Freelancers are given the opportunity to work for either clients within their respective areas or clients coming from abroad. Personally, as a freelancer living in Asia, I’ve worked only with clients who run their businesses a hundred miles away such as those in the US, the UK, and Australia. I’ve never seen their faces, heard their voices, and of course never tried visiting them at their offices since our only mode of communication is either the email or the instant messenger. Yes, the work is still being done from home as how it is with on-shore freelancing, but international freelancing has certain characteristics that makes it more difficult in terms of communication and security, and I had to learn this the slow and hard way.

As I had previously and exclusively revealed (first on Twitter, on July 6, and then about 9 minutes 40 seconds into the July 10 episode of Windows Weekly podcast), Microsoft is bringing back the Windows 7 Family Pack for this holiday season, starting in October. It will ship in the US on October 3, in Canada on October 5, and all other markets on or after October 22. As with last year, the Family Pack is only available "while supplies last," whatever that means. Just make more, Microsoft. Geesh.

Samsung is the latest PC maker to launch a new line of netbooks powered by Intel’s new Atom N550 dual core processor. The Samsung NF series consists of three models, the NF310, NF210, and NF110.

Hannspree have officially announced that they plan to release a tablet in November which will use Android as the operating system. The tablet will feature a 10.1 inch multi touch display, with a maximum resolution of 1024×600, which is standard for devices sporting a 10 inch display. It will also be powered by Tegra 2 1GHz CPU, with dual ARM Cortex A9 and co-processors.

HP will start seling an updated version of the HP Mini 5103 business netbook on September 17th. The netbook is already available for $399 and up with a choice of an Intel Atom N455 or N475 processor, but starting on the 17th you’ll be able to snag one with a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.

People tell us all that time that they’re getting more and more mail and often feel overwhelmed by it all. We know what you mean—here at Google we run on email. Our inboxes are slammed with hundreds, sometimes thousands of messages a day—mail from colleagues, from lists, about appointments and automated mail that’s often not important. It’s time-consuming to figure out what needs to be read and what needs a reply. Today, we’re happy to introduce Priority Inbox (in beta)—an experimental new way of taking on information overload in Gmail.

Right in time for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 launch and as expected, Microsoft today has enabled Exchange ActiveSync synchronization of its Windows Live Hotmail service for smartphones which now includes E-Mail push as well as calendar, contacts and tasks synchronization!

Review Computer manufacturers are well known for hyping up their products – "magical", indeed – but few actually fib. Samsung isn't telling porkies, but the sticker on its new X125 overstates with the best of them.

Every organization has its own needs when it comes to picking out collaboration tools. Startups, in particular, need tools that don’t get in the way of the big project the team may be focused on. They often have a need for a simple tool that will keep the team on track while still allowing for flexibility as the project evolves.

Voicemail is a tough cookie to crack. Some people love it, but as short text messages have overtaken quick communication on phones (SMS) and the internet (e.g., Twitter), voicemail has fallen out of favor with many.

I’ve been an enthusiastic Evernote user for quite a while, but until recently I didn’t think of it in terms of a collaboration tool. Rather, it was the place that I would stash notes about all sorts of different topics. However, the web-based notebook tool’s evolution has made it far more useful as a base for collaboration — including at the enterprise level — than anyone might expect.

Reading blogs, emails, websites, PDFs and other online documents is a part of every web worker’s routine. But spending too many of our working hours reading online can be unhealthy for our eyes. Eyestrain and ocular fatigue used to be associated with the computer screens themselves, but the root of the problem is actually incorrect screen settings and poor reading habits. To improve our online reading experience, we only need to have the proper screen settings, tools and habits.

Intel today lauded the arrival of netbooks based on its new dual-core Atom processor, the N550.

Starting tomorrow, travel writer Rolf Potts will embark on a trip that will take him around the world without using a single piece of luggage. This post will explain how he’s going to do it, and there’s a kick-ass giveaway at the end…

Don't tell me how many G's your new phone has. We've all loved and lost so many G's at this point.

Velocity Micro is now taking orders for two Android tablets the company first introduced a little over a month ago. One is marketed as a 7 inch color eBook reader, while the other is pitched as a multipurpose Android tablet. Both are available for pre-order today, but won’t ship until early September.

The Toshiba AC100 smartbook is one of the first commercially available mini-laptops running Google’s Android operating system. And when I say commercially available, I mean you can pick one up in Japan. But it looks like Toshiba UK plans to offer the AC100 soon as well.

Skype is one of the most important work and social tools I use. It’s nearly perfect. Except that you people are using it to drive me crazy.