Week 25 Quick Picks

Wakerupper.com - (Web) Free wake up calls to your cell, landline, or any phone you want to register with them.  You can even type a short message to be reminded of like “buy playoff tickets.”  In my testing I’ve found you better actually answer the phone if you want to hear the message, don’t count on it being recorded as a voicemail.  I’ve been a happy user for months - simple, quick, and free reminders are (almost) always a good thing.

Bee Doc’s Timeline - (Mac) It’s not a secret that sometimes a timeline is the easiest, most visually appealing way to convey information.  What I’ve never found was an easy way to make timelines of my own. . . until now.  I came across Bee Doc’s Timeline and liked it so much I bought it and formatted my resume with it.  You’ll be shocked how quickly you can make beautiful, useful timelines.  Free trial so you can kick the tires all day long (with a watermark), $40 standard version or $65 for the 3D version.

Crappy Graphs - (Web) Timelines aren’t the online useful way to graphically convey info, but sometimes an Excel produced chart is too much.  Maybe you just want to make a simple, slightly comical point?  Enter Crappy Graphs!  It’s geared more towards the witty guy looking for a great way to respond to the “for every person you forward this email to,” and not for actual business use.  Reaching back for inspiration to the inventor of the ice cream glove I came up with this work on the left.

Go To Assist - (Web - IE Only) If you need an easy way to help a friend out with his or her computer this is it.  Citrix’s new service is my favorite Windows remote support client yet.  It works like a champ because you avoid having to mess around with the configuration hurdles of Microsoft Remote Desktop or a VNC client.  Like similar web based solutions (gotomeeting.com to name one) this is practically zero config and easily gets around firewalls (with your consent, of course).  Free while it’s in beta.