Task Management: An important component for the home office worker, task management involves overseeing various projects, scheduling the tasks necessary to complete the projects, finding the resources necessary to complete the tasks, and doing or delegating the work. Task management for a computer is the overseeing of programs that are running and other system processes in progress. Every operating system has its own particular version of a task manager.
Tech Support: For the home office work, tech support might just be your lifeline. Most hardware and software used on the computer and other electronic equipment used in the home office (including cell phones, PDAs, etc.) has some sort of tech support in place. When a printer or software program does not function correctly (or at all), and you have gone to the limits of your troubleshooting ability, tech support people are the ones who will walk you through additional techniques for determining the problem and solving it, so that you are back to being productive as soon as possible.
Telecommute: The keyword of the home office worker: to telecommute means to use electronic means of communication to perform and transfer work from one location (the home office) to another (the corporate office or client location), rather than physically going to the corporate office or client location and performing the work there. Telecommuting has allowed many, many people to pursue lucrative careers and maintain flexibility and time with their families.
Thunderbird: Thunderbird, a software program produced by Mozilla, is the open source alternative to Microsoft Outlook. It is a fully functional email client that also offers calendar and task management features.
To-Do List: A to-do list, on paper, is simple and common enough; as with all work-related things, however, there are now multiple virtual versions available, which can be very helpful for the home office worker and telecommuter. Many applications are web-based, which allows the user to access them from any computer. Others are computer-based, like other software programs. Virtual to-do lists offers many functions, such as connecting to-do items with a computer-based calendar, sorting by categories, setting specific tasks for to-do items, and sharing to-do list items with other users.
Tutorial: A step-by-step guide to the use of a particular computer program or web-based application is called a tutorial. Many software programs have tutorials broken down by specific topic. For example, in an office suite, you could view a tutorial on how to create a spreadsheet or how to insert clip-art into a document.
