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Making Remote Work Work

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Re: Making Remote Work Work

#31

Post by ChiperSoft »

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…

We had something similar at my last job. A laptop setup in the team area with a wide-angle camera and Skype setup to auto-accept incoming calls. It meant I could pop in any time I wanted to for team meetings or just to get someone's attention for a quick chat.

Another team in the company had a laptop setup on a permanent google hangout that all the remote people could come and go to at will.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#32

Post by yawz »

Any remote-working developer who's pair-programming? I'd love to hear about your experiences?

I know there's been a few attempts at creating remote pair-programming tools but I'm not familiar with any particularly successful one.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#33

Post by yawz »

pasbesoin wrote: post #4

A bit OT, but personally I've never found the need for a multi-zone clock or clocks. It's just a few offset quantities to remember, and the math is fairly instantaneous. Although it does get a bit hinky when shifts to and from daylight savings time don't align across differing regions.

On a mac, you can display the clock widget multiple times with different time zones and access it with + Left Arrow. Pretty quick feedback IMHO.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#34

Post by johnvschmitt »

ENVIRONMENT

He touched on this, but I want to let you know, after 4 years working from home, how important this is.

The environment gives you unconscious cues on how to behave. If you goof off (surf the web, stream, eat, play, etc) where you work, you are "poisoning" that environment, & make it very hard to focus on work next time there.

After "poisoning" several places in my house, I've setup a workbench in the garage, & ONLY work there. Meaning, if I'm working there & need a break, I LEAVE that environment, so as to keep it clean. Then, when I return to the environment, it's easier to focus & get things done.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#35

Post by sneak »

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'

SO THAT'S HOW YOU SET ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES IN ALIASES! THANK YOU!

(I'd been making the slight-environment-change aliases into bash functions as a workaround. You just helped me so much.)

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#36

Post by [deleted] »

mbillie1 wrote: post #18
eweise wrote: post #16

Wow. "you should be pair programming". Terrible advice. Isn't effective in the office. Tons worse when remote.

I wish he had left that out, only because it was obviously going to lead to lots of reactions like this. Pair programming, at least on HN/reddit, is a fairly polarizing issue. I'm in favor of it, but plenty of folks aren't, and it's really an orthogonal issue with respect to working remotely. (For the record: tmux/vim/skype has worked perfectly fine for me while remote pairing)

[deleted]

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#37

Post by sneak »

Create another local user account on your computer for being at work. Change the desktop background to big work logos. Don't configure your personal instant messenger accounts and whatnot. Set up the email client to only check the "work" account so you don't fall down personal email item rabbit holes. Configure the WasteNoTime Safari extension appropriately (more strictly than your personal account's config, with sites like reddit, facebook, HN, etc on unconditional block).

Added benefits:

* easy default correct ssh key use (~/.ssh/id_rsa in work account is not my personal key)

* different browser cookie jar

* different dropbox/gdrive login

* different bookmarks

* different shell history

* faster homedir backups (my personal account has ~300GB of aperture in its homedir, my work account is * privilege separation (both my personal and work accounts are unprivileged, so unless there's local priv escalation being used, rogue user-priv software in one can't steal keys/data from the other)

Then, finally, disable fast user switching. (You should do this anyway, as having it turned on enables a Firewire/Thunderbolt DMA memory-dumping attack that can steal your FileVault2 keys while your screen is locked.) This means that you have to consciously choose to "leave work" by logging out and then logging in to your personal account you use to browse reddit/HN/etc.

This is the single biggest productivity gain I found for enforcing the "I am at work now" discipline. (Being able to use a non-personal dropbox account for work stuff is almost worth the price of admission itself.)

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#38

Post by mojuba »

mbesto wrote: post #29
mojuba wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Thanks, but:

http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/ - allows only two locations. What about scheduling a conf call across NY, Dublin, Berlin and Moscow? What is the best time for all 4 locations?

http://everytimezone.com/ - awesome interface, but doesn't allow any customizations, e.g. pick just the locations I need. This was on HN, I remember I made some suggestions which the guy never implemented.

http://time.is/ - shows only current time, or otherwise compares times only in two locations. Useless, just like thousands of other similar web sites.

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#39

Post by mojuba »

herge wrote: post #28
mojuba wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, nice, but incomplete (see my other reply in this thread)

Re: Making Remote Work Work

#40

Post by jj00 »

I've been doing remote work for going on 8 years now. All solid advice, but I think the general theme I've gone by is to always be open to trying new ideas.

I've come full-circle on a number of things: I started with 4 clocks on my wall (laziness/batteries), tried to write my own desktop widget (client turned them off), then websites (too many tabs), and now an old iTouch (setup today).

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