Cool Tools – Part II

Posted: 02 Mar 2013 12:28 AM PST

Doodle Scheduling

Hook up Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCal. Set up a page for people to see your availability. Poll participants to see which time option is best for the group. Invite them all to this scheduled time for the meeting and request confirmation. It is all free, though there are paid versions with many useful features, particularly for teams.

Wave Accounting

You do not need any accounting experience to run this program. It is easy to use for collaboration. This free version is truly free and unlimited. It is an online solution, hosted, so you may or may not feel comfortable with your company’s financial information in the hands of an Internet company. However, when you hire an accountant you are trusting a third party. So what is the difference? The difference is that this is free. You may also consider the possibility of your information being hacked, whereas, if it were with an accountant, the chances are nearly zero.

Shoeboxed

Your papers are cluttering your working space and driving you insane. You have so many receipts and no time to get them into the computer, though it would prove a huge convenience if they were converted. Convert your papers into electronic data. Send your receipts in to be converted for accounting, tax reasons, or whatever. It is a big relief to have this done for you and certainly worth it.

Google Alerts

Set up email alerts that tell you the stats of queries about anything you like. The best use, if you are in E-commerce, is to track your own company. This will tell you whenever anyone queries your brand or company. Tracking your reputation is important and Google Alerts is one tool that allows you to do it.

Tor Anonymity

This is a critical security protection that is amazingly absent in the normal browsing experience on all platforms. Tor stops others from learning your IP or your browsing routines. Use it with browsers, IM clients, or any other remote log-ins. It runs on Mac, Linux, Windows, and Android. Best f all, it is free.

Domain Dossier

IP’s are either true or not, but if they are real you can glean much information about someone. If you have IP addresses in your site’s logs or some security program that indicates they have been naughty, you can find out some info about them. Of course, this only works if they have not masked their IP through a proxy. However, you can discover a lot of useful info about any IP.

Whois Lookup

When you want to know who is behind a website, just do a whois lookup. It will tell you all the registration information, unless it is hidden. So if you wonder about the legitimacy of a site, you should begin with a lookup of the site and examine the contact information and geographic location. You might even burn off an email to the contact inquiring into their services or questions about their company.

Mentor Mob

Here is an original approach to education. It is a site full of presentations made by the community to help others learn about some topic. Take whatever you are passionate about and contribute a snazzy presentation. Look up whatever you need to learn fast and you are likely to find straight forward help capsulized into a presentation. They refer to them as Learning Playlists. This is a unique blending of the music industry and presentations, together with forums. When it comes down to it, this is a visual forum.