SignNow.com: free electronic document signing

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Chad Warner

I’ve been using SignNow.com to have clients electronically sign documents. I frequently need signatures for agreements and acceptance forms, and SignNow.com gives me a free, simple, legal way to get them. These are the general steps:

Upload your document to SignNow.
Enter the other party’s email address to invite them to sign.
The other party signs in their browser.
Both parties download a PDF of the signed document.

Adding a signature in SignNow.com

Document list in SignNow.com

Either party can also add text notes. I ask clients to enter dates this way. For signatures, you can use plain text, have SignNow generate a stylized signature (this is legal), or upload your own signature (I did this).

Learn more at SignNow.com. What do you use for electronic document signing?

KeepVid: download streaming video from YouTube, etc.

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Chad Warner

When I need to download a streaming video from a site like YouTube or Vimeo, or convert the video to an audio MP3 to listen to, I use KeepVid.com. Here’s how to use it.

Copy the URL (web address) of the streaming video you want to download.
Browse to KeepVid.com.
Paste the address into the bar at the top and click Download.
KeepVid will generate links to download the video in several formats and resolutions. The formats may include FLV, MP4, WebM, and 3GP. For some videos, you’ll also get a link for audio MP3.
Click the link to download the file you want. Don’t click the large, graphical download buttons! Those are ads. If you click MP3, you’ll be taken to SnipMP3.com, a site that converts video to MP3, which can take quite a while.
Enjoy your downloaded file offline!

Customize Google search results with options and tools

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Chad Warner

Google’s search results are generally quite good by default, but customizing the results can make them even better. Google provides several options for doing this, which appear along the left side of the search results page. These work best if you’re signed into a Google account.

Type of content

The top group of options filters by the type of content. These are Images, Maps, Videos, News, and Shopping. News is useful for finding news about current events. Shopping is great for price comparisons. Click More for more options such as Books, Places, and Recipes.

Publish date

Click More search tools at the bottom of the list to show these options. You can filter results by when they were published. This is useful when you’re looking for recent information, because you can filter out old pages.

Personalization

Click Personal to show content from your friends, or Nearby to show content from your geographical area.

Click Verbatim to search for the exact words you searched for, without any personalization, spelling corrections, synonyms, etc. If you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, click Visited pages to restrict your results to pages you’ve previously visited.

Finally, if you don’t see what you’re looking for, try clicking Related searches to see results for searches similar to what you typed.

Learn more

Find more about these and other Google Search results options at Google: Search results options and tools.

Create email distribution lists with Google Apps

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Chad Warner

If you use Google Apps, you can create email distribution lists that will send to multiple email addresses inside and outside the organization. You can even allow people outside the organization to send to the distribution list.

Let’s say your small business wants to publish an email address that anyone in the world can email, such as contact@company.com, and you want emails sent to that address to go to a group of people. Here’s how to create a group in Google Apps to do that.

Log into the Google Apps panel for your domain.
In the top navigation, click Groups.
Click the Create a new group link at the top of the page.
Enter a Group name.
Enter an email address in the Group email address field.
Optionally, add a description in the Group description field.
Choose an Access setting. If you want anyone on the Internet to be able to send to this group, choose Team, and then check the box for Also allow anyone on the Internet to post messages.
Click Create new group. You’ll be taken to the “Add members” page. Follow the next steps to continue setting up your group on this page.
Add the email addresses of the group’s members. Or, to create group that includes all users in your domain, without having to enter all their email addresses, click Add all users within this domain to this group. You can even add email addresses from outside your domain.
Optionally, change the group role.
Optionally, tell members about the new group by entering an invitation message and clicking Invite members. If you don’t want to send an invitation, click Skip this step.

For more details, see the Google Apps article Create a group.

Google search operators and tips

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Chad Warner

It’s time to improve your Google search techniques! The simplest tip is to start by using as few words as possible, because each word focuses the search further and thus limits the results. Then, add more words to narrow your results. You can also use the following search operators:

Search single word exactly as is (“”): Put double quotes around a single word to get only results that include that exact word, precisely as you typed it. You can do this for multiple words.

Phrase search (“”): Put double quotes around a set of words to get only results that include those exact words in that exact order. You can do this for multiple phrases.

Exclude words (-): Put a minus sign immediately before a word to exclude any results that contain that word. You can do this for multiple words.

The OR operator: Google’s default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San Francisco Giants 2010 OR 2011 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2010 2011 ] will show pages that include both years on the same page.

Search within a specific website (site:): Put [site:] immediately in front of a web address to get search results only from that website. For example, the search [ iraq site:nytimes.com ] will return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com.

Define: Put [define:] before a word or phrase to get a definition. The definition will be for the exact phrase entered (all the words in the exact order you typed them).

To use many of these operators without memorizing them, try Google Advanced Search.

Google search resources

Email management and Inbox Zero

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Chad Warner

I use GTD principles to achieve Inbox Zero. What does that mean? GTD is short for Getting Things Done, a popular method of organization and productivity that David Allen describes in his bestselling book Getting Things Done (read my review). Inbox Zero is the point at which you have no emails in your inbox, because you’ve acted on them.

Processing email

Focus on one email at a time and act on it! Try to touch each email only once.

Delete it if it’s unnecessary
Delegate it to someone else
Respond immediately if it’ll take less than 2 minutes, or is truly urgent
Defer it and respond later (but be sure to come back to it)
Do: take any necessary action as efficiently as possible

Practical tips

Unsubscribe from unnecessary mailing lists to reduce your incoming mail.
Use “canned responses” or copy & paste to save time replying
Use rules and filters to automatically sort mail
Use folders or labels to track deferred mail
Move tasks to separate to-do or project lists

CONGA lists tech groups and events in West Michigan

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Chad Warner

Looking for a technology group or event in West Michigan? CO NGA maintains a list of these groups, as well as a calendar of events. I added this calendar to my personal Google Calendar so I don’t miss any events.

I’ve met some brilliant people doing innovative things through these groups. In fact, its directly because of networking with others in these groups that I was motivated to start OptimWise, and later decide to become a web designer.

Below are a few of the groups whose events I’ve attended. I still need to make it to a meeting of GrWebDev – Grand Rapids Web Developers Group.

Where to download free audiobooks

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Chad Warner

These are the best sources of free audiobooks I’ve found. Most of their books are in the public domain, and many are classics. For more recent books, check with your local library; many let you download audiobooks, even from home. My local library, Herrick District Library, provides audiobooks from several sources.

Where do you get audiobooks? Tell us in the comments!

If you like audiobooks, you may also like podcasts. Read my post Listen and learn with podcasts.

How to use Help in Microsoft Office

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Chad Warner

Microsoft Office includes a comprehensive help system. In each Office application, such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, there’s an easy way to search for help. The simplest way is to press the F1 key, which also works in most other Windows programs. You can also click the blue question mark near the top of the window.

Example: Help in Outlook 2010

Let’s learn how to create an email signature in Outlook.

With Outlook open, press the F1 key.
In the search box, type “create signature”.
Look through the search results. The first result looks promising, so click it.
Read and follow the instructions.

It’s that easy! Use the same general steps in any Office application. You can also visit office.microsoft.com for even more help, how-to, and training.

Help in older Office applications looks slightly different than Office 2010, but it works the same way.

Manage email with rules in Outlook

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Chad Warner

If you hand-sort your email, you’re living in the past! You should use rules to automate your email management.

Intro to rules in Outlook

A rule is an action that Microsoft Outlook performs automatically upon incoming or outgoing messages, based on conditions that you have specified. You can create a rule from a template, from a message, or using your own conditions.

The Rules Wizard includes templates for the most commonly used rules, which include:

Stay Organized. These rules help you to file and follow up on messages. For example, you can create a rule for messages from a specific sender, such as Bobby Moore, with the word “sales” in the Subject line, to be flagged for follow-up, categorized as Sales, and moved to a folder called Bobby’s Sales.

Stay Up to Date. These rules notify you in some way when you receive a particular message. For example, you can create a rule that automatically sends an alert to your mobile device when you receive a message from a family member.

Start from a blank rule. These are rules that you create without the aid of a rule template and that you can completely customize.

Rules in Outlook 2010

The simplest way to create a rule is to start with a message.

Right-click the message you want to base a rule on.
Click Create Rule.
In the Create Rule dialog box, select the conditions and actions you want to apply.
To add more conditions, actions, or exceptions to the rule, click Advanced Options, and then follow the rest of the instructions in the Rules Wizard.

You can also create custom rules from scratch, and edit existing rules.

Click the File tab.
Click Manage Rules & Alerts.
In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, on the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.
Click through the wizard, configuring as desired.

For more info, see Microsoft Office Support: Outlook 2010: Rules

Rules in Outlook 2003

Rules work basically the same in Outlook 2003 as Outlook 2010. You can right-click messages to create rules in the same way as Outlook 2010. To create a custom rule from scratch, or edit your existing rules, click the Tools menu, then Rules and Alerts.

For more info, see Microsoft Office Support: Outlook 2003: Managing Messages by Using Rules

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