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  • Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Time: 9:00 am Category: News, Social Media, The Internet, Tools Tagged organization, productivity, sharing, Social Media, social utility, Tools Discussion: 1 Comment

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Here is our end-of-the-month November Roundup of free web-based tools that we’ve been exploring.  Let us know what you think! – Alisha Myers & Sarah Barnes

SlideShare brings social networking to presentations.  You can upload, create and share presentations with anyone. I was going to write more on this, but thought – heck, I’ll just post a link to their presentation!

Dropbox allows you to “store, sync, and share your files online.”  You are able to share and/or have access to any file from any computer including photos and music.  The files are synced into the web for your convenience.  Not only can you publicize files, Dropbox allows you to share files or folders by sending invitations via email.  The file will appear in their Dropbox.  After opening Dropbox’s web interface (signing into your account using a browser) you are able to view your files, view revisions, download files, copy files, move files, rename files, and delete files.  So, you’re not limited to using one computer.  Dropbox also allows file restoration by undeleting it.

Soshiku is a tool that manages your school assignments. It can keep track of when assignments are due and notify you via email or SMS. According to their website: “Have Soshiku notify you via email, text messaging, or both when there’s an upcoming assignment.  With each assignment you can save notes, manage tasks, attach files, and share messages with your partners.”

Pixlr is an image editing tool for basic updates.  Since Pixlr is an online tool, it allows editing in a web browser.  You can keep informed about Pixlr’s updates and new features by reading their blog.

Forvo is a really interesting online tool that will pronounce words in any language for you.  This would, no doubt, be a very handy tool for students needing help with their foreign language classes.  Users can also add words and download mp3s of pronunciations.  Additionally if you are interested in keeping track of what words have been added, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for any language listed and get updates as they come in.  It also maps the pronunciations so users can get an idea of how regional differences contribute to how a word sounds.

Remember the Milk is a great add-on for busy working moms or anyone else to quickly record notes before failing to remember.  It becomes a reliable memory with many great features.

Zapr is another tool for sharing files.  You will be giving the files and folders URLs so others are able to find them.  They will not need a Zapr registration to view them.  With Zapr, your files and folders can be privatized by password protection.

Deadline is a web application to help keep you organized.  Add to your calendar and Deadline will send you a reminder through email, instant messaging, and/or feeds.

PDFescape is a tool that will allow you to create and edit PDFs online.  Users can upload files to make into PDFs OR you can open PDFs from the web as long as you have the URL.  This is especially handy if you have a PDF form you need to fill out but don’t necessarily wan tto download it.  You don’t have to register with the site to use it, but if you do it will save your PDFs to your account.  I was impressed that you can also create pdf forms online too.  That is usually something you need to open up Acrobat Pro to do.  Nice that, at least in a pinch, there is a website that can take care of this kind of thing for you.

TinyURL has been around for a long time, but it is no less useful than it was when it first launched.  There are now also several competitors (BudURL,ShrinkURL for example).  Basically, TinyURL takes any web address and makes it tiny so it won’t break when you send it out to others in email, text messages, IMs, posts on websites, etc.  If you use it, be sure to add the toolbar button to your browser so you can click it whenever you are on a page that you want to send to soemone.  Just click on the button and it generates a TinyURL that you can then copy and paste to whatever sharing app you want to use.