Invoice Journal is a free web application that tries to make the process of invoicing as easy and as accessible as possible. Invoices are created electronically and your clients are sent emails containing a link to their invoice for printing or saving in .PDF.

Although relatively new to this increasingly popular market, we found Invoice Journal to be one of the better free services we tried. For a start, Invoice Journal does not have a paid-version so it will not try and entice you to upgrade by limiting your features. The most common limitation is the restriction of the number of invoices you can send each month. Invoice Journal allows you to send as many invoices as you like to an unlimited number of clients, with an impressively long list of currencies at your disposal.

The sign-up process is painless, and the interface is simple and intuitive, so most users will not need long to get up and running. Creating new clients, companies, products and of course invoices after that is a breeze and they all become quickly search-able for future reference. To enhance your searches you can also add custom tags to each invoice so that you can get an overall view of items from a particular class. Overdue invoices can also be listed giving you an immediate picture of who you still need to chase. The finished result looks clean and professional, but those who are especially image conscious can also use their own custom made templates.

How our test invoice turned out.

At present you can include your PayPal account details which will be linked from the invoice, although we would like to see other services such as World Pay or Google Checkout added too (although you can still just request payment by cheque or cash) A multi-user account would also be a convenient tool for businesses who employ more than one person to do the invoicing.

As a web application it has the advantage of portability and access from anywhere but as usual it is hindered by its reliance on an internet connection. At present there is no export or backup function to allow you to bring your data offline.

These shortcomings might be forgiven in view of the fact that this service is still in beta and by the looks of things there is still more (including a reports function) to come.  For a simple yet effective way to manage your invoices Invoice Journal is certainly an excellent tool for the price.

http://www.invoicejournal.com/

The monolithic standard of office software these days is Microsoft Office - particularly Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and Outlook/Entourage. Only a brave few venture out and try something different.

Since switching to the Mac, I’ve preferred to use Apple iWork for any document/presentation work, and the integrated mail/calendar/contacts software included in OS X rather than Entourage. That said, I still have an Office 2004 install disc sitting in my room, though it’s not installed on my MacBook Pro.  I’m often questioned as to why I don’t use Office, and why I’d rather convert my files to .doc instead of just saving in that format natively.

In the business world, everyone uses Microsoft Office, and sometimes sets up their company so that document collaboration is a snap using Microsoft software. Just as I’ve suggested that your business think different about computer systems, I’m going to suggest that you look into an alternative to the boat anchor known as Office. So here’s five reasons why I don’t use MS Office:

1. Microsoft Office on the Mac is slow. Really slow.

From using both Office 2004 and 2008, my biggest gripe with the software has been its speed. Word usually takes 5-15 seconds to open, while Pages takes 1-5, and TextEdit opens in a negligible amount of time. Editing anything more than text in a document is frustrating - Word takes inordinate amounts of time to do even the most menial tasks. When I need to pull up and make a quick edit to a document, waiting for an application to load is the last thing on my mind.

2. Documents made in Office lack design value (most of the time).

I know when someone’s using Powerpoint, because they’re almost always using a standard template, exactly as Microsoft intended. Default templates included in Office tend to use bland and cheap fonts, clipart, and charts. Keynote, on the other hand, provides high quality, eye-catching graphics and text. Little things like anti-aliasing, super high resolution, and motion blur make a huge difference. I’ve always been able to distinguish Keynote presentations from Powerpoint, simply by looking at a few slides.

3. The cheapest version of Office is almost twice as much as iWork.

iWork retails at $79, while the student version of Office comes at $149. If you want Automator actions and Exchange functionality, you’re going to have to find a more expensive version of Office. iWork works right out of the box with Automator and Applescript, and integrates perfectly with Mail, iCal, and Address Book. For a student low on money, iWork gives the same features for a significantly lower cost.

4. The UI on Office Mac still doesn’t work.

Though Microsoft went through great pains to make Office 2008 match the Mac OS user interface, they still didn’t get it. Office still feels like a Windows application that was ported to the Mac because they had to, not because they wanted to. Little things like toolbar button focus and overlay tooltips actually do make a difference. The “Document Gallery”, the much-touted feature in 2008, is one of the most poorly-designed features in a Mac application ever: every element of the interface is animated in some form, and uses an Aqua-esque design that looks like an Aqua ripoff rather than an attempt at integrating with the Mac UI. Not only that, but I’ve come across several UI bugs in my use of Office 2008. Call me picky, but when you have to use these applications daily, it does come to bug you after a short time.

5. Tables in iWork run circles around Office.

Tables created in Microsoft Word are incredibly distinct - they’re thin (sized just barely to fit the text), page-wide, and cheap looking. Editing them is a hassle, and adding new rows and columns (not to mention rearranging) isn’t the easiest task in the world. In iWork, press the “Table” button, and a perfectly sized table appears, with a header and drag corners. Creating a professional table doesn’t get any better.

There’s more I’d say about Powerpoint and Excel, but as I use Word more than anything else, I figured I’d right about that. By the way, I was not paid anything by Apple to write this - I love iWork, and wrote this simply out of my personal gripes with MS Office.

John Rust is an occasional contributor to BizHack. He lives in Virginia, USA, and also writes on his own blog, productivetech.wordpress.com

Nearly every business today is dependent on Microsoft-based systems. Over the course of a decade, Microsoft has made it easy and convenient for businesses to set up a complete system based on their software - from the Windows operating system, to Exchange for communication services, to Windows Server and its variants for user and data management, and Visual Studio for basic in-house software creation. But though it’s easy to deploy to many users, and the accepted standard today, Microsoft systems are prone to crashes, downtime, and general maintenance nightmares. Yet businesses continue to use this problem-ridden system, because it is the standard.

In the meantime, home users discover the Mac, and its ease of use and incredible functionality. Then they go in to work, and bear through the bugs and blue screens of Windows. Many a time have I heard the complaint that “the company won’t let me use my Mac for anything work-related”. Why don’t more businesses switch to the Mac, when it’s easier to use, and doesn’t have so many issues?

As I wrote on my own blog, Apple and the Business Market - What Are They Up To?, Apple isn’t actively courting business to adopt their platforms. Instead, they’re depending on their already-happy customers to eventually turn their companies over. For business start ups, the question is obviously there: Should we go with the accepted standard, or work with something that’s not as widely used, and expensive, but works better?

Consider the cost factor for a minute: Though the cost of buying a Mac is considerably more than a PC, less money needs to be spent on maintenance, training, and upgrades - because the Mac isn’t as error-ridden as the PC. Time doesn’t need to be wasted while waiting for patches and service packs to download and deploy, and many service issues can be performed remotely using Remote Desktop. And a Mac even works with most already-in-place Microsoft systems, especially with the upcoming release of the new Mac operating system, Snow Leopard.

If you don’t have to use a Microsoft server system, all the more power to you! Mac OS X Server offers the same services Microsoft offers - from corporate email management, to calendar sharing, to enterprise data storage. The cost of server systems on the Mac is considerably cheaper than Windows, on a side note: Microsoft charges for their Windows Server OS by the license, so larger companies have to pay more to use the software. Apple charges a flat rate for unlimited users, and then that’s it. You can add as many new users as you like, and you don’t need to pay anything more for your server software.

If you’re starting a business, or work in one, it is certainly worthwhile exploring the other easier options before you go with the status quo. In this case, Apple might well be the solution you are after.

Here at Bizhack.net we’re big fans of Google Docs. For us, its simplicity, portability and superior collaborative tools have become must-have attributes especially when fleeting from computer to computer and trying to juggle blogging with our day jobs.

For those that don’t already know, Google Docs is a mini office suite which exists online (on Google servers.) You currently have the ability to create written text, spreadsheets and presentations and save or edit them wherever you have an internet connection. If you need to, you can export them as a file to your computer in a wide variety of formats including the Microsoft Office and Openoffice formats or even .pdf. Google allows you to share your online documents with anyone you like and many people can work on the same document at the same time, with a pretty efficient revision history setting should you need it. Google have also exploited their vast database of online information enabling you to input publicly accessible data into your spreadsheets which will then update and change in real-time (for example with share prices)

Online editors like Google Docs are by no means unique, but they are widely considered to be one of the leaders of the pack (also check out Zoho Office) in terms of what they have to offer as well as the reliability of their servers (without which until recently you would not be able to access your documents as often as you would like)

However, where online editing excels as a collaborative and portable tool, it fails miserably if you cannot access the internet. For single users in the western world this might be more of an inconvenience rather than a hindrance as it is only a matter of time before one can find a WI-FI enabled hot spot, but for businesses (which Google is actively targeting) complete reliance on the internet might have been a turn off.

Google Offline Docs is made available by an open source extension called Google Gears which, once installed, will make your documents available within the browser itself. Any changes made offline will be saved in your browser and will automatically update on Google servers when you next go online. Google Gears will create a shortcut on your desktop to give you quick access to your offline content.

Having said all that, at present, only documents themselves can be edited offline, spreadsheets and presentations can only be viewed. Whilst you can not create a new document of any sort whilst offline, an easy work-around is to save a few empty documents online which will then be editable offline.

Offline functionality has been a widely anticipated and much sought after addition to Google Docs but at the moment this is only a step in the right direction. Whilst single users will rejoice at the opportunity to read their work on the plane, many businesses will opt to wait for more headway in offline functionality before a complete switch to Google can be considered.

This concern was perhaps drummed home (to an extent) last month when a new Mac specific trojan was discovered in the wild, and while this also served to fan the flames of the age old Mac vs PC debate, security providers must now be licking their lips in anticipation of entering a new and wonderfully profitable market.

At the moment Mac users have to contend with a negligible amount of dangerous malware in comparison to their Windows couterparts so if you or your business uses OS X it might be a little too early to be getting jittery.  Mac themselves tend to do a good job of keeping you up-to-date and secure. However, one can also never be too cautious and Mac users can only help the world at large by stopping Windows viruses in their tracks despite the fact that Windows malware will not affect them.

If you prefer to exercise caution over Mac ideology, then the less than aptly named PC Tools have released the free, Mac specific, iAntivirus (in beta)

Modeled primarily on simplicity and usability, the antivirus offers real time protection and smart updates, and while in beta it is also free for business use.  It certainly lacks the functionality that many PC users would be accustomed to (for example you can not easily scan individual files) but its easy to use interface, fast scanning and relatively small footprint on system resources makes this a sure-fire winner for the price.

Having said all of that, our testing to date has pretty much been a non-event and we have not encountered a single virus so far.  However, whether to curb the “inevitable” onslaught of Mac malware, or if not to simply  feel better about the prospect of it, iAntivirus might be a good application to have on the list.

Its time for another commercial software freebie from the Gizmo Tech Support Alert, this time a top-notch anti-malware offering from Emisoft called A-Squared Anti-Malware 3.0 (Windows only)

*****

Gmail/GApps email adds multiple session info

Google have begun to roll out a new security feature to all Gmail and Google Apps users that provides a breakdown of which computers used your account and when.

*****

Easily convert web pages to .PDF

PDF Download 2.0 Beta is a new beta add-on for Firefox 2 and 3 which allows you to quickly and easily download any web page in .pdf format.  The beta requires you to sign up first, although the process is pretty quick and painless.  Once installed, a small icon will appear in the top right of your firefox browser giving you a quick link to convert the web page you are on into .pdf.

*****

Free Commercial Back-up software - Offer Expired (Click here for up to the minute updates)

Titan Backup 2 is an excellent Windows only backup program worth $40, and for a short while you can get it free of charge with no strings attached.

*****

Easily Clean Your Tracks on Public Computers

If you regularly work on the hoof from multiple computers which are not your own, CleanAfterMe might be a good portable app to add to your arsenal.

In an age of ever increasing security concerns, any sensitive history of personal or company activity should be erased from the computer’s memory after use.

*****

Have you got a tip or trick that you think we should write about?  Tell us all about it by writing to us! (mail@bizhack.net)

]]> http://www.bizhack.net/archives/455/feed http://www.bizhack.net/archives/452 http://www.bizhack.net/archives/452#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:12:50 +0000 Bizhack.net Editor http://www.bizhack.net/?p=452 Its time for another commercial software freebie from the Gizmo Tech Support Alert, this time a top-notch anti-malware offering from Emisoft called A-Squared Anti-Malware 3.0 (Windows only)

The product boasts advanced protection against viruses, spyware, keyloggers, worms, dialers, hijackers, trojans, rootkits and other nasty malware floating around around the internet as well as real-time protection, automatic updates and extra manual options for advanced users. Emisoft also offer a free product although it lacks the formidable arsenal of protective features that the paid-for version provides.

Normally $40, you can make use of a special offer that gives it to you for free for a year.  (Instructions here)

Offer ends on 31st July 2008

The new feature, which appears at the bottom of the page below your current mail quota shows you your last account activity as well as the IP address that accessed it.  Clicking on “details” gives a summary (the last 5 on our system) of recent access to the account and the manner in which it was accessed (i.e. through a browser, IMAP or mobile phone).  As a handy aid, Google will also tell you what your current IP address is to help you cross reference.

The new feature also allows you to ascertain whether you are simultaneously logged in on other computers and will even allow you to log out of them remotely.

So whether you suspect your partner, boss or just your plain old local fraudster of spying on your account, or if you are prone to accidentally leaving your email logged in at work or at an internet cafe, Google should now help you put these worries behind you.

The uses for such a service are many and varied, but we found that this little add-on served as a useful alternative to taking screenshots of a web page for preserving its contents (offline) for future prosperity.  Unlike a screenshot which is saved in an image format, the resulting .pdf will preserve all the links on a page which can also be handy should the web page ever go down or become unavailable.

PDF Download 2.0 also gives you the option to email the .pdf straight from the browser which saves time if you need to pass the contents on to colleagues or friends.

The conversion itself is done by external servers so you may encounter problems with password protected pages, even if you are logged in.  If this alone puts you off then Cutepdf might be more up your street.

Overall we found PDF Download 2.0 made short work of even the most complex of web pages, preserving their links and structure perfectly. Be warned that the current beta is limited, so if you hit a brick wall keep trying - the full public release shouldn’t be far away.

http://www.pdfdownload.org/beta/signup.asp

Designed specifically for secure backups, Titan 2 will back-up pretty much anything you choose to any location. Titan 2 can handle a multitude of back-up, sync or restore tasks at the same time (or at intervals of you choosing) whilst implementing secure encryption and its plug-in support allows advanced functionality with your internet browser or desktop email client.

We found Titan 2 to be very easy going on system resources and apart from occasional email reports sent straight to our inbox it was very easy to forget about it altogether and just let the program get on with it.

The program will usually set you back $40 for a single licence although the Techsupportalert website has an agreement with Titan 2 and is currently offering a free licence key here.

The offer expires on 1st July so you will need to hurry if you want to get your copy.

http://www.titanbackup.com/

http://www.techsupportalert.com/neobyte.htm