So you use Google Voice and you’re just loving the free service, but then the calls start. Spammers are calling your Google Phone line, wasting your time and you patience. There has to be a way to stop them!
Don’t freak out. Just follow these simple steps to nix spammers, one at a time.
Go to your Google Voice account.
Read MoreOur system ops team has been using Slack basically to communicate via chat, with several channels to track various projects, into which we upload commonly-called-upon files. However, many apps can be integrated with Slack to do useful (or in some cases not-particularly-useful) things.
I’m always looking for ways to automate sysadmin chores. That led me to explore ways to extend Slack to help us monitor virtual machines in our company’s operations center. This one works for anyone using Slack who also administrates or monitors a VMware vSphere environment — and it works in a VMware data center or in VMware cloud settings.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of apps and bots listed on Slack’s website. After wading through the cruft (unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of junk), I found some that would help us in day to day operations. The first bot worth considering was OpBot.
Read MoreDo you want to spice up your Microsoft PowerPoint 365 presentation to include something more than static images? Looking for a more energetic way to tell an effective story in your presentations? Applying motion path animation effects to your slide deck is an easy way to liven up your presentation and give it a professional sheen. And it’s fun!
In the example below, we manipulate the static image of a rocket so that it flies around the screen. The solid image in the upper-right shows the starting point of the rocket, and the dotted line between the two images shows the path it takes when the animation plays. The transparent image in the bottom-left is where the image ends up when the motion path animation is done.
It’s great to depend on Google’s authentication system to confirm your identity on an online application’s website — until it doesn’t work. If you’ve ever been locked out of your own life, here’s how to work around that conundrum.
Instead of searching through hundreds of saved notes, you can find what you’re looking for more easily by using Evernote’s search filters.
Quizzes can be a real benefit for marketers — and for plenty of other professionals. They can be frivolous or serious, ranging from fun quizzes to increase traffic, to market research surveys, to weeding out the hacks from the experienced potential hires.
To demonstrate how the quiz feature can work, we use an example of a basic knowledge test to be used when hiring a search engine optimization specialist for our marketing team. We expect a lot of applicants, so it makes sense for us to look at resumes only from the people who know the right answers, which means sorting them by some kind of “grade.”
From Google Drive, click New, then More, and choose Google Forms — or head directly to Google Forms.
Sometimes words just don’t do it. When you need to make a visual statement in Google Hangouts you can use the, somewhat, secret drawing tool. Since the tool isn’t very obvious, many people don’t realize this feature exists, especially since the feature isn’t available on the mobile app, just on the browser version.
Start by hovering over the Photo icon (the square with the mountains in it).
It’s great to depend on Google’s authentication system to confirm your identity on an online application’s website — until it doesn’t work. If you’ve ever been locked out of your own life, here’s how to work around that conundrum.
The authentication process is a little hard to explain, so let me give you an example to show why it matters. Let’s say your old cell phone died and you bought a replacement. After you restore all your apps and your contacts, you are ready to return to your normal routine. You sit down at your computer, and go to log into your Dropbox account. Because you previously enabled two-factor authentication using Google Authenticator, Dropbox prompts you to open the Google Authentication app (available for both Android and iPhone users) on your phone and enter the code it shows you.
Whoops! Although the Google Authenticator app was restored to your new phone, the settings were not — and now you can’t log into your Dropbox account.
Read MoreReminding someone about a past due invoice can be an awkward situation. Rather than having to call or email directly, you can use a simple reminder tool in Paypal to do it for you. The message is automated and, for some clients, the gentle non-personal nudge can get you paid sooner.
Once logged into Paypal, on the top horizontal navigation menu, go to Tools, then Invoicing. This brings you directly to the Manage Invoices section where you will click the “Unpaid” tab:
Plain Jane documents look boring, especially when they are made up of long blocky paragraphs of text, like this.
But formatting your document with newsletter-like columns generates visual energy that attracts and holds your readers’ attention.
Most of us adopt the calendar applications that came with our desktop computers or mobile phones, particularly since they’re tied to the default email services. Gmail and iCloud are popular, work well, and sync seamlessly with your online life.
However, everyone’s workflow is different. Some people manage their day by the minute, while others prefer an uncluttered calendar view, with only the must-not-miss events on display. So why stay inside Google and Apple comfort zone? Come outside, and you will find visually impressive interfaces, ultra-customizable features, flexible time management, cross-app integrations, and the list goes on.
From fun and easy, to robust and feature-rich, here are five alternative calendar apps for iPhone and Android.