Entries Tagged 'Tools' ↓

Are you an avid Jing user? Do you use print-screen on a constant basis? Then I’ve got some news that you are going to love. Microsoft has a great set of utilities called PowerToys for Windows XP. There are some interesting and cool utilities available, but my favorite by far, hands-down is the Image Resizer plug-in. It ads the functionality to Right-click in Windows where you can resize the image without launching a secondary photo editor. If you need an image resized within a certain height and width (like for posting to a blog) then enter those parameters and say OK. Also, to keep the clutter down, check “Resize the original pictures” and the image saved will be replaced.

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One of the biggest challenges a small business, freelancer, or consultant typically faces is accurately tracking their time and billing. FreshBooks offers a painless way to manage this process from your initial estimate on through to accepting your payment. With a thoughtful interface and rich feature set, FreshBooks tracks your time, sends and manages invoices (by mail or email), tracks payments, sends out late notices, and much more.

As unlikely as you are to need it, FreshBooks also has the best Customer Service team I have ever interacted with. Their phone number is prominently displayed on their home page and they seem genuinely happy when you use it. This is a team that loves their product and wants nothing more than for it to work well for you - and in my experience it will.

Looking for a way to scoot around the web without leaving a trail behind? There are a slew of anonymous proxy servers on the web. The one I’ve landed on is called ZZoop! For web developers, sometimes it’s advantageous to be able to hit your site from outside a corporate network. Anonymous proxies gives you that ability. What I like most about ZZoop! is that it’s ad driven rather than subscription, so there’s no limit to the number of sites you can hit.

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Well, it finally happened. After years of Google being my home page, I’ve made the switch to smplr.com. Maybe it’s because of the great triggers that enables you to access a list of sites including Google through one query box. Or maybe it’s the eye candy of the page design. The plain white page has lost it’s luster for me. Essential to any browser home page is lightening quick load and smplr.com delivers.

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Just a few weeks ago I stumbled onto Notepad++. I was looking for a quick loading, no frills code editor to replace Windows Notepad and Notepad++ did the trick. It has a nice features set, a good number of additional built-in features and available plug-ins.

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