A Test Drive in a Prototype Electric-Only Car

Let me tell you how I ended up test-driving an electric car today. Yes, an electric car running on a battery and electric motor. Not gasoline or diesel. Not even a hybrid.

It all started last month when the company that will market these cars, Better Place, opened its visitor center to the public, and I decided to go there with all the guys (and gals) from work, to get some questions answered as well as to see the prototype vehicles. As a side bonus, I got to drive one of the prototype cars.

It seems that the visitor center is still under heavy construction. A D-9 bulldozer was moving mountains of land around, and many construction workers were hard at work, probably building more showrooms and infrastructure.

Some of you probably haven’t heard about this company and their electric vehicles (EVs), or about their business model. In short, their short-term goal (~15 years) is to transform small countries to EV-only, and thus make whole countries independent of foreign oil.

Sounds a bit pretentious? Well, their plan is very detailed and seems to be well on its way, at least in their “pilot” countries, Israel and Denmark. With the help of the governments and some private investors, as well as the European car manufacturer, Renault, this company seems to be headed for a revolution in the transportation energy market.

The electric cars

Let’s start with some details! I am a beginner physicist and a professional programmer, so bear with me if I juggle some numbers from time to time. The technical data was taken from the company and its representatives.

What we saw were prototype cars, which used to be regular Renault models like the Megane and Laguna, and were converted to electrical ones by taking away the gas tank, replacing the engine with an electrical one of 115 horse power, and putting a large 250kg 250Liter Lithium-Ion battery pack in the trunk.

They told us that the first consumer model (the Renault Fluence) will be available to customers during 2011. These models will be specially-designed, so that the battery pack is at the bottom of the car, just under the seats. An equivalent of a gas station will have a device to replace the battery pack in under 5 minutes.

A new, fully-charged battery pack (supplies 400V, and holds 24kWh) under average Israeli-driving conditions has enough juice for a range of at least 100 miles (160km) of driving. They did not know how much the battery pack’s capacity degrades over the years, but that is not too important because of the business model.

How it works for us, the drivers

Their business model revolves around customers becoming subscribers for travelling from place to place. You don’t buy the battery charger, you don’t buy the electricity itself, and you don’t even buy the car or pay for mechanical service. You just pay as you go, per mile, and that is it.

When you subscribe, you get a new car and free installation of two charging sockets anywhere you want (for example, at your home and at work). The socket is a three phase 220V 50Hz AC, just like the regular mains, with 5 leads (2 for communication). It seems quite sturdy and simple. I would say even the least tech-savvy drivers will be able to handle it.

Charging is done at 3kW and it takes around 7 hours to fully charge a battery, in a process carefully controlled by the car’s computer. It comes out as less than 8 hours because the car’s computer prevents you from emptying the battery completely, so it won’t die before its time.

The subscription includes as much charging energy as you like, and as many battery replacements as you like. The only thing you pay for is distance travelled. If you think about it for a moment, it makes a lot of sense, because the travelling distance is the most important thing you actually get from using the car. It will not cost you more if you use the A/C, turn the radio on, go uphill all the way, or choose to drive especially slow or fast (within the limits of traffic law, of course).

The tour guide told us that the price per mile is not yet decided upon, but that it will be competitive to what people are used to today. Most cars is Israel are either privately owned or leased through a car leasing company.

On the way back we did some calculations. I own my car, while my colleague leases his via our company. He drives a bit more than I do, but running all the numbers, we came to the conclusion that the total cost of travelling with either of our cars is pretty much the same. We took into account (for me) the price of my car, its licensing and insurance fees, and car value degradation, (and for him) his monthly leasing fees, and of course fuel for both of us.
It sums up to around half a dollar per kilometer, or 75c per mile. If their subscription fee would be around that price per mile, it would be worth it even without taking the environmental-ideological aspect into account. I know some people who would be willing to pay a bit extra for that noble cause alone.

Environmental impact

The company emphasizes the idea of saving the planet and repeats that idea many times in the videos we saw. Let’s try to dig into that:

An electric car creates almost zero air pollution when it operates compared to gasoline cars. It’s not a 20% reduction; it’s more like 99% reduction. And it also makes much less noise (more on this in a moment). But it still requires a lot of energy to make it move, and this electrical energy has to be created somehow. Creating it in a power plant generates air and noise pollution, but elsewhere… not where the car drives. The environmental benefit for highly populated areas like city centers is considerable. We will breathe fresher air, no doubt. But the question still remains: Does the system as a whole really reduce overall pollution in order to save the planet?

Israel is a small country and has very little spare energy to waste on charging cars. The total electricity usage on hot days (when many people turn on their A/C around the country) can reach 96% of all the power plants production capacity combined (10GW out of 10.6GW). None of the various power plants are nuclear, so all of them are big polluters. The few solar and wind plants (in the Negev desert and in the Golan Heights, respectively) are not producing much energy, if at all, and are mostly for research purposes. If another coal/natural-gas power plant is built just for the purpose of supplying enough charge to the cars, the environmental benefit of electric cars might be lost completely.

The company’s answer to this problem is a smart charging system which profiles users according to their usage. If a driver (e.g. an IT worker) parks her car at work every weekday at 9am and usually only uses it again at 5pm, then her car’s charge cycle will be delayed a bit, and it might be 1pm or 2pm before her car starts charging.

Another driver (e.g. a sales agent) who drives a lot all day, will get priority every time she hooks the car into the socket, because she needs the energy more readily.

On the other hand, if the first driver has some unusual urgent matter to attend to (say, she has to fix a problem in a client site), and needs to use the car at 10am, she can instruct the system to “charge me now” and she’ll get priority, as well as a more rapid battery charge.

This is an interesting mechanism, which attempts to utilize the grid to its full potential while prioritizing customers according to their profile and/or other needs. I am eager to see if this will work as planned and if it will be too much of a nuisance to users or not.

My colleague asked them about the reduction of noise pollution. The prototypes we saw were just as quiet as a brand new “out of the factory” car, but not much quieter. On the other hand, when the engine is under load (such as going uphill) you could really feel the difference, as the electric motor is much quieter than a screaming internal combustion engine.

We were told that the consumer model will be fitted with a speaker and a “drive-tone” (an extended word play on ring-tone and true-tone), so that pedestrians will notice it and be less likely to get run over. In other words, the sound of a car that we are used to, will be artificially generated for the sake of safety. This makes sense, but I believe that eventually, if the whole industry converts to EVs, this feature could be taken off (not in the following 10-20 years though).

I asked them about the environmental impact of dead batteries, and in the behind-the-scenes operation required to periodically charge as many as 2 million cars, assuming all cars in Israel are replaced with their electric counterparts.

As with any lithium-based batteries, their lifespan is limited to around 10 years. This is longer than your standard cell-phone battery because of special sealing techniques. However 2 million cars still needs at least 2 million batteries (plus spares for changing), so the dead batteries might pile up to become a serious environmental threat.

When a battery dies, its contents (the electrolyte, the anode and cathode) can be recycled just like any other Li-Ion battery. However, I am not aware of any such recycling plants for these batteries in Israel, and when I asked them about that, they did not know where the recycling would take place either. Nor did they know how much energy it takes to recycle each battery.

It will be interesting to investigate this further, because off-shoring the recycling process might prove to be not economically worthwhile. Meanwhile it would be a big loss for the environment if the batteries are not recycled.

The test drive

The tour included a lengthy presentation (around 23 minutes) which included a hologram of the lead entrepreneur Shay Agassi, as well as colorful eye-candy entrance of a model car. It was too kitschy for my taste, and packed full of buzzwords and slogans.

Then we finally got to see a prototype car up-close and even drive it for a bit. They would not let us look under the hood. Apparently their refusal has something to do with a contract with the manufacturer, Renault.

When not moving, the engine is dead-quiet, but I could still hear a small hum from some ventilator, even after turning the A/C completely off.

Driving the EV felt just like driving my gasoline-drinking car. The gas and brake pedals, as well as handling the steering wheel felt just like any other car. It also accelerated nicely; there was no sign of it being “weaker” than a regular car.

One difference was on the dashboard: Instead of an RPM gauge, there was a power gauge. The scale runs from around -50kW to +200kW. Don’t be alarmed, negative power is still not defined. The scale works like that because when you let go of the gas pedal, the engine works as a dynamo to charge the battery! The negative values are there to indicate that the power is used to decelerate instead of accelerate (hence charging instead of discharging).

Another difference is in the gears, as in… there are none. The engine can produce the maximum torque at any RPM, which means that gears are not needed at all. One gear fits all. This is also why there is no “clutch” mechanism either (manual or automatic). It does boggle the mind a bit at first.

So there you have it. I believe this is a start of a revolution in the global car industry as well as the oil industry. I have a feeling that this will make a lot of headlines in the near future, and I am planning to be an early adopter of this technology, if the price won’t be too high.

Your PDF to Excel Conversion Story

Thank you again for your willingness to share your PDF to Excel conversion story with us. We would love to hear why you were looking for a PDF to Excel converter and how using PDF2XL worked for you.

We only ask two things:

1. No foul language please. If your feedback is not positive – that’s OK. In fact it’s more then OK, we learn a lot from feedback. But please… no foul language.

2. If possible, please write your story in English.

And that’s it. Just scroll down to the end of the page and leave your comment there. I am really looking forward to your feedback.

Is the Trinidad and Tobago Government a Software Pirate?

Two weeks ago I was doing a vanity search for Cogniview’s name (for those of you that are not regular readers – Cogniview is the company that hosts this blog and the maker of a PDF to XLS converter).

Back to the story… I was absentmindedly browsing through the search results when I noticed something funny right after Cogniview’s Wikipedia Article…

Vanity Search Results

Well… It seems that for some reason, the Trinidad and Tobago foreign office was selling one of our products. And at a discount. Funny, I thought to myself, I don’t recall signing a distributor agreement with the Trinidad and Tobago government. And we NEVER sell at a discount. So I followed the link to see what’s up:

Eudi Pirated

Click image to enlarge

Apparently, someone at the foreign office of Trinidad and Tobago has set up a store selling pirated software copies. I kept looking around and found out that all the software sold on this site was either bought at “an auction” or is a discontinued product line…

Lies Lies Lies

Click image to enlarge

Well… I can tell you that we never sell software at ‘auctions’ – whatever those are – and we did not discontinue any of our product lines. Besides, I am guessing that Adobe didn’t discontinue it’s Acrobat product line and it’s still being sold at huge discounts on the Trinidad and Tobago software store -

All adobe products stolen

Click image to enlarge

Further investigation into the matter shows that the guys (or gals) at the ‘Trinidad and Tobago software store’ take fraud very seriously…

User Agreement

Click image to enlarge

I am pretty used to our software getting hacked and sold at a discount. That’s the price you pay when you sell software, I guess. But we found out that most people are decent and don’t go looking for pirated copies. (Either that, or they are afraid of the viruses that are installed along with those copies). But this is the first time an actual government office site was used to steal our products.

I tried contacting the Trinidad and Tobago foreign office several times but to no avail.

So… What do you think we should do next? Can we ask that the Trinidad and  Tobago official site be de-listed from Google? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

And the winner is…

A couple of months ago, we celebrated the 4th birthday of PDF2XL – Cogniview’s flagship product. As part of the celebration, we invited you (our blog readers and customers) to leave a birthday greeting on the blog.

We also promised that the authors of the 10 best greetings will receive a $15 Amazon gift card. And that the best greeter will win a Flip Mino Camera. Well the party is over and it’s time to give out the prizes…

But before I reveal the winners, I’d like to say that we were really moved by your reaction. I’ve personally read the 190+ greeting several times and I’d like to thank you for letting us know that we make a real difference in your lives. It means a lot to me and the rest of the team here at Cogniview.

And now the winners…

Vaughn said…

“Happy Birthday PDF2XL! You deserve it because you have made my birthdays much happier since I started using you. You see, I have the worst birthday imaginable, April 15! Tax day!!! Before you came into my life I spend most of my birthday manually typing data from my brokerage accounts into Excel. Now just a few mouse clicks and my PDF reports are nicely transferred and formatted into Excel just the way the IRS folks like them. So you have not only reduced my procrastination induced stress, you have also made some revenuers very happy. I guess that’s a good thing, huh? Happy Birthday!”

Shawn Setnicky from the Sonali Corporation NJ, USA said…

“I’ve been using PDF2XL for awhile now. It has saved me MANY, MANY hours of time. Each year I get a list of about 8000 names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc. The only problem is it’s in PDF format, and not easily manageable. If you want a nice Excel format they charge you 25 cents per name! That’s $2000, I’ve done it three or four times now, you do the math. I’ve estimated I’ve saved over $10,000 using this software and countless hours.
Happy Birthday! Thanks for the great product.”

Raja Sharma from Assurant Inc., Tustin, CA said…

“Our PDF’s were wild, and our morale was low.
Then came PDF2XL, and our faces began to glow.

What took 6 hrs to decipher can now be done in 1.
Now for the other 5 hrs, we just party and have fun.

Thanks to you for this tool and I’ll put it to you straight.
I’ll recommend it to everyone, because Cogniview is great.

So for this 4 yr anniversary, it is my pleasure to say….
Keep “excel-ing” in what you do, and wish you a Happy Birthday!!!

Good Luck n’ Happy 4th Anniversary!!!”

Pierre Mantha from the Britec Computer Systems Ltd.,Toronto, ON Canada said

“As major integrators of Sage BusinessVision software, on a recent upgrade from a competitive product the client could only provide us with PDF files.

From everything from Customer Databases, Vendor Databases, Inventory Databased – all form of reports came in PDF format only.

PDF2XL saved the day (or really the month). Based on the volume of data there is no way we could have tackled this project without PDF2XL. What would have taken litterally months of work to rebuild new structured tables took a 4 to 5 days.

Keep up the great work Cogniview – A Happy Birthday and to many more to come.”

Kris said…

“The day you were born of your parents minds was the day the world changed forever! Happy 4th birthday PDF2XL.
You took a 12 hour job and made it into a 2 hour job by reading over 500 pages of cell phone activity and creating an Excel document that was sortable and searchable. You save my company at least 10 hours of work. You saved my client three days of reading, high-lighting and writing down the activity. And you saved her thousands of dollars to have someone compile the information.
GREAT JOB!”

Jenna Z said…

“Dear PDF2XL,
Happy birthday from a user
Through documents I’m a cruiser.
It may sound cheesy
But with your help it’s easy
And you’ve kept me from being a boozer!
Thanks for the time-saving, sanity saving help! Happy fourth birthday!”

Eugene Hashimoto Said…

“Happy B-day to you and the team. It is really impressive to see the list of customers who have written. Definitely a sign of you superior product and more so, you excellent client service. BTW, you can keep the $15 gift card if I win and invest it back into your company. We really need companies like yours to succeed.
All the best,
Eugene”

Dan Wilcox said…

“My head felt as big as the Liberty Bell.
My brain was smoking like the ashes from Hell.
I was pulling my hair
And was full of despair.
Suddenly I found PDF2XL
Now everything is just going so well
And I am always so eager to tell
How I convert all day long
And still keep going strong
Thanks to Cogniview PDF2XL
Happy Birthday”

Victor Guettlein said…

“Congratulations on your 4th anniversary.
What an awesome product PDF2XL is. Do you know how much time and money PDF2XL has saved me? Literally hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars! Plus it makes me look like a genius to both my vendors and clients. I am actually a genius, and owning this software is just further evidence.
Keep up the fantastic work and innovation!”

Tracy Duke Said…

“PDFXL2,
My job would surely suck without you,
I used to type for 2 days straight,
Then there you were like a soul mate,
Happy Birthday four years old,
To other offices your story I’ve told,
May you be downloaded for many more years
Resting the fingers and bringing good cheers.
Congratulations and Happy Birthday!”

Leisa from Cedar Rapids, IA said…

“Because of your product I have been able to be more productive in my job. What used to take me days to convert by hand now only takes me a couple of minutes. I would like to applaud you in your quest to make life easier for us who have to work with .pdf files. I love this software so much that I have told others within my company and they have purchased it as well.
You are unsung heroes in my opinion!! Who would have ever thought that there would ever be software that could transform .pdf files in a click of a button! Thank you so much!”

And the 1st place goes to…Peter Dallimore from Stanbridge’s Hobbies, Australia which said…

“Happy Birthday and THANK YOU. What a terrific product. For years I struggled to get my suppliers to send me their invoices as an electronic file – I tried and tried – I even offered to send them my Purchase Orders electronically – but no – they are a backward looking lot!!!! A little glimmer of hope – I bought a scanner and some opposition software to make my own PDFs of invoices – it did not work – that was a was of money. Then success came – I was able to get my suppliers to send PDF invoices via email and then I found COGNIVIEW – IT WORKS – SO EFFORTLESSLY – Last night after a long day at work I received into our stock system a 24 page invoice – 320 lines – from one supplier – it only took 20 minutes to receive into stock – all because COGNIEVIEW created a csv file that I could then import into my system.
Why am I so grateful – you let me have 2 hours extra sleep last night!

Thank you – PS I do not want the gift – the software is enough – and by the way – your support is fantastic too. With 90000 product lines and 250 suppliers you help make it all happen.”

Success

Success

Life is Wonderfully Weird – Part 1

Yesterday morning I realized a horrible thing.

I was reading through the archives here at ‘Codswallop’ and it dawned on me that this blog is way too serious.

If this continues (I said to myself), we’ll develop a reputation of all-work-and-no-play guys. And since being dull is a grave offense, I’ve decided to share with you our weird (and sometimes interesting) life here at Cogniview.

And we’ll start the ‘life is wonderfully weird’ series with our next door neighbors.

They operate a sound testing lab. Which is pretty cool. But what’s really cool is that they build their testing environments using all sorts of strange materials. And they are using the public parking lot to store their strange stuff.

And today, it is cut-up tires…

Sound Isolation Material?

If you know how you use cut up tires for sound testing, please, please – share it with us in the comments :)

The Dream of One Online Identity

Gravatar - Globally Recognized AvatarsGravatar is the leading provider of cross-site avatars. I can’t think of a single service that is integrated into more community sites for the visual representation of a user.

If you sign up to the service you can have your picture associated with your email address. Comment on a blog that uses Gravatars, or sign up to any other community that uses them and you can have your avatar show up, allowing a consistency of identity for yourself and a more inviting community for the site owner.

All great and useful, but that is all the service does.

Ideally, it would be a true online identity. The beginnings of this would be easy, just add OpenID support, something they can do, keeping in mind Automattic who owns both Gravatar and WordPress has added OpenID to their WordPress.com service.

Gravatar + OpenID would be a single identity both in authentication and visual sense.

OpenSocial - Google CodeIntegrate with WordPress.com and they could build in a public profile. Add in friend/buddy support and you have a social network, and through open API plugins could be built that extend this network presentation across any site. With Googles latest developments, such as Open Social, they wouldn’t have to even build most of it.

OK, I have picked on Gravatar here. Truthfully, I wish one of the many services I use would take this kind of idea and run with it. Twitter would work, even Flickr (although they do have things to worry about with the off and on Microsoft dealings). Perhaps Google is best place to do this, especially as they will want to make Microsoft investment in Facebook moot.

One issue I guess is portability of your data means you have even less say in where it appears. Privacy issue?

What do you think? A dream, a likely scenario or one step too far? Please add your thoughts in the comments

Introducing Chris

Hello all! My name is Chris Garrett and Yoav has invited me to join him in writing here on this blog.

It’s always like being the new boy in school writing for a new blog. You are never sure what people will think when a fresh face appears. With this in mind I will tell you a little about myself and then give you an opportunity to tell me a little something in return.

Like Yoav, I am a long-time computer guy in my thirties. My first exposure to computers was when age nine or ten my parents delivered my brother and I a Commodore Vic20. That 3.5k beast became my obsession.

Also like Yoav, my first taste of real hard core computing in the world of work was with a VMS machine, for me it was at age sixteen when I started working at the local general hospital. Being straight out of school I wasn’t allowed to tinker with vital patient data so unfortunately didn’t get to explore the system very much but it opened my eyes to what the world of IT had to offer.

My career since then has seen me in many varied roles, from system and network administration through database and software development. While I loved programming and even co-authored three books on .NET, I recently have left the development world and concentrated on New Media and blogging. Since my first view of Mosaic running over that slow, loud, US Robotics modem in the early nineties I have been hooked on the Web and have made it my primary work for over twelve years now.

I hope with my writing on this blog I can bring you some interesting reading on the topics of technology, the web and productivity.

If you have any feedback on this blog, any suggestions, comments or ideas, please either leave a comment or contact us. It’s an exciting world of technology right now and I am looking forward to helping Yoav discuss it here.

Chocolate Rain

When the walls of copyright are gone, the speed of sound equals the speed of light. Enjoy.

The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need

Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things done. Innovation junkies, take note: the Internet has a lot to offer. From invoicing to marketing, these are tools that freelancers need to know about.

Organization

If you’re busy with lots of client work, it’s easy for things to get out of hand. Don’t let your work get away from you; organize information and projects with these tools.

  1. Backpack: Get your projects organized by using Backpack. Create to-do lists, notes, files, images and a calendar with reminders that can be sent via email or to your mobile device.
  2. Central Desktop: Collaborate, communicate and share files with clients and coworkers using Central Desktop.
  3. iOrganize: With iOrganize, freelancers can organize work by keeping notes, ideas and bookmarks in one place.
  4. Viapoint: Viapoint makes it easy for freelancers to store emails and files by client or project.
  5. Stikkit: Use Stikkit’s “little yellow notes that think” to keep in touch, plan and collaborate with clients and coworkers.
  6. Webnote: Webnote users can take notes using a web browser, then save and return to the notes on any computer. This is especially helpful if you’re working on-site with a client and have to use a computer other than your own.
  7. Netvibes: Spend less time searching and more time working by customizing your browser’s start page with email, feeds, messaging, job boards and much, much more.

Calendars & To-Do Lists

Client meetings, important events and a never-ending list of things to do can wear you down if you can’t make them manageable. Use these handy calendars and to-do lists to keep your schedule from taking over your business.

  1. Remember The Milk: Remember The Milk reminds you to take care of important tasks, so you’ll never forget when a project is due.
  2. CalendarHub: Use CalendarHub’s web-based calendar to keep track of deadlines and set goals for your business.
  3. Google Calendar: Google Calendar is a web based tool that allows users to organize their schedule, so you’ll always know exactly what you need to be working on.
  4. Planzo: Planzo’s online calendar keeps freelancers connected to events and things to do. It lets you share your events just about anywhere, get a daily digest and receive text message reminders.
  5. Spongecell: Spongecell is an online calendar made for freelancers with lots of meetings and engagements. Plan events, spread the word and allow guests to add content to your calendar.
  6. Neptune: Neptune’s web based to do list tool helps you keep track of the things you need to take care of every day. It lets you email yourself new tasks, get an email report every morning and upload files to store with your projects.
  7. Ta-da List: When you’re busy with lots of projects, it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve accomplished. Make web-based ta-da lists for yourself or other people, then share them and check items off as you go.

Your Money

Money is what keeps your freelance business going, but managing it can be tedious and time consuming. Sure, it’s fun to see money come in, but does anyone really like sending out invoices? Use these tools to make the process of managing your income easier and more enjoyable.

  1. Wesabe: Use Wesabe to keep tabs on where the money in your business goes, helping you to make better financial decisions.
  2. InstaCalc: InstaCalc is a web based calculator with lots of bells and whistles including spreadsheet capabilities, unit conversions and programming commands. It’s great for freelancers because you can send clients links to any of your calculations, put a calculator on your website or create charts and graphs from your calculations.
  3. XE: If you’re working with an overseas client, you may need to handle foreign currencies. Use XE’s currency converter for accurate calculations with up-to-the-minute currency rates.
  4. Dimewise: Use Dimewise’s web-based convenience to manage your business transactions wherever you are.
  5. FreshBooks: FreshBooks offers a program for “painless billing,” so you’ll never have to spend hours sending client invoices out. Designed with service-based businesses in mind, this software provides a method to manage and send invoices, handle work orders and generate reports with ease.

Storage

Do you have too many client files clogging up your hard drive? Use these services to take a load off.

  1. openonmy: openonmy’s website offers storage for files up to 1GB. These files are made to be accessible from any computer, so you can open them up even when on-site with a client.
  2. Xdrive: Xdrive offers 5GB of online storage. Use their service to share files with your clients and coworkers.
  3. YouSendIt: Have you ever had to clean out your inbox just so you’d have room to send out an email? YouSendIt puts and end to that trouble by sending files up to 2GB to your clients.
  4. Flickr: Save space on your hard drive by uploading your photos to Flickr. It’s a great way to store, share and organize photos for your business.
  5. Box: Create an online file-sharing location for you and your clients on Box.
  6. MediaTemple: Keep your important client files safe on MediaTemple’s servers. They offer innovative hosting solutions for all kinds of websites.
  7. DivShare: Use DivShare’s file hosting service to email files to clients or store them in a folder for shared access later.

Project Management & Productivity

Do you wonder where all of your time goes? Do your clients want frequent status updates? Keep tabs on your time and projects with these tools.

  1. Harvest: Harvest offers web-based time tracking software with simplicity. Track your progress and inform your clients using Harvest’s reports.
  2. Side Job Track: Side Job Track, designed with freelancers in mind, provides software that lets you track and manage project information. Features include job tracking, invoicing and reporting.
  3. Basecamp: Basecamp offers a way to improve project communication. Use it to keep your teammates and clients informed about what’s going on with your projects.
  4. ConceptShare: ConceptShare provides online design collaboration. Invite clients and coworkers to view your design and make comments on your work.
  5. ProjectStat.us: Instead of fielding constant calls about the status of a project, let your customers view the status of their project online with ProjectStat.us.

Writing & Design Tools

Being creative can get expensive. Purchasing icons, stock photos, book publishing and the like can add up fast and eat into your profit margin. Check out these free and inexpensive tools designed to make the lives of freelance writers and designers cheaper and easier.

  1. Writeboard: Have you ever had a client or coworker revise a document and end up wiping out your work? Use Writeboard to share and collaborate while saving separate versions each step of the way.
  2. Lulu: Lulu gives fledgling writers an easy way to get published. Each product is printed as it’s ordered, so you don’t have to build an expensive inventory.
  3. MailBuild: Built for web designers, MailBuild allows users to set up a template for client email campaigns.
  4. MyFonts: Do you want to see how fonts will look on your design before committing to a purchase? MyFonts provides a source for trying out and buying new fonts.
  5. IconBuffet: Find and trade stock icons for your web designs on IconBuffet.
  6. stock.xchng: Add photos to your writing or web design at low or no cost. stock.xchng provides tons of stock photos, many of them royalty-free.
  7. Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Don’t bother spending hard-earned money for the latest version of MS Word. Create, upload, share and edit word and spreadsheet documents online using Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
  8. PDF to Excel: While not a web app, Cogniview’s PDF to Excel converter can save you mucho tiempo when you are faced with locked PDF data relevant to you business. With this tool you can extract inventory data, pricing and product data and prospects list from PDF file to Excel.
  9. MorgueFile: MorgueFile’s high resolution photos are has-beens in the stock photography world, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do a great job spicing up your work.

Security & Privacy

Don’t let your work get stolen or compromised. Can you imagine how your business would suffer if you lost files due to a virus? Or worse, if the financial information of your clients got exposed to spyware? These services help you stay safe and secure.

  1. SpamSieve: Fighting spam takes time away from your business and opens your system up to intruders. Use SpamSieve to keep spam out of your Mac email client.
  2. Escrow: Don’t get burned by clients that make fraudulent payments. Use Escrow to protect yourself and your clients from payment fraud.
  3. Cloudmark Desktop: Cloudmark protects your Outlook inbox from spam, phishing and viruses, so you’ll never have to worry about compromising business files when reading your email.
  4. PayPal: Give your clients a way to pay without sharing their financial information by using PayPal.
  5. Moneybookers: Open your business to the worldwide market safely. Use Moneybookers for secure worldwide payment and acceptance.
  6. Spamato: Keep your business email secure by using Spamato with Outlook, Thunderbird or Mozilla Mail.
  7. Spybot Search & Destroy: Make sure your confidential client information is safe from prying eyes by scanning for spyware with Spybot Search & Destroy.
  8. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition: Protect your business files with a good antivirus program. AVG Anti-Virus offers a free solution for protecting your computer from viruses.

Mobility & Contact

When running a business, it’s essential that you’re able to keep in contact with clients, vendors, coworkers and other important acquaintances. Use these tools to communicate with ease.

  1. Campfire: Campfire is a web-based chat tool that’s ideal for online meetings with clients or coworkers.
  2. Meebo: Don’t miss out on a client just because you don’t use the same instant messaging tool. Get access to every major messaging service on Meebo’s website without having to download anything.
  3. FaxZERO: Online communication is popular, but sometimes you just have to send a fax. But who wants to invest in a fax machine and phone line for something that happens only on a rare occasion? Instead, use FaxZERO to send a fax anywhere in the US or Canada for free.
  4. eBuddy: Don’t miss out on important messages while you’re away from your base of operations. Log on to eBuddy to sign on to online messengers using your mobile device.
  5. K7: FaxZERO lets you send out a fax for free online, but what if a client wants to fax something to you? Enlist the help of K7, a service that assigns users a phone number that accepts fax and voicemail messages, which are then sent to your email.
  6. GoToMeeting: Use GoToMeeting to keep in touch with clients and coworkers via online meetings.
  7. LogMeIn: Don’t let your business suffer because you can’t take your computer on the road. Use LogMeIn to get access to your computer’s desktop anywhere.

Marketing & Networking

You provide a great service and offer awesome rates, so why isn’t the world knocking down your door with business? Perhaps it’s because they have no idea you exist. Get your name out there and find new clients with these tools.

  1. LinkedIn: LinkedIn offers online networking at its best. Find opportunities and contacts based on your work and the people you already know.
  2. askCHARITY: Take advantage of askCHARITY’s database of key media contacts to get the word out about your business.
  3. Craigslist: Craigslist is an invaluable tool for any freelancer. Find clients, sell your work, buy supplies, network and more using Craigslist.
  4. Coroflot: Use Coroflot to post an online portfolio and find design jobs.
  5. ProfessionalOnTheWeb: ProfessionalOnTheWeb hosts a directory of portfolios. Make sure yours is there when clients search for help.
  6. Elance: Use Elance to get connected with clients that need your services on a project.
  7. 37signals Gig Board: Use the 37signals Gig Board to find freelance jobs in programming, design and more.
  8. WebProJobs: Find full-time and freelance web professional jobs on WebProJobs.
  9. Job Pile: Job Pile aggregates popular freelance job boards, so you can spend time working instead of searching.
  10. YouTube: Use YouTube’s viral video to get the word out about your creativity.
  11. CafePress: CafePress offers on-demand printing for promotional items as well as a place to sell your design.
  12. Spot Runner: Use Spot Runner to build a TV advertising campaign.

Business & Legal

Paperwork isn’t always fun, but it is necessary. Forms and agreements can provide legal protection and help you avoid disputes down the road. Check out these tools that help you protect yourself and spend less time on the boring stuff.

  1. MyNewCompany: Get legal and tax protection for your freelance business by making things official. Use MyNewCompany to incorporate or form an LLC online.
  2. Help Me Work: Get the stability of corporate life while still working as an independent consultant. Help Me Work takes care of taxes, client billing, paychecks, benefits, retirement plans and more.
  3. Designers Toolbox: Get set up with all the legal forms your design business may need with Designers Toolbox.
  4. Creative Commons: Use Creative Commons to specify how much or how little legal restrictions you want your work to carry.
  5. AIGA: Protect your business with AIGA’s standard form of agreement for design services.
  6. Nolo: If you’ve got a legal question about your business, head to Nolo. Experts there offer legal advice for independent contractors and consultants.
  7. Creative Public: Head to Creative Public for forms, contracts, pricing guides and more for your design business.

Client Contact & Feedback

Your clients are what keep you in business, so it’s important to check in with them and make sure they’re satisfied. Use these programs to keep in touch with your clients and find out what they have to say about your work.

  1. Breeze: Send out email campaigns to your clients with Breeze’s easy tool.
  2. Wufoo: Use Woofoo to make forms, surveys and invitations for your customers with ease.
  3. Relenta CRM: Keep track of customer relationships using email, contact, document and activity management with Relenta.
  4. Highrise: Don’t lose track of your customers: keep in touch with Highrise’s online contact management system.
  5. ScratchnScribble: Use ScratchnScribble’s service to have handwritten or printed greeting cards sent to your clients.

Website Tools

Clients are looking for your business online. Will you be there? Check out these applications to make sure your business has an excellent online presence.

  1. Big Cartel: Set up an online store to sell your products using Big Cartel’s service.
  2. WordPress: Blog about your business and industry with WordPress.
  3. Inblogit: If you’re a design professional, your blog should be attractive. Use Inblogit for blog functionality with more flexbility in design.
  4. Icebrrg: Create web forms with Icebrrg so that your website can generate customer inquiry and feedback.
  5. XHTMLized: If you’re too busy to build a website yourself, use XHTMLized. They take your design and turn it into a web page that is browser and search engine friendly.
  6. XHTMLiT: XHTMLit offers freelancers another time-saving solution for converting design into HTML.
  7. Userplane: Make your website interactive for your clients by bundling chat, messaging, video, search and live presence with Userplane.
  8. Ning: Let your clients network with each other by creating your own Ning social network.
  9. ExpressionEngine: Impress your customers by having a website with lots of features. Use ExpressionEngine to publish just about anything on your website.
  10. FlashDen: Build a great-looking website that your clients will want to visit. Buy Flash, audio, video and fonts to make your website look good at FlashDen.

Printing & Packaging

When your products look good, your business does too. Presentation makes a difference, so be sure to make a good impression by using these innovative printing and packaging tools.

  1. Jewelboxing: Impress your customers with Jewelboxing’s customized, professional-grade DVD and CD packages.
  2. Qoop: Qoop prints everything freelancers might need: business cards, apparel, promotional items, posters and more.
  3. Moo: Moo prints note cards and mini cards from your photos and design. These can be used for promotional materials or business cards.

Tools to Give & Take

These tools pack a double-whammy of functionality. Use them to get the resources you need or as an alternative revenue stream.

  1. Google AdWords: Use Google AdWords to advertise your business or make money by putting AdWords on your website.
  2. Prosper: Using Prosper’s people-to-people lending website, you can borrow money for business expenses from real people. If you have extra cash, use Prosper to earn interest by lending to others.
  3. Text Link Ads: Generate interest in your website and attract clients with Text Link Ads or earn money by selling space for others on your site.
  4. PayPerPost: Use PayPerPost to have a blogger write about your product or service. Alternately, you can earn money by writing about someone else’s business.
  5. Guruza: Find answers to your business questions or earn money by giving expert advice on Guruza.

Miscellaneous

From office suites to creative stimulation, these tools have a lot to offer for freelancers. Check out these applications that cover anything and everything else you might need for your business.

  1. Zoho: Zoho’s Office Suite includes a variety of software solutions for freelancers: a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, wiki writer, notebook, project management, CRM solution, database creator, calendar, web conferencing, email and chat.
  2. Veetro: Veetro offers another all-in-one solution that specializes in the tools freelancers need the most. This program combines money, document, task and customer management with email marketing, reporting and blog publishing.
  3. Work: Are you clueless about what it takes to run a business in your industry? Work offers guides that show you how.
  4. Pandora: Get your creative juices flowing with Pandora’s fully customizable internet radio.

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