A good thing about working for yourself can be the independence that it provides. But, some of the bad things about working for yourself can be the solitude and the lose of the ability to bounce ideas off others. Well, my wife was looking around Facebook a few weeks back and ran across a Group called CoWorking Knoxville and thought it would be up my alley.

Here's how Coworking Knoxville describes themselves:

We're a group of free-lancers, Web programmers, self-employed professionals, self-unemployed entrepreneurs, and various independent types who meet once a week in West Knoxville.

Rather than work out of home or solo out of a coffee shop, when we get together we share ideas, connections, resources, and strategies that help everyone grow their businesses and free up their time. We also introduce each other to new contacts and friends.

Coworking is one of the fastest-growing movements redefining the way we work across the country and has been featured in the past few months in Mother Jones magazine and The New York Times.

I decided to see what they were about so I joined the group on facebook and was invited to their weekly "meet up". Since they don't have their own meeting place they borrow space at a local Panera Bread. (If you've ever been to a Panera at lunch time then you know it's a mad house!) I'll have to say, I hate being "the new guy" in anything. Especially in something where you know no one and are meeting in a crazy restaurant. But I found them and all was well.

Although I didn't get any work done (Although I did notice they would not bother you if you had work to do during this time), I did learn quite a bit about the coworking movement and met a good group of people. The group has plans plans to rent a space downtown in the future to use as an "office" for it's members. They are calling this Knoxville Overground Ground and it sounds very exciting.

I don't know what else I could say but that you should really check this organization out for yourself. The Coworking Knoxville Group meets every Wednesday from 12:00 to 4:00 at the Panera Bread at 4485 Kingston Pike Knoxville, Tennessee. This could truly be a great resource for any self-employed person.

Oh, and I can't forget to point you to the website of one of the members, his passion for Fight Club has motivated him into creating some "Rules for Coworking". That whole site is well worth a read!

It's been a while since my last Site-of-the-week... Sorry for the long delay but nothing has really shown through, IMHO, until now. My wife found this one and I think it's great!

FreeRice.com

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.

2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

This is a great site. I suggest everyone take a few minutes out of your day to define words and donate some rice.

I just received this in my e-mail and thought I'd share....

No matter what your stand is about our involvement in Iraq, our young men and women there need to know that we as a country still think of them and care enough to say Thank You.??

A meaningful way for saying, 'Thank You!' Something cool that Xerox is doing.

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Whether you are for or against the war, our guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them.

www.LetsSayThanks.com

I am using my Vista Ultimate machine primarily now for day-to-day work.. And everything is running quite smoothly to be honest. No crashes, no freezes, no spyware.. Everything is great.

I help manage SEVERAL serers across my WAN and use Remote Desktop to great effect. But, last week a new Server was added. I logged in with my trusty Remote desktop to start setting up an SFTP server. Only, this time everythig was WAY WAY WAY Slow... I mean I was waiting a good thirty seconds between clicks. I thought it might be my connection so I logged off, ran some speed tests, logged into another server and everything was great. So, I logged back into the server in question. SLOW! What's going on?? On a whim I tried to log in to the server from my XP machine... It was Super Speedy??

Time to hit Google. Did a search and ran across the VoIP & Gadgets Blog. Looks like Tom was having the same trouble and found a solution.

Remote Desktop 6.0 leverages a new feature called auto-tuning for the TCP/IP receive window that could be causing the trouble. What is auto-tuning for the TCP/IP receive window? Well, the new Microsoft TCP/IP stack supports Receive Window Auto-Tuning. Receive Window Auto-Tuning continually determines the optimal receive window size by measuring the bandwidth-delay product and the application retrieve rate, and adjusts the maximum receive window size based on changing network conditions.

In Vista, Receive Window Auto-Tuning enables TCP window scaling by default, allowing up to a 16 MB window size. As the data flows over the connection, the TCP/IP stack monitors the connection, measures the current bandwidth-delay product for the connection and the application receive rate, and adjusts the receive window size to optimize throughput. The new TCP/IP stack no longer uses the TCPWindowSize registry values which many third-party utilities used to "tweak".

Receive Window Auto-Tuning has a number of benefits. It automatically determines the optimal receive window size on a per-connection basis. In Windows XP, the TCPWindowSize registry value applies to all connections. Applications no longer need to specify TCP window sizes through Windows Sockets options. And IT administrators no longer need to manually configure a TCP receive window size for specific computers.

This setting can be turned off in Vista. First open a command prompt (cmd) as Administrator.. It's not good enough for your user to have Administrative privileges... Right click on the Icon and select "Run as Administrator" Then when the command window opens type: To re-enable this feature you need to type: Tom also says that in some cases you may need to type: But I did not have to.. The first command solved my problem immediately!!

This also makes this my Site of the Week! Because it was WAY handy, Go by and check it out.. Maybe Tom has some answers for you?

Welcome to a new Site of the week.. This week's site deals with an issue that is important to everyone, young or old... TV

Ray Camden over at Coldfusion Jedi being the lost fanatic that he is had created an area of his Coldfusion Forums to talk about Lost and other TV shows. Well, now he has split that out an created this site devoted solely to that topic. Geek the Tube

So, if you are addicted to a "Geeky" TV show... Go over an check this site out and see what all the others "Geeks" are saying.

Ray Camden over a ColdfusionJedi blogged about a new site called TipBin. So, I went over to check it out and it is really pretty cool. I think everyone should go check this out and share your tips! I've not added any yet but plan on doing so this afternoon.

Here's a little info from the TipBin site:

About TipBin

I have this theory about the world: nobody is stupid.

It doesn't matter who you are, what you do, or where or how long you went to school. You know things that other people don't.

TipBin is about sharing what we know, and learning from each other's experiences. It's about finding and sharing little pieces of information that can make life easier, safer, more productive, or just more fun.

It's that simple.

Thanks Ray for sharing the link!

It's been a while since my last site of the week... Been busy.. And nothing has "struck my fancy" in a while until I was introduced to these guys.

So, this site of the week is another time waister....

But, if your looking for Good, clean, internet fun them this is the site for you!!!!

Check out Rhett and Link

These boys are hilarious!!!!! Take a second and check them out.