Making Remote Work Work • Hacker News Board

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#21

Post by dsr_ » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

randlet wrote: post #6

"If your office has a phone system that uses short extensions internally, have your IT department set one up to redirect to your cell phone. That way you can tell your coworkers to dial “5555”, instead of your whole number." Fantastic tip! Super simple but I really think this idea will make you feel more available to your co-workers.

Protip: This can be done extremely cheaply with Asterisk and a SIP provider; it can be done faster at a slightly higher cost with Twilio. EDIT: changed lower to higher @ "cost with Twilio". Need moar coffee.

We use Asterisk to do a multiple-simultaneous-ring service. Actually, a little more complex. The typical plan is:

ring a desk phone for 10 seconds then ring the desk phone and a cellphone for 55 seconds then drop to voicemail voicemail is transcoded to mp3 and emailed to your preferred address as an attachment, along with call ID info.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#22

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:01 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #21

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip: This can be done extremely cheaply with Asterisk and a SIP provider; it can be done faster at a slightly higher cost with Twilio. EDIT: changed lower to higher @ "cost with Twilio". Need moar coffee.

We use Asterisk to do a multiple-simultaneous-ring service. Actually, a little more complex. The typical plan is: ring a desk phone for 10 seconds then ring the desk phone and a cellphone for 55 seconds then drop to voicemail voicemail is transcoded to mp3 and emailed to your preferred address as an attachment, along with call ID info.

Exactly what I had in mind. I've done it with Asterisk and Twilio, and as I mentioned, Twilio is a little more expensive but its easier to wrap it together quickly, while Asterisk can be much more flexible but requires some admin.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#23

Post by mojuba » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #2

since i spend a lot of time in the console i have a few very simple aliases, for the following and some other time zones i use frequently. cst='TZ=CST6CDT date' est='TZ=EST date' berlin='TZ=''Europe/Berlin'' date' then i can just convert times and needed. berlin -d '4:00pm EST'

Excellent idea. This, and I wonder when will I finally see a simple, practical web site that does just that: helps to schedule inter-timezone conf calls with minimal clicks. One such web site was once posted here on HN but it was unfinished at the time (didn't allow to add custom locations) and probably doesn't exist anymore.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#24

Post by smackfu » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

Interesting, we don't really use video chat at all. We use one-to-one text chat, an IRC room, and conference calls. Seems to work so far.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#25

Post by jewel » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

Instead of a headphone switch, you can enable and disable "Auto-mute" automatically, at least in linux:

    amixer sset 'Auto-Mute Mode' Disabled

This lets you switch between headphone and speaker mode with a keyboard shortcut or from the command-line. If even that is too much effort, I use my webcam to detect my headphone presence automatically: http://stevenjewel.com/2013/11/detecting-headphone-use/

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#26

Post by malaporte » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:12 PM UTC

Remote worker here, I agree with most things he said.

I work with an on-site team, and I'm the only remote worker in that group. We use a permanent Hangout that I can keep opened in the background, in order to hear what's going on at the office. With the press of a button I can 'upgrade' it to a full two way video chat. I'm using an old battered laptop sitting on a stand, along with a good quality microphone and a webcam I can pan remotely (pretty fun). Here's a picture: http://imgur.com/OD4V9Z4

When it's open it feels a lot like if I'm sitting there. I can take part of informal conversations, etc. It's pretty great... although it does sound creepy when I describe it.

Still my coworkers are totally OK with that, and honestly once you get used to it it's fine. I'd see and hear the same things if I was physically there. And since I'm in a different timezone, I still get to work all morning mostly uninterrupted.

Also, we have similar setups in a few conference rooms, so it's always extra easy go gather people for quick talks.

I'm curious to know if other people are using something similar.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#27

Post by btipling » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:18 PM UTC

Thank you for the kind comments about floobits, seeing comments like that really means a lot to us. All of us work remotely too, so your blog has some good tips. We use IRC for chat and Shush, a Mac OS X push to talk app has also been very good for communicating. Let me know if you do run into any trouble or have questions.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#28

Post by herge » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:18 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #23

rjzzleep wrote: post #2

since i spend a lot of time in the console i have a few very simple aliases, for the following and some other time zones i use frequently. cst='TZ=CST6CDT date' est='TZ=EST date' berlin='TZ=''Europe/Berlin'' date' then i can just convert times and needed. berlin -d '4:00pm EST'

Excellent idea. This, and I wonder when will I finally see a simple, practical web site that does just that: helps to schedule inter-timezone conf calls with minimal clicks. One such web site was once posted here on HN but it was unfinished at the time (didn't allow to add custom locations) and probably doesn't exist anymore.

I use http://everytimezone.com/ all the time.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#29

Post by mbesto » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:19 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #23

rjzzleep wrote: post #2

since i spend a lot of time in the console i have a few very simple aliases, for the following and some other time zones i use frequently. cst='TZ=CST6CDT date' est='TZ=EST date' berlin='TZ=''Europe/Berlin'' date' then i can just convert times and needed. berlin -d '4:00pm EST'

Excellent idea. This, and I wonder when will I finally see a simple, practical web site that does just that: helps to schedule inter-timezone conf calls with minimal clicks. One such web site was once posted here on HN but it was unfinished at the time (didn't allow to add custom locations) and probably doesn't exist anymore.

I use:

http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/

http://everytimezone.com/

http://time.is/

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#30

Post by yawz » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:22 PM UTC

malaporte wrote: post #26

Remote worker here, I agree with most things he said. I work with an on-site team, and I'm the only remote worker in that group. We use a permanent Hangout that I can keep opened in the background, in order to hear what's going on at the office. With the press of a button I can 'upgrade' it to a full two way video chat. I'm using an old battered laptop sitting on a stand, along with a good quality microphone and a we…

I've tried a few things. I find Sqwiggle's (https://www.sqwiggle.com/) approach the best. You can see your team thanks to a-few-minute-apart snapshots and you're just a click away from talking to them.