Guide Picks - Find some great laptop accessory gift ideas under $25. Make sure any mobile workers you know have the right mobile gadgets to make their work-life easier and more enjoyable.

Guide Tips - For many of us mobile professionals this is the time to start considering new mobile gear. There are many factors to consider before we spend our money and these can include whether we buy new, used or even lease our mobile gear.

Before you take the plunge and spend your money, take time to review these factors, so that you can be sure you have gotten the best mobile gear for your needs.

News - I was sent a link to a rather interesting article that was published in the north shore news titled - Benefits of a mobile workforce are many. The article written by Steve Dotto provides the usual list of benefits and an overview of how perspectives have changed regarding the reasons for telecommuting.

What I found most interesting is the idea Steve has that those working remotely need to be paid using a new and different method. He states "If you can do your assigned work in three hours instead of eight, do it in three. Just do it!" So the people that work on-site and have the same tasks as the remote worker will get paid for an 8-hour day but the remote worker will only be paid for 3? I've worked in situations in the past where there were tasks such as Steve envisioned that could be done in far fewer hours than they actually took and once I was working remotely on a regular basis was able to do so. The actual consequence though was not that I was paid only for the actual time but as more work could be done - then more work was assigned. So rather than the company paying me for fewer hours, they paid for the same hours as a person on-site and got more work completed.

I don't think going the route of new compensation plans based on objectives accomplished would work well in reality - people would either pad their time on jobs or just do things more slowly. They might also decide they don't really want to work remotely either and then remote work programs (telecomuting) would be a moot point as there would be no remote workers.

Share your thoughts and let us know whether you think there should be new or different compensation plans for remote workers? Should remote workers be paid on the basis of "objectives accomplished"?

Guide Tips - You make sure that your laptop is protected while traveling, but are you taking the same security measures with your PDA? As more PDAs become wireless capable and more data is stored and shared on PDAs, the potential for loss increases greatly.

Take stock of your PDA security defences and review this list of programs which provide anti virus, firewall and encryption protection for your PDA.