Unfortunately, in the age of viral marketing, computer viruses are part of the package.

I’m planning on starting a new weekly reader profile here on WWD, looking at the different things our readers do, how you work, the gear and software you use, and your favorite hints and tips. If you’d like to be profiled on the site, please get in touch with me directly at simon (at) gigaom [...]

There are a lot of professions where continuing education is an absolute necessity. For professionals providing financial or legal services, for instance, it’s often a legal requirement to take a class every year or two. Even if it isn’t legally required, though, continuing education can be very useful. It allows you to stay up to [...]

This is a tip for anyone who wants to get any web working done while you’re traveling and/or in transit for any reason. If you’re going to be in areas of questionable network access, you’d better have the ability to get work done offline at your disposal, and you should also be ready to dig [...]

If you’re using the Pomodoro Technique (a method that uses a timer to help improve concentration and focus that Meryl wrote about recently) you might like to check out Tomatoi.st, a simple but nicely designed web app that can time your pomodoros and your breaks. Just hit the relevant button to start a pomodoro, a [...]

We have a tendency to impose restrictions on our abilities and potential by creating glass ceilings for ourselves. It starts with arbitrary boundaries. In recent months, I’d been working toward a certain fixed, arbitrary goal, when it came to my business and my income. I had three income “buckets,” and I had decided how much revenue I [...]

If you’re a freelancer, learning when to turn down a potential client is crucial to your success. The wrong client will be a drain on your resources, sapping your energy and taking time from those with whom you work well. Over on A List Apart, Greg Hoy has written a useful article entitled “Getting to [...]

Lifestreambackup, a service that Thursday reviewed back in August, is changing its name to Backupify. As the app now supports backup of several online services (Basecamp, Google Docs, Zoho Writer) that don’t really count as lifestreaming apps, the name was no longer appropriate (and there are some other reasons behind the change, too, as co-founder [...]

Monday’s GigaOM Bunker Event looked at where the web is headed. As Jennifer Martinez reported at GigaOM, “A group of technologists explored how the next generation of the web will use location, sensors built into devices such as our mobile phones, and other context clues to ‘give the Internet a body.’” We call this future [...]

Last week, I met a new client who accepts that she needs to use the web much more effectively than she does now. Over the coming months, she’s planning to build her personal brand online, with the help of various promotions experts. Right now? “I just don’t have time for it,” she says. And when [...]

Recently, we covered the release of the Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps Technical Preview. While it was great to get a first look at this release, it was even more interesting to pull back and read the flurry of blog postings, pundit pontifications, tweets and articles that were all over the web, ranging from those [...]

In the corporate world, it’s easy to track positive mobility in your career. You could get a promotion (a move upward to a position of higher rank or pay), or laterally to a position of similar rank, but with different tasks or projects. Advancement in a freelancing career is not so easy to track, possibly [...]

With the official release of Windows 7 on deck for later this week, Microsoft Press has released a free, 332-page downloadable e-book, “Deploying Windows® 7 Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine.” The book — which reuses material from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet — covers a wide range [...]

Mike McDerment is the co-founder and CEO of Freshbooks. I caught up with him at the recent LessConf event in Jacksonville, Fla, to chat about Freshbooks’ focus, whether you can trust web apps with your data, and working with family members. Do you work with family members? How does it work out for you?

So you’re well into your web working career (hopefully thanks, in part, to the posts featured in our just-released free “Web Work 101″ e-book), and you’ve gotten off to a great start, but after a certain amount of time (it will differ from person to person), things start to lose their zest. The honeymoon is [...]

I’ve finally got computer glasses, after years of gradually increasing difficulty focusing at mid-range between distance and close-up vision. My optometrist first suggested bifocals back in ‘02, but I resisted. In hindsight, this was not my wisest decision. My reasoning wasn’t vanity; I was getting along reasonably happily with single vision lenses, and didn’t want [...]

2009-10-06: The W3C community convenes next month in Santa Clara, California for Technical Plenary Week (TPAC) 2009, this year's edition of an annual week-long opportunity for W3C group participants to share news of progress and to address hot-button technical issues face-to-face, including the future of HTML 5, privacy challenges in an era of powerful Web Applications, and how governments are using the Web to increase transparency and accountability. This year, the Internet Society (ISOC), as part of its mission to support the development of open standards, will sponsor TPAC 2009 and actively participate in the event. In addition to ISOC representatives, participants from other standards development organizations will join in discussion about the health of the "Internet Ecosystem" during the Plenary Day. As previously announced, W3C invites the public to a Developer Gathering on 5 November. In addition, the press are invited to attend a Media Breakfast on 3 November from 7:30-8:30am (Pacific Time) for presentations on some of the key topics W3C will cover during the week. Read the press release and learn more about TPAC 2009. (Permalink)

2009-10-08: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Widget URIs. Resources inside a widget package are identified and located using a method that is specific to widgets technology. Widget URIs reflect this by providing these specific locators with their own syntax so that resources in widget packages can be readily identified. Comments are welcome through 10 November. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

How can you make whatever you're dreaming of doing a reality? If you haven't already given these questions some thought, now might be a good time to start. One thing's certain, though: Your answers are going to involve money in some capacity. Maybe your choices will affect your earning capacity, require savings, or necessitate rationalization in some other area of your life. When it comes to achieving your life goals, money matters.

If you’re into pen-and-paper productivity, Daryl Furuyama over at WhiteHatBlackBox has produced this neat numbered procedure list for recording recurring tasks. Daryl uses the example of cleaning the bathroom, but you could use it to record any work-related task, too, like your weekly backup or a client handover. By recording recurring procedures, you can keep [...]