Displaying All Posts by Mike Vardy

eCrypt.me: Simple and Easy Encryption

Email has come a long way, in terms of all levels of functionality and feature sets. Email security, however, is an ongoing concern. It’s not terribly secure — and any security features offered through email are heavily reliant on the end-user in order for them to have any sort of impact. So if you’re working in a profession that requires a higher level of discretion with the documents that you’re sending back and forth, then you’ll need to be particularly careful with what you’re sending over email. This is where the new service, eCrypt.me comes in.

eCrypt.me is a web-based, secure and encrypted email environment that looks a lot like Gmail or Hotmail — and is just as simple to use. The difference is that it has high-level security built right into the environment.

There’s no concern about setting up any sort of privacy system — in fact, there’s no need whatsoever. eCrypt.me solves this problem by making it easy for people working in professions that require a great deal of discretion (consultants, accountants, lawyers, financial planners, etc.) to communicate with their coworkers and clientele without having privacy concerns. But it’s not just for people in those types of professions. If email security is a concern for you, then eCrypt.me may well be a great choice as your new web-based email client. And you can use your current email address with the service, so there’s no hassle in dealing with an email address change to get started.
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WorkAwesome Podcast: Episode 14 – Stever Robbins

This week on the WorkAwesome podcast, our editor Mike Vardy had the opportunity to chat with Stever Robbins, better known as The Get-It-Done Guy.

Stever’s book has been reviewed here at WorkAwesome, and during this interview we dig a little deeper into the book, as well as other aspects of productivity and workflow that he offers on his website and his regular podcasts. Stever’s practical and accessible advice on productivity makes what many consider a dry topic more entertaining and still very informative.

In addition to the interview, we’ve started to implement some of our listener suggestions. This week we slowly venture into offering tips — with just one tip offered. But it’s a big one that can be challenging for many of us.
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WorkAwesome Wins UK Design Award!

We’re pleased to announce that WorkAwesome has been selected as the winner of the UK Design Award for March 2011. The UK Design Awards select their website of the month based on a number of factors, notably the design and execution of the site.

A few months ago, our website design was called “enchanting” by Guy Kawasaki (who knows something about enchantment; he’s recently written a book on the subject). We’re happy to see that he’s not the only one!

Here’s what the UDA had to say about WorkAwesome:

Work Awesome is an online resource for people who want to improve at work. Packed with useful articles on how to improve your work productivity, the site caters for a wide range of industries. As well as providing essential gems of information, the site is designed in an incredibly user friendly way, allowing users to navigate easily and find the right info for them. A more than worthy winner!

We’d like to thank the UDA for their consideration. A big thanks also goes out to the design team at Envato who helped put the design of the site together, to all of our contributors who augment the design with great content and to all of our readers — you’re who we’re doing it for!

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WorkAwesome Podcast: Episode 13 – Gina Trapani

WorkAwesome editor Mike Vardy had the pleasure to interview Lifehacker founding editor and highly-regarded developer Gina Trapani on this week’s episode of the podcast. Gina’s got a ton of projects on the go on the web, all of which are awesome in scope and in nature. She’s regarded as one of the top productivity experts on the web today (one could go as for to say that her reach expands well beyond the Internet realm as well), and it was truly a privilege to have her on as a guest.

Show Notes

  • Gina discusses the reason behind starting started Lifehacker and the reason for eventually leaving the site.
  • Why Gina believes that productivity has had (and still does have) such an appeal to so many on the Internet.
  • Todo.txt app, Gina’s self-developed task list application, is discussed.
  • Gina gives a rundown of her daily workflow, including IRC, email and other tools she uses.
  • What is ThinkUp? Gina spills the beans.
  • Mike and Gina offer a requiem for the late, lamented Google Wave.
  • The status of Gina’s standing desk experiment.
  • Apparently, Gina occasionally dances while she works. So what’s on her playlist?
  • Gina digs Gmail…she explains her reasons, what aspects of Gmail’s features she uses and some of the other apps she has to keep tabs on things.

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WorkAwesome Podcast: Episode 12 – Patrick Rhone

This week’s episode of the WorkAwesome podcast features a “less than minimal” interview with renowned minimalist and talented writer Patrick Rhone. Patrick’s writing covers the landscape of productivity, technology analysis and practical tips, all with a tremendous amount of articulation, thoughtfulness and flair.

Patrick is the writer and curator at Minimal Mac, a website that promotes subjective simplicity to Mac users everywhere. However, Patrick’s philosophy goes beyond the Mac platform alone (although admittedly, it is his platform of choice) and he has taken it to the next level with his new podcast, entitled Enough – The Minimal Mac Podcast.

Patrick and WorkAwesome editor Mike Vardy discuss the nature of minimalism (what it is and, more importantly, what it really is), workflow and the crux of the term “enough” as he sees it. Since Patrick is a busy guy, we delve into how he achieves balance in all that he does — both in work and life — and the shift that has been happening for him with the rising success of his writing career. He also mentions some of those that he thinks are doing awesome work with their writing these days. We even talk about email strategies.
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WorkAwesome Podcast: Episode 11 – Stephen Smith

This week’s episode of the WorkAwesome podcast features an interview with productivity consultant Stephen Smith. Stephen has been involved in the productivity realm for many years, and his most recent endeavour is the work.life.creativity site, which is described as:

…an open community and are looking forward to hearing new ideas and perspectives. We are not tied to any one system, methodology or answer. We are simply interested in finding solutions that help us get the most out of life. We wish to spend less time “doing” and more time “living”. In our minds, the goal of life is not about doing, it is about being done.

Stephen has also been involved with SOBCon, an annual event “where some of the best minds in the Internet space gather to present models, discuss insights, and determine best practices.” It has been growing every year — in both size and number of occurrences.

WorkAwesome editor Mike Vardy discusses with Stephen the various projects he has on the go and how he manages to keep all of these projects alive — and thriving — with a full time job on his plate as well.
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WorkAwesome Podcast: Episode 10 – Ben Brooks

This week’s episode of the podcast feaures an interview with Ben Brooks of The Brooks Review.

The Brooks Review has quickly become a “must read” by productivity and technology fans alike. Brooks’ insightul and informed writing has garnered the attention of well-known web personalities such as Merlin Mann and John Gruber, and the site delivers its content in a very reader-friendly design.

During this interview with podcast host Mike Vardy, Brooks discusses the various productivity methods and tools he uses and why he started The Brooks Review, among other things. Ah, yes…they also talk about Things and his “review” of the Playbook.
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New from Rockable Press: Get Going with Google AdWords

This week Rockable Press launched its latest eBook, Get Going with Google AdWords by author Chandler Nguyen and we couldn’t be more excited!

This book is designed with the beginner in mind, introducing you to the world of Google AdWords. Once you start to get a handle on them, you’ll be bidding on keywords that will help push your site higher in the Google rankings — without all of the time it usually takes for that to happen organically.

Nguyen has put together an “easy to grasp” guide on what AdWords are, what using them can do to give your site that added exposure and how to get started using them right away.
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