Business cards have long been the networking tool that kept your business-contact list growing, but in a digital age, they seem a little outdated. Weblog WebWorkerDaily argues that we still need them; we’re not so sure. What do you think?

WebWorkerDaily’s take:

There are times when even the most web-oriented among us have to meet with people face-to-face. Being able to hand out a business card does more than guarantee that they have your contact information and even goes beyond making it easy to pass it along. It can help establish your professionalism. Depending on the type of work you do, there can be some difficulty in reminding your contacts that you’re a professional — after all, you spend most of your day at home or the coffee shop. But little touches like a professional business card can really help remind clients and colleagues that you are a professional, no matter where you’re working at.

This editor just begrudgingly re-ordered a fresh batch of dead-tree business cards in preparation for a trip to SXSW, which, frankly, is the only place I ever hand them out. So I’m curious:

Do You Still Carry Business Cards?answers

Obviously it depends a lot on what kind of work you do and the culture of that work, but let’s hear specifics for why you do or don’t keep business cards on hand in the comments.

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Next time you drop a book in the bath or end up with an otherwise water-damaged periodical, document, or photograph, reader pearce.kilgour recommends a simple solution: Put it in the freezer.

Photo by dno1967.

Ever drop a book in the tub? Don’t despair, you can save it. Put it into a plastic bag (not vacuum seal) and place in the freezer. The dehydration process, which keeps things cold, will pull the excess water out of the book. Takes up to 2 weeks depending on the size of the book. Just tell your friend that you aren’t done with it yet.

A little googling backs up pearce.kilgour’s claims—like this long-ish piece on freezing flood-damaged photos, documents, and books, which featured the same advice from an Iowa State University Extension specialist. (As a native Iowan, I can say we’ve had to deal with our fair share of floods.) Their instructions are pretty similar:

First pick the item up out of the water and hold it while it drains. Then place the item in a plastic bag, and stick it in the freezer. If you have several items of approximately the same size — such as file folders or books — you can place them upright in a milk crate or box, separated with paper toweling, butcher paper or wax paper. If you’re freezing books, stand them vertically on their spines. A milk crate is a good choice for this task because it allows air flow around the items. Use a container that won’t become water-logged. Pack the items just tight enough so that they remain upright.

Ever tried this method for salvaging a water-logged book or document? Let’s hear how it worked out in the comments. Thanks pearce.kilgour!

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Not many workspaces sit on the edge of a babbling brook in an animal sanctuary, but if you’d like to pretend yours does, the visual and audio ambience of webapp MoodTurn can help.

Last week we shared MoodStream with you, a mashup of short and mixed together music tracks, images, and video, all sorted by your mood. Thanks to a suggestion by Lifehacker reader Rexem, we have another neat ambient mood site to share with you.

MoodTurn—sometimes labeled TurnMood.com in its interface—is, like MoodStream, a mashup of visual and audio elements. It’s radically more simply though, with no sliders or selection wheels in sight. You can pick from Rainforest, Birds, Storm, and Beach as your soundtracks. Each category has about half a dozen backgrounds you can choose from. The audio tracks for the moods are all an hour long, give or take a few minutes, which is great for uninterrupted listening. Hit F11 to switch your browser to full screen mode for maximum impact.

One very minor complaint about the service: if you pause the audio but leave the tab open, after about 30 minutes MoodTurn will refresh itself and start playing the audio again. Something to keep in mind if you pause it and leave for lunch, lest you return to find your coworkers tearing the office apart, looking for birds.

Have a favorite way to up the ambiance in your office and make it feel less like a cage and more like a beach front locale? Let’s hear about it in the comments. Thanks Rexem!

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While we love a tech-filled geek cave, an elegant workspace with a great view makes working a pleasure. Today’s featured workspace has a beautiful desk, a pleasing environment, and a view of Boston.

Not everyone needs triple monitors or an army of peripherals and being able to work productively with just a laptop goes a long way towards having a clear and airy workspace—cable management is, at it’s best after all, camouflaging something that’s there to appear as if it isn’t.

Lifehacker reader CosmoComet, when he’s commuting and working from Boston proper several day a week, finds himself working at this nearly invisible glass and acrylic workspace—he can look right through his desk to see Beacon Street below. Check out a wider view of the workspace in the photos below.

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

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Whether you’ve switched to OS X but still occasionally need Windows, you want to play Windows-only games, or whatever, Mac users have several strong options for running Windows. Gizmodo breaks down how to choose the right tool for the job.

The post examines three popular virtualization tools for the job: VMware Fusion, Parallels, and VirtualBox (the last is the only free option), discussing different Windows-on-Mac scenarios and highlighting which tool is probably best to satisfy those needs. For example:

If You…
• Want to run Windows 7 within OS X, and basically nothing else?
• Want to run Windows apps as if they’re part of OS X, visually and behaviorally?
• Think a virtual machine should integrate into OS X almost completely, rather than live inside its own window?
• Want to play 3D games in your virtual machine?
Then You Should Use…
Parallels 5!

The helpful guide details the reasoning behind each recommendation. If you’ve been interested in running Windows on your Mac but have had trouble figuring out which tool would best fit your needs, Gizmodo’s helpful guide is a great resource.

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