Web Worker Daily

Most web-based invoicing apps offer similar features, allowing you to customize and email invoices, track payments and view reports. WorkingPoint, formerly Netbooks, is an easy-to-use app that does all that, plus by partnering with direct marketing company VerticalResponse it gives users a way to create and manage email communications with clients. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe it’s just because I was an English major, but the names people give to their web apps never cease to rouse my sense of curiosity. Hence my attraction to Ronin, which had me more eager to try out a new invoicing app than I ever have been in recent memory. It doesn’t hurt that it also happens to be monthly invoicing time, which I have come to dread like no other. Hopefully Ronin can help alleviate my terror.

At first glance, using the press demo supplied, it appears to be a very nicely put together web app. The UI is clean and pleasant, with a typical shades-of-gray-with-soft-edges Web 2.0 color scheme, and a blog-style navigation tree under the header. If I have to be making up invoices, at least I don’t have to be doing it via an ugly interface. Read the rest of this entry »

I never got into Microsoft Access. Maybe this is not the best thing to admit in an online publication like this one, where my admission will be indexed and archived, conceivably, for the rest of recorded history. So, as a note to future employers: By the time you are reading this, I will have mastered Microsoft Access. But for now, I don’t get it.

In the meantime, I still need to use databases on occasion. When I do, I generally turn to the inelegant and probably inappropriate solution that is Microsoft Excel. I’ve even been known to use tables created in Word. What can I say, I have a deep-seated mistrust of numbers and their attendant programs. As I do to solve most problems, I turned to the web for a better answer. That’s where I ran into Grubba. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve seen my fair share of online project management apps during my time here at WebWorkerDaily. Generally speaking, they all claim to reduce the stress produced by the project management process, but Zen is a good candidate for the most bravely named among these apps. It definitely raised my expectations, at any rate.

Zen also uses a lot of other buzzwords with which those well-educated in PM practices with which will no doubt be familiar. It claims to be a “lean” PM solution, and talks about the service being able to replace a manual kanban board and spreadsheet. I was expecting to see the ghost of Six Sigma also raise its ugly head somewhere in the promotional materials, but luckily, no such specter appeared.

I was especially interested in the claim that Zen works on a “board” rather than a “list” basis, and to see what effect that would have on my actual project management habits. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve covered a lot of scheduling software here on WWD. For example, I wrote about When Is Good, a lightweight solution that offered very basic, easy-to-access scheduling for busy folks, and there are many other services available, too, as apparent from the “Calendars and Schedules” section of this post. A new service, ScheduleOnce, advertises itself with the tagline “Find a time in no time” and claims to deliver “more scheduling power for your Google Calendar.”

If I believed the hype from all of these scheduling services, I’d have to assume that we were all just careening around haphazardly, making and breaking so many appointments and meetings that we lose all sense of time and date. In practice, I think that most of the time the most scheduling software I need is my iPhone and its built-in Calendar application. That said, there are definitely times when scheduling using Google Calendar, which I already use for group-related activities, would make more sense. Read the rest of this entry »

A poll can be a great way to start online conversations, discover trends or get feedback from customers. ProProfs Polls offers a quick and easy option with good features.

Like most free polling services, ProProfs lets you create and share the polls online, but it includes features not found in every polling service that might make it the right one for you.

Features

Here’s an overview of ProProfs key features. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing will motivate you to achieve your goals like making other people aware of the specifics of what you’re aiming to accomplish. At least for me, the threat of public shame is a great tool you can use to prevent yourself from giving up on your dreams. Making others aware of your plans also has the added benefit of potentially providing you with great feedback about how you might best go about carrying through with them, too. The web is a great place to publicize your professional goals, especially if that’s where you do the bulk of your work. But just tweeting your aim doesn’t mean it’ll come through. As with most things, a plan will help increase your chances of success.

Step 1: Alert the People You Trust

If you’re worried about the feasibility of your goals, bouncing them off of your closest friends and relatives is a sure way of getting some invaluable early feedback. You probably have some good friends who aren’t afraid to make you look foolish (and, in fact, might relish the opportunity), so you don’t have to worry that they’ll pull punches to spare your feelings. Conversely, if you have a good idea, they won’t summarily cut you down, like some of your more trollish online contacts might. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get into my review of Feng Office, yet another app that aims to provide one-stop shopping for calendar, email, task and contact management, I want to take a moment to address cost issues. Feng Office, like a lot of apps I’ve come across lately, doesn’t offer a free version. At minimum, it costs $10 a month. While at first, I balked at testing out paid solutions, I now believe that so long as the app offers a high degree of professional-caliber fit and finish, it may be worth the price even when compared with free offerings in the same category.

So is Feng Office worth the price of admission? To some extent, that will always depend on your available budget, but here are my impressions. Read the rest of this entry »