Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Software

The Productive Online Business Toolbox: My Must-Have Tools

March 22, 2011

As many of you know, I’m a work at home mom who operates as a consultant, ad sales manager for Mashable, and soon-to-be startup founder all from one single Dell laptop which I use as a desktop. Having a home office is both a blessing and a curse; the ability not to commute makes my life easier and saves me about 3-4 hours per day. However, that also means I’m working from morning until night. While some would like to have a defined 9-5 schedule, I do not, and I actually thrive in this environment.

I don’t think that’d have been the case without the web-based toolbox and the PC apps that have saved my life more than once. Hopefully, they’ll do the same for you. Here’s a list of what I use that makes me productive, from time savers to the must have tools that rock my world.

Gmail

I still talk to so many people who use Outlook. It’s a nice tool but it’s not as portable as Gmail, and I stick by it. Here are my tips for the best use of Gmail:

  • Use Gmail as a one-stop destination. Currently, I use Gmail as the exclusive “destination” for 11 email accounts.
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10 Social Media Tools To Help With Your Crowdsourcing Efforts

December 31, 2009

Since we’re about to jump into 2010 (that’s “twenty ten,” everyone), I wanted to ring in the new year with something that will hopefully kick start your collaborative efforts. This is a guest post from Shevonne Polastre, who wrote this article on behalf of TopHost.Gr, a Greek web host that offers shared hosting.

Crowdsourcing has become more and more popular with private companies, non-profit organizations, and even government agencies. It’s a model that is based on many people contributing to an idea, product, or service that would have usually been done by one person. Crowdsourcing has become increasingly more widely used because it helps cultivate creativity and innovation. There are three main reasons why this model works:

  1. Crowdsourcing builds competition – In an environment where one person is the one having the power to build something, mediocrity is usually the final result. When you have a group of people submitting their work, there is an awareness that it isn’t just one idea that will work, so the result is a higher quality of work. As they saying goes, competition breeds excellence.
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Revisiting the 80s: Apple II Games

December 19, 2006

And now for something completely different.

I grew up on an Apple IIgs. I must have been six or seven years old when my father bought it for our family. I remember spending my computer time learning how to use a mouse with some pretty addictive games — and then there was Bolo.

The Apple IIgs days were pretty exciting, but they didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. For about 18 years, I completely forgot about what I did on the Apple II (and my favorite game Bolo, including the title of the game) until the game screen flashed into my head this past weekend. I was determined to find that game to relive my childhood.

My efforts asking peers were fruitless. Not many people were using computers at all in the 80s. The revolution began in the 90s when computers were deemed to be useful tools for every home.

I searched and searched, and thanks to Webomatica, I found out the name of the game and took it from there. I can’t believe there are emulators for this — but I guess there’s nothing to do now that the Apple II has been replaced by bigger, better, and more powerful machines.

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Firefox 2.0 Unleashed

October 29, 2006

Occasionally, I’ll post a little more when the hype dies down. Earlier this week, Firefox 2.0 was released (following the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0), and while I’ve upgraded both versions, I’m still getting acquainted enough with the new interface and don’t simply want to reiterate what others have been saying.

First Impressions

I have about 15 extensions, all of which I will highlight in a later post, and all except two or three (Spellbound Development being one of these — but that was understandable — more on this later) worked right out of the box.

Firefox Icon Theme (Default)The graphical user interface was not much different than Firefox 1.5, which has made me wonder why it was an official “2.0″ release rather than 1.6. I suppose it is due to the new features that became easily noticed: the “X” on individual tabs and inline spellcheck (this is why Spellbound was no longer needed).

Firefox TabsI must say that I was initially frustrated by the presence of so many “X”s on the tabs, but within a day, I was using FF 1.5 on another computer and began longing for the ability to close the tabs right on the tabs — this forced me to upgrade all of my computers to 2.0, and I haven’t regretted it.

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Installing Multiple Versions of IE on a Single Computer

October 28, 2006

Following the ability to screenshot your website on a plethora of browsers, I’ve stumbled upon another useful utility that will enable you to install multiple versions of MSIE on a single Windows computer. This application, by TredoSoft, comes in handy for the heavy developer whose audience is predominantly stuck in an IE world (we all know the not-so-tech-savvy people are!)

Check out this useful free utility that contains IE versions 3.0, 4.01, 5.01, 5.5, and 6.0 — but note that there are a few bugs that have been reported, such as unexpected crashes.

[Via Cartoon Barry. Thanks Barry!]

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