Posts Tagged ‘email’

Cool Apps: Courteous.ly Manages Email Expectations

By John Thompson | June 3rd, 2011 0 Comments

Email overload is like the new common cold. Solutions have popped up everywhere, offering help to alleviate symptoms. While none have totally cured us of this modern illness, some have really made strides in making life better in the meantime.

Courteous.ly is one of those solutions. It’s an app that acts kind of like an assistant who offers insight to your clients, friends and business folks about when you’re busy and when you’re not.

It works like this: First, you consent to have Courteous.ly take a peek inside your inbox. (Sorry folks but right now, it’s only available for Gmail users and domains that use the Google API.) By looking at your inbox, Courteous.ly determines your present level of email overload and then reports in plain language whether or not it’s a good time for you to receive email.

After you sign up, you’re given a unique URL to use in your email signature or in autoreply messages that people who email you can click on to see your current email level. This information gives people emailing you some level of insight as to when you’ll be able to respond to them. Email on overload? They’ll know and not expect an immediate answer. Email level fine right now? Then you’d better get cracking on that response!

It doesn’t get any simpler than this.

The company’s consent form says that it does not actually read or store your messages, or sell your information to anyone. This is a standard you should always ask for in any app that attaches to your email, in my opinion.

For those of you who aren’t on Gmail or a domain using Google’s API, but who are still looking for that perfect email solution, check out last week’s Cool Apps post on AwayFind.

  • Get new posts via email
  • Subscribe
Tags: , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps

Cool Apps: Take Full Control of Your Inbox

By John Thompson | December 17th, 2010 0 Comments

Cluttered inboxes. Twitter and Facebook feeds. Notebooks full of to-do lists. Houses to show. Clients to meet. Bills to pay. With so much vying for our attention these days, the simple follow-up can sometimes be elusive. And yet it’s the very act that often leads to a sale.

Don’t ever miss that follow-up again! Boomerang is an app that will make you the king of the follow-up. You’ll never be unprepared for a meeting again. You’ll never forget the call back. You’ll never miss a bill. You’ll have a clear inbox and a clear mind. You’ll be so on top of your game, your colleagues will beg for your secrets.

OK, so what is it? It’s a simple plug-in for Gmail or Outlook that allows you to control when you send or receive emails. For instance, say you’ve been courting a client for a few weeks and you get an email from him saying he’s going to be out of town for the next three weeks but would like to get together when he returns. With Boomerang, you can create that follow-up email right now, and then choose to send it on a specific date at a specific time.

Other uses:

  • Remind yourself to pay a bill on a certain date.
  • Forward an email containing meeting materials to yourself and schedule it to arrive a few hours before the meeting so you can go over the documents and be prepared.
  • Take email messages out of your inbox until you actually need them – like travel itineraries on the day of travel.

You can try and try to get to inbox zero – but what are you leaving behind in the process? Are you remembering to follow up on the important messages at the right time? Boomerang is worth trying if you find that your inbox is not getting through to you in the way it needs to. Boomerang is worth trying if you are going crazy from paper “follow-up” lists. Boomerang is worth trying if you find that you can never find the original email when you need it just before your meeting.

To give this free plug-in a try, go to this link for the Firefox/Chrome plug-in for use with Gmail, and this link for the plug-in for Outlook. Get on top of your game!

  • Get new posts via email
  • Subscribe
Tags: , , , , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps

Cool Apps: Xobni Puts Organization Back into Email

By John Thompson | August 27th, 2010 0 Comments

Beyond all the cool, new apps that do cool new things, there are some apps that help us transform the bread and butter mundane things that are critical to our everyday business processes.

Take Email. Though obviously not a new and exciting technology, few of us can live without it. The problem is, it’s often inefficient and sucks up a lot of time maintaining it. What if there was an app that helped us organize it and allowed us to mine its rich data as well – the currency of our modern livelihood?

Ask and you shall receive. Xobni turns your inbox inside out – in a good way. The Outlook plug-in simplifies email management and helps you make the most of your email and time spent on it. It’s easier, faster and more intuitive than your standard out-of-the-box inbox.

What does Xobni really do? It enables faster, more accurate search of your inbox, for starters. And it brings together contact information right beside every email message.

Xobni’s best feature is the easy access it grants to information you will use. For instance, say you get an email from someone whose contact info has not been stored in your contacts folder. No need! Just glance over at the side of the email and you’ll see this person’s contact info nicely organized for your use. You’ll also see links to their Facebook and Twitter accounts if they have them.

OK, this feature may be even better: trends reporting. See who sends you the most email, who sends the most email that you delete without reading, who sends the most email that you consistently respond to. Folks, this is real-time intelligence for your email, which, if used right, can cut some serious time suck that clogs up your life.

Best of all? Xobni requires no additional input from the user. You just plug in and poof … you’re off and running. It’s kind of like slapping a CRM tool right into your Outlook. Only now you don’t have to mess with importing contacts and learning a new platform.

Xobni’s basic version is free and it costs $29.95 for the Plus version. The company also recently launched a mobile version for the Blackberry that costs a one-time charge of $9.99.

Don’t hate email, but do make it smarter and work harder for you. You’ll be much happier for it.

  • Get new posts via email
  • Subscribe
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps

Intero Cool Apps: Are You Waving?

By John Thompson | January 22nd, 2010 0 Comments

For much of 2009, techno-geeks were all a-buzz with talk about Google WAVE, the search engine juggernaut’s collaborative tool that was supposed to shatter the Earth and change the way we all did everything.

And then … WAVE was released. Did you notice? Lots of people didn’t. The ones that did, met it with a collective, “Meh. That’s it?”

This sort of thing often happens when people set their expectations too high.

The thing about Google WAVE, though? It’s actually extremely cool. People have just been so busy dismissing it because time didn’t stand still upon its release that they failed to see that.

In many ways, it’s much like Twitter was when it was first introduced. Not many people “got” it. “Why on earth do I need people to tell me about how their cornflakes got soggy at breakfast?” people would ask. “I have real work to do,” they’d say. Now, Twitter is one of the most powerful business tools at our disposal and no longer being dismissed by anyone (well, not many, anyway). I believe that the same will hold true for Google WAVE.

So, how do I use it?

The answer is that there are lots of ways to use it. But here’s just a touch of what’s possible: Google WAVE is already being used by lots of small business groups because it has tremendous strength in combining platforms like email, document sharing, multimedia file-sharing, instant messaging, project wikis, video conferencing, and a host of others. It has the ability to eliminate all of the other disparate communications tools by combining them into one well-honed powerhouse.

For example, let’s say that you’re having a same-time, multi-location meeting between team members. Everyone invited to participate in the WAVE (the name for a particular project in the application) can contribute to the notes and see who is adding what — all in real time. At the end of the meeting, all of the notes are captured in a thread that can be viewed later on if someone wanted a recap, or if someone got invited to the WAVE late in the game. If there are team members who couldn’t participate because of differences in time zones (or other asynchronous difficulty), they can go into the WAVE, see all of the discussion, then add their own notes, as if they were present from the get-go. And anything that Google WAVE can’t do in its native state can likely be managed with any of the wide range of plug-ins that are available for it.

Right now, Google WAVE is only available by invitation. But before long, it’ll be available to everyone. It’s also important to remember that using WAVE to its potential will take time. It’ll take patience. But the power is there. Oh, yes. It’s there.

As for its ability to change the world? It hasn’t yet. But I’m betting that it will.

  • Get new posts via email
  • Subscribe
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps

Intero Cool Apps: Never sweat a big file again with DropSend

By John Thompson | October 22nd, 2009 0 Comments

dropesendAhhh, email. You’re so cool. You make things so easy. You’re just the best. Wait. What’s that? What do you mean, you can’t send my video? It’s too big? My 45-page contract is too big, too? Oh, c’mon, email! You used to be so good to me.

Have you ever had a conversation like this inside your head? (It’s OK. We know you have. We won’t tell.) Email is great, right? You can get in touch with friends, clients — whomever you like — on your time, they can respond in kind. Definitely one of the greatest innovations in the last 30 years.

But sometimes, it can be a real hassle.

Case in point: you’ve just spent hours drafting documents for your client’s review. It’s great. It looks just how you want it to. The only problem is that the file is disproportionately large. Your email server just can’t handle its size. What to do? You can’t fax it because that’d take all night and, besides, all of your hard work and design would get fouled up in the transmission. You need a file-sending superhero.

You’re in luck, because now, there’s DropSend.

DropSend is a web-based tool made specifically for this kind of situation. With it, you can send files up to 2GB in size (and if you’re not the technical type, that’s REALLY big). That’s not all, though. You can send emails with MULTIPLE files … and each can be up to 2GB. So, if you’ve got that massive document, plus a video clip and maybe even a few pictures that you took at your last broker tour, you can send it all. In one email.

DropSend works like this: simply upload your files to DropSend, then select the files you’d like to send. DropSend will send your contact an email with a download link. They don’t even have to have a DropSend account to read them. When your contact gets the email and clicks the links, you’ll be able to see which files have been looked at (neat, huh?)

Another really, really useful thing that DropSend does is store your data in an online storage “bank”. This is a great solution for having backups of your really important files. If anything were to happen to your computer or its hard drive, you’ll always have copies of the important things stored safely in your DropSend inbox.

DropSend is web-based, and there’s no software to download. Plans are free to start, and are nominally-priced, even for their most expensive option.

Email is great, and it’s certainly changed the world in its time, but it’s time it had a little help. DropSend can most certainly handle the job!

  • Get new posts via email
  • Subscribe
Tags: , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps