3 Free Tech Tools You Need to Use

The internet is full of tools that can make your life easier. Here are 3 of my favorites. If you have not heard of these, please give them a look. They can empower you in ways you would never have imagined.

LinkedIn - If you work for a living, you should use LinkedIn. Plain and simple. LinkedIn is a social networking site that caters to business professionals. It is primarily used as a way to keep tabs on connections new and old, but has countless other applications. From personal branding to market research, to finding a job, to sales support, to ad-hoc help desk, the site’s usefulness grows daily. In 2004 the site had about 500 thousand users. As of 2008 it is estimated to have 21 million. How is that for growth? While there is a paid version of the site that adds functionality, you can do most of what you would need to in the free version. Creating a profile is easy and can be done pretty quickly. This one is a must.

Jott - What if you could call a phone number, speak, and have your words emailed to you in both transcribed text and audio form? What if you could do this for free? You can. Jott offers you the ability to send transcribed voice mail messages to yourself and others at no cost. This one is great for when you have those “great idea” or “damn I better not forget that” moments but don’t the ability to immediately write it down. I put Jott in my speed dial, and with the touch of one key, I can leave myself a message. Within minutes I get an email in my inbox capturing my message. The quality of the transcription is actually very good. Having used this hundreds of times, I can only think of one time that I actually had to play back the audio to understand what my message was. All you need to do to sign up for the service is to go to the site, enter your phone number, enter your email address, and viola - Jott at will. This service has come in handy for me more times than I can count. It is so simple, but so powerful at the same time.

Goog411 - Google on your phone. I am not talking about looking things up on an iPhone or Blackberry, I am talking about calling your search in and having it read back to you over the phone. Need Pizza in Dayton, Ohio? Call 1-800-Goog411 and have the Google search done for you for free. They will even connect you directly or email you a google map right to your chosen destination. It is so simple. This one is perfect for those in sales and other fields with lots of windshield time. Not sure exactly where that customer is? Goog411 can save the day. Need to grab some lunch or find a tow truck? Goog411. Again, this is free. This one is also embedded in my speed dial and used regularly.

These are 3 of my favorite freebies. What 3 free tech tools can’t you live without?

Kuler: Adobe’s Killer Color Application

Color choice is a critical part of design, especially on the web. The right color scheme can go a long way in making a site appealing and ultimately drawing new and repeat visitors. For those, like me, who can be color challenged check out kuler. This site from Adobe makes picking a color scheme easy. On the web you can choose your base color, the type of color scheme you are looking for such as monochromatic, triad, analogous, complimentary, shades, or custom, and kuler creates a color scheme for you on the spot. From there you can tweak and play around to your heart’s content. Kuler then provides you with all the specific color information you need to put your color scheme to work - HSV, RGB, CMYK, LAB, and HEX settings that represent your color choices. It is an amazingly easy and extremely powerful design tool that has already been added to my list of favorite sites. Another favorite is Seth Godin’s blog, where I learned about kuler. Thanks Seth. You still have the best site on the web.

So why would you care about kuler? I was thinking about how I might use it. The first thing that came to mind was to decorate my home. My wife and I are looking to repaint a large part of the interior of our home. We also have a number of rooms that just are not “there” yet. Kuler is the perfect tool for helping us get it right. Sure, we will probably resort to the good old fashioned paint swatch for the paint color we put on the wall, but then what. For us, the hard part is not the color of the wall, but rather the accent colors to go along with it. By entering the room color in as a base in kuler, I can then begin to put together numerous color schemes to fit the feel of each room until I get something I like- without having to piece together swatches or blindly guess as to “will this look good with that?”

Professionally, I can think of endless uses for this tool. Every brochure, presentation, web site, mailer, and marketing piece I design can benefit from using kuler. Again I can start with a base color, like the green we use at LUCRUM, and then quickly mock up multiple color schemes to create different feelings for pieces. This takes much of the guesswork out of the equation, and really streamlines the creative process.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on kuler (or color as a design element). Will you use this tool? How?

kuler