Digital tools are different than regular ones, especially in one aspect. You don't necessarily even know what's OUT there, to consider as an option. Searching only gets you so far. So, what tools are available for helping you find what tools are available?
First, let's jump back to that searching thing. You can enter whatever particular tool that you know of and append "vs" to it. So, like you can just type in something ilke "Bizplan vs" and sift through the results to see what else is available. Ultimately, through using this technique, you'll probably come across sites that purport to do these kinds of comparison for you. There are ton of such review sites, naturally, because not only can they place ads for revenue while you compare, but they might also have affiliate revenue gatherered from recommending one of these to you. Don't worry too much about that - they are indeed providing a good service to you. Well, worry a little. Some of them go about it in the wrong way, like trying to capture your data for further sales. You don't need more spam filling up your inbox. Here are a few great comparison sites to remember:
GetApp.com - Based in Spain, this site has a clean, modern design and ultimately gets you to a point where you can see your comparisons of Saas offerings, listed side-by-side in a chart. That's sweet. No registration is required, but you can create an account and start adding your own reviews, bookmark apps that you like, or get recommendations based on the type of industry you are interested in.
Slant.co - Any product. Any category. It's like a socially-driven mashup of a question site, and a product review site. It's a bit like an "anything goes" review site for anything, but it works. Registration is NOT required, but you can create an account to remember your favorites, add reviews, and so forth. There's a karma system in place for building a reputation.
AlternativeTo.net - A very reliable source for finding popular OR little-heard-of options for software of varying type, either Saas, downloadable, mobile, plugin, or many other types of digital products. No registration required, but it is available for organizing your activity on the site; lists, likes, comments, and so forth.
ConsumerReports.com - A well-known product review site, this one is basically a for-profit company that puts out reviews of anything and everything. They started as a physical journal and migrated successfully to the web. You can pay for a membership or use the site for one-off searches, for free. Membership will allow you to keep ongoing searches with notifications for updates, that kind of thing.
Amazon reviews - Amazon sells anything, or allows people to sell anything and takes a cut. Y'all know that. And y'all know there are product reviews on there. The problem with all this is that you can't explicitly TRUST these reviews. There are so many ways to artificially inflate or deflate the value of an Amazon product review; some people are paid to go out and review stuff. Some companies send customers free merch for nicer reviews - and some do it legitimately, just sending stuff without asking/demanding a good review, but that kind of action usually DOES influence opinion. So sure, glance at the product on Amazon but savor it with a grain of salt.
Appstore reviews - this is one trick that I don't always even think of... if a service or website has a mobile app, then DEFINITELY go check out the reviews posted about it. These are, like the Amazon reviews, probably easily malleable, AND they can go out of date easily, if the developer updates but the user doesn't change their review. However I have found it's a good place to get a feel of how the user is treated by the company, which is an important sign.
Addendum: There is also https://openbase.io/
I never got around to recreating my website after GoDaddy took away the free account that came with my domain. At some point I'll find a new host. For now, I've dumped the Vehicle Index at: https://app.box.com/s/po0ncmqpdxkjxwnz4qo4y6dgn800b6yp
Ping me if there's any issues :)
This is a poem intended to wake people up and help them realize that fighting begets fighting, and that war is unacceptable. The only solution is to stop fighting, first.
I don't know where the bombs come from.
Or I do, but I don't know why.
Someone, somewhere, decided
that it's okay for me to die.
When I was growing up, there were a very few educational programs, and even then it was hard to justify the dollars spent. Of course, I wasn't the one spending money at that time, either, so what do I know? Only that the educational apps I had access to were pretty much: Type Attack! annnd... well, I'm sure there must have been others. I know there was Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing, but we never had that one. I suppose the Oregon Trail counts as some kind of educational entry, but that's really pushing the limit.
Nowadays, kids are blessed with apps aplenty, and just as watching shows can be done anywhere, at any time, these are mobile and online, or social and offline, or any combination thereof. I'm glad my kids are growing up with such blessings.
I'll start posting new articles about various apps that I love - and that my kids love - for teaching them language, math, reading, and all sorts of skills. My wife and I have children that cover a range of ages, so there's a lot to cover!
This is an Android app that I use daily; Gleeo Time Tracker which fairly obviously is used for tracking time worked on jobs/projects/etc. The interface is at first a little awkward, but is really great once you get used to it. Other users of the app seem to feel the same, saying that it's nearly perfect but could use a few tweakings like the addition of pie charts or fewer taps to get to the reporting. I'm fine with the current status of those particular features, but what I would like to see is buttons that are just slightly larger so that I don't accidentally tap on things I don't intend to. I'm speaking about the buttons at the outer edges of the screens. It's not a big deal, though.
The features are discovered bit by bit as you use it more; quick categorization of the tasks on different projects is great. Custom colors are very nice, although perhaps there could be greater contrast in them. I love the flexible exporting feature and use that a lot. Actually, you could easily create your own pie charts by doing that, come to think of it.
Does any one use other time reporting software that should be noted? I'll take a look if so!
© Blogger template Simple n' Sweet by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP