Business Productivity category

7 Reasons to Consider Online Faxing

Posted on Sunday 24 February 2013 @ 12:09 am
One data transfer method that appears to be here to stay is faxing. Whether you need to move papers with signatures, require a secure way to transfer documents faster than using a courier, or just need to interoperate with other systems, you no longer need to be tied to that old-fashioned fax mac...


Free online invoicing tool with social networking feature

Posted on Friday 8 April 2011 @ 12:26 am
Recently a friend of mine asked if I know of any online invoicing tool that he could use for free. photo credit: PhillipC His client which is based in another country suggested that he send over e-Invoices rather than faxing or snail mailing invoices which requires more time to process and is als...


Best way to track time spent on multiple projects with Toggl

Posted on Friday 11 February 2011 @ 12:41 am
When I was an IT consultant a few years back, I remember how difficult it was to track the time spent on multiple projects. photo credit: Cara Photography While working on a key project, I'll occasionally need to help out on other projects elsewhere. At the end of each month when it's time to ...


LionClock – a time & attendance management software

Posted on Tuesday 1 February 2011 @ 12:27 am
Okay, you are a small business owner and you have got two to two hundred employees working for you.  Some of these employees may be your salaried employees and some others may be on hourly basis of work.  In all such scenario, effective management of (i) time cards (ii) payrolls turns out to be th...


SocialCast – microblogging collaboration for the enterprise

Posted on Thursday 27 January 2011 @ 12:47 am
Success in the corporate world today is all about working smart and becoming more productive. In this respect, Socialcast is a highly recommended tool to power your business by facilitating closer collaboration among your workers and optimizing human resources. Even if you are not in the office, ...


Distraction Free Writing Tools for Linux Users

Posted on Saturday 4 December 2010 @ 4:07 pm
Distractions are the bane of many writers. photo credit: Stephen Fulljames You sit down to write the next best seller and the next thing you know, you have wasted an hour reading your friends' Facebook status updates. Distraction free text editors, such as Darkroom for Windows and WriteRoom fo...


MindTouch Core Review

Posted on Wednesday 24 November 2010 @ 12:20 am
I recently got the chance to try out MindTouch Core by installing it on my Windows Vista machine. photo credit: Roebot In case you haven't heard of MindTouch Core (formerly known as Deki Wiki), it's basically a free and open source collaboration platform which is ranked as one of the top open so...


How to create a slideshow with music and pictures

Posted on Wednesday 10 November 2010 @ 12:06 am
Recently a friend asked if I know of a way to create a simple slideshow with music and pictures in it which can eventually be published on the web for his potential customers to view easily. My initial response to him was to use Microsoft Powerpoint and save the ppt file as a single file web page...


Shoeboxed – an alternative to DIY NeatReceipts

Posted on Thursday 8 July 2010 @ 12:18 am
Several months back, I wrote a post about how you can better manage paper receipts using Expensify. Basically with Expensify, all you need to do in order to manage paper receipts is simply take a picture or scan it and send it over to your dedicated Expensify account and a digital copy of the rec...


WebEx free alternative – Mikogo for online meeting & more

Posted on Thursday 27 May 2010 @ 12:07 am
Being able to provide your customer with a proper support is a key to success in today’s business. photo credit: Iain Farrell If you’re an IT guy and don’t want to rush to your clients each time a minor problem arise, a simple telephone call or email may just not be enough. You may requi...


Adaptive Planning Review – alternative to Excel for Budgeting and Forecasting

Posted on Thursday 18 March 2010 @ 12:08 am
When it comes to entering data whether it is sales forecast or IT budget, we usually enter the data into a spreadsheet software like Excel or Google Docs. The other day, a friend of mine asked if I know of any alternative to using Excel for budgeting and forecasting purposes. Every beginning o...


StatusNet – an open source microblogging tool like Twitter

Posted on Friday 12 March 2010 @ 12:28 am
Do you or your colleagues use Twitter to keep people updated with what’s going on with your life? Many celebrities use Twitter to keep their fans updated like where there are currently and what they’re currently working on, etc. Whenever they tweet a new message, their followers (fans) would ...


How to type effectively on a faulty keyboard

Posted on Saturday 9 January 2010 @ 12:56 am
A few days ago while using my 1-year-old DELL Inspiron 1420 notebook, the alphabet letter 'L' seemed stuck and there's just no way I could press on it. Image by striatic. It feels as if there's something stuck underneath the keypad which is stopping it from being pressed. It's really annoying ...


Use mind map to help prepare your IT presentation

Posted on Thursday 31 December 2009 @ 12:27 am
Most of you have had to do some PowerPoint presentation to an audience. For many this is a frightening event, associated with sweat, anxiety and even a sleepless night or two. Photo by tobiastoft. Few of us are born public speakers. With some basic techniques and some experience usually it become...


3 tools to easily backup your Microsoft Outlook emails

Posted on Thursday 15 October 2009 @ 12:09 am
If your notebook or desktop computer gets stolen or become lost somehow, what is the one most important data or file that you wished you had backed up just before it got lost? Image by Stephen Edgar - Netweb. Depending on how you use your computer, I believe most corporate users would say that it...


How to publish a spreadsheet on the web

Posted on Wednesday 16 September 2009 @ 12:04 am
Today I got an email notification from the Google Adsense Blog about Introducing Google Web Elements. Basically with Google Web Elements, you can add Google products onto your website. If your website is currently a little bit empty, you can choose to publish on your site any of the following Goo...


How to access Google Docs files from the desktop

Posted on Monday 31 August 2009 @ 12:12 am
How many of you currently use Google Docs free service? Thumbs up! Photo by TheTruthAbout. Google Docs is a free office productivity application which is hosted by Google itself. All you need to do in order to use Google Docs is to sign up for a free account and begin to create and collaborate on...


How to open and view .mpp file without MS Project installed

Posted on Thursday 20 August 2009 @ 12:34 am
Recently we've been working on a few projects which require us to utilize Microsoft Project for project planning and scheduling purposes. Once the plan(.mpp file) was completed, we then sent it out via email for all project stakeholders to view and comment on. Within 10 minutes later, one part...


How to create a cascading drop down list in Sharepoint

Posted on Wednesday 5 August 2009 @ 12:47 am
As a Sharepoint developer, I was once asked to create a cascading drop down list which works in within a custom list. Basically what's required is when a user chooses on a drop down list say region, once selected it will show all countries in within the chosen region and finally show all cities w...


Why I still use Microsoft Word over other word editors

Posted on Thursday 30 July 2009 @ 12:56 am
I have been using Microsoft Word for many many years and until now, I still do. There are many free word editors out there in the market today such as Google Apps, OpenOffice, Lotus Symphony. However, I’m still using Microsoft Word extensively today! If you’re wondering why, I would say it...


Create small charts within excel for dashboard purposes

Posted on Wednesday 29 July 2009 @ 12:17 am
Have you ever presented a powerpoint document with charts generated via excel for your boss and she comes back to you saying, I don't have time to go through your 20 slides Powerpoint! I want a one page report with everything in it! And I want it fast! Ouch! Now you're left wondering how you coul...


Convert Excel together with its formulas to HTML, ASP.NET or JAVA

Posted on Tuesday 9 June 2009 @ 12:10 am
Have an excel document with lots of working formulas in it? Need a way to make this excel doc of yours available to the public or an internal team via the web? Is there such solution to help with this conversion? The answer is, Yes! There is, and it's called.... Spreadsheet Convertor @ Exce...


An alternative to OpenOffice and Microsoft Office

Posted on Thursday 28 May 2009 @ 12:46 am
Many times, when organizations do not have the budget to invest in Microsoft Office, they would go for an open source alternative such as OpenOffice. However, some users said they still preferred Microsoft Office after trying out OpenOffice for a couple of days. Since cost was an issue, they a...