Admins @ Work » Organization

Mint – Refreshing Money Management

Erin Colbert — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:35:56 +0000

With the tax season in full bloom I thought this would be an appropriate site to share with you. Mint is an online money management site that pulls data securely from your bank accounts and credit cards. It provides a dashboard view of all your expenses to help you better manage your money.

They are secure and private because they don’t store your user names, passwords, or account numbers. You can separate your work accounts from your home accounts or even view joint accounts as an individual. Wouldn’t it be great to not have to keep those long Excel spreadsheets anymore? Or for some, the long checking account books and hand-written budgets. You can easily compare your spending month-to-month and get alerts about bill payments and due dates.

Take a tour of Mint’s features and hopefully you’ll be on your way to a brighter financial future.

Why You Need An iPhone

Erin Colbert — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:24:27 +0000

Yes, everyone is talking about them and you’re wondering what all the hype is about. It’s just a phone right? Wrong! This is the phone/computer/music player/GPS/personal assistant of the future. Here are a few features that will have you ditching your Blackberry in no time.

WiFi – your iPhone is wired for use practically everywhere! You can link up to any WiFi network to browse the internet or get connected, which means airports, Starbuck’s, your office. If there isn’t a WiFi connection, then use AT&T’s Edge cell network to get connected quickly.
Email – all of your email accounts are in one place and easy to configure. Yahoo, Gmail, .mac, AOL and Outlook accounts can all be added to the phone. So, there’s not more logging on to your personal accounts at work.
iPod – store your music on your phone. With 8GB of memory you’ll have enough room for all your favorite songs, podcasts, and movies. Plus, you can download directly from iTunes on your iPhone – no computer required!
GPS – Google Maps is built into the phone with GPS capabilities. You don’t even need an address – search for restaurants and it’ll automatically find you the closes ones to your present location.
Calendar – like email you can sync all of your account calendars into one.
Camera and Photos – of course, this phone has a camera and iPhoto built in.
World Clock – see the local time for all of your offices at a glance.

$399 may seem steep, but with all of these features it clearly beats the Blackberry, where current models are selling for $299.

Promotional Products – Look to PAW Marketing

Erin Colbert — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:50:23 +0000

The next time you’re tasked with ordering custom logo’d materials, look no further than PAW Marketing. I’ve been using them for the past 8 months and have to say they have excellent service and great rates. From pens to mugs, polo shirts to laptop bags, chocolate to notebooks – they’ve got you covered. They have an extensive selection on their website, but that’s just the beginning. Give them a call and they’ll help you find the right product at the right price. There hasn’t been an item yet that they weren’t able to source, but they’ve shown me quite a few I didn’t even know I was looking for. The team at PAW Marketing are great to work with and will make you look like a star.

Have a great idea for a promotional product or giveaway you’d like to share? Leave a comment below.

Don’t Waste Time Scheduling Time!

Erin Colbert — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:03:13 +0000

How frustrating is it when you try to schedule a meeting in Outlook and end up going back and forth, back and forth, trying to find a time that works with everyone’s schedule? Yes, Outlook is great if you can look at other’s schedules, but so many people still do not utilize all of it’s features so it can be difficult to tell if someone actually has a prior commitment or just blocked out space for a tentative event.

I first read about TimeBridge on VentureBeat, an online news blog, last week. It’s a two and a half year old startup that just launched their flagship scheduling product on December 11, 2007.

Here’s how it works: The program, which is a small download for Microsoft Outlook users or a web app for Google adherents, syncs with the user’s calendar to show which time slots are open. The user, who we’ll assume is initiating the meeting, can then highlight blocks of time that would be acceptable for a meeting.

Invitations are then sent off to the other participants, who can see all the times the organizer has available and choose their own set of open time slots. Through a process of elimination, the times that other participants can’t make it to a meeting are ruled out, and a confirmation for the best time is sent out to everyone.

I gave it a try for myself and have to say it is quite handy. I really like the tool and others who tested the web application (they didn’t want to download the software quite yet) had good luck with it. In the end, we all received a final confirmation for our meeting. I will definitely continue to use this software, especially for meetings with those outside the company. I end up sending a whole list of times and I’m looking forward to cutting down on the email!

Holiday Gift Guide Under $50

Erin Colbert — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 06:13:31 +0000

The holiday shopping season has officially begun. Here are some gift ideas suitable for the office – all under $50.

	BlueAnt X3 Micro Bluetooth Headset – $38 at Amazon Comes with a USB, Wall, and Car Charger
	Nike + iPod Sport Kit – $29 at Apple Help your co-workers start their New Year’s resolution early
	$50 iTunes Gift Card – $45 at Costco Everyone has an iPod these days, get them a gift card and save some cash in the process
	TAO 1.5 inch Digital Photo Keychain – $50 at Sharper Image 8 MB of memory stores up to 31 photos right on your key ring
	A Special Stocking for Fido – $6 – $15 at Old Navy The perfect gift for any pet-lover
	Lucky Bamboo in Glass Vase – $35 at RedEnvelope Not only is Bamboo an Asian sign of fortune, it’s also environmentally-friendly
	SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 2.0 GB USB Flash Drive – $30 at Best Buy This functional thumb drive is also sleek and stylish
	Leather Travel Wallet and Matching Pen – $38 at eBags.com A great gift for a frequent traveler

Share Your Photos with Picasa

Erin Colbert — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:47:37 +0000

Thanksgiving is over and you had a great time with family and friends, but how are you going to share all those pics you took? Attaching multiple photos in an email is archaic and will probably end up in your recipients spam box or not delivered at all because the file size was too large. Try Google’s Picasa web albums instead.

Sign up and Get Started

To sign up for Picasa go to http://picasaweb.google.com
Sign in to your Google account
If you don’t have a Google account, click “Create a new Google Account” – it is not required that you sign up for a Google Gmail account to use Picasa
Follow the steps to get started

Upload Photos and Create Albums using Picasa Web

Click “+Upload Photos” from the right hand side
Create a new album or add to existing album
Fill in all the blanks and follow the instructions to create an album

You can also download Picasa software for your computer and store all your photos there. If you do this then you don’t have to manually add each photo one by one using the “browse” then “upload” feature. They offer 2 versions – one for a PC and the other for a Mac. The Mac software allows you to seamlessly upload iPhoto pictures into Picasa.

Share your album

Click on the album to enter it
On the left hand side there are a list of options – Upload photos, Embed Slideshow, Link to this Album, Delete Album
Select “Link to this Album”
Copy the text in “Paste link in email or IM”
Place the link in your email and send

For advanced users you can click on the “Embed Slideshow” link and place the photo album within your HTML webpage or blog as I have done below. Or, send the link to your web developer for placement on your company’s Intranet.

Rid Yourself of Unwanted Junk Mail

Erin Colbert — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 03:14:35 +0000

With the holidays upon us junk mail is at it’s peak circulation and leaves us all vulnerable to identity theft. I get dozens of credit card offers, local circulars, and product newsletters each week – both at home and at work. I found a website called ProQuo that aims to put the consumer back in control of their information. I signed up a few weeks ago for their beta and, to be honest, haven’t seen much of a difference as yet. However, I’m keeping at it because they say it takes between 4 weeks and 3 months to see a drastic reduction, especially for snail mail publications.

The service is free and they will make money by allowing consumers to opt-in to specific offers in addition to opting-out. This is the best site I have seen thus far to offer centralization of opt-out notices. It has a clean interface and is very user-friendly. The only downside is that many of the marketing companies still require written notice for name removal, so it can be time consuming to write letters to the 5 or so companies who haven’t made it to the internet age. I guess that’s how they get you though – make it so difficult to unsubscribe and people will just leave it be. To combat this, ProQuo has developed templates for the letters, but it can still be time consuming. Try it yourself and let me know how it goes.

Online Meeting and Event Registration

Erin Colbert — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:38:55 +0000

You know how complex it can be to schedule an event for just a few individuals, but what happens when that number grows to 20 or even 50? When keeping an Excel spreadsheet has you ready to rip out your hair, try RegOnline. It’s an online registration tool that doesn’t require any complex programming and gives you a great looking online registration page customizable to your exact specifications. RegOnline lets you:

Create flexible and powerful online registration forms
Generate event websites to promote your event
Accept online payments including credit cards and PayPal
Run unlimited customizable reports
Print custom name badges
Create post-event surveys

Click here to see more sample registrations. I know they look complex and time-consuming to create, but I promise you it is quite simple. If you don’t believe me, they offer a free unlimited trial will full access to the product. You won’t be charged until you decide to go live with your event and start registrations. At that point you can choose your pricing option – either $4.75 per registrant for small events, or $3.50 per registrant plus $150 setup for large events. There are no monthly or annual fees.For your next event give RegOnline a test drive and see how your attendees will be impressed with how professional and organized your event has become. When planning, don’t forget to add in items like meal preferences, dietary restrictions, shirt sizes, product sales, conference CD’s, and surveys straight into the registration process.

Customize Your Homepage

Erin Colbert — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:23:19 +0000

Approximately 70% of all internet search goes through Google and they clearly dominate the search market. They became popular for their clean, uncluttered, and advertisement-free home page, but now, as the fifth most valuable company in the world, they offer a unique array of products with complete customization.

The Google home page, or iGoogle, is a dashboard of widgets that you can drag and drop to make a page as creative as you are. The widgets, a graphical user interface that allows 3rd party content to be placed on a web page, are created by both individuals and companies. There are basics such as clock, weather, maps, and multiple news sites. A few of my other favorites are:

Google Reader – allows me to quickly view the top posts from my RSS reader (read my post on creating an RSS Reader)
To Do List – keeping personal items on your work computer is difficult and dangerous, since anything you put on your computer is property of the company – keep your to do list right on your home page so you can access it quickly and easily at work or home
Google Calendar – lets me sync multiple calendars to view on one page, including iCal, Outlook, and Yahoo! Calendar – as with the To Do List, you don’t want to keep personal items on your work computer so sync to Google calendar and you can keep your work and home calendars together
WikiTravel – links to breaking travel news and destination highlights from their website
Flight Stats – widget that allows me to quickly check the flight status of any flight by route, flight number, or airport
Fandango – movie show times at my local theater
Local Gas Prices – shows the cheapest gas prices by zip code
Wikipedia – I never have to go to the site directly, I just search straight from my home page

To get started go to www.google.com/ig. You must add the widgets straight from iGoogle, since there are no links from the individual websites linked above. If you already have a Gmail account then log in using that, otherwise, click the link to “Get Started” and follow the instruction. There are thousands of widgets and you can arrange them in any way to like to make browsing and searching more efficient and fun. And, change your theme to suit your mood. Right now, I’m using Hong Kong to get pumped about my upcoming trip next March!

Ready, Set, Shop! A Countdown to Black Friday

Erin Colbert — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:26:54 +0000

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, Friday November 23, and is only 11 days away, and counting. It marks the kickoff of the holiday shopping season and refers to the day in which retailers come out of the red and into the black (turn a profit). Shoppers will be lining up the night before with many stores opening at 5:00 am.

Last year, my husband and I decided to give it a go and lined up outside the local Best Buy at 5:00 am as the doors were opening. The line had already reached 300 and it took us nearly 2 hours just to get inside! By then, many of the doorbuster deals were gone. It was definitely a fun experience, but this year we’ve decided to bypass the crowds and shop online.

However you decide to shop this year, be sure to check out BlackFriday.info for the latest ads on all your favorite stores – online and off. Stay tuned to Admins @ Work for future posts on holiday gift ideas for your boss, co-workers, and vendors.