March 10th, 2008 — Design, Tools
If you are looking for a new website for your business or group, I encourage you to check out the offerings from Element Fusion. Tim Wall and the fine folks there have turned out a top-notch service with their Water CMS system. It features all of the elements you would expect - calendar, blogs, forms, photos, etc, but this isn’t a cookie-cutter service. It’s built for custom design so you can get exactly the look and feel you want without sacrificing usability.
With price plans to fit any need, including a free trial, give it a shot and see how a Water click-and-publish site can get you and up running with a professional look and feel.
If you’re a designer or agency - check out their LightCMS product which allows you to incorporate their professional tools into your custom design. Provide top-notch service to your clients with a site they can manage themselves.
March 2nd, 2008 — Design, Tools
Ready to launch a new site design but want to make sure it is cross browser compatible? Browsershots is a great free open-source online service that makes screenshots of your design in several different browsers.
Using the power of distributed computing, when your job is up in queue a number of computers will open your site in their browser and upload your screenshots to the central server.
The choices are staggering really - choose screen sizes, colors, java, flash and more. Really very helpful and highly recommended.
February 23rd, 2008 — Design, Tools
Wufoo is an easy to use application that makes the process of form building and online data collection a breeze. Using a simple drag and drop interface, it’s a snap to create a good looking online form to drop into your website or blog.
With powerful integrated statistics, excellent data export features and full reporting and notification capabilities, Wufoo’s offerings are impressive indeed. I especially like the flexibility they offer in theming - whether you are a novice or you need full CSS / XHTML mark up, the options for integration into your site are outstanding.
Check out the Top 10 Reasons you should be using Wufoo, look through the sample gallery, and then check out their plan offerings - a free account is available to let you experience their service without risk..
February 19th, 2008 — Productivity
The folks at 37Signals rolled out some major upgrades to it’s trusty Backpack service today, repositioning it as a small business intranet with a host of enhanced features and multi-user capabilities.
Added are shared calendars, the newsroom dashboard, messaging capabilities and multi-user reminders. While always quite handy as a personal information repository, the new multi-user capabilities turn Backpack into a real small business information powerhouse or even a lightweight project manager.
Read about the new features or take a tour.
February 11th, 2008 — Productivity
I’ve recenly been evaluating Teamwork Project Manager as a means to keep my projects and teams on task and on schedule. Featuring a nice clean interface, efficient time and task tracking (including due dates on individual tasks), and really nice collaboration options, I’m really impressed by all of the available features.
Support has been prompt and excellent, updates are frequent, and communication from the developers via their blog is outstanding.
The online project management arena is crowded for sure, but I recommend giving this one a shot if you are in the market for such a solution. Try a demo or sign up for a free account.
