Many people are accustomed to bringing home things to work on at night from their day job. Moving this information back and forth from computer to computer used to be rather cumbersome and required using rewritable floppy discs or burning CD-Roms. Today things are much easier for the technologically savvy employee. This article shows you several useful and efficient ways to save you time and money when you need to work at home.
Flash and Thumb Drives:
There are a number of high capacity portable hard drives on the market that are as small as a stick of gum. These portable hard drives with capacities of two gigabytes or more are excellent for moving electronic data from computer to computer. Using additional free software that you can obtain from sites such as PortableApps.com you can install fully functional software packages on these drives to allow you to work with the same application regardless of what computer you are using at the time. The popular open-source office suite titled OpenOffice as well as a host of other programs are available for use on thumb drives.
Be sure to check with your employer about your company's policy on using thumb drives. Some employers frown on the practice and others ban it altogether for fear that employees will steal trade secrets and other vital company documents.
On-line Business Applications:
Google is much more than just a search engine. Over the past year they have come out with a host of useful and free on-line applications. First and foremost among them is the Google Docs application which allows you to type documents and spreadsheets on-line and save them for use from any computer in the world. You can even use the service to collaborate with other individuals in your organization. Simply allow them access to the files and you can see the changes that you each make in near-real time. All of the documents can be imported and exported to the major file formats including Microsoft Word and Excel. Just remember that the Internet is a fickle creature and chances are that sooner or later you will need one of those documents but your local Internet connection will be down. Always keep backup copies especially when you have important events to prepare for.
In addition to Google Docs you can also sign up for free email and on-line calendar accounts with Google. Use it to keep track of and share your daily schedule of appointments and events with other members of your company or with family members.
