Posts Tagged
productivity
There’s so many things you can do from your browser, you could get by quite nicely without any other native apps. The internet is full of amazing web apps, ranging from powerful tools for enterprises to little tools that do one thing great.
While the web apps and sites we love are powered by servers, usually running Linux with Apache, MySQL, and more, our browsers feel more like the “operating system” on which web apps run. We’ve gathered the best tips we can find to help you get the most out of web apps, both from the apps themselves and the browsers you use to access them.
It seems like every week we review a new task management/to-do list app here at AppStorm, and it’s easy to see why – everybody has trouble getting things done. And it’s no secret that things get even messier when you’ve to collaborate with people on tasks, whether it’s a software development project or planning a party. Does 2012 hold the answer to our productivity problems? You’ll have to try Sandglaz to find out.
In the sea of task management apps, Sandglaz prides itself on being the one you’ll use the least – and that’s a good thing. Foregoing a heavy interface, focusing on reduced time creating lists and yet not scrimping on features, this is an app that you can use for personal tasks, work projects or group activities.
There’s a free version as well as paid versions for individuals and teams. Most of you are probably already using a similar app – should you make the switch? Let’s take Sandglaz for a spin first.
It’s no secret that I’m somewhat of a productivity junkie, and I’m often looking for the latest and greatest way to keep track of my to-do’s and deadlines. In the more recent months of working with these apps, a particularly explosive niche that I’ve noticed has been web apps and services dedicated to organizing a team. Collaborative to-do lists, group calendars, and even direct communication platforms are examples of core features that are finding their way into these apps.
Today I’m going to take a look at the web service Orchestra, one of the more lightweight solutions to collaborative productivity. Orchestra has both a web app interface as well as a companion iPhone app that was just reviewed earlier today on iPhone.AppStorm. Hit the jump to find out more about how this web app can coordinate efforts between you and your coworkers.
For most of us, a large chunk of emails received are usually automated and unimportant stuff like notifications, newsletters, bills, mailing lists, registrations, event invites and the like. Even when you set up multiple filters to move them into their respective folders skipping the inbox, you will still end up getting the same (and new) automated mailers. In fact, services employ people who specialize in making sure that emails land in your inbox rather than a spam folder.
It’s a good sign that a horde of startups are working to address the problem of email overload. A lot of new tricks are being tried out like converting emails to tasks, make reading emails a game and so on. While they offer a partial fix, a fool proof solution is yet to come to market. ZeroMail is a web app that strives to remove clutter from your inbox. It’s time to learn how to put the app to use.
Breaking News: There’s another new project management app! Stop the press!
Perhaps not, but it does seem like there’s another new project management web app coming out every day. We’re not complaining: many of the newer ones are really good, bringing fresh new design and a new spin on the feature set to help our wired world stay productive. And it’s not like traditional project management apps like Microsoft Project are getting any less popular. Still, when you’re looking for new web apps, it’s incredible how many project management web apps there are.
They come in all shapes and sizes. Basecamp is likely the most well-known and possibly most widely used online project management app. We even use it here at AppStorm to share article ideas, collaborate on posts, and send bulk updates to the whole team. But it’s far from the only tool, and many of us have used everything from Flow to Producteev to Strike to Trello. I’ve even used shared Simplenote to-do lists to manage projects before.
That’s why we were wondering if you use a project management app. Do you find it indispensable, or do you wish you could live without it? Are you excited to try out new apps and see if they fit your project management needs? Do you just need a to-do list, or do you need to break everything down to steps? We’d love to hear your thoughts on project management in the comments below!
When it comes to web-based task and project management apps, the Web is literally overflowing with them. You’ve got the choice between a huge range of different ones all designed to promote greater integration within businesses and generally help towards a more productive workflow. I recently looked at yaM and Podio, which both boast a wide range of features and are pretty impressive tools to help businesses collaborate.
The only problem with these kinds of project managers is that they tend to be geared towards high-end business users and tend to over-complicate themselves with features that are wasted on the average Joe such as your author here. I’m a techie, so the more complicated things are the better they will stand out with me but for most people, these advanced features can be a bit overwhelming. Think of startup companies, who don’t want to blow their IT budget on one program and who want simple collaboration tools that lets everyone in the office know exactly what they are working on.
Enter cohuman. It is, like many others in its category, a web-based task management app but there’s a spark of insight woven into the program that makes it easy to use yet still retaining some mighty features. Cohuman has recently being bought out by Mindjet, a company that develops visualisation solutions such as mind-mapping software for both Windows and Mac. You’d think that this is a marriage made in heaven, wouldn’t you?
Well, let’s take a look at cohuman to see whether this marriage is eternal, or if it is already on the rocks…
If there’s one major problem with web apps, it’s that it’s incredibly hard to get them to work together. For the most part, they don’t. Microsoft Word and iWork Pages work with Dropbox automatically if they’re all installed on the same computer. Now try getting Google Docs and Dropbox working together without relying on your computer’s operating system to handle download a file from Dropbox and then uploading it to Google Docs. Odds are, you won’t get it to work.
There are some web apps that work together. Instapaper and Pinboard are great examples of web apps that have built in options to pull in and push data to and from other apps. But most web apps exist in their own island, and being able to run different apps in different browser tabs is about the closest we get to web app multitasking.
ifttt is a new web app that aims to change this. Similar to Yahoo Pipes, but much simpler to use, ifttt lets you tie your favorite web apps together in unique ways. Whether you want to get a txt message when your best friend posts a new blog post, or save your Instagram pictures to Dropbox, or post your Tweets to Google+, ifttt’s got what you need, and more. In this article, we’ll look at how you can put ifttt to use quickly, and we’ve got more tutorials planned to show more ways you can put this powerful tool to use.
Twitter recently announced that over 200 million Tweets are posted each day. This is an incredible figure, underlying the success of the service. Spending time on Twitter boasts plenty of advantages, yet I’ve found that one can get easily sucked in and spend too much time than is good for our workflow.
So here are 10 great tools that I am using each day to make the most of Twitter, whilst still remaining productive.
While it’s not trendy or cool to be fans of products from stable of Microsoft, they do make some awesome apps both for home and enterprise use. They deserve a pat on the back for taking computers to the masses and making them more user friendly. Windows operating system and the Office productivity suites are two path breaking software products that every living soul knows about.
Of late, Google is chewing into Microsoft Office’s market share with its free and ultra cheap versions of Google Docs. While still not a billion dollar business, online Office suites are gaining traction and Zoho and Google Apps are two clear leaders in this space. Forced into a corner, Microsoft has launched it’s own version of online Office apps. Is it as awesome and powerful as the desktop counterpart?
The trick to making a really good web application is to not over-complicate it so that the user doesn’t know what they’re doing. It’s all about simplicity. Creating an app that fulfils a user’s needs without leaving them confused or bombarded with features they’re probably not going to use is key. One app that fits right into this mold is Coolendar.
Coolendar is more than simply yet another calendar app. It doesn’t promise the capability of mapping out each second of your day but what it does do is a lot better than that – it allows you to manage your time and tasks without having to complicate anything. Read on to find out more about this rightly self-proclaimed “cool” app.
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