Simple Tools Group
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510.336.1990
tips, tools and ideas
10 December 2006
SWICKI is something clever you (you as in web site owners or blog- or wiki- writers) can offer your community. People visit your site because they're interested in what you offer. Makes sense. People go to a dance-shoe site because they're interested in the Tango or the 4-step Waltz. People go to a food catering site in Berkeley because -- chances are, they live in the neighborhood and want to have a fancy party. SO? Swiki takes this built-in bias and offers your site visitors a search engine that's SPECIFICALLY TWEAKED for your 'community's' interests. More than that -- and if the people who make swikik (Eurekster) have their way, your community's focused searches will be something other companies will be willing to pay you for. (check out the Swiki search engine over to the right side of this column)
4 July 2006
Writely gives your small group a way to write and store documents - online - and for free. Writely - a recently acquired Google Company - is an online word processing package. If you know MS Word, you know Writely. 'difference is ... with Writely, you're writing a file that's kept in an online storage file. You and your colleagues can share these MS-Word compatible files and you can collaboratively edit them. Think of Writely, not only a an online work-room, but also an online bookshelf/bulletin board where you can leave documents for your customers and clients to look at.
25 June 2006
Sometimes it's difficult to get your company's important idea(s) 'out there.' Whether you're a one person home appraiser, a psychotherapist, or a 6 person realty group, word-of-mouth can go only so far -- and it usually seems that any kind of slick 'promotional material' stuff is -- well, somehow inappropriate. There's an overlooked approach. It's telling a story. Tell the people you serve stories about yourself, about where you came from, about what you believe your group/company/practise has to offer. And you know what? People will "get it" in ways no other approach would give you. Here's a story I want to share with you: the Big Idea is that those of us here in Northern California need to prepare ourselves -- personally -- for the inevitable disasterous earthquake that will destroy our cities. It's a story, told in first person, about someone who was in the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. I guarantee you will remember the images from this story. You group can do this ... (the story) ..http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004327.html
1 June 2006
There's value in having a shared online blackboard for notes from your group, your colleagues, or your employees. Among the many options is a new service from Google - called (not surprisingly) "Google Groups." Anyone (anyone you specify, that is) with an internet connection can 'go' to one of these boards, look at what's been written and, if they wish, leave a comment. An example of one of these GoogleGroups is located at: http://groups.google.com/group/SimpleToolsGroup.
29 May 2006
Chandler is the name of remarkably ambitious piece of software -- that really hasn't come to market yet. What's known about it today is that it will be free, it will help us keep track of large amounts of e-mail, it will help us schedule activities, appointments, and obligations, and that it will help us share information (documents, spreadsheets, images, sounds) with colleagues and customers. We also know that Chandler will run on the three major software 'platforms,' Macintosh OS, Windows, and Linux, and that it will assembled in a way that will allow generations of 'shade tree' programmers to extend its functions, to tweak it so that it becomes more central to the day to day business processes of a particular group. Frankly, it sounds like just the kind of simple tool that might help you!
30 April 2006
JaJah is a way to save a lot of money on phone bills. The idea is truly simple: type whatever number your phone is (fixed line, wireless, cell...), type the number of whatever phone in the world you're calling, press ENTER and in a few seconds your phone rings (as it connects to the other phone). What's happening behind the scenes is that your phones are using the internet -- rather than standard phone networks - as the connecting wiring. Calling a colleague in Australia, from my home in San Francisco, in the middle of the day sets me back about 1.7 cents/minute. Simple. No geekiness.
