The following list of some tech tools I have found valuable originally appeared in my online newsletter last year. I use technology to help me save time, save money, make money and, in general, to make my life easier and more productive. I highly recommend each of the following if they fit into your technology plan.
Plantronics Discovery 640 Bluetooth Headset
www.Plantronics.com
Using this with my Treo 650 is a joy. I would urge anyone who is still wired to their cell phone or who must hold it while talking to get this amazingly small unit. While on the phone, this frees me up to move around my office, talk from my balcony overlooking the lake, move easily through airports, stay connected while doing housework and more. The only drawback: I forget that this small unit is in my ear! I have gone to sleep with it still in my ear. I have had airport security folks remind me to take it off before going through the metal detector, and I have stepped into the shower with it still place several times! Make sure that your phone or PDA is Bluetooth compatible before ordering this device, of course. List price is $129.95 through Plantronics; only $62.79 at Buy.com.
Skype VOIP
www.Skype.com
I have mentioned many times how great I think this product is. It’s free, and VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) allows you to talk from your computer (if you attach a microphone, of course) to anyone else who is at their computer and who has Skype installed. No cost for the call, so I use it all the time to talk with my son, who lives in Japan. Sound quality is excellent: no lag time, and he sounds like he’s calling from down the street. My notebook has a built-in microphone and camera, he has a microphone and plugged-in camera for his desktop, and we talk as long as we want….for free.
Check out Skype’s fee services, too, while you are at their site. Their Skype Unlimited service lets you call any phone in the US and Canada for just $29.95 a year. No connection charges, no per minute charges.
USB Flash (Thumb) Drive
Some of us remember the days when copying files from one computer to another meant using floppy discs with limited storage, having to find a program that would let us copy material too large to fit on one floppy, etc. Now, I just plug my thumb drive into any open USB slot on any computer and get the file. A real time saver, and there are other uses for a thumb drive. I load my PowerPoint presentations to my thumb drive before leaving to do a seminar, for example. If my computer goes down while on the road, I just have to use someone else’s and either transfer the presentation to his or her computer or give it right from the thumb drive.
Tiny URL
www.TinyURL.com
This is a great, free service! It allows you to take a long URL, one that you want to include in an email or in your newsletter, for example, and shorten it dramatically. This is both handy and necessary, since the long URL will often not work when clicked on. Heres is an example of how TinyURL eliminates this problem.
Long link: http://www.google.com/search?q=usb+thumb+drive&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
TinyURL’s replacement: http://tinyurl.com/ahk4k
It’s easy to use. Simply copy your long link into the “Enter A Long URL” field on their site, click, and you instantly get the replacement link. Again, it’s free.
IHateSpam
www.Sunbelt-Software.com
Only $19.95, IHateSpam does a great job of filtering spam on my computers. It also has a host of features, as you can see on their site. Three of the most useful are that I can quickly see a list of the quarantined messages in order to see if any “real” messages have been eliminated, recover and read the message, and I can insure that your messages are not quarantined in the future.
GoToMeeting
www.GoToMeeting.com
This is a very valuable free service for online meetings of up to 10 people. As mentioned elsewhere on my blog, I use it for get-togethers of my CyberStars® and also with my consulting clients.
It is very easy to use. You, as the organizer, just set a meeting date and time and then send out invitations. Those invited call a number and log in to the conference call and also go to a password protected Web site where they can see what is on your screen. You can pass off screen viewing to anyone who has signed on.
Among the ways you might use GoToMeeting are Webinars for clients or Webinars for sharing marketing tips with other agents, no matter where they live.
Hope some of these are of use to you!
It's a great day here on the lake in Reston...hope it's a great day where you are, too!
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GoToMeeting worked well for today's meeting - it's the first time I've used it. May also need to look into your Plantronics.