Tech tips for working from home

Live where you work and work where you live - quite the dreamfor most of us, isn't it? Imagine the benefits: no daily hour-long commutes, nodress code, no office disturbances, and the liberty to wake up late! But it'sno longer an impossibility. To round off the work-from-home experience, there'ssome great tech out there - stuff you should serious consider as investments ifyou're planning to set up shop at home.

1. No Pain, All Gain
Working from home invariably means extended phone-calls - andcradling the phone against your ear is just a pain in the neck. Invest in agood stereo hands-free solution, such as the Sennheiser MM100 or thePlantronics Backbeat 903+, which not only give you super comfortable hands-freeuse for several hours but can also pipe stereo music from your laptop inbetween calls.

2. The Heat Is On
You do know that prolonged exposure to overheating laptopstends to fry more than just your laptop's internals, don't you? If you workfrom the couch more often than the desk, pick up a laptop cooling pad fromamong many options available from Belkin and Logitech. The Laptop Cooling Hubfrom Belkin , for instance, not only cools the laptop via an in-built fan forcorrect air circulation, but also provides four USB 2.0 ports to plug yourexternal devices like an external mouse or a flash drive. Or take the Logitech N700. It throws in integrated stereo speakers so you don't have to suffercrappy audio via the laptop speakers again.

3. Choose the Cloud
Working outside an organisation has its downsides- there'sno IT staff to summon when your hardware goes belly-up. Fortunately, withcloudbased productivity suites, such as those from Microsoft, ZOHO and Google,and storage options like SkyDrive and Dropbox, you can now work for free or bypaying, at most, low monthly subscriptions. An added benefit with mostcloud-based suites is that collaboration with other participants and sharingcontent are inherent to their DNA. Plus, if you tag them along with a wirelessbroadband connection, they're available to you on the road as well, across oneor all of your devices.

4. Stay Fit
No time to exercise? Working from home shouldn't mean thatyou won't be able to stay fit. Apart from taking ergonomic precautions, what ifyou could actually work out while working? The Mini Home Exercise Cycle letsyou do your cardio duties while you work at your desk. And it's priced ratherreasonably, so it fits both your budget and under the table(http://bit.ly/gjXSWM). Plus, for the health conscious, the Fitbit Ultra deviceis a perfect buy-it tracks your every move, letting you keep on top of how manycalories you've burned, how well you slept, etc, and uploads the data to youriPhone or to the web for you to analyse where you can improve.

5. Take Notes
If your work involves long phone calls and taking notes, tryout the Livescribe series of smart pens. These nifty pens record everything youhear, say and write and links your audio recordings with your notes. Pull upimportant information anytime by just tapping on what you wrote, and thesoftware plays back the related audio. How cool is that!

6. Buy a Tablet/Smartphone
Blindingly obvious as it may be, a tablet is a great assetfor the work-from-home-folks. Why? You can't really lug a laptop when you wantto run an errand or drop by at the local supermarket, can you? And when youpick up your tablet of choice, also ensure you lug home the Luxa2 H4 stand,which secures an iPad or a Kindle or any other tablet/e-reader to your desk.You can then use the tablet to keep an eye on alerts like email and stocks, andwith the right app, you can even extend your desktop applications onto the tablet.

Courtesy: Gadgets and Gizmos