Remind your staff about the weekly meeting by sending them a DoodleFirst
First things first, I can’t remember what I did 10 minutes ago, let alone a staff meeting sometime next week. Yeah I know I can use a calendar but if I don’t remember to check it then what good is it. Another thing is I need to send out a reminder and need to know who is coming and who is not. Using iCal or Google calendar is a good organized way to do it, however if I have to rely on everyone logging on to the calendar then it makes thing hard.
Let me sit back and dream about a way to create an event, send it out via email to my staff and have them simply click to let me know if they can make it or not.
Dream no more Doodle.com gets it done. Doodle is an easy to use simple event creation tool that works with nothing more than your web browser. Doodle is light weight easy to use and has no learning curve at all. That’s a big plus because the last thing we have is time to learn how to use an online service that could potentially make our lives easy.
Doodle gets 5 thumbs up. We like, we’ll use. It’s just good!
Finally an easy way to have clients sign off on your projects with Getsignoff.com
Now this review really targets Graphic Designers, Web Designers and Ad Agencies. However you could get some good use out of it for inner office projects as well. Before we discuss the application lets talk about the problem.
The Problem:
Those of us in the Graphic Design/Web Design business share a common problem. Finding an easy way to have clients review the project you are working on. Be it a brochure or website the hardest part of the job is getting the files over to the client and having them review it.
I’ve heard it all and I’m sure you have as well:
- “I don’t see anything”…”Well did you open the attachment?” …”What’s an attachment?”
- “I don’t use email, can you fax it”
- “I don’t have the PDF plugin”
And now for the client’s that did receive it:
- They email you back a long list of changes that makes no sense
- They want to change 7 paragraphs and fax it to you.
- They send it via snail mail (this really happend to me, they actually mailed it, it took 7 days to receive)
I think you get the point, it makes managing even the simplest of changes a major production.
Well there is finally a solution; and it took a Graphic Designer like myself to figure it out. An online application that manages the changes and approvals of signing off on a project. I must note that this is not a new concept, I have seen several online apps like this over the years but never used one because they were either way over priced, they were far to complicated for the client to figure out or they required some java plugin. The problem is you have about 25 seconds to get your clients attention, if you have to walk them through how to use a sign off application; guess what? They are not going to use it. You’re going to hear the same thing over and over…”just email it to me”.
Well getsignoff.com resolves all these problems.
- It’s easy to use, even your clients that struggle with email will find it easy
- It manages all your changes and corrections and keeps track of everything
- Your client can make notes right on the art work
- You add the project and your client gets and automatic email with login info so they can view the project using nothing more than their web browser
- Does not require any additional plugins or Java
- You can select to receive updates via email or RSS, so when your client makes the corrections or the approval you are updated right away. I love the RSS addition
- It’s very affordable with three packages starting at free, $29.99 and $59.99 per month
- The pro package allows you to customize the page using CSS, so you can brand it for your own company
I’ve tried out many of these types of applications over the years and this is the first one good enough to review. It’s a very simple well designed interface and will resolve lots of issues getting approvals on your projects. Best of all your clients will love it, it will make you look just a little bit better than the next guy.
We give this 5 thumbs up.
Promote Your Business In 12 Seconds at 12seconds.tv
I’m always looking for cool ways to promote my business online using the endless amount of social tools available. Video is red hot on the Internet right now and you need to get involved using some of the online video tools to promote yourself, your blog or even your business.
A great, easy and free tool is a website called 12seconds.tv. It could not be easier to use. You simply create an account and the website automatically finds your webcam and your ready to go, press record it and start. Now here’s the catch, you only have 12 seconds to record. That’s it; get out your message in 12 seconds. When the recording is done you can cancel it and start over or post it. Posting it logs it to the 12seconds.tv site. You can cut and paste the code and place the video on your own site or blog by placing a link or posting the actual video.
It’s pretty cool, and very easy to use. Think off all the applications, you can place quick videos on your site or use it for client testimonials, welcome users to your website, the uses for video are endless.
Below is a simple demo I did just so you can see how it works on a blog.
Apple’s Mobile Me is the answer to my organizational prayers
Mobile Me has had a lot of bad press over it’s first few months of operation and I have it only because I have an ongoing .Mac account that I never used anyway, but paid the $99. per year just because I didn’t have the time to get around to getting rid of it. When Apple announced that they were changing over to the Mobile Me application I was excited, glanced at it but never really got into it because it was still having issues. Apple did the right thing and extended an extra 4 months of service for members.
Well the good news is that it works and I’m using it. I’ve been a regular user of Google Calendar and was very happy because I could have my calendar where ever I wanted it even if I didn’t have access to my own computer. Now there were some downsides to Google Calendar; first even on your main computer it’s web based so you never really have total control over your data, you can access it on your iPhone or iPod touch using the Google app but it’s a very limited view and just was not useful for me.
Mobile Me resolves all these issues, because A. I can use iCal on my Mac to manage my calendar and know I always have my data safe. B. I can view it on my iPod Touch calendar nice and easy and C. I can access my Mobile Me account on any computer and have the same calendar features available to me. It syncs everything I have 1 time. So if I’m out mobile with an iPhone or iPod Touch and I add something to my calendar everything is updated, my Mac, My Mobile Me account and even my PC.
Mobile Me is every road warriors dream application, it keeps you organized and able to have all your technology on the same page.
Interested in buying Mobile Me, you can check it out by clicking on the button below
Driving traffic to your website using Stumbleupon.com
So we all have websites or blogs for our businesses; I hope. That said a website without traffic is like opening a store in the mall and no one ever comes in. The goal to online success is lots of traffic, you can hire an Internet Marketing Company to help you with a good SEO campaign. But there are some things you can do to get some fast traffic; and one of those is Stumbleupon.com.
So what is Stumbleupon.com? Stumbleupon is a pretty cool site with a huge community behind it, it’s an online site that delivers websites to your browser. The cool thing is it only sends sites that you are interested in. The first thing is to sign up for a free account, set up your profile by selecting the topics that you are interested in. The next step is to download the Stumbleupon menu bar for your browser and just simply press the stumble button and only websites randomly appear for the topics you selected.
Now when you find a website that you like, you can stumble it by pressing the stumble button and add it to the database. Do you see where I’m going with this? That’s right, open up your website and stumble it.
Every time I stumble a new post on my blog I get between 100 and 200 hits within the hour. Great thing; is that the people seeing my site are the people that are interested in your topics because they preselected the catagory in their profile.
Stumbleupon.com is a great tool to drive traffic to your website.
Treat your staff to a GREAT cup of coffee
Coffee? What does that have to do with business technology? Well technology is found all over the office including the break room. In many companies the break room is a very important place for your employees. Take a look at your break room; is it a tiny little space with storage of old files in the corner and nothing more than a tiny fridge and a dirty old microwave?
If it is then your hurting your business in more ways than you might think. Creating a break room for your employees can actually help your business if you fill it with the things employees want. A clean full size fridge, a new microwave, a nice LCD TV, comfortable seating including a nice couch, magazine rack and a kicking coffee machine.
The hands down best coffee machine you could get is the Braun Tassimo one cup coffee maker. This thing rocks, it uses the little disks so people can select the coffee they like whether it be regular, decaf, tea or hot chocolate. The Tassimo brews coffee house quality coffee every cup is fresh and hot, not burned and old.
There are many different brands of coffee for this unit including Maxwell House, Seattles Beast and Starbucks. The Tassimo brews coffee, tea, cappacino, latte, hot chocolate and expresso; and the expresso is cuban cafe quality.
Remember a well equipped comfortable break room with good coffee keeps the employees in their rather than leaving the building for coffee and lunch, and when the team stays together they create better relationships and talk about work and resolve problems together. Remember anyone can go anywhere for a regular job, but if you create at atmosphere that people enjoy, you have a one up on the competition, that advertising budgets can’t buy.
Interested in getting a Braun Tassimo, use the link below to learn more about it. Drop me a line let me know if you get one and what you think or if you have one and love it.
Braun Tassimo TA1200 Single-Serve Hot-Beverage System
Subscribing to email newsletters is out, RSS is in!
Keeping in touch with your customers is a daunting tasking using an email marketing campaign. The way it’s done now is to sign up with a company like Constant Contact, create a email newsletter, manage a database, and blast it out.
Here are the problems with email marketing:
- People just don’t want to give out their email addresses anymore
- Email boxes are cluttered with spam, so more often than not all your hard work gets trashed
- Managing an email campaign is a lot of work
If there was only a better way to get your message out without all these problems. Well there is; it’s called RSS feeds and it’s nothing new; but very few non computer people know how to use it. Another problem is many what I call regular people (non techies) don’t know how to subscribe to it. But here is why it’s good:
- There is really no additional work to get your message out if you have a blog and update it
- If you have a blog for your business (and you should) it already generates RSS feeds that your readers can subscribe to.
Up until now the only way to get an RSS feed is to have an RSS reader installed on your computer, in your browser or using a third party RSS feedreader service. The problem with that is; try and describe to someone that they have to install an RSS reader on their computer and you get that blank stare.
On this very blog my RSS subscriptions are very low for that very reason, RSS is very techie; so not many subscribe.
When there is a problem; there is a solution.
I came across a site calledfeedmyinbox.com, this is one of those products where you say; “oh my god why didn’t I think of that”. It’s a service that you type in a website and your email address; it automatically goes to the website pulls down the RSS feed subscription and sends it to your email. Now here is what is great about this:
- No expensive monthly email marketing service to buy
- No managing of a huge database of emails
- No additional work, just write your to your blog and your RSS content is automatically generated for you.
- No RSS programs to download
- No RSS subscription sites to have to visit daily
Of all the new web 2.0 applications being released over the last couple of years feedmyinbox in the best I have seen in a long time. This is really fantastic product.
Get started using RSS today to promote your business.
You can find out more at their blog www.brightwurks.com or follow them on Twitter www.twitter.com/brightwurks/
MacBook Pro, Macbook or Macbook Air which one is better for me?
In the market for a new laptop? Thinking about and Apple? Well as you know by now Apple released new Macbooks this past week. Their Macbook line right now consists of the Macbook Pro, Macbook and the Macbook Air. Which one is best for you?
The last revison of Macbooks was easy to answer because they were so different, but with the two new additions it does make it a little harded to decide and maybe even a little confusing. See the new Macbook is faster that last years Macbook Pro by three times making it a slamming deal at only $1200.00. So the best way to figure it out is to know what you are going to do with it.
The Macbook
This new Macbook just rocks, its small at only 13″ and 4 lbs it’s very easy to carry around. Getting rid of those tired white plastic cases was the best thing Apple could have done. With the new chipset the Macbook is an absolute screamer and you could do just about anything on it, however the small screen makes it hard for Graphic Designers who are so use to big screens. However you could connect it to the new 24″ flat screen and resolve that problem. Lack or Firewire makes it useless to videographers. For any other application the Macbook rocks. Ability to boot to Windows resolves any issues for businesses that have certain apps just written for Windows.
Macbook Pro
A real screamer, great for all the high end apps like design and video editing. 15″ screen gives a little more screen real estate, larger key board area and the same sleek look as the MacBook. Firewire 800 port on the side comes in handy if you do video editing or have the new Drobo Firewire. Huge hard drives are a plus, you can never have enough hard drive space. For normal office business work this may be over kill and you can save quite a bit with the Macbook.
Macbook Air
Cool factor= 10. However with the release of the new Macbooks the Air becomes tough to justify, for just a few hundred more you can get the Pro which blows this away. And for quite a bit less you can get the Macbook which blows this away. So where does the Macbook Air fit in? If you are totally mobile and are looking for a very light and portable solution this may be the computer for you. But it really is good for nothing more than email, internet and some office work on the road. A great mobile blogging tool but really not good for your main computer. I would almost suggest you have this as a second machine but at $1700.00 that’s highly unlikely. Before the Macbook came out, I loved the Air but now it’s not really financially a good choice. It’s kind of an over priced netbook. This is still a great product and Apple could sell a boat load at the $600 netbook price range.
All in all Apple hands down makes the BEST laptops on the market and right now Apple is the best selling Laptop computer outselling Dell.
zoho.com has so much to offer for little or no money at all
zoho.com is a great site that has grown so much in the last year or so. I’m happy for them because they really make some great applications that take advantage of the whole cloud computing trend.
zoho has so many products that it would not do them justice to try and sum it up in one post. So what I have decided to do is give you a listing of their apps and then give a review on some of the ones I really like over the next few weeks.
The zoho line of apps are full featured and very well designed. and consist of the following:
zoho mail: Web-based email service, allows you to use the @zoho or your own pop email.
zoho writer: Online word processor
zoho sheet: Online spreadsheet application
zoho show: Presentation tool, like powerpoint
zoho docs: Online document management
zoho notbook: Online note taker
zoho wiki: Your own online wiki
zoho share: centralized public repository
zoho planner: online organizer
zoho chat: Group chat app and online customer service chat
zoho CRM: full featured CRM solution, like ACT
zoho projects: Project management application
zoho creator: Online database application
zoho invoice: Create invoices and estimates online
zoho meeting: Online web conferencing
zoho DB & Reports: Online reporting and BI service
zoho people: HRIS and Recruitment Management
zoho Business: Online Business Solutions
zoho Marketplace: A suite of business tools
As you can see zoho has a ton of very interesting applications some free and others for as little as $5 per month. They are all rock solid and well designed. I personally use a bunch of them and have been very impressed.
We’ll be reviewing a few this week starting with zoho chat and zoho invoice, so visit again to learn more.
Internet Riches by Scott Fox, a great motivator
I just finished reading “Internet Riches” By Scott Fox. I was a little weary at first thinking “oh here we go another get rich quick Internet scammer”; so I walked on by. A few days later I came across Scott’s podcast on Blog Talk Radio and really enjoyed what he was saying he seemed to know a lot about what he was talking about and answered endlesss questions for people calling into his show. What I liked about Scott was some of the questions he was getting were Internet Marketing 101 stuff; and Scott proceeded along being very helpful.
After listening to several of his podcasts I came across the book again and made the purchase. I really like this book; I really think it’s a great book for the beginner as well as the seasoned Internet marketer. I have been marketing and building websites for over 15 years and this is my full time business. So I feel I know a lot about the industry. That said, Internet Riches confirmed some things I already knew, answered some questions I was looking to know, taught me some new cool tricks and best of all motivates me every time. I have had the book for less than two months and am reading it now for the third time.
In my business I meet a lot of people looking to get involved with an online business but don’t really know where to start and more times than not end up spending a lot of money on nothing, I would reccomend this book to you. It really gives you a good understanding on different types of businesses you can get started with online and for very cheap.
For seasoned Internet Marketers, bloggers and even website designers, you can learn a few things from Scott that can transform your business into new areas.
I am currently telling all of my newby clients about this book in hopes that it will help them; and they can rest assured that the things I tell them are true.
Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires
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