Posts Tagged how to
DialMyCalls Makes Automated Phone Calls For You
Posted by admin in Company & Product Profiles, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, news, productivity, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web, Web Applications on February 23, 2010
Need to get a message out to a group of people through a phone message? You could spend several hours making the calls yourself. You could pay someone to do it for you. Or you could use DialMyCalls.com.
DialMyCalls offers a free subscription that will make 1 call per day to a maximum of 25 people. The message is limited to 30 seconds or less in length and will be branded with a DialMyCalls message. A premium subscription is available with fewer restrictions and no branding.
It’s an easy service to use, with only 3 steps required to make a phone call:
- Create a new message
- Setup your list of people to call (an address book feature is available too)
- Select your call options and schedule it to call.
That’s all it takes to make automated phone calls to the people you need to contact. Give DialMyCalls.com a try the next time you need to call a group of people.
Zapproved Helps Your Group Make Better Decisions
Posted by admin in Company & Product Profiles, Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web, Web Applications on February 23, 2010
Does your decision-making process look like the one on the left or the one on the right?
Image from Zapproved.com
The decision-making process quickly and easily becomes complicated and convoluted with dozens of e-mails flying in and out of mailboxes. Zapproved.com helps your group streamline the decision-making process and keep the feedback all in one place.
To use Zapproved, you can begin by simply creating a proposal, or by signing up for a free account. The free account allows users to send 5 proposals/month; each proposal is kept for 30 days. Paid accounts start at $12/month for unlimited proposals and storage retention.
Those who serve on committees or work with groups often to make decisions will find Zapproved a simple and user-friendly tool to facilitate discussion and decision-making.
Sending Faxes for Free Using Google Voice
Posted by admin in File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web, Web Applications on February 18, 2010
I’ve been a user of Google Voice for nearly two years now. This service has literally changed the way I use my phone.
I was lucky enough to get an invite just after Google acquired GrandCentral and have used it ever since. It especially came in handy when moving from North Carolina to Tennessee, as I got a Knoxville area Google Voice number which I gave to potential employers. I now use that number as my primary number for text messaging (free!) and to route business calls to my mobile phone, which is still a North Carolina number.
Over at AscendWiki.com, they’ve put together an excellent article about how to send faxes for free with Google Voice. This comes in handy for eliminating long-distance fees for faxes. Too bad Google Voice won’t allow you to receive a fax yet. Suggest it as a feature here.
Here’s an excerpt:
Go to your Google Voice account, select Settings, Phones and then the Edit option for the phone on which you have your fax machine residing. Open the “Show Advanced Settings.” Then select “Yes” and “PIN not required (for added convenience)” for the “Direct access to voicemail when calling your Google number from this phone?” You could of course have the PIN required, but then you need to add that to the phone number you construct below. I figured my home phone is safe from someone misusing it.2. Send your fax but construct the fax recipient’s number as follows
YourGoogleVoiceNumber--2--NumberOfFaxReceivingMachine (those are dashes in this number to insert 2 two second pauses).For example, if your Google Voice number is 515-555-5565 and the fax machine is at +44-55-56-57-58-59, then set up the number to be
15155555565--2--011445556575859
Handbrake Rips and Converts Your Video Files
Posted by admin in Compression, Downloads, Free Stuff, home, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks on February 17, 2010
Handbrake is a piece of software I use nearly every week. It’s a free program designed to efficiently rip DVDs to editable video files on your computer. Handbrake will also convert files of one format to another.
Download the Handbrake installer here [~5MB exe]. Run the installer with all the default settings and you’re ready to start ripping DVDs.
1) Choose the source using the “Source” button at the top left corner of the Handbrake window. There are options to choose a file or DVD.
2) Choose the destination for the out put in the main frame of the Handbrake window. I normally use the Desktop or the Videos folder in My Documents.
3) Choose your output settings using either a preset (right side frame) or customize using the tabs in the main section of the Handbrake window.
4) Click “Start” on the toolbar. You’ll see a DOS-looking window open with progress information. Wait until it’s done, then look at the destination folder for your new file.
Note: I offer this tip and software as a resource for professional and personal use. This software should not be used for illegal purposes, such as pirating movies.
DirSync Pro Synchronizes Files and Folders
Posted by admin in Downloads, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, productivity, Security, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web on February 12, 2010
Here’s another Lifehacker recommended download. It’s called DirSync Pro and it allows you to backup information on a local computer to a mapped network drive or other location on the same computer. Here’s a description from the author’s website:
Using DirSync Pro you can make incremental backups. In this way you’ll spare lots of time because you don’t have to copy all the files each time you want to update your backup; only new/modified/larger files would be copied.
Use DirSync Pro to easily synchronize files from your desktop PC to your USB-stick (PDA, Notebook, …). Use this USB-stick (PDA, Notebook, …) to synchronize files to another desktop PC.
DirSync Pro is free, open source software, available for download here. It’s a Java application, so it’s supported on any system with the Java Runtime Environment, including Windows, Mac and Linux.
Keeping Up with the To-Dos
Posted by admin in Email, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 30, 2010
How do you keep up with your to-do list? Is it on paper? In your email account? As long as your system works, it’s a good one.
I have used a combination of tools to help me keep my to-do list in order. Most of the time it works pretty well.
Between visual cues (items left on the desk or by the door to remind me), items in my GMail Inbox (I send emails to myself a lot), and an online to-do list for repeating tasks, my bases are pretty well covered.
As for the online tools, I have found a couple of websites to be especially useful. For the past year, I’ve been a user of RememberTheMilk. It’s a versatile site that allows the user to organize their to-do lists in a number of ways. The free version of the site is feature packed, but if you want any integration with a smartphone (I’m on an iPhone, myself), you’ll have to annie-up for the Pro version, at the tune of $25/year.
When my RememberTheMilk account came up for renewal this year, I chose to let it expire and go looking for another tool with similar features. A quick post on Twitter yielded some great feedback. Thanks to Jason Heydasch, I learned about Toodledo.
The free version of Toodledo has as many (probably even more) features than RememberTheMilk’s Pro version. The Toodledo iPhone app is only $2.99, a considerable amount less than the yearly fees at RememberTheMilk.
One of the most useful features of Toodledo is the ability to seperate tasks by context. I work out of at least two different offices during any given week, so this feature makes it easy for me to see only the tasks that are relevant to my focus at the time.
At first glance the interface of Toodledo might seem overwhelming and slightly rugged. But take a few minutes to look over the introduction and explanation of features. I quickly picked up the interface after I understood a little more about how it worked. It’s actually quite intuitive, highly customizable and versatile.
In my opinion, Toodledo is one of the best to-do management applications available, with a feature set that will work for most anyone, smartphone integration at a reasonable cost, and lots of plugins and widgets to help you keep track wherever you are online.
Which Date Works?
Posted by admin in Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 27, 2010
When you’re trying to make plans that involve a number of people, it can be difficult to find a day/time that fits everyone’s schedule.
WhichDateWorks.com helps you find a time that works for everyone, or at least a time that works for the most people.
I learned about this handy little tool through Lifehacker, so here’s the link to the original article, titled “WhichDateWorks Takes the Guesswok out of Event Planning”
Here’s how it works:
1. Title and describe your event.
2. Select who’s invited. There’s even a handy little address book tool so you can find people in your contact list. Then type in the name and e-mail address of the planner.
3. Choose when the planner is available.
4. Confirm the info, then send the invites. People will respond and let you know the best times for them, and the website will do the work of finding a mutually available day/time.
It’s a pretty straight-forward website built to do one thing: help you find the best date for an event.
Top 10 Outlook Boosters [via Lifehacker]
Posted by admin in Email, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 26, 2010
I’m a dedicated GMail user myself, but many of my clients use Outlook just as dedicated-ly as I use GMail. Lifehacker came out with this list of the Top 10 Outlook Boosters a while back, but it’s worth looking at again. Here are a couple of the handiest tools in the list:
# 10 – Never Forget Attachments. GMail has a labs tool available for this same task. It’s saved me a little time on more than 1 occasion!
# 6 – Kill your duplicate contacts. How great is it to get rid of the redundant redundancy?
# 1 – Sync Outlook with nearly any app/device/calendar. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all get along so well?
Here’s the link to the entire post of the Top 10 Outlook Boosters.
Two More Photo Resize Tools
Posted by admin in Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, joomla, productivity on January 22, 2010
I wrote about some photo resize tools not too long ago, but I learned of another tool you should know (and use!) through one of my favorite blogs. A reader also wrote to suggest another popular resource that I’d like to toss out there.
- Shrink Pic [via Lifehacker] is perhaps one of the most handy picture resizing tools when working with online mediums, such as websites and social media sites. It’s the most handy because you don’t have to think about it. ShrinkPic automatically resizes pictures you’re uploading to the web. This does a few things: 1) it decreases the amount of time it takes for your file to transfer, 2) it ensures you have an optimal (or close to it) size for web use, and 3) it conserves server storage space.Go ahead, install ShrinkPic. Your website administrator will love you for it.
- IrfanView is a very popular program that allows you to resize pictures and perform a ton of other operations on images (it even plays videos). It’s free for download at http://www.irfanview.com/, where you can also find a full list of features.