Net Savvy: Faster broadband connections and sophisticated software make it easy to work from home

For many people the idea of working from home is about as good as it gets. Not only does it offer a stress-free alternative to the horror of the daily commute, but it also allows you to dictate your own hours.

Recent advances in technology mean that the dream has never been easier to attain. Faster broadband Internet connections, smarter phones and sophisticated software and web services allow you to log in to your computer from anywhere in the world, work collaboratively with colleagues on projects over the web, and even retain a London-based phone number if you decide to emigrate to warmer climes.

However, it is not all good news. A recent report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development claimed that people who work from home are more prone to workaholism than those with a clear boundary between home and office life.

This is not discouraging an increasing number of tech-savvy workers, however. Over the past 10 years there has been a 150 per cent increase in the number of “teleworkers” — those who work remotely from home — in the UK, and they make up more than one in 10 of the workforce, says the Office of National Statistics. This includes the self-employed who manage their business from home using a computer, full-time remote workers, and those who spend only a day or two away from their desks each week.

Crucially, more employers now allow employees to work this way. The Confederation of British Industry says 14 per cent of its 250,000 members offer employees the option to telework, a year-on-year rise of more than a quarter.

Done the right way, relocating from office to home can be the smartest move you ever made.

Starting out

Don’t underestimate the change that the move to working from home will entail. The blog To-Done! (www.tinyurl.com/8gq6q) brims with helpful tips for those starting out, such as establishing a routine and setting aside a working area in your home to help separate work life from home life.

By joining the telework association at www.telework.org.uk for £34.50 you can gain access to members’ discussion forums and a copy of The Telework Handbook, a survival guide.

You will also need to concentrate on networking to make up for your lack of co-workers. The formidable business-oriented social network LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) enables you to do just this: you can talk shop with executives all over the world, find work, and swap productivity advice.

It’s also essential to create a decent working environment. Get your basic equipment at OfficeSupermarket (www.officesupermarket.co.uk), which offers two Harvard bookcases for £39, and a deluxe leather Venture Managers Chair for £92. It also offers a free space planning service.

You can stock up with office stationery at the efficient Viking Direct (www.viking-direct.co.uk). If you do miss those watercooler conversations then buy your own desktop watercooler for £82 from Viking Direct, and take regular visits to the hilarious www.overheardintheoffice.com.

Getting connected

Broadband is the key to the venture. If you are going to be sending and receiving large image files or documents then you need to ensure your deal is not stymied by low “caps’ — the monthly limits that some packages impose on the amount of data you can send and receive. See the Sunday Times guide to the expanding broadband market (www.tinyurl.com/qgr6g), which unpicks the various claims of new broadband packages being offered, such as “unlimited” broadband, and explains caps. ADSLGuide (www.adslguide.org) will help you decide on a provider and offers excellent advice on everything from reliability to how to make voice calls over the Internet.

For price comparisons, click through to uSwitch (www.uswitch.com). Its comparison engine tries to match your web surfing habits to the right package and includes useful customer satisfaction ratings for each. Also note that some companies, such as BT and Zen, offer deals for business use, which come with a promise (known as a service level agreement or SLA) that the connection won’t slow down when you need it most, or crash entirely.

We have the technology

Once you have broadband you can start using it to make phone calls free (or at least cheaply) — just like you did at work. Download software from Skype (www.skype.com), get yourself a USB plug-in headset or special Skype phone and you’re away. Speaking to other Skype customers is free, while calls to UK landlines cost just over 1p a minute. A Skype-In number (£23 per year) enables you to have any geographically based number you choose, meaning you could have London-based digits even if you are now living in Cardiff.

New software allows you to hold conference meetings with your clients and colleagues from home. Citrix Online’s GoToMeeting (www.gotomeeting.com) lets up to 10 people share documents and chat simultaneously for an annual subscription of £250.

For those who spend time away from their home office, the easy-to-use Go2MyPC (www.go2mypc.com) enables you to access your work computer over the web regardless of where you are. It costs £96 for a year. Alternatively, you could carry a U3 memory pen, which will turn almost any host computer, except Macs, into a copy of your own machine, simply by plugging it in.

Get organised

nOrganisation is crucial, especially when you are out of the loop. While you can manage your diary online, and even allow other nominated people to view it with the free Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar), it’s also a good idea to synchronise your computer calendar and e-mail contact databases with your mobile phone so you can access this information on the move.

Either use the synchronisation software that comes with your phone or an independent programme such as MOBILedit (www.mobiledit.com).

Homeworkers risk losing their liveihood if their hard disk, with all of its crucial documents, fails. One solution is backing up work documents with the online storage site Diino (www.diino.com). A 2GB account is free, then monthly prices range from £5 to £43, depending on how much extra storage you need.

If you’re buying a new computer, make sure it has two hard drives that are set up with a RAID 1 configuration. This means that the second drive is automatically programmed to store what’s on the main drive — essentially it is a duplicate of it. So if anything goes wrong, you can immediately retrieve the information.

Doing the business

If you want to project a professional image online then getting yourself a website is a must.

The government’s Business Link site (www.tinyurl.com/yfrc8p) can advise what sort of site you’ll need, and provides tips on setting it up. You’ll need to find a host (most Internet service providers will do it for you) and select a programme to build it — Web Studio (www.webstudio.com) costs £50 and provides easy-to-use templates.

Also consider setting up a virtual office for important meetings and correspondence. Office space specialist Regus (www.regus.co.uk) will provide you with a physical office address in a swanky part of town and provide call answering/forwarding and mail redirect services from £120 a month.

For more ad hoc secretarial services, the award-winning Virtual Office Secretary (www.virtualofficesecretary.co.uk) charges from £18 an hour.

For smart new business cards GoodPrint (www.goodprint.co.uk) offers a tremendous online design service, with a large choice of templates, fonts and colours, or you can upload your own images for an extra £7. Ordering 100 single-sided cards costs £13