Sincere & Co. Chairman Richard Sincere and Chief Technology Officer Peter Flynn have been early adopters of technology well before our company's inception. In this section, we offer recommendations for those technologies we have found helpful for office management and business travel. Ideal for both large and small companies, some are particularly helpful for those with employees across multiple office locations.
As computers go further and further down in price many of us accumulate extra laptops or desktops around our offices. One of the problems we face is there isn't always an extra copy of Microsoft Office to install nor do we feel like spending a few hundred dollars to purchase a new copy just for a computer we might only use occasionally. One alternative is to install OpenOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office.
OpenOffice is open-source software, meaning a community of programmers work together to develop and refine it, rather than a single company. In most ways the interface is very similar to Microsoft office and many of the commands are the same. Additionally, the vast majority of formatting options are supported so that you can open almost any Microsoft document using it.
When you install OpenOffice, it comes with a complete array of programs including a document editor, spreadsheet software, presentation software and database tools. Even better, it takes up less storage and uses less memory than a typical Microsoft office installation.
Download a copy of OpenOffice now.
Every time I get in the car and go off an errand immediately begin thinking that all the things I left on my desk and all things only to take care of when I get back. Jott is a free service that lets you call an 800 number and leave a message which is converted to text and e-mailed to you. Jott has many fans who have created all sorts of systems to use Jott in innovative ways, but at the simplest it lets you capture thoughts and ideas in a effortless manner and converts them into the most usable form available to most of us, e-mail.
There are even advanced options for notes. One of the best is that you send notes to other people as well. This is obviously a great benefit to those with assistants or working in a team.
Take one minute to sign up for Jott. Once you set it to speed dial, you'll find yourself using it more and more every day.
It happens to the best of us. We see a link for a great piece of software and before we think it we've already downloaded and installed it. Everything is great until the next morning when you try to use your computer and everything is frozen or MS Outlook suddenly gives you nothing but error messages. What happened?
What happened is that the software you installed cause a conflict with software already on your system. Of course the first thing you'll do is uninstall the program but what happens if you still get the error messages? That's where System Restore comes at.
System Restore allows you to capture a moment in time on your computer. It takes a snapshot of all your system settings and allows you to put all the pieces back together again should anything go wrong. It's even simple as:
If you take these simple steps before installing software that you download or purchase, it allows you to easily and painlessly turn back the clock on any changes you. If you ever need to turn back the clock, simply follow the instructions above but choose, "Restore my computer to an earlier time."
The faster you work, the more e-mails you process, the more attachments you wind up opening and saving all over the place. This is a cycle a lot of us fall into. I don't like having random copies of files all over the place so one of the things I regularly do is remove all the duplicates from my computer. This ensures that I won't work on one version one day and a different version the next.
It's almost impossible to manually search for duplicate files so I was especially pleased to come across Easy Duplicate Finder. What's great about it is that it's one of the easiest, fastest and simplest duplicate removers I've used. I've tried many of them and the problem is usually that no matter how well the program works the interface is either confusing or simply nonintuitive. Easy Duplicate Finder manages to have a pleasant interface that feels very intuitive and makes clean up a breeze.
One trick i use is to only compare two folders at a time, rather than simply scan my whole hard drive. This keeps the seaches and comparisons easy.
The trial version of Easy Duplicate Finder will allow you to delete up to 50 files at a time.
Inexpensive multi-location meetings via the internet
Blogging for professionals
Good client communications is one of the most important vehicles for ensuring long-term relationships. One of the most effective ways to do this is through a blog. A blog is a powerful, cost-effective alternative to a web site or electronic newsletter. We recommend TypePad, a service that hosts many of the world’s most popular blogs and small business web sites. TypePad hosts portions of our own web site for an easy-to-update, search-engine-friendly presence on the web.
Free remote access to your PC
Laptops are certainly great for uninterrupted productivity while traveling. But sometimes you can’t, or don’t want to, carry one with you. We found a free service, www.logmein.com, that allows you to access your home PC from work, or your work PC from home, or either while you’re away from both. It’s double password-protected for added security. We compared it to another service that charges $19.95 per month and saw no major differences. Everyone who travels should sign up for this service (you just have to keep your computer on in order to log in remotely).
Free long distance and conference calling
A friend was telling us how she talks for hours to her son in New Zealand, and it’s free using Skype. We discovered Skype a few years ago and have often used it for conferencing up to five people at one time. Skype is a VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology that millions of people use. Skype enables PC to PC calls, conference calls (up to 5 users), etc. between Skype users. The basic download is free and you can’t beat the price for international calling. You can also upgrade to get PC-to-land line or PC-to-cell phone capabilities, plus more. All you need is a PC running Windows 2000 or XP.
Not everyone types rapidly or accurately. Even people with great typing skills might sometimes prefer to have someone else type for them. Recently, some of our employees began using Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software. We were amazed how far dictation software has come.
Remote data backup and recovery
Last summer, one of our brand new computers crashed and because of the warranty, the vendor removed the hard drive and replaced it with a new one, making it difficult to retrieve the data that had been stored on it. Fortunately, we subscribe to Data Deposit Box™, a remote data backup service that allows you to back up, restore, and share files. We simply logged onto the web site and restored all the data onto the new hard drive.
