideas, please add them in the comments.

For instance, gmail has changed the way that most people think about using email to send attachments, with its remarkably large capacity (convertible to online storage, as I’ve blogged about before, with Gdisk), though I agree with David that 2 gigs is a tag weighty to send this way.

Also like David, I’ve been using FTP for a long time to download and upload files online, though I’ve endured timeouts, unexpected logouts and all manner of file corruptions over the years. I still have fond memories of the early versions of Fetch, including the happy dog icon that accompanied the app. David’s second idea, using an IM-client to transfer files, wasn’t a bad idea at all, though that kind of P2P file sharing isn’t likely to fly on many corporate networks.

As David discovered, however, IM and large files size don’t mix well for file transfer.

Command line geeks know about how to use Secure Shell (referred to as SSH or secsh) to securely access a computer remotely, a method that isn’t exactly for the technically faint of heart but allows direct access to the other computer’s directories. Rajpaul Bagga offers a Secure Shell (SSH) howto if you’re interested.

How else can you transfer large files? The list isn’t short, to be sure, even after touching on CDs, iPods, flash drives, P2P file sharing apps, FTP clients, iPods and IM.

.Mac users can also set up a public folder on their iDisks, which allows them to post large files for others to download, securing them behind password-protection as necessary.

Networking geeks can directly connect one PC to another with a crossover cable. And, as many will point out, a server or shared hard drive can be set up for file sharing as well.

You can use the IrDa port on your PDA and laptop (if they both have one!) to swap files using infrared.

And (of course) Bluetooth can be enabled to allow easy transfer between PCs, PDAs and printers, though bluesnarfing should worry users with proprietary or sensitive data.

Some smartphone users can use MMS to send files as well, most often pictures or (very short) videos taken with digital cameras. Unless you’re on an EV-DO, HSDPA or some other 3G wireless network, however, this won’t work particularly well with larger files.

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments!

Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one.

Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it, so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s personality in one place is a determined effort on their part—usually through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are, make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your way.

The article’s by Adrian Savage, who blogs on Slow Leadership.

Another helpful post is Leo Babauta’s Wikify Your Life: How to Organize Everything, a hands-on practical explanation of how to keep track of just about every component of your life from within your own personal wiki. Babauta, of zen habits, has more good stuff on offer. From the site:

Babauta blogs regularly about achieving goals and becoming productive through daily habits on Zen Habits. Read his articles on 10 Ways to Reduce Your Work Week, Zen To Done (ZTD), the Top 50 Productivity Blogs, doubling your productivity, keeping your inbox empty, becoming an early riser, and the Top 20 Motivation Hacks.

Oh, I just spotted How to Become a Creative Genius by Kim Roach of The Optimized Life. Ok, I’ve got to go read now. The next time you see me, I’m bound to be new and improved.     ~ Ivy Wigmore

The inescapable conclusion? As an editor “of a certain age,” I can no longer expect to be able to hunker down at the computer in one position for hours and also expect to be able to change that position quickly. And if I don’t want to be RSI poster girl, I’d better do something.

Workrave to the rescue! It might just save me from myself. It’s a nifty little program that pops up alerts at user-defined intervals, reminding you to stretch, take a break or *gasp* step away from the computer. There’s a handy illustrated exercise demo for eyes, hands, shoulders and all those other bodily features that tend to suffer at the computer. In between significant breaks, Workrave mandates micropauses, during which you’re ordered to stare into space. Ahhhh! Seconds of pure zen bliss…

While this method isn’t for the faint of heart or the inexperienced, Unix gurus and productivity mavens alike will enjoy the library of scripts and management tools found at ToDoTxt.com.

From one of the founders of the O’Reilly Network, the Makezine blog “brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life.”