One of my favorite and most often-used features in Microsoft Word is Track Changes. For the uninitiated, Track Changes lets the document creator see what changes an editor makes to an original document. Unfortunately, while PowerPoint has a Review tab, it is limited to adding comments — it has no Track Changes feature. So reviewers have to get creative in referencing the original content and then making note of suggested changes using comments.
Workshare Compare for PowerPoint gives you the ability to compare two PowerPoint files and see the differences between them. While it doesn’t track changes while you edit the PowerPoint file, like Word does, it does give you the ability to see the changes that have been made between versions of a presentation. Read the rest of this entry »
Twitter lists are a great way to group people into various categories, filter conversations, keep up with experts within a specific field and track a topic without needing to follow all of the relevant users — and can even be used as an RSS reader replacement. Despite being such a new feature, people are already using lists as a measure of influence.
I’ve spent the last few years working with online communities and collaboration technologies, and have come to expect to be able to collaborate with people when using online social tools. As a result, I wish that Twitter lists were more collaborative. Right now, Twitter lists and accounts have a one-to-one relationship. I create a list, and I’m the only person who can edit it. I started thinking about this limitation when Rael Dornfest created his Portland Food Cart list. I’m a huge fan of the Portland food cart scene, so I decided to follow his list instead of creating yet another one. The downside was that as there were some food carts missing from his list, I needed to send @replies to Rael to get him to add them — I couldn’t just add them myself. Read the rest of this entry »
Today marks the start of the fifth birthday celebration of my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox. I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble getting my head around the fact that it’s 5 years old — that makes me feel a little old myself!
In 2004, when Firefox 1.0 was launched, the first browser wars were all but over. Microsoft (msft) had beaten Netscape, Internet Explorer was — by far — the dominant browser, and those of us who actually cared about things like web standards were looking on in despair. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill On Site offers the ability to manage invoices from your mobile phone. No matter where you are, as long as your phone has a web browser, you can send an invoice to your client immediately — you don’t need to have a computer at hand. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday I took part in my first Jelly session — and I’ve got to say it was a fun and productive experience that I will be repeating in the future. Jellies are informal, free coworking events that are open to anyone. There were 10 participants at the Jelly I attended, from a range of different backgrounds although they were mainly freelancers, as you might expect. At times, particularly in the morning, the atmosphere was studious and productive, but there was also some interesting chat and opportunities to make new connections.
I always find that a change of scenery does me good, but considering that I was working in a room with 10 other people, sitting around a conference table, and occasionally getting stuck into conversation, I was surprised at the amount of work I got through (and that’s despite the speed of the Wi-Fi connection getting a little slow with 10 people working away).
If you’re feeling a bit isolated at home (or perhaps you just want to brainstorm some ideas) and would like to try out the coworking experience, but perhaps aren’t quite ready to commit to membership of a coworking space, attending a Jelly would be a good first step. Read the rest of this entry »
37signals’ Haystack promises to make finding a web designer easy, offering a simplified way to search for clients looking to hire a professional. While it’s a useful tool for someone with a web design project, it can also prove useful for web designers. Read the rest of this entry »
Israel “Izzy” Hyman’s passion is video. He’s a video podcaster who makes a living producing three different online shows:
- Izzy Video — How to shoot and edit video. It covers a wide range of topics like cinematography, lighting, recording good audio, gear, editing and distribution.
- Paperclipping.com — This show is hosted by Hyman’s wife, Noell, and it’s all about scrapbooking and design principles.
- Rolling R’s — This show is hosted by Hyman’s friend, Larry Keim, and teaches people the Spanish language.
All three are membership sites where some of the content is available for free, but the majority of the material is available to paid members only. I caught up with Hyman to ask him a few questions about the work he does, and how he does it. Below is an edited transcript of our interview:
Simon: How did you originally get into video? And what made you decide to start blogging about it? Read the rest of this entry »
The browser war continues to rage unabated, with the end result being better products for us, the users. This past week has seen significant beta updates to my two favorite browsers: Chrome and Firefox. I’ve been playing with beta 1 of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.6. This new version of Firefox boasts improved performance, personas (the ability to easily switch between different skins for your browser), and updated support for web standards, including support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
