Cooling Your Lap

One of the joys of camping, or more specifically camping while working (as opposed to working while camping... there IS a difference) is being able to take my laptop outside in the open; either under the awning, under the trees, or right out in the open. But I've either had to balance my laptop on my legs, or resort to the picnic table, neither of which is really comfortable.

I may have found a solution in the Belkin CushTop, a sloping, padded, ventilated cushion that I can easily put under my laptop and on my legs. It's slanted, so it holds the laptop at a nice angle, and made out of stiff foam making it comfortable. The foam also insulates my legs from the heat of the laptop, which can get pretty uncomfortable at times.

The CushTop sells for $35, and you can store your power cord, mouse, or a very skinny sandwich inside the slot for easy carrying.

Who answers your phone while you're gone?

So, how do you deal with your phone when you're away from home?

I know that some people just let their answering system pick up calls, then they check in periodically by calling their own phone.

Others use call forwarding to direct calls to their cell phone while they're away, but invariably the first call that comes in when they get home goes to their cell and there's a mad dash to grab it... or they just forget for a day or so until they realize they aren't getting any calls on their home phone.

If any of these, or different variations apply to you, you might want to give GrandCentral a try. It's a free (yea, really free!) service that routes your incoming calls to as many phone numbers as you like. That means your calls come to your new, free phone number and ring on both your home and cell phone.

There are some very cool features that let you set up different ring tones, different answer messages, and other niceties. And you can set the system to send email, text messages, or both to announce when you get voicemail.

You need to tell your callers to use your new phone number (which you can also announce on your home answering system), and your new number can be in a completely different area of the country if you like. For instance, I live in North Carolina but I just signed up for a Beverly Hills, California phone number... and hey, there goes Hillary Swank... Call me, girl!!

Anyhow, GrandCentral may be just the answer for stabilizing your phone traffic.