Working from home is a privilege, and in some cases, unavoidable. Here, in our San Francisco office, many commuters were hit hard by the recent BART strikes, forcing those reliant on the public transportation service to be stranded at home. Luckily, working from home doesn't mean you have to be any less productive.

Here are some of our recommended apps to make sure that you stay focused and productive so that you can get the most out of your work, no matter where you're at.

Timers

Time management is key; timers are a great way to keep yourself in check and make appropriate use of your time. Allocate yourself enough time to get your stuff done; but also remember to take breaks.

Timer for Mac

Focus

Your computer may be designed to multitask but you often have a harder time doing it. Use these apps to keep from distractions and maintain focus on a single application at a time.

Clutter Cloak for Windows

Isolator for Mac

Screen Workspaces

Sometimes one desktop isn't enough. If you don't have the luxury of multiple monitors or machines, these desktop workspace apps wi... [Read more]

Opera Stash lets you file away screenshots of Web pages for future reference.

The Opera Software browser brain transplant that began on Android is now complete for Windows and OS X users, too.

The Norwegian company has been rebuilding Opera on the same browser engine Google uses within Chrome, scrapping its own Presto engine. The first fruits of the transformation arrived on Android devices, but now the new Opera 15 has been released for personal computers, too.

A browser engine's job is to process all the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS instructions on a Web page or Web app then render the result on the screen. Although Opera is following Chrome at this low level by using the engine with the open-source Chromium project, it's got a number of interface features that distinguish it from Google's browser. Among them:

• Speed Dial, long an Opera feature for presenting frequently used Web pages, now lets people group multiple links into folders.

• Off-Road Mode uses Opera's proxy-browsing infrastructure to speed performance with slow networks. With the technology, Opera servers send boiled-down versions of Web pages. The feature automatically turns itself off when you get back to a fast connection.

• The Stash feature can be used to collect screenshots of Web pages in a centralized location for future reference. The interface shows sm... [Read more]