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?

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To avoid any shocking surprises when you open up your feed reader, just a heads up to say that I’ve taken over editing Freelance Switch for now. It’s been heaps of fun so far, and it’s really neat to have other people write awesome content for me, which I then just have to polish and prettify. I feel a little pampered! I’m also trying to see how many ‘P’ words I can work into one paragraph.

Steve Rubel talks about his lifesourcing experiment and the implications personal outsourcing may have for the future. This is of keen interest to me — I hope I can show you why in a week or so.

Nick Cernis shares the paper love and writes a manifesto against over-complicated productivity systems.

Mahesh tipped me off about a two-post series he wrote on hacking Gmail search (part 1 and part 2). It contains all kinds of rules and tips on using the search field to find the exact email you’re looking for, and I’ve used some of the hacks already.

For those of you for whom English is a second language, Jarkko Laine shares some ultra-cool tips on writing like a native speaker. Make sure to check out his post on why a side business forces you to balance your life, as well.

Noel Ranger writes an almost-answer to last week’s link on how to work from the beach. Noel decided to test the wisdom of working in a beach environment and found that it’s not quite as wonderful as it sounds…

I don’t make the time to read as much as I should, so if you have a link that would fit in one of Anywired’s web worker digests, tip me: anywired at gmail dot com.

Allena Tapia suggests that even freelance writers can increase their income by outsourcing to virtual assistants.

Occasionally the glamor of being able to work anywhere needs to be contrasted with a few realities — it’s not always a piece of cake! South African explorer Lea Woodward shares five painful truths on being location independent.

One of the simplest ways to get private advertisers on your blog or website is to create an informative and accessible advertise here page. James Mowery explains how to go about it.

“How do I use blogging to build a platform for my book idea?” You could avoid thinking about it completely until a publisher emails you out of the blue (as I did), but, with the benefit of hind-sight, outsourcing book deals to lady-luck probably isn’t the most effective way to get what you want.

PC World’s Mike Elgan on how to work from the beach. It covers all the basics of a digital office and is probably a good starting for anyone just looking to get their feet wet. Excuse the pun. Just discovered Elgin’s blog, too — The World is My Office. I’ll be keeping an eye on it for you.

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The secret is out: a whole bunch of Anywired readers can’t get enough of paper.

In addition to a few general links (for paper lovers and haters alike), I thought I’d share some of the web’s best paper-themed links, including some stuff on paper productivity, paper art, notebooks and Moleskines.

For everyone

Chris Brogan talks about scaling yourself as your online profile starts to heat up. How do you cope with more emails, more interruptions and more requests for your time? His tips center around elimination, learning to say “No” with kindness, learning triage and loop-closing, becoming more decisive and using templates for frequently repeated text and code. On that note, Signature is my favorite Firefox extension ever.

On a related (and belated note), here are seven tips for fighting information overload on Valentine’s Day. The tips would work on any day and don’t seem V-Day specific at all, but it’s a short, sharp post to get you thinking about your information consumption.

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