As often as possible, I try to manage business with online tools and sites that can save me time or improve collaboration. I manage projects using Basecamp. I IM with our remote team members using Trillian. I log into email through any number of services. I VPN to my corporate office. I connect remotely with Outlook from anywhere. As much as I might hate it, I live and work online.
So, last week when I cleared my cookies during a basic disk cleanup, I was cursing myself for not protecting my passwords. I can't find my login to Basecamp. I only remember two of my three Trillian IM account IDs. I don't know the new password that IT gave me for Outlook. In other words, I'm lost in the online wilderness without a map or compass.
This week, I'm testing several services that offer tools to store, protect, and manage my user accounts and passwords for all of the different sites that I use.
I started with RoboForm, a password manager and form filler available to home and office users. While it is not an online service, RoboForm is a simple plugin to IE and other browsers so that when I type in typical forms, passwords, links and logins, RoboForm helps me manage the list.
With RoboForm, simply using links and login "teaches" RoboForm your favorites, logins, and passwords. RoboForm keeps a list of my links, and logs me in automatically. Now, the true test is if RoboForm can remember my passwords after I clear cookies. I've tested in on several sites, and so far, RoboForm keeps track of everything even if I screw up and clear all my passwords in Windows IE7.
Though I like to think that I'm savvy about security, I do occasionally see email that makes me think to call my bank or brokerage. Some of these Phishing scams, emails to scam you out of your login or account data, get quite sophisticated and believable. RoboForm fights Phishing scams by entering passwords only on matching websites, so the system won't pass your information to untrusted sources.
I'm still on the free trial period, but so far RoboForm looks like a product I will buy. It's got a great way to keep me organized against my future mistakes with passwords, and save me much frustration combing gigabytes of old emails looking for the right login!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Web Work
Like any small company, ours has tried to keep travel costs under control by leveraging online meetings and collaboration tools. Here's a quick list of some of the solutions that deserve your attention:
Roll Call, an ILD company, offers low cost web and audio conferencing with a full range of features for beginners and advanced webinar gurus. I love it because we get a full service solution without a monthly fee per user. I just send out my bridge and login info, and I'm only charged for the time that I use. The webinar service is top notch and makes it easy for me to work with vendors, customers, remote workers and satellite offices. I can present slides, push content, share my desktop, and give control to other users at the click of the mouse. Systems are so user friendly that I delivered my first presentation with 30 minutes of getting my account.
Basecamp, from 37 Signals, offers some of the coolest project management and collaboration tools available as an web service. I log in, create a portal, add users, and we are off. With Basecamp, I can create milestones, build to do lists, create and assign tasks, collaborate on designs and copy, posts messages, files and lists, track time and progress, and link users anywhere with a web connection. Best of all, for $49 a month, I can have up to 15 projects and unlimited users.
This company has quickly become indispensable to me, and I'm considering their other solutions as well. They have a personal organizer called Backpack, a full featured CRM called Highrise, as well as chat, called Campfire. Each site has simple videos to coach you through how to set up the service. In reality, it's so user friendly that you'll be up and running in minutes. And the company blog is worthwhile reading anytime. It's a real glimpse into the creative people applying interesting design ideas to the Web 2.0+ world. Check them out.
Anyone worried about IM at the office should sit back, take a deep breath and pop a Valium. IM is here to stay, so find a way to leverage it for your business. My biggest gripe about IM is trying to keep track of the different IM accounts and services that I have. Enter Trillian, a cool app that manages accounts for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and pulls together all of your contacts, IMs and webmail alerts. With Trillian running, I can IM with groups across all of my accounts in one interface, instead of being logged into two or three services. Best of all, it avoids the system crashes that AOL IM used to cause on my system. No spam, no garbage, just easy instant messaging. It's free and easy to install. I require it for my support teams so that everyone can keep in touch regardless of where they work. Get started with Trillian today.
Roll Call, an ILD company, offers low cost web and audio conferencing with a full range of features for beginners and advanced webinar gurus. I love it because we get a full service solution without a monthly fee per user. I just send out my bridge and login info, and I'm only charged for the time that I use. The webinar service is top notch and makes it easy for me to work with vendors, customers, remote workers and satellite offices. I can present slides, push content, share my desktop, and give control to other users at the click of the mouse. Systems are so user friendly that I delivered my first presentation with 30 minutes of getting my account.
Basecamp, from 37 Signals, offers some of the coolest project management and collaboration tools available as an web service. I log in, create a portal, add users, and we are off. With Basecamp, I can create milestones, build to do lists, create and assign tasks, collaborate on designs and copy, posts messages, files and lists, track time and progress, and link users anywhere with a web connection. Best of all, for $49 a month, I can have up to 15 projects and unlimited users.
This company has quickly become indispensable to me, and I'm considering their other solutions as well. They have a personal organizer called Backpack, a full featured CRM called Highrise, as well as chat, called Campfire. Each site has simple videos to coach you through how to set up the service. In reality, it's so user friendly that you'll be up and running in minutes. And the company blog is worthwhile reading anytime. It's a real glimpse into the creative people applying interesting design ideas to the Web 2.0+ world. Check them out.
Anyone worried about IM at the office should sit back, take a deep breath and pop a Valium. IM is here to stay, so find a way to leverage it for your business. My biggest gripe about IM is trying to keep track of the different IM accounts and services that I have. Enter Trillian, a cool app that manages accounts for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and pulls together all of your contacts, IMs and webmail alerts. With Trillian running, I can IM with groups across all of my accounts in one interface, instead of being logged into two or three services. Best of all, it avoids the system crashes that AOL IM used to cause on my system. No spam, no garbage, just easy instant messaging. It's free and easy to install. I require it for my support teams so that everyone can keep in touch regardless of where they work. Get started with Trillian today.
Xobni is In!
If you feel buried in email or feel that your life is ruled by Outlook, check out a new service called Xobni, a free download utility for Outlook. Xobni, which is "In Box" spelled backward, is a cool new app to help you organize email, contacts, and appointments across Outlook.
Xobni installs a toolbar in Outlook that basically connects lots of obvious data and puts it at your fingertips. With each new email, you see the sender's full communication history in the toolbar. Power users can add pictures to the Xobni contacts for more face to face appeal. Xobni also extracts phone numbers from email and remembers them with your contacts. Outlook users with telephony integration can likely tweak their service to respond to those phone number fields for one click dialing. I recommend playing with that feature and reporting back to us.
Xobni speeds email searches by effectively indexing your inbox and contact lists. You can see threaded conversations in the Xobni tool bar to make tracking updates effortless. The toolbar includes cool charts to track statistics on who you email, who responds, how fast they respond, ranks of power users, etc.
One of the coolest features Xobni offers is a glimpse at email's social network. By examining and tracking BCC and CC members, Xobni shows you the email networks within your user circles. Sales people love this feature because it gives a quick glimpse at the potential network of their vendors and customers by listing at a glance who people connect with via email.
Outlook makes appointment scheduling very tedious, so Xobni put time in their scheduler. With Xobni, you can schedule appointments at the click of the mouse. The system automatically finds open slots in your schedule and coordinates tracking with ease.
I run several operations projects at any given moment, and Xobni makes it easy for me to schedule appointments, track threads, check contacts, and see who's responding to my project requests in a timely fashion. I recommend downloading Xobni and checking it out. I'm a convert.
Xobni installs a toolbar in Outlook that basically connects lots of obvious data and puts it at your fingertips. With each new email, you see the sender's full communication history in the toolbar. Power users can add pictures to the Xobni contacts for more face to face appeal. Xobni also extracts phone numbers from email and remembers them with your contacts. Outlook users with telephony integration can likely tweak their service to respond to those phone number fields for one click dialing. I recommend playing with that feature and reporting back to us.
Xobni speeds email searches by effectively indexing your inbox and contact lists. You can see threaded conversations in the Xobni tool bar to make tracking updates effortless. The toolbar includes cool charts to track statistics on who you email, who responds, how fast they respond, ranks of power users, etc.
One of the coolest features Xobni offers is a glimpse at email's social network. By examining and tracking BCC and CC members, Xobni shows you the email networks within your user circles. Sales people love this feature because it gives a quick glimpse at the potential network of their vendors and customers by listing at a glance who people connect with via email.
Outlook makes appointment scheduling very tedious, so Xobni put time in their scheduler. With Xobni, you can schedule appointments at the click of the mouse. The system automatically finds open slots in your schedule and coordinates tracking with ease.
I run several operations projects at any given moment, and Xobni makes it easy for me to schedule appointments, track threads, check contacts, and see who's responding to my project requests in a timely fashion. I recommend downloading Xobni and checking it out. I'm a convert.
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