It's the start of a long weekend, one in which we celebrate the end of summer as well as the efforts of all working people. But I have a feeling even with Labor Day approaching, many of you mobile workers will still be plugged in. It's a hard habit to break (and sometimes it's not up to us either).

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_{The 4th generation iPod touch
Image courtesy of Apple}

As I was awaiting my new iMac last week, out came a revelation of a new iMac Touch patent from Patently Apple -- a touchscreen iMac, apparently, rumored to be headed for the shelves as early as this winter holiday season. Drats. I struggled for a while deciding whether or not to cancel a concrete order for something that may not even go to market. My iMac arrived, even though I am a strong touchscreen aficionado.

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There's nothing like setting up a brand-new computer to remind you of which applications you really must have installed. That was the exercise that absorbed most of my time this weekend, and it turns out only a handful of programs are really necessary to get up and running. Although it still takes time to set up a new computer, having Webmail, online data storage, and some settings (like bookmarks and browser preferences) synced to the cloud really does streamline the process and enable mobility.

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Call phones from within Gmail

_{Screenshot by Melanie Pinola}

The ever-innovating Google has just recently added another new feature to Gmail: the ability to make free calls within the U.S. and Canada (and to other countries at pretty low rates) directly from your email account. This integration of Google Voice, Google's free VoIP service, with the Gmail system makes it more convenient to place and receive online phone calls, since if you are a Gmail user, you probably have all your contacts' information in the service already. Now rather than going to Google Voice, you just need to have your Gmail window open.

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_{Photo © Darryl Leniuk / Getty Images}

I just started reading Timothy Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich -- enticing title, right? What's struck me most off the bat was how some of the main themes in the book -- namely mobility and increasing productivity to save time -- are also major topics for this site.

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Retrevo, a consumer electronics review and shopping site, has recently published parts of its 2010 Gadget Census, considered "the first ever comprehensive look at what gadgets people own and how they use them." The study, based on over 7,500 responses from March through July 2010, offers interesting insights into consumers' tech use.

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Interested in writing for About.com? We have a new position open for a contributing writer to cover the subtopic of "collaboration tools and online meetings" for the Mobile Office Technology site. If you can write well and have professional experience participating in online meetings and using a variety of collaboration tools, such as Basecamp or SharePoint, please Apply to be our Contributing Writer.

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On one hand, telecommuters and others who work away from the office are more productive because they're not subject to the rampant distractions found at the office... but on the other hand, remote workers tend to experience more personal kinds of distractions (interruptions from a sick or bored child, for example). Working from home takes great discipline -- "the kind of discipline that keeps you at your desk when no one will know if you are not," as Web Worker Daily puts it in their 7 Discipline-Builders for Remote Workers.

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_{Screenshot by Melanie Pinola}

Mashable yesterday posted a piece on How Starbucks Plans to Capitalize on Free Wi-Fi -- details on the Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) which will offer exclusive, premium content to Starbucks Wi-Fi customers.

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Well, here we go. InformationWeek recently reported that a new Trojan-SMS program, discovered by Kapersky Lab, is considered to be the first trojan to specifically target Android smartphones. Though malware has infected Android devices -- including mine -- before, this new (unfortunate) milestone reflects the increased popularity of the Android mobile OS, with Android smartphone sales recently surpassing both RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone smartphones to take the #1 spot. It's like a double-edged sword.

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