Living in a Browser

What would it be like if you were MIA from your office for almost 3 weeks? Would you be sifting through emails for weeks on your return? Would you be looking for Word documents, proposals, etc. for clients? Would you be feeling out of the loop from what is going on at work? Sometimes being out of the loop isn't a bad thing :-) but being a small company and the owner it is important to be aware of things while you are not at the office.

Well I can tell you what being MIA from the office was like for me, since today is my first day back in the office in almost 3 weeks. :-) My recent hiatus is a combination of our vacation, moving into our new house and I had to buy a new computer that took me almost two weeks to get, while my other one was sitting on the sidelines burnt out.

And guess what...It wasn't that bad. I attribute the success to this disappearing act to "living in a browser"

Long the domain of Microsoft, the productivity apps market is turning into a lively, competitive arena thanks to the rise of a variety of SaaS and open source deployments, which provide much cheaper alternatives to the software giant's Office suite. There's also an emerging group of newer on-demand and open source players that are targeting the business apps market. Therefore we are not tied to our office or Microsoft like we used to be.

This time away made me realize that I can operate our business from any computer as long as I have an Internet connection. Here is what I use to get this done.

1. Google Apps - Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs
2. Google Reader - Web based reader for organizing your RSS feeds
3. Blogger - Web based blogging software
4. Twitter - Micro blogging
   
5. Facebook - Social network for staying on top of all of your personal relationships
6. Firefox 3 - Best browser out there, but I am considering checking out Flock latest version

That's it and the great thing is these are all free or close to it. You might have to hire someone to set the software up fr you, especially Google Apps, but it would be a very smart investment and save you tons of money in the long run.

So that is how I live in a browser, now if I could just find a decent webtop to replace my desktop and outsource my email like Tim Ferriss, I may never have to work again, let alone go into the office. :-)