DeskAway got reviewed on Smashing Apps last Friday. Smashing Apps is a very popular blog for web designers and developers. They have almost half a million feed subscribers and a couple of thousand twitter followers. Blogger reviews and tweets are still pouring in about this review

Thanks Smashing Apps!

DeskAway will be conducting scheduled maintenance on Sunday, August 16, 2009, between 4:00 a.m and 4:15 a.m U.S. CDT. DeskAway.com (including all project sites) will be temporarily inaccessible during this time. This is a minor service upgrade.

We appreciate your patience and can assure you the service will be restored as quickly as possible. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you,
The DeskAway Team

The following are small updates that were released this week. These should have been done earlier but due to other major releases were put on the back-burner.  Hope you find these useful.

Blog Emails - Earlier, emails going to your team members from the Blog section would have everyone’s emails in the TO: field. We have updated this to have the emails go in the BCC field.

Update Company Name - When you first signed up with DeskAway you chose a company name and possibly put something like “testing” or “testing company” etc. Account owners (from the Settings tab) can now update their DeskAway account to their real company names. Company names are used when adding team members (see below).

Adding New Team Members - When adding team members we ask you if this person is a part of your company or not. If not, you can now choose from existing company names that the other team members are a part of (if this person is of the same company).

Editing/ Deleting Message Comments - From now on, you will be able to edit and delete comments put within messages. Editing is only allowed for a period of 15 mins.

Came across an interesting article on Web Worker Daily about the constant struggle between work and personal life. However busy you are, you gotta make time for your personal time. Most importantly, you need to find something that interests you - a second hobby or something. This article makes a lot of sense and is a great read for everyone caught in the “I am always busy” mode:

Value your personal time. If you track your time, you might be equally able to block out hours for personal time around the work time. Try to pursue interests that take you away from the computer, leave your PDA and work phone at home, or simply make a rule with yourself that you won’t turn to work during your personal time

Read the entire article here.

The success of any project depends very largely on the team behind it. Inspired by an article Not just for techies on Inc.com, we have put together 6 tips to help you work better with your teams.

1. Reduce Bottlenecks: Avoid having too many controls, checks and reduce  bottlenecks. Having a lot of checkpoints reduces the time to deliver. Choose team members who can work independently.

2. Clarity: People should have a clear idea of what is expected of them and if it does not happen then what are the consequences to the project as a whole. Convey this clearly so everyone is on the same page.

3. Small morning meetups: Each person needs to know what their responsibilities are so misunderstandings or conflict can be avoided. Spend time with each group head every morning (say for around 5 minutes) and discuss what needs to be accomplished today.

4. Have team building activities: Small social breaks can really help the team to bond, improving interpersonal relations and encouraging open communication. Team building activities can include an outing, team lunch or a informal gathering every Fridays etc.

5. Involve the customer: This can be a great way of giving the team a first hand idea of what the customer wants. Use two-way channels of communications like social networks, blogs to engage with your customers. Get feedback and let them know about upcoming products, features, what you are working on etc.

6. Celebrate team success: This can be a great morale booster. Celebrate every small accomplishment and success.

Fee free to leave a comment if there are other effective teamwork practices that we have left out.