Garden Planner Review

Faced with the daunting task of transforming a vacant fenced block of land, I was about to boot up Microsoft Visio (which I'd used before for house plans) before I thought to myself - "there must be a better way".

Well I found that way, and it is an affordable piece of shareware called Garden Planner.  However it takes a bit of patience.  On first use I was amazed by the sheer number of pre-loaded symbols for common landcaping including trees, fences, paths, vegetable gardens and the like. 

On the whole this software seems quite powerful and intuitive, although I found that initially I could not create a border or fence.  I worked out that you could double click to complete a border, but sometimes it just wouldn't allow you to delete and create a new one.  After several frustrating attempts of closing the software and reloading, I finally worked the quirks of the system and managed to - with several saves - get the hang of it.. Other than that, my only other griefs were that the software tended to crash and the scale and grid options are initially a little tricky to find.

But overall, Garden Planner is a neat and complete little piece of software that allows you to save, export and print a garden design.

Check it out at:
www.smallblueprinter.com/garden/

Balsmiq Mockups vs Axure RP Pro - and some other Interface Wireframing Tools

Working in the web, I've often had to use prototyping software to draw information architecture diagrams and screen mockups and wireframes to help convey interface concepts to clients.

In the past I had used Microsoft Visio flowcharts and diagram templates and even MS Word's form builders or Open Office Draw, however more and more specialised and useful tools are beginning to emerge and be used by professional information architects.

I began using Axure RP Pro (www.axure.com) a couple of years ago.  However this software can be expensive and a little over featured.  I also found the HTML prototyping features to more time consuming.  Effective creation of links can nearly take as long as building the output and I've found myself sometimes even achieving more using Firebug to manually hack and re-export stylesheets and HTML.  The output screens are clunky looking even for low fidelity mockups.

An alternative is Balsamiq Mockups (www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups), by the makers of Confluence the Enterprise Wiki and Fogbugz issue tracking software.  Balsamiq is simple and easy to use and has a deliberate "hand drawn" look to its interface which can help excuse the amateur look of these sort of diagrams.

Both these tools have a full complement of form widgets to create interfaces and allow you to snap objects to a grid.  Balsamiq has a smaller price tag but doesn't offer the prototyping features.  Axure offers a greater deal of sophistication, but can also be complicated.  From my experience a lack of HTML prototyping is not really a showstopper and these tools are not as effectively implemented in Axure as they could be anyway. 

So for now, the scales are tipped in favour of Balsamiq in terms of usability, feature and price and I am using it the most regularly.

Prophet CRM vs Business Contact Manager

A while ago I complained that CRMs are just too slow and unresponsive and support is always a headache.  Well the search for a decent and affordable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software program has led me to abandon Business Contact Manager and try Avidian Prophet CRM On Demand.

Well Prophet CRM has some features that I like:

• Outlook integration (which I like as I’m also running LinkedIn for outlook which as CRM functionality too)
• List management (includes grouping and filtering for prospect companies which takes a little getting used to but still quite effective)
• More detailed and flexible reporting of pipelines, follow up dates etc
• Reasonably good online tutorials

However I have found it has the following disadvantages:

• Not free – and no free trail – I am using the On-Demand version at $20 a month.  The full personal version is $200.
• Outlook only
• Slow – although I’ve found this to be the case for all CRMs, particularly Outlook based ones which are resource hungry and web based ones which aren't AJAX or based on similar technologies.  Prophet appears to be just mildly faster than BCM
• Website Enquires – have to set up manual Outlook rules to move enquiries into the Opportunity Manager folder (haven’t tried this yet)
•  Contact sharing (Microsoft Exchange)requires Premium version $400
• Automated follow-ups requires Advanced Edition edition $300
• No timesheeting function
• Can’t be integrated easily

Their sales crew appeared to be completely automated which meant I couldn't get great pre-sales advice.

Some specific bugs did rear their head, although their support seems to be active.  One in particular I found annoying was that although I could generate reports with data in Excel, the inbuilt functions of the Report Manager (preview and view) in Standard modes did not work.  No matter what I did, they came up blank.  However their support staff called me on the phone and diagnosed the problem, which was a conflict with Brother P-Touch's software.  They also provided me with some training and advice.

Despite the problems, Avidian seems to be ok and slightly more productive than slower online CRMs - Salesforce sucks and SugarCRM is ok, but in my opinion fatally flawed.

Brother P-Touch QL-500 and Outlook 2007

A few months ago I picked up an office label printer Brother P-Touch QL-500 for about $90.

This printer is supposedly compatible with Outlook 2007 (which I also use plugin based CRMs including Business Contact Manager and Avidian Prophet).

However there are some massive issues.  For a start, the drivers (latest update in 2009) do not work with Outlook 2007 and Windows XP, although they claim to be compatible.  Sure you can do some stuff but you are limited to default styles that are not compatible with the labels the printer uses.  It is effectively stuck on "Memo Style" and "Table Style" - any other type of paper you change it to Outlook blocks you with the error "The paper size is not valid. Check the values for Width and Height."

The add-on does work, but only allows individual printing of labels, which defeats the purpose of a label printer.  Bulk printing of labels from within Outlook's contact system is impossible without manually importing and exporting.  It is not available on the list view and selecting multiple and only available.

Disappointingly, the product is now already listed as an "obsolete model" by Brother.  oh Brother ...

The worst part about buying printers like this is you never know just how compatible they will be with Office applications until you buy them, unwrap them and get them going.

10 Essential Freeware Programs to download for a Fresh Install

Having recently reinstalled my PC yet again, I thought I'd share a brief list of must have free programs which I always download and install on any fresh copy of Windows.

1. Microsoft Security Essentials (freeware - requires valid Windows licence) - virus and spyware protection is a must and it won't bog down your PC either
2. Sun Open Office (freeware) - essential for documents, desktop publishing, spreadheets and presentations
   
3. Adobe Reader (freeware) - opening PDF files can be difficult without it 
4. Mozilla Thunderbird (freeware) - for email
5. Irfanview (freeware) - for viewing images
6. Paint.NET (freeware) - for editing images
7. Mozilla Firefox (freeware)- web browsing mainly for its plugins and standards base (using it less than Chrome these days though
8. Picasa (freeware) - an essential photo management tool
9. Windows Movie Maker (freeware) - a nice little suite for creating movie files and uploading them to services such as YouTube
10. Filezilla (freeware) - for uploading files to the web

I can survive without anything else installed.

Freemind vs Mindmanager

I've long been a fan of mindmapping for work and just general idea management. I am a big fan of Mindjet's Mindmanager software having found it very handy when preparing proposals, particularly heirarchical representations of website information architecture. However I have also found also found it to be very expensive. So after evaluating several different versions, installing and uninstalling them, I recently experimented with a piece of software called "Free mind". Before this, I hadn't been able to find anything quite like Mindjet's offering.

Freemind does most of what Mindmanager does, the main difference being that it is free and runs just as well on any platform and the XML support is much better for integration with websites. Freemind even allows you to import mindmaps directly from MindManager. While the interface isn't as slick as Mindmanager (certain things like linking nodes, icons and notes can be tricky at first), and I still haven't figured out how to get all the tree nodes on one side, Freemind still holds its own.

I'm interested to see what other people use and if there is anything better out there or if people really feel that Mindmanager is worth the money they are paying for it.

First impressions of X-Lite VOIP software

I've been using Voice over IP (VOIP) for some time now at the office. We use 7490 series Cisco IP Phones. I have also been using Skype for personal calls and Pidgin (using Jabber protocol) for Instant Messaging.

One of the things I don't like about the system is that the phones themselves and their accessories can be costly and bulky. The wireless headsets generally start at over $200. Also, although VOIP potentially enables a whole range of great communications features, such as answering your phone from anywhere, in practicality in my office environment, if I wanted to work from home, I'd need to carry my phone set with me.

Well recently I was introduced to a little "softphone" program called X-Lite by Counterpath which is free and enables you to easily set up your PC as a VOIP phone with the addition of some simple USB accessories, such as heaphones and microphones. I use a Logitech headset and have recently looked at upgrading to a newer cordless model which I will later review.

Anyway, initially I was really impressed with the setup. Besides the fact that your PC will need to be continuously on to use it as a phone, there are several useful options, such as the ability to use my laptop speakers for phone ringing independently of the in call speaking and listening. X-Lite is very intuitive and easy to use and can sit discretely on your desktop and taskbar and run at startup. The setup is cheaper to allow more freedom in the office environment.

One thing I did notice though is that when you want to use more advanced features, you need to upgrade to the full commercial version, another Counterpath upsell product known as EyeBeam 1.5 which retails at about $50. Features like call transferring (essential in an office environment) are blocked for example. In the commercial version, there is also built in Instant Messaging which I believe supports the Jabber protocol.

Another thing that constantly bugged me is X-Lite's update system. It doesn't appear to actually work. A pop-up keeps appearing saying that a new version is available and do I want to download it. But when I click "Yes", it simply closes the application and does nothing. Every time I open the thing this message pops up again after about 10 minutes. Very annoying.

While I'm still searching for a free alternative (such as modding Skype's offering) and something that perhaps integrates into a small business CRM (like PrettyMay for example) as well as Skype for personal use, X-Lite seems to be a good way of doing without the clunky phone.

Alternative to MS Project - OpenProj

I've begun trying a few freeware alternatives to Microsoft Project.

After trying several tools including Open Workbench 1.16 by Computer Associates, I've settled on OpenProj 1.3.1 by Projity.

OpenProj seems to offer almost everything that Project does. It is a Java application, but I've found it to run pretty fast, at least as fast as MS Project 2007 does, which is very suprising for a cross-platform application.

The interface is intuitive and familiar and it contains many of the same features offered by other project management suites.

The only current difficulty I'm having is working out how to assign multiple predecessors to a task.

But I can't complain, it is completely free.

Delivering a PowerPoint Presentation for Coaching

Another set of tips:
1. Introducing Yourself
2. Outline the lesson plan
3. State your objectives, why you are here
4. Explain the benefits for your audience
5. Outline the session structure
6. Follow the lesson structure – create section slides
7. Start with the basics
8. Reinforce each section with “What you have learned” slide
9. Use callouts, circles and arrows to highlight features
10. Provide useful tips and techniques
11. Stick to format and minimise distractions
12. Ask for feedback
13. Organise Follow-up training

I've also found some other delivery methods useful:

1. Screencast
2. Webcast
3. Web Conferencing

Some Dos and Don'ts of using PowerPoint for coaching

I had to prepare something recently and I thought I'd share some of it, these work for me:

Do:

• Understand your audience
• Have a lesson plan
• Keep it simple
• Be confident, maintain eye contact
• Make it interesting, entertaining
• Make it interactive, engage the audience
• Use screenshots and visual aids
• Encourage Practical Demonstrations

Don’t

• Simply read slides
• Rely on it

Trying to save PDFs from Excel 2007 ?

My old PDF printer driver wasn't reproducing the document properly and I spent ages trying to find a good free one because that was the old way to do things.

Until that is, I discovered that Microsoft have a free add-in. Of course you need a valid licence to download it.

Paint.NET is a Photoshop killer

I've recently discovered Paint.NET. This great application is not only completely freeware, but it offers pretty much all of the most common things I once used Photoshop for.

I have been using version 3.35 and only found a couple of limitations so far, notably I can't find a way to do find rotations ... it only seems to support rotating and flipping in lots of 90 degree which is pretty useless. But combined with Irfanview, it seems to work a treat and I can't complain about what is a pretty fast and slick application.

CRMs are just too slow ....

One thing that has been frustrating me of late is that every single Customer Relationship Management system that I have tried is so incredibly slow ...

Years ago I used Maximizer and ACT. Neither of them costed more than a few hundred dollars. While I complained a bit about the lack of advanced features and occasional bug, one thing I never complained about was the speed. Running fully on the desktop, these programs enabled you to talk on the phone to customers while you recorded notes and made calcultations in real-time. Yet ever since ACT 6 or 7 (I can't remember which) this great product went to the dogs because it ran Microsoft SQL Server, .NET and bloated the system with memory issues slowing the whole thing down to a snails pace such that it became completely unusable. You'd spend minutes watching hourglasses while your customers would hang up in your face.

Since then I've gone through all sorts of web based CRM systems, which have the same interface issues. SugarCRM, vTiger, and basically come to the conclusion that they all suck. When you don't want to use them hosted and install them locally, you can add plenty of support headaches to the list.

My latest brainwave was to go back to basics and try Microsoft Business Contact Manager for Outlook. I've been using it for a while and though it offers the functionality and features I'm after I've found that it also runs incredibly slowly. Such that I'm going through the same headaches all over again. My laptop hardware should be more than up to the task, but somehow I'm doubting it is a hardware problem and once again I find myself suffering from "Slow CRM Syndrome". I did get a licence and with Office Small Business upgrade, it cost a few hundred bucks, so about the same as ACT, but probably a slightly better investment.

Anyway, I'm reluctant to even try the high end systems, because from what I've seen they are really no better in terms of performance.

There has to be a huge market for a slick, fast CRM that doesn't cost the earth (sigh) ....

Microsoft Office 2007 takes some getting used to ...

I have recently taken the plunge and upgraded to Office 2007 at work, while I continue to use Open Office at home. As part of the upgrade experience, I've had to get used to whole new ways of doing things. The interface is quite different and not very familiar. Armed with my copy of Office 2007 for Dummies, I have gradually become used to it.

The biggest change is use of the ribbons. Microsoft have given the interface a radical overhaul and they have done a lot of work in the architecture. Unfortunately I've found that some of the functions that used to be easy to find are sometimes now hidden. I sometimes find myself wanting to return to classic view and minimising the ribbon which does sometimes tend to get in the way. However once you memorise where things are it becomes much easier.

For me, importantly the new version fixes some specifically annoying bugs in older versions even though I had kept my office up to date.

I used to find placement of some images almost impossible. You'd put them somewhere and they would mysteriously jump around on the page. Formatting seems to be greatly resolved in 2007.

Interoperability between applications is also improved. It practically used to crash my PC every time I tried to embed an Excel object into a Word page. I haven't had that problem (touch wood) with this new version.

The office concept, however, is a pretty mature one, and most of the enhancements are pretty superficial. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the speed and performance of the new Office and I'll share some tips and techniques with you as I discover them.