Being that we do a lot of time and materials projects at ClearSpace, tracking hours worked on what project is very important. I’ve recently switched from my trusty OO spreadsheet to using MyHours.

It’s an easy to use web-based time tracker that includes a mobile edition that works well on my blackberry. It’s also completely free at the moment. They claim that their “Basic Personal Account features will stay free to use.”

While this may at first appear to only apply to you if you’re doing consulting or time and materials type work, it may be worth checking out even if you’re a corporate man. I started tracking my hours at my last office gig as a means of figuring out where I truly spent my time. The first thing I realized was that I spent way too much time in meetings. Try it, you may be surprised or not, ignorance is bliss.

I haven’t had a chance yet but this is something I will try out, I’ll let you know how it works for me. With any team, especially a remote one, every meeting you book requires back and forth on the best date/time. It scales exponentially with every person you add to the meeting. We continually struggle with this and it takes up people’s time.

Mark Hurst has now added meeting maker functionality to their Goovite offering in an attempt to tackle this. Goovite is a “fast, free, easy invites, with no registration required”. Only question I have is why give it a name that will have people thinking it’s a google thing?

So I’ve never really gone for this whole emoticon business. I don’t write “LOL” in emails, my message client Gaim doesn’t render emoticons so I get a lot of :), $;/ and whatever else that I really have no idea which emotion the person’s trying to pass along.

Why am I such an emoticon bitch? It just doesn’t work so I don’t bother. It’s hard enough to convey emotional context over the phone, but through a text based software application it’s just pointless so why try.

Years back I used to play some chess online in an attempt to learn how to play the game. I had no clue what “LOL” meant in the game chats. My first assumption, which lasted months, was Lot’s Of Love. I was getting loads of love until I figured out they were laughing at me.

We’ve all heard about disruptive technology, maybe even choked back Clayton Christensen’s sometimes painful prose which lead to the term. Did you ever think that the pizza industry had to watch out for it though?

Super Fast Pizza

“Our high-tech Mobile Kitchens are licensed restaurants. We outfit them with Custom Ovens that can cook your pizza at a speedy 600 degrees. Our Mobile Pizza Kitchens utilize the latest in wireless internet technology, and produce enough electricity to power your home. (And they look pretty sporty too!) Remember, we cook your pizza while we drive to you. “30 seconds from our oven to your door” insures your pizza arrives hot every time.”

I first tried O’Reilly’s Safari bookshelf by signing up for a free 14 day trial last summer. Eventually I moved to their personal version until finally landing on clearspace acquiring our own corporate package which offers us all slightly better rates.

I’ve tried one competing offering out there, that being Books24x7. Their interfaces, number of books, prices and features differ only slightly. The main differentiator is the books in their libraries, ie Wrox versus O’Reilly. If you prefer Wrox books, you’re best on books24x7, if you prefer O’Reilly then get Safari. Actually, just try them both out as I believe they both offer free trials. I ultimately prefer Safari because I have always trusted O’Reilly books in general.

To be blunt, I’m unsure how I coped without this. Regardless of which service you choose, the bottom line is you have instant and complete access to over 3000 books. For me, this supports my work in a far better fashion that traditional books. I need to quickly research a topic by hearing or reading a variety of voices and opinions. In the past I would rely solely on the free publishings on the internet. For anything more in depth I would search around on Amazon, do my best to pick a reputable book on the topic, and either order and wait days or head to the local bookstore and hope they have a title.

At best I’m able to get a book that day, most likely paying $50 to $100, at worst I’m waiting up to a week. If I’m lucky I choose well and end up with a book that solves my problems. If I make a crappy choice then I’m stuck with more useless dead trees. With Safari I have instant access to over 3000 titles allowing me to hunt around in a multitude of books in order to get a well rounded perspective on the topic at hand for the cost of about six books a year.