AnywhereMan

You’ll see that I’ve linked to this site in my People section, but just wanted to give a public recommendation that you check out Phil & Jason Montero’s TheAnywhereOffice.com.  They provide some excellent content especially targeted at managers of virtual teams.  While my site tends to cater a little bit more towards the freelancer, The Anywhere Office gravitates more towards the world of teleworking.  

If you are not yet living the Anywhere lifestyle, directing your manager or boss to The Anywhere Office may help you convince them that a virtual office team really can work and offers many benefits.  Go read up on their site and as I mentioned, tell them the AnywhereMan sent you. 

Today’s wardrobe courtesy of Freshbooks.

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In an effort to improve my AnywhereMan video workflow, I picked up a new Logitech QuickCam Pro webcam for around $80 which allows me to produce 720p video right at my desktop. So far I love it, and today I talk about this camera as well has the rest of my video setup.  Still tweaking the audio level with the webcam (sorry about the clipping in a few spots!), but I’m really loving the video quality for the price and how it handles the lighting arrangement in my office.

NOTE: So I recorded this video, uploaded it to Vimeo, and had some issues with the frame rate. The audio worked great, but the video took forever to load and after it did I was super choppy. I guess the Logitech software records at 15 fps by default, and Vimeo prefers 30 fps. Trying to figure out whether I need to find 3rd party software to record 30 fps from the webcam, or if I should just start using YouTube over Vimeo from now on.  I will keep you posted. I love Vimeo, but I also love a quicker process!

CONFIRMED AFTER FURTHER RESEARCH: The QuickCam Pro for Notebooks cannot do 720P at 30 fps, just 15 fps. Why don’t they tell you this stuff ON THE BOX? The picture quality still looks great though.  I will stick with this until Microsoft sends me their new LifeCam HD to review on this site.

Shop Online

• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from TigerDirect
• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from TechDepot
• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from Amazon
• Canon Vixia HV30 HDV High Definition Camcorder from TechDepot
• Sony Vegas Pro – ( v. 9 ) – complete package from TechDepot

Today I talk about one of my favorite web apps: Freshbooks, a system of “painless billing”.  As a freelancer and business owner who needs to track all of his time for invoicing, Freshbooks has never let me down. 

As I mention in this video, Freshbooks has hooked me up with a few things to give away.  I am going to hold two separate drawings for prize packages that will include a Freshbooks t-shirt, some swag, and a FREE two-month subscription to the Freshbooks subscription plan of your choice!  Whether you’re a current Freshbooks user or you’ve never used it in your life, this contest is open to everyone.

There are two ways to win one of the two prize packages:

1. Sign up for any of Freshbooks’ plans (even the free one) and past the URL to your login page in the comments below.  For example, my login URL is http://liftdevelopment.freshbooks.com  Easy as pie! (One entry per person). Be sure to fill out the comment name/email completely so I can notify you if you win.
    
2. Tweet the following message on Twitter:  ”Hey @daveyank you’re right – @freshbooks IS awesome for painless billing! http://bit.ly/freshy”  (You can retweet this as many times as you want and each one will count as an entry into the drawing)  Click here to Tweet this message right now!

One of the shirts that I am giving away is a blue version of the famous “tie shirt” as worn by Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine a few months back. It doesn’t get any cooler than that! I’ll give that one away with drawing #1 above…It’s perfect for Work Anywhere attire.

I will draw a winner from each contest on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009. 

Good luck!

PS – As a Work Anywhere-type, you owe it to yourself to check out Freshbooks’ forums as well.