You know the routine. That computer you bought two years ago was a speed demon and never encountered problems. Now, it’s slow as molasses and ties you up in bizarre, inexplicable routines for which you have no idea what the cause is. You need a tune-up, pal. In this post, I’ll round up some simple steps that Windows users can take and a bunch of free downloads you can get that will turn that computer back into a speed demon in less than an hour. I’ll follow up with a post for Mac users.
Clean Your Registry. Not only is it important to clean your registry, but it’s important to do so regularly. Your registry becomes a litterbox over time as you cycle through installed and uninstalled software, new and old drivers, and collect spyware and adware. Windows users can do a registry washing with Glary Utilities in about 10 minutes, typically. I ran this free suite on a friend’s PC the other day and it found and repaired 129 registry problems.
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There’s certainly no shortage of online office applications these days. You can find anything from general-purpose office suites (such as Google Docs or Zoho’s ever-growing suite) to dedicated CRM solutions at a variety of price points. If you’re running a small or medium business, LongJump wants you to take a look at their offering, now available as a free trial but with subscription pricing announced starting in January.
LongJump brings four major selling points to the table. The first is a fairly extensive set of prebuilt business applications: sales force automation, lead tracking, email campaign management, IT asset tracking, deal tracking, support case management, and more. These all interconnect, so you can avoid duplicate data entry. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps a Little Too Social – Shoeboxed.com starts off by letting you upload all your scanned and electronic receipts, and then takes care of organizing and categorizing them for you. But it doesn’t stop there: this is a social web site, where you can show off what you’ve been buying and browse through stuff that other community members have bought. What’s next, social dentistry?
One for the Podcasters – TextTime is a commercial add-in for Microsoft Word and Adobe InCopy that lets you mark a section of text and see how long it will take to read, at a variety of speeds from “preacher” to “sports reporter.” Looks like a nice supplement to word counts and column inches for the multimedia age.
But if They Really Are Out to Get You… – NoteHere gives you a way to store notes online protected by your own unique encryption key. Assuming you pick a decently strong key, this gives you access from anywhere along with some protection from prying eyes.
All Work and No Play – Is not what you will find at Doof, a new “online playground” that is sort of a social network crossed with a batch of browser-based games. Play in tournaments, chat with people, post to a Twitterlike status area, explore your friends’ spaces…if they missed any possible way to absorb all of your free time, I don’t know what that would be.
Think You Can Do Better? – The flip side of Firebrand (which lets you watch an endless stream of commercials instead of content) is the now-in-beta AdWidth, which invites you to create and upload your own commercials for their featured brands. They plan to allow you to somehow monetize your efforts in the future if you can create a popular spot.
Send us your own quick links for WWD Coffee Break to tips@webworkerdaily.com.
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
