Anywired - Wired self-employment tips.

The Dell Latitude XFR D630 is what Mike Elgan calls the Anti-Macbook Air. It’s tough, rugged, heavy, and darn near indestructible. It can handle dust storms, driving rain, extreme temperatures and comes in — get this — black and desert tan. Strike forces are go!

Mark Bittman introduces the concept of the virtual break — a period where you withdraw yourself completely from electronic communications and information. My virtual breaks occur when I walk between the computer and the fridge, bathroom and bed. No, not really. Thursday has always been my planned virtual break day but I haven’t developed a consistent habit yet. Do you set aside time to unplug?

Gina Trapani brings her wizard’s touch to the subject of remote work in Getting Things Done Traveling Through South-East Asia. Her final thoughts are interesting:

“If I had to do the trip over again (and I hope I do), I would have definitely left my laptop behind, and opted instead for a thumb drive loaded with portable apps (like Firefox with my extensions and bookmarks and portable IrfanView for captioning photos). I would’ve brought several more roomy flash drives for temporarily offloading photos from my digital camera memory cards in between DVD burns. That would’ve been a lot lighter and easier.”

Alan Johnson seems to be speaking directly to me when he asks: are all online entrepreneurs in a hurry? He writes about the importance of a patience when it comes to launching new ventures online.

Jarkko Laine continues his great series on starting an online side business with advice on how to do it the smart way.

A simple tip from Lifehacker, not really work online related, but cool nonetheless: remind yourself where you hid stuff via email.

While concerns about Digg’s decline rumble and grumble along, StumbleUpon just climbs higher. It’s grown almost 650% in the last year — amazing!

The Growing Life blog has a really cute battle between David Allen (GTD inventor) and Tim Ferriss (4HWW brainiac). I was barracking for Tim, and I think Clay was too!

James Chartrand examines the dark sides of the entrepreneurial personality, as well as the brighter side.

37Signals has decided to undertake some amazing workplace experiments, including a four-day week for its employees, funding to help employees pursue their dreams, and a company credit card they can use freely. It’s all really nice stuff — I hope it works well.

Alexis Dawes argues that information products don’t sell — systems do. And I believe her. Are you giving your audience a system to follow?

Change This has released its monthly crop of eBooks and two of them are particularly good. Julien Smith and Chris Brogan argue that the web is becoming a trust economy and ROI should now stand for Return on Influence. Do your customers/readers/clients really trust you? Do they trust the people who talk about you? Richard Florida also argues that the place you live is the most important decision in your life. The importance of that choice is one of the reasons why a mobile workstyle does more than make you feel kinda cutting-edge. It can be life-changing.

And finally, Shankar Ganesh has unearthed ten undiscovered Firefox gems — useful extensions you may never have heard of. Thanks for the tip!

Photo by roctopus.