According to PBS’s Now, freelancers now make up nearly a third of the American workforce. This shift has both positives and negatives. While it allows employers to escape paying the high costs of benefits, including health insurance, it also offers more freedom to workers. Many of those freelancers share our love for neighborhood coffee shops, where they can often be found typing away on laptops or meeting clients. Of course, the growth of Wi-Fi has certainly made working outside of a traditional office setting much easier. If you’re one of those independent workers (also known as freelancers, consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, contingent employees and the self-employed), you might be interested in the Freelancers Union, recently featured on Now. Established in 1995, the group blends advocacy and networking with benefits like lower insurance rates. Membership is free, but if you choose to purchase health insurance through the Freelancers Unions you’ll pay a few dollars a month in dues. [Editor’s note: A self-employed copywriter, I was a bit skeptical at first, but I was thrilled when I saw the health insurance rates. I recommend checking out the site if you’re a freelancer.

Most of us probably have a stereotype of gamers in our minds: say, teen and 20s-something single guys. A recent list of 10 interesting statistics from the Entertainment Software Association, however, shows a much broader audience. Check out the following facts:

• Amount of American “heads of households” who play computer and video games: 67% (34% play on wireless devices, including cell phone and PDAs)

Many coffee lovers have long pushed for environmentally friendly and socially conscious products in their favorite cafés, including fair trade and organic beans. A few months ago, we mentioned biodegradable cups, and this month we’re happy to see Starbucks has eliminated dairy with rBGH (a synthetic growth hormone) in all of its U.S. stores. (This is really just a U.S. issue, as rBGH isn’t approved for use elsewhere.) If you’re looking for ways to be eco-friendly in your own café or home, check out “How to Green Your Coffee and Tea” at TreeHugger.com.

If you're an OSX Leopard user, you might be interested the following: While we haven't seen any problems firsthand, at least one blogger has written about how the operating system was set with the firewall off by default. Users can simply go into their settings and turn the firewall on, if they'd prefer to have it on. In addition, the same blogger notes the system was refusing to allow some third-party applications to access the Internet, such as the game World of Warcraft. If you're a gamer who has experienced trouble with this, just visit the Apple web site for a patch or download the 10.5.1 update. [Editor's note: We've been using Leopard since its launch and haven't experienced any problems. In fact, we're huge fans of the automatic backup system called Time Machine. If you have files you don't want to lose, check into this. It can be a huge money and time saver.

Trustive recently released its annual Trustive WLAN Roaming Research report, which has been expanded to include input from Wi-Fi users. You might find the following results interesting:

• 82% of hotspot operators have at least one roaming agreement with a Wi-Fi provider