Tag Archives | apps

9 More Time Saving Apps

Jan/06 in Desktop Apps, Online Apps

Better Time ManagementMaybe the problem is not that we do not have enough time, it is we don’t know how to manage it better.  Here are nine more applications, both free and paid, that will help you with your time management problems so that you can start the new year off right.

RescueTime – It is a web-based time management and analytic tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

FreshBooks – One of the best tools to easily and quickly track your time and invoice your clients.

Cashboard – Time tracking, invoicing, estimates, and online payments done your way. Cashboard does it all, and does it for free.

Motismo – a simple time tracking solution for creative professionals.

LiveTimer – This is a flexible and easy to use online time tracking service. It can be used by anyone on the Internet to track time for billing purposes or to improve accountability and productivity.

TrackMyPeople -This system is entirely web based meaning you can access your teams data everywhere in the world allowing you to easily track your employees time spent on a project or just analyze a graph for optimization.

Torch – This application allows you to communicate simply with your colleagues, clients and suppliers.

FreeTimeManager – FreeTime was conceived and developed by a team of designers who were looking for a simple yet logical real-time management solution.

BubbleTimer – A personal time management solution that helps you spend your time on what’s most important to you.

If you are looking for more time saving solutions, be sure to check out the previous list of ten application to help you get more time back.

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Top Web Apps Mitch Actually Uses

Nov/24 in Online Apps

lilcoloredmitch I am like a kid in a candy store when it comes to new tools and applications out there.  I love to try them all.  When push comes to shove though, only a few survive the cut as far as making it to the list of applications I actually use day to day.

Google Calendar – It might not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but boy does she know how to get down with her bad self.  Google Calendar has never won points for beauty, but is more functional than anything else out there today.  I use this one for just about every date reminder there is, from invoice due dates to birthdays.

MooURL – I probably could close my eyes and pick a link shortener out of a hat and come out with a winner.  I won’t lie, I like MooURL.com just because the name makes me giggle.

Gmail – My e-mail situation is kind of oddly setup.  I have all my external POP3 e-mail accounts plugged into Gmail, and then connect from Gmail to Thunderbird via IMAP.  This way I can easily access my mail via the web or desktop, and a few other perks such as double spam filtering (counting what the server side Spam Assassin does, then put Gmail’s spam filtering on top of that).

Google Docs – Google Docs is one thing I just started using again, not too long ago.  I needed to have a few documents easily accessible to me, no mater where I was – and Google Docs made that an easy thing to do.

Instapaper – This awesome site replaced my “read later” bookmark folder in Firefox.  Using a simple bookmarklet, you can save any link to read later and the site itself gives you a neat list of links and the ability to “skip” (mark it read) or to mark the link unread.  Very simple, and because of that, very effective.

Ping.fm – I use this web site to socialize myself.  I can post a message out to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and every other social network under the sun in one go.  Great for promoting your work, or just to say hello on all the social networking sites  out there.

Google Notebook – This I use a little differently than most.  I store a lot of the information from work on this site, such as FAQ’s and hard to find information.  That way I have it all in one spot (and it is searchable).

Google Reader – Boy, this is turning into an “I love Google” list, isn’t it?  The reason I use Google Reader for all my RSS reading is due to the fact that I can make it “wide view” very easily, and all I need to do to browse the news is scroll down.  Don’t need much else for news reading.

I’m always looking for something new to add to the list.  I think the major problem is there isn’t anybody doing anything drastically new or different.  It is just the different spin on the same idea (no mater what that idea might be).  However, I could just be a picky person.

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Project Management with Scrumy

Oct/08 in Online Apps

Image1 Scrumy is a simple project management solution based on Scrum.  Now I could do my best to explain Scrum, but would probably mess it up – so that is why this well placed link to Wikipedia is here so that you can figure that one out on your own.

With Scrumy, all you do is point your browser towards scrumy.com/ and then after the / type in any name you want.  For each job you might need to get done, add a new story.  Then you can add the tasks for that job under the “To Do” list.  In addition to the “To Do” list you also have sections for work in progress, that are verified, and that are done.  As the work progresses, you can drag and drop to do list items to other boxes.  The process is simple, yet very effective for organizing your team’s ideas and tracking the progress.

The service is totally free, but if you want a few more features – I suggest you shell out for Scrumy Pro.  With Scrumy Pro, you can password protect your project. You get the Dashboard to help you manage multiple sprints. You get Burndown Charts to help you schedule. You can rename your project at any time. Your project will never be deleted for inactivity. Ever.

If you need help organizing your next big project, give Scrumy a shot.

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Where do You Find the Best in Web 2.0?

May/15 in Interviews

The Real Best of the Web! For a long time I visited TechCrunch to see a lot of the latest Web 2.0 apps out there, but not anymore.  I’ve got a resource to share with you that is ten times better than that.  FeedMyApp.com is my favorite resource when it comes to finding the coolest and the newest in Web 2.0. 

The large database there is also handy if you want to search around and find an application for the job or tool you wish to make better.  I recently had a chance to chat with the guy behind the magic there Matteo Alessani about the FeedMyApp.com web site and what it is they do there.

What was the reason for starting the FeedMyApp.com web site and what keeps you going with it?

Matteo:  The main reason we started FeedMyApp was that there wasn’t anything similar on the web. There were lots of sites and directories listing web 2.0 apps, but we just wanted to create a simple, easy to use and up-to-date site with the latest and best web apps. Most web app directories, list entries with their respective logos. We thought that most users couldn’t gain much information from a single visual. So we focused on describing each web app with a title, a short tagline (sometimes written by us) and a screenshot. Moreover we are always surfing for new apps, so why not put gather and share them all with our readers?

Do you have a team of people behind the web site, or are you a one man team?

Matteo:  I normally work on FeedMyApp on my own, even though my other two colleagues help me find and add new. When you surf the web you always come across interesting new apps. So as soon we find a new one, we add it to FeedMyApp!

When finding new Web 2.0 apps out there do most of them come to you or do you do most of the finding?

Matteo:  We do most of the finding although a small portion (99% are pharm/spam apps) are authentic and not yet listed on other web sites. del.icio.us is another excellent source of new sites and web 2.0 apps.

In your opinion, what does it take to get a lot of people’s attention these days?

Matteo:  Simple, updated, new content. I could grab people’s attention by adding some useful features to the web site. But I prefer to follow the “keep it simple” mantra: do less and do it better than anyone. However, we are planning some cool new features for our web 2.0 directory.

I know you can’t make use of them all but, out of the hundreds that you have reviewed, which Web 2.0 apps are you using in your day to day life?

Matteo:  In my day to day life I mainly use Last.fm, Flickr, Gmail, del.icio.us, LinkedIn, Twitter, Basecamp, Feedburner, Digg and Facebook. At Extendi we always use Ruby-on-Rails, Prototype and script.aculo.us for our web 2.0 projects!

Remember to check out FeedMyApp.com and let him know I sent you there.

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Best 3 Programs to Make Windows Vista Better

Mar/24 in Desktop

I have been using Windows Vista for some time, and sure – it does have a few quirks that make me want to beat myself over the head with my keyboard.  Overall though, 85% of the time, I have to say I am pretty happy with it.  I am at least as happy as I was with Windows XP.  Here are three of the best programs I have found that have just added a little more icing to the Vista cake.

Shadow Explorer

This program makes it a quick and easy job to browse through the shadow copies of your files created by the Windows Vista volume shadow copy service.  Without, it is kind of hard to hunt down an exact file backup, but with it – it gives you a familiar interface to find all your backed up files.  I would still recommend backing up using other means, but this is just one more nice Vista addition to have handy.

Logon Studio Vista

Tired of how your default Windows Vista logon screen looks?  This free download will allow you to change that background picture you see on the logon screen to whatever you desire.  They also have several you can download and use too.  Sure, this is just an eye candy improvement, but we all like for things to look nice, right?

Lifextender

This tool, used with Vista Media Center, is an application designed to remove any and all commercials from the video that you record.  I have used it a number of times for the various cable shows I watch and it has yet to let me down.  Might just set it up to work overnight, so it doesn’t get in the way of your day to day work.

For some more applications to make the Vista experience better, check out Ave’s Vista Stuff.  There are a handful of neat little application there that will add a few more perks to your shinny new OS.

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Playing with Prism Again

Mar/19 in Desktop, Online Apps

Prism Rocks! Prism, Mozilla’s answer for bringing the web in as desktop applications, continues to amaze me.  I just downloaded the newest release,  and it has a few new features worth checking out.  They have an extension for one, that works with Firefox 3 so that you can quickly split out web applications from Firefox without the need to manage a separate Prism application.  You can convert to a Prism powered application right there in Firefox.

You can also pick an icon to represent the web site or Prism application you are setting it up as.  By default it searches for the favicon, but you can edit it to go to any image.  That image will become the desktop icon for it.  The Fluid Flickr group had a lot of nice icon examples you could use too. (thanks to TwisterMc for that jewel)

To help with performance, each Prism app also runs in it’s own profile:

Prism now places each web app into its own process/profile so they don’t interfere with each other, which also makes it possible to install a web app twice and use it simultaneously with two different user accounts.

Personally Prism really excites me a lot and if this is still the beta form of the project, I can’t imagine the goodies waiting for me in the final release.

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Care to Ubuntu? Part 3

Sep/10 in Hot Web Topics

Got Ubuntu?To continue from where I left off previously, my installation of Ubuntu’s Feisty Fawn (7.04) has been full of nothing but pleasant surprises. It just works! Right out of the box, if you will. So far, the experience has been smooth. Now, like most of you out there, I was hyped to see what all I had to use that was comparable to Windows. Granted, not all applications/software/games will work on Ubuntu….yet.

But thanks to some clever people over at the Wine project, that is soon to be a thing of the past.

Applications Galore! OK, let’s see what we have here:

Word Processing

  • Windows: Word
  • Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org’s Writer

Spreadsheet

  • Windows: Excel
  • Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org’s CalcPresentation

Presentations

  • Windows: Powerpoint
  • Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org’s Impress

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