If you are a person who is very visual in nature, or your job demands that you have to create visual representations of your ideas, thankfully, there are many great free online tools that can help you get your point across.

No matter if you are an accountant and need an easy way to present information to your client, or a web developer sorting out the details of your company’s new site, or even a teacher helping your young students learn basic math with colorful visuals, these types of sites can always come in handy.

So whether you are looking to make a flowchart, pie chart, line graph or do some semantic mapping – whatever the case may be — there are free online tools available to meet all of your diagramming needs.

1. Creately

This is one of the best and easiest to use online diagramming sites you’ll find. The site works in a way in which it intelligently adapts to the type of graph or chart that you start drawing, and intuitively helps you along the way. The website really works with the user and allows you to draw anything you want. Like most of the best online diagramming sites, Creately enables you to invite other people, coworkers for example, into your project and collaborate on it with you.

2. Mockingbird

This site gets its name from the fact that it is the best online tool to use if you are looking to do mockups and wire frames. People who want to quickly and easily draw mockups of their future websites or applications to share with coworkers and collaborators love to use this site.

3. Draw Anywhere

This site has one of the best designs of any of the diagramming sites. It is so simple and effective that it feels as if you are using a desktop application, even though you are doing everything online through the site’s ingeniously developed Flash applications. This makes the site accessible from anywhere, which is one of the main reasons that so many people use it for their diagramming needs.

4. Chartle

This site’s whole mission is to make the creation and sharing of visual information on the Internet a much faster and simpler process. Chartle makes it easy to create a wide variety of graphs, charts and maps.

5. Cacoo

Another very user-friendly tool that will let you draw anything you like – from site maps and network charts, to line graphs and wire frames. It is another service in which you can easily collaborate with multiple users to work on one diagram or drawing at the same time, making it excellent to use as a brainstorming tool.

6. Lovely Charts

This site probably has the most professional-looking diagrams and charts available. It also operates on a very simple drag-and-drop system, which makes it very easy to create clear, understandable and professional diagrams.

7. Lucidchart

The advantages of this site is that the tools are very fast and that they work just as well in whatever web browser you are using, no matter if you are on a PC or Mac. It also allows you to work simultaneously on projects with colleagues.

8. Chartgo

One of the best sites out there if you are looking to create 2D and 3D charts and graphs. It also allows you to import Microsoft Excel worksheets and convert the information into graphs and charts.

9. DIY Chart

A very simple to use site that offers many convenient templates of various types of graphs and charts to get you started. It also allows you to upload information from external spreadsheet documents.

10. Chartgizmo

This site allows you to use the charts that you create on your external websites and blogs. It is a very fast service and offers many options in terms of presentation.

Even though most people think of Firefox and Google Chrome first when you mention add-ons and extensions, Internet Explorer has add-ons of its own that are just as useful.

The truth of the matter is that many people use Internet Explorer as their browser of choice. There are also many people who are not allowed to install new browsers at their workplace, according to company policy, and have to use Internet Explorer on a daily basis, even if they prefer using another web browser.

Whether you like using Internet Explorer or you have to use this browser, you should know that there are some great add-ons that can increase your productivity at work and make life on the Internet much easier.

IE divides its add-ons into three distinct categories – Accelerators, Web Slices, Search Providers and Toolbars.

Accelerators make it easier and faster for you to search text and webpages, while web slices keep feeding you updates to keep you conveniently informed, and search providers allow you to search your favorite sites quickly and easily. Toolbars give you immediate access to your most used sites and functions on your browser. All four types aim to increase your productivity and decrease the time and effort you need to put in to get your work done online.

Here are 14 of the best Internet Explorer add-ons for boosting your productivity.

1) Smart Suggestor

This add-on allows you to search a topic using many services all at once. Search Google, Bing, Wikipedia, and many other sites with just one click with this tool.

2) Simple Adblock

The perfect adblock extension for Internet Explorer. It allows you to select what country you are in so that the adblock targets specific ads and the free version blocks 200 ad-requests per day for you.

3) CleanPage

This add-on will extract the main text of a website for you and remove all of the extraneous ads, pictures and banners. You can also have this clutter-free text emailed to you.

4) Adobe PDF Link Helper

An Adobe Acrobat Reader browser add-on that allows you to view PDF files directly in Internet Explorer.

5) LastPass

An extension for helping you to not only remember all of your passwords for various sites, but also manage and secure them more effectively.

6) Evernote Web Clipper Take 2

The new and improved add-on from Evernote that makes note-taking on the Internet easier than ever.

7) Instant Grammar Checker

This is the one and only real-time spell check tool that is made specifically for Internet Explorer.

8)  Xmarks

Use this add-on to help synchronize and back up all of your favorite sites and bookmarks so that you can access them on several different computers.

9) Similar Web

A great tool that improves your searches and research by helping you to find sites that are similar in content to specific sites that you find entertaining or useful.

10) LinkedIn IE Toolbar

This tool offers you instant access to the popular business-related social network, allowing you to check your mail on the site and access your profile quickly and effectively without having to be on the website.

11) Find on Facebook

This is an accelerator that allows you to perform searches of people and groups on Facebook without having to be on the site.

12) Local Reviews

This is a nifty add-on that helps you seek out the best restaurants and bars located in your area or in a city or town that you will be visiting soon.

13) Google Maps

An IE accelerator for viewing maps and getting directions directly from your browser.

14) Google News

This accelerator add-on allows you to get instant access to thousands of news stories quickly and conveniently.

Once you download the add-ons that you are interested in, you can managed them by clicking Tools → Manage Add-Ons, which you’ll find at the top right of the browser.

Choose the add-ons that you find most useful and be on your way to a new and improved experience using the IE browser.

With the swift rise in mobile technologies and the constant advancements being made, getting work done on the road has never been easier. As smart phones continue to increase in power and popularity, people are now able to do things on their phones that they until very recently needed personal and notebook computers to do.

If you use spreadsheets a lot in your work and need to work with them on the go, there are some great apps available for smart phones, including Android operating system-based phones.

If you are an Android user and someone who needs spreadsheets on a daily basis to boot, here are some great apps to check out. Some are completely free and others are low-priced.

1) Documents to Go  

An application that puts the power of the Microsoft Office Suite in the palm of your hands, including Microsoft’s Excel program, which is still the industry standard for spreadsheet creation.

2) Shead Spreet

This app enables you to read and write Excel files on your phone and packs great features like easily exportable tables and the ability to export screen captures as well. The Lite version limits the size of your tables, but the pro version does not.

3) Quick Office

Another great tool that allows you to use Microsoft Office files on your smart phone. It is also compatible with cloud computing mainstays such as Google Docs and Dropbox, which allows you to save all of your spreadsheets online and always have them available to you.

4) Byte Squared Spreadsheet

Yet another professional spreadsheet program for Android that will enable you to use the .xls Excel format. It can also be easily integrated with Gmail and other email apps to make it very easy for you to send and store your spreadsheet files.

5) Simple Spreadsheet

This app is not Excel-compatible, but it’s an excellent alternative to the program. You get most of same functions and features that you get with Excel and you are also able to export and import CSV files, which makes transferring database and spreadsheet information from format to format very convenient.

6) e-Droid cell Pro Spreadsheet

Another app that is 100 percent Excel compatible and offers many options. With this app, you can even export your spreadsheets as PDFs before sending, sharing, or storing them.

7) Olive Office

This application enables you use files that are compatible with those created and edited in Microsoft Office. You will be able to use both .xls and .xlsx formats in Olive Office and it also enables you to navigate between worksheets within a single spreadsheet, which some of the other applications do not support.

8) Google Docs for Android

If you are used to working with Google Docs on the go, now you no longer need to carry around your laptop because there is an Android app for it finally. The app has everything you need and use when logging in to your Google Docs account, and the interface is optimized for Android, making it very user-friendly for both smartphones and tablets that use the operating system.

Whether you are a business student or you are learning about business on the run as a small business owner, you are going to need some resources to help you with understanding the business world. The terminology and jargon of the business world is growing at a rapid pace, but thankfully, there are plenty online resources to help you keep up.

Here are 20 of the best and most essential online business dictionaries for keeping up with the evolution of the language of business.

General Business Dictionaries

1. Business Dictionary

Much more than just a business dictionary, this is a full-fledged resource page that will offer you business tips every day and in-depth articles on all things business-related.

2. Library Spot

This site links to eight outstanding business dictionaries, including the Washington Post’s online business dictionary and CNN Financial’s glossary of business terms.

3. Your Dictionary

One of the best looking and sleekest business dictionaries on the internet, Your Dictionary performs fast searches of its large database of business terms and presents the definitions very clearly. The print version of this dictionary is a very popular option for people who are interested in buying a physical copy of a business dictionary.

4. All Business

A very complete business glossary that allows you to search multiple dictionaries, including dictionaries for business terms, banking terms, financial terms, accounting terms and much more.

5. Glossarist

Another expansive business glossary that features content related to advertising, e-commerce, marketing and many other aspects of the business world.

6. Business Dictionaries

This site is great for keeping up with the ever-changing business jargon and making sure that you are using all of these terms accordingly.

7. Biz Terms

Biz Terms is a very extensive online glossary that not only defines business words, but also explains various business concepts and ideas in great depth.

Financial Dictionaries

8. Barkley’s Comprehensive Financial Glossary

Barkley’s is the best online glossary if you are looking to find definitions of financial terms that you still do not comprehend or financial ideas that are new to you.

9. Finance Glossary

This excellent dictionary of financial terms also has a great feature that lists the top five most popular search terms every day, which presents a great way to learn new ideas with each visit.

10. Financial Dictionary

One of the most popular financial glossaries, created by renowned finance expert Campbell R. Harvey and professor of International Business at Duke University J. Paul Sticht, so you know that all of the content is accurate and informative.

11. Money Glossary

This glossary includes almost 5,000 different definitions of financial and business terms, making it another great resource.

12. Money Terms

This is a great dictionary of financial terms that you can search, browse alphabetically, or search by categories, such as financial theory, capital markets, strategies, valuation, and many others.

13. Bernstein’s Dictionary of Bankruptcy Terminology

Hopefully, you’ll never need this resource, but if you do need information about bankruptcy procedures, this is a great place to get properly informed on the issue.

Management Dictionaries

14. 12 Manage

This is a very comprehensive resource of business and management concepts, methods, theories, terms and much more.

15. Dictionary of Management Jargon

Here is a site that not only works as a dictionary of terms that are searchable, but also includes exclusive content and articles that look to educate you on the language of management and all the niche terms that are involved in this field of business.

Accounting Dictionaries

16. VentureLine’s Accounting Dictionary

This online dictionary is ranked highest by pretty much every search engine when searching for dictionaries, which speaks volumes of how thorough and helpful it is on its own.

17. ITS’s Accounting, Business Studies and Economics Dictionary

This is probably the best all-around business and accounting resource that is aimed specifically at helping students who are currently learning about business, accounting and economics.

Other Business-Related Dictionaries

18. E-Commerce and Marketing Dictionary of Terms

If you are interested in the world of marketing and online business, this is the perfect dictionary for you to learn more with.

19. Online Glossary of Research Economics

This is an excellent tool for someone who is interested in gaining more knowledge and business insight by trying to understand economic concepts better.

20. The Air Schott Glossary of International Trade Terms

If you are looking to expand your business dealings to other countries and continents, this glossary might come in very handy.

Social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have become prevalent in our personal and professional lives. When we want to reconnect with long lost childhood friends or follow world and business news as it happens, or find possible partners and suppliers for our business, we simply log into our account on the appropriate social network.

One great feature of social sites is that they also offer awesome learning opportunities for developing the users’ professional skills. Ongoing learning and skill advancement is simply a must in today’s business world, especially when it comes to improving one’s computer skills. Most office productivity applications are frequently updated with additional, more powerful features and capabilities. But to be able to take advantage of these improvements, modern office worker needs to be in learning mode constantly.

One of the most advanced and popular office applications today is certainly Microsoft’s spreadsheet program, Excel. True MS Excel masters are always in demand. There are many great MS Excel tutorials and manuals, many of them are even offered for free on the Internet. But, if you are not a fan of thick books or you are simply a Twitter addict, why not use that site to advance your MS Excel skills and knowledge?

Here is a list of some great Twitter users who tweet beginner and power user MS Excel tips and tricks:

@Jon_Peltier is an MS Excel programmer and chart master. Besides tweeting excellent MS Excel tips and replying to questions, he also offers Excel tutorials and add-ins on his website.

@TomUrtis is a Microsoft Excel MVP. Tom shares tips, tricks and advice for Excel users whether they need tips for personal Excel projects or large-scale business-related Excel advice.

@howtoexcelatexcel aims to help you excel at Excel.

@excel_training is regularly tweeting everything that has to do with #Microsoft #Excel – news, tutorials, hints, tips and more.

@XLCalibre strives to help HR Professionals with MS Excel.

@Excelmadeasy is trying to create a virtual school where one can learn almost anything for free through simple and easy to understand videos.

@excelzoom  will prove to you that Microsoft Excel is more than just a calculator.

@pimmychart is focused on chart design in MS Excel. Follow this handle if you want to enhance your charts and spruce up data visualization skills.

@rogerfisher  promotes Excel as an easy-to-use and useful tool. His tweets link his followers to very diverse and nifty MS Excel tips.

@MS_Office_  is a Microsoft Office guru and her tweets will improve not only your Excel, but Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and One Note skills as well.

@MrExcel  writes books and does seminars about Microsoft Excel, but he also shares his vast knowledge in the twitterverse.

@r1c1 makes you awesome in Excel and charting.

@spreadsheetzone doesn’t tweet tips, tricks and hacks, but being a huge depository of professionally designed free Excel templates in hundreds of categories, they regularly share and update tweeters about available templates.

@thecodecagecomprovides free MS Office help for all applications.

@UnclSpreadsheet tweets helpful advice and claims in his bio that he is “making the world a better place, one spreadsheet at a time.” So, check out his tweets to see for yourself.

@exceleverest is an interactive, action-packed Microsoft Excel tutorial designed to make you an Excel Jedi as quickly and efficiently as possible.

These are not the only great tweeters who can help you master MS Excel, there are many more experts who tweet helpful MS Excel advice and tricks. As a matter of fact, we curate a Twitter list of reputed Excel geeks. Feel free to follow it and suggest users that you think should be added to it. And if you think that you deserve to be on the list, don’t be shy – let us know on Twitter! Our Twitter handle is @PDFElite.

Microsoft Excel has long been known as one of the best office tools for organizing information and analyzing data. It has long been a staple of every business, big or small, and continues to be one of the most popular tools that companies use to balance their budgets, keep track of expenses and profits, and a whole slew of other important data related functions related to not only organizing relevant business data, but also presenting it to others. Excel also offers a variety of great templates that conveniently help you organize the data you need to store, present or calculate, and many of them can come in very handy to small business owners who don’t have time to waste or workers to spare.

Here are 15 excellent Excel templates that will help any small business owner keep track of expenditures, income and all other budget-related data.

1) Business Budget is one of the more basic, but still very effective ones for organizing your company’s budget. Enter all expenses and income by category to know at all times how you are doing financially and whether you need to make any adjustments.

2) Rolling Business Budget and Forecast is a  more developed template for financial professionals. You can use it to get real results for income statements and balance sheets and then compare them to things like budget targets, expense restrictions and financial results from recent years or months.

3) Startup budget - if you are not yet a small business owner, but are considering it, this template will help you evaluate how much money you will need to get your business off the ground.

4) Expense budget spreadsheet is a template that focuses on giving you a detailed breakdown of your company’s spending habits. The template is programmed to calculate total budget differences once you have inputted your expenses.

5) Budget Summary Report will enable small finance teams to keep very good books no matter how complex their budget. It helps to provide a very clear and accurate picture of how your business is doing at the end of every month.

6) Cash Flow Budget - If you are looking for a simple template that will clearly show you where your money is coming from and where it is going to, this is an excellent one. It covers cash flow trends for both operations and financing.

7) Annual Operating Budget (Services Industry) enables service companies to create a budget plan for the full fiscal year in a very detailed manner.

8) Annual Operating Budget (Manufacturing) is another template for helping business to create an annual operating budget, but this one is tailor-made for manufacturing companies instead.

9) Targeted Budgeting Tool is a template for the marketing department. It helps you construct return-on-marketing-investment (ROMI) indices for each type of marketing and advertising that you are working on so that you can see how much income is being produced by the money that you are investing into promotion yourself.

10) Capital Budgeting — Return-On-Investment (ROI) Analysis can help companies to analyze and justify significant business investments. If you want to be better informed before making big decision about how to spend your money and what to invest in, this is a good tool for you.

11) Business Trip Budget is a template that will help you plan out and record all of the costs of your business trips including travel fares, hotels, dining, transportation and anything else that goes into making a business trip successful.

12) Event Budget - if you are planning some type of promotion or party for your company, this template will help you see whether it was worth it by helping you compare the costs of the event with the money that was made from it.

13) Training Budget enables you to keep track of quarterly training costs so that you can see how much money you will need to set aside each year for training purposes.

14) Marketing Budget Plan will help you to forecast the size of your marketing budget and keep a tab on all other financial aspects related to promotions and marketing.

15) Channel Marketing Budget can help you to decide how much you want to spend on marketing. It looks at pricing and discounting scenarios, revenue, and sales forecasts to help you make a plan for how much money you need to set aside for marketing purposes.

These great budget management Microsoft Excel templates can make your budgeting easier and less time consuming, so that you can focus more attention on other important aspects of the business.

Currency converters are needed very often in life. If you are going on vacation to a foreign country and you need to see how much their currency is worth in relation to yours, you will have to find a currency converter to reference. Perhaps you are ordering something online from a different country and the price is listed in a currency that you are not familiar with – a currency converter will let you know the value in any currency you might prefer. These are just two of many situations that would require the aid of a currency converter. Thankfully there are excellent ones that you can use online for free. Here are six great ones to check out.

1. XE Currency

XE Currency is a free, universal currency converter that allows users to calculate live currency and foreign exchange rates. The XE currency calculator provides access to every world currency. Furthermore, it converts not only currencies, but the value of precious metals as well.

This online currency conversion tool is very easy to use. You simply the amount that you want converted insert into the widget and choose your currency. For example – 99.95 USD – US Dollar. Then in the right field, from the dropdown menu you choose the currency you want the amount converted to. For example, GBP – British Pound. Click the arrow and your amount in American dollars will quickly be converted into British pounds. The XE Universal Converter uses mid-market rates.

XE also offers free, customized currency calculators to website owners to use on their websites. Webmasters can customize and seamlessly integrate the Universal Currency Converter into their websites. In this way, you can provide live rates for your website visitors, updated every day, non-stop, and all day long.

The best thing about the XE Universal Converter is that it’s available as an application for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, and other mobile devices. It makes calculating currencies quick and simple.

2. GoCurrency

GoCurrency is another great and popular currency site. Users can perform currency conversions right on their website for free, while website owners can add this conversion widget to their own site. As a matter of fact, hundreds of websites have already chosen GoCurrency as their exchange rate provider.

Beside current rates, users can check historic rates for their chosen pairs of currencies. For example, they can check to see how many euros they would have gotten for 99.95 USD exactly one year ago.

3. Free Currency Calculator

Free Currency Calculator is a rather basic, but handy converter. It supports 124 currencies with up-to-date exchange rates obtained from leading market data providers. Currency exchange rates are updated four times an hour. To convert between currencies, select the desired currencies from the two lists on the page and the amount for which you want to conduct the currency conversion. After clicking on the “Convert” button, you will get your currency conversion results.

4. FreeCurrencyRates.com

FreeCurrencyRates.com offers a free online currency rates conversion calculator. This tool is customizable, meaning that you can modify it according to your needs and access your personalized currency converter via a permanent link. The tool`s interface is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese.

iPhone users can additionally take advantage of the iPhone App, which lets them to convert currencies with just a couple of taps.

5. OzForex Currency Converter

OzForex Currency Converter is an online tool which provides free and accurate currency conversion for more than 50 currencies. Convert Australian dollars into US dollars, or Canadian dollars into British pounds, Swiss francs to euros to Mexican pesos, and more.

6. Currencies Direct

Currencies Direct is yet another helpful website which lets you calculate currency and foreign exchange rates for free.  The rates are regularly updated every 15 minutes. It is good, however, to bear in mind that the rate quotes shown serve for indicative purposes only.

Using these tools, you will be able to find currency values in seconds and convert just about any currency into another in order to compare their values. Let us know if you have any other currency converters that you use or prefer to these.

An image is worth a thousand words – you have probably heard this at least a thousand times. But the truth is that it really is so. No matter if you have a website or blog, or prepare materials and presentations for school, college, students, business, or for any other purpose, your documents and presentations simply look better and more professional with compelling, high quality images and graphics. Simply put – people like photos. Knowing this, we compiled a list of useful and free web applications that can help you to quickly create, modify and transform your images into dazzling works of art which will impress your teachers, students, colleagues, business associates, bosses, or simply amuse friends on social networks.

Create images, slideshows, photo collages, photo books and more

It’s never been easier to be an artist than today when there are tons of available online applications that can help you to create and present your photos, graphics and other imagery in creative and electrifying ways.

1. Photovisi is an easy to use and free online photo collage maker. First you pick among the many designs, add your photos, and customize the collage by dragging around items. Finished photo collages can be printed or downloaded.

2. Picture2Life, as its name implies, brings your pics to life by allowing you to turn them into collages and animated gifs. Some of the coolest features of the app include the ability to create collages using one of 20 available different countries as the basis of the collage. It is an awesome way to present your pictures from a recent trip to that country, for example. The best part is that Picture2Life works handsomely with photo sharing, hosting and blogging websites such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, ImageShack, and many more.

3. Photo Collage is another great web application that you can use to create online photo collages, photo animations and photo slideshows.

4. Picaboo bring smiles to the faces of your loved ones by allowing you to easily transform your digital photos into photo books, cards, calendars, gift certificates, yearbooks, prints and more. If you prefer desktop tools, a downloadable version of Picaboo is available.

5. Cool Text is a free online graphics generator. You can use it to quickly create a logo for your website even if you have no web design skills at all. Just choose one of available logo styles and fill out a simple form to design your logo: insert the desired logo text, choose the font, text size, color, and one of available image file formats – png and gif, with or without transparency, jpg, psd or xcf. Once you are satisfied with how your logo looks, click on the button to render it and that`s it.

6. Hohli Online Charts Builder is a simple web tool for making charts. It is based on the Google charts API and is easy to use: select your chart type, add data, pick the size, colors, add a title and preview your chart. Tweak it until you`re happy with it.

7. Creately is an online application for making diagrams, flow charts and collaborating with a team on visual projects in real time. One of Creately’s strongest points is that it is a breeze to use.

8. Funnywow is a website to create funny pictures online and add funny photo effects to your images.

9. Funny.Pho.to allows you to create photo collages from your photos. Apply funny photo effects, create realistic photo montages and add cute frames to your photos. You can also easily create e-cards by adding text to the picture.

10. Fun Photo Box is another tool for creating funny pictures online. Simply upload your photos and apply hundreds of professionally designed photo effects. It also allows you to create romantic greeting cards with personal photos or animations. If you would like a makeover, go ahead and put your face in a hole and become a superstar.
 

Online Photo Editors

Making a perfect snapshot is difficult if you are not a professional photographer and don’t have professional equipment. Fortunately, there are software solutions like Adobe Photoshop which lets you significantly improve your photos. However, Photoshop is not cheap and if you don’t use it to its full potential, getting it is hardly a justifiable purchase. But there are pretty powerful and free online solutions which can help you to enhance your images and photos and dazzle everyone with them without having to install anything on your personal computer.

11. Pixlr is a powerful free online image and photo editor. You can use it to create an image online from scratch or to open and edit images from your computer, URL or library like Pixlr, Facebook, or any other library. It is a great tool for everyone who wants to manage their images in the browser. Registration is not required for using this editor.

12. Splashup is a full-featured, free, web-based image editor and photo manager. Users can create new images or edit existing ones with a myriad of drawing and image editing tools available. Multiple image editing is also supported. Splashup works in real time and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.

13. LunaPic is a handy editor of pictures for Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Users can upload images from their computer or open from the web with a URL of the image. As a matter of fact, you can open images from your account on Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket. Available editing options include drawing directly on the image, adding border and text to image, rotating, resizing or cropping images, and more.

14. Pixenate is a fast and easy photo editor which lets you enhance your images right from the web. Pixenate provides tools to improve your photos in multiple ways. You can quickly normalize photos by improving the color balance or smoothing facial lines, fill light, whiten teeth, change the brightness, saturation and hue of your photos.  Additionally, you can add multiple fun effects to your photos like text, speech bubbles, rounded corners and even sprinkle some snowflakes. You can also surround your photos with a soft dark halo, create a heart-shaped cutout of your sweetheart, make your photos look like Andy Warhol-like pop-up posters or artistic oil paintings. Once you`re satisfied with your image, you can save it to your computer or upload it to Flickr.

15. FotoFlexer is another great and very advanced online image editor that allows you to add stunning photo effects to your pics. Users can edit pictures from their computers or from Facebook, Picasa, Flickr SmugMug, Phanfare, Photobucket and other photo sharing sites.

16. Free Online Photo Editor also enables its users to enhance their photos in their browsers. Edited photos can be saved online, downloaded or printed.

17. Phixr is one more easy-to-use and free online photo editor which directly supports Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and many more.

18. Picmod is a picture editing and sharing website.

19. BeFunky will help you to transform your pictures into exceptional artwork in just a few clicks. The site offers tons of effects and features that you can use to make your pictures look like oil paintings, pop art or vintage Polaroids.

20. Glitter Photo is a nifty online tool that allows you to add glitter, text and several effects to your photos, all for free. The most notable effects include stamps, bubbles, animations, trims and backgrounds.  Not only that, but you can also resize and crop uploaded photos.

21. PicFont lets you simply and quickly insert text into pictures, add comments and shape them online.

22. ImageChef allows you to drop your photos into fun frames, create a cover image for your Facebook Timeline, create word mosaics, and sketchpads.
 

Resize images

Sometimes when you want to share your beautiful images with others by emailing or sharing them online, you may experience problems due to their size. They are simply too big sometimes. To ensure smooth uploading and emailing, you will need to shrink them. There are a number of handy and free online image and photo resizers that can help you to fix the size of your pics in no time at all.

23. Picresize lets you easily resize and crop your images online.  You can also use the tool to add special effects to your images: rotate, sharpen, grayscale. There are two resize modes: a normal and one for quick fixes.  The best part is that the tool allows you to batch resize and crop your images. It is a very handy feature when you need to change the size of multiple pictures quickly.

24. Resize Your Image allows you to resize your image or photo online in three simple steps: upload, use buttons and arrows to set the desired size, resize and download it.

25. Resizr  is another free online image resizer and cropper. It has many useful features, but is easy to use. Resizr will help you to convert, crop, rotate or edit your image quickly.
 

Online Image Converters

Online format converters can be extremely convenient utilities. They let you convert between formats without having to install any software on your local machine. Let us take a look at some of the best free tools for changing image file formats.

26. Photo2Text allows users to convert an image to a text file of the original image.

27. Image to PDF is an online PDF creation tool. You can upload any image from your computer and have it quickly converted into PDF. The converted image will be sent to a specified email address. The tool supports all image file formats, including the most popular – jpg, png, and gif.

28. Text-Image.com is a free web-based image to HTML converter.

29. Picascii offers an easy way to create ascii art. The tool converts a picture into ASCII TEXT and HTML. It supports gif, jpeg and png image formats.

30. Share As Image allows you to highlight text anywhere on the web and quickly transform it into an image. It is especially useful for creating quoted images for sharing on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

31. Map2Pic is an online application that enables you to take screenshots from Google maps and save them as image files. Snapshots can be saved in png or jpg image formats.

32. Convert Hub is a free online graphic and image conversion tool. You can use this online utility to convert between multiple image file formats like ico, png, gif, jpg, bmp, ps, eps, tiff, and more. It is a great tool to make favicon.ico as well, which is the shortcut icon for your blog or site.

33. Image to Favicon.ico is a free online tool to convert an image, logo or photo into *.ICO icon format. Supported input image formats are jpg, gif, png, tiff and bmp.

As just about every aspect of modern life moves into the online world, so too does financial management. No matter how organized a person is, keeping up with personal and business finances is always a daunting task. Thankfully, there are many brilliant online tools available today that can help with keeping one’s finances in check. Whether you want to keep budgets for your household spending, balance your checkbook with error or figure out the best way to pay off your mortgage debts, there are online tools that can help you with these processes.

Here are 15 fantastic online tools that can help you sort out just about every aspect of your personal finances.

1) The Birdy

The Birdy is a tool that will help you manage your spending on a day to day basis. It is a great tool for people who always say that they don’t know where all their money is being spent. This app enables you to keep track of what you spend every day. It’s a brilliant tool for improving your spending habits on a from day to day by seeing and understanding what you are spending most of your money on.

2) Budget Pulse

Budget Pulse is a simple-to-use tool that helps balance your accounts and keep up with your many transactions being made throughout the month. One of the best features of Budget Pulse is that if sends you reminders so that you never miss a payment. Just pencil in your payment deadlines on your calendar ahead of time and never forget to pay a bill again with Budget Pulse.

3) XPenser

If you run a small business of your own, or you need to report on your business expenses to a higher-up, XPenser is a great tool. You can keep track of all types of expenses – hours worked, miles driven, IOUs given out, and just about anything else that could be considered a business expense. The tool also allows you to store receipts securely online and export to send or print out reports at any time.

4) MoneyDesktop

MoneyDesktop is specifically designed for people who need help keeping up with their personal finances. The tool includes a plethora of features aimed specifically at improving financial management. The tool allows you to create budgets so that you can not only see how you want to spend your money, but what you end up spending your money on as well. Become a better money manager with the help of this tool.

5) Buxfer

Buxfer is a tool that is specialized in group management, which makes it a great tool for families, roommates, business partners, people going on vacation together – basically anyone who shares a budget in some way. And once you sign up to start tracking your own budget on Buxfer, you will get discounts for every friend that you convince to join with you.

6) Mint 

Probably the most popular online finance tool right now, Mint has been perfecting its services for many years now. It presents users with the ability to keep very thorough records of all their spending, from groceries to car payments and everything in between. Mint also presents this information in easy-to-follow metrics that allows users to see how they are spending their money and what they can do to save some.

7) Xero

Xero is one of the better accounting online tools and it’s great for people running small businesses who don’t have the budget to hire an accountant of their own. Xero is very intuitive and will be easy to use even for people who have no prior experience with keeping books for a company.

8) Lending Tree

If you have a lot of debts and loans to pay off, Lending Tree  is an excellent tool that can aid you in this process. You can keep track of personal loans like mortgages, student loans and debt consolidation, but it’s also good for commercial loans for people running businesses of their own. Of course, if you have both types of loans, Lending Tree is great because you can keep track of all your loans, personal and business, with the help of just one tool.

9) Credit Karma

If you are looking for a site that will enable you to get a free credit score and then keep tabs on your credit score as you try to improve it over time, Credit Karma  is a good place to start. It offers credit score comparisons and tools, personalized saving summaries, and tips on refinancing and getting your credit score up to snuff has quickly and painlessly as possible.

10) Money Strands

Money Strands  is an all-encompassing personal finance tool that allows you to manage your money easily, plan your budgets, give yourself alerts in order to avoid missing payments and keep all of your financial information secure. It allows you to have access to always have access to your financial data and is especially good for people who travel a lot and need an on-the-go tool and versatile money management tool.

11) Clear Checkbook

Everyone hates balancing checkbooks, especially manually by writing in your checkbook every time you use a check to pay for something. Clear Checkbook allows you to balance your checkbook online and have constant web access to your finances. It also allows you to view your spending habits via easy-to-comprehend pie charts and line graphs.

12) Geezeo

Geezeo is great for setting financial goals and then working towards meeting them. It’s a great tool for establishing strategies for saving and making money, and best of all, you can use the site’s community to discuss various methods and plans that can give you tips that will help you meet the financial goals you have set your yourself.

13) Social Pics

Social Picks provides a vibrant community for people who want advice on stocks and trading tips. Not only will you be able to interact with other members of the site, but Social Picks also offers advice from professional analysts and from some of the best gurus and biggest names in the stock game.

14) Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha is another fantastic community site that allows you to engage with other users in financial discussion that can help shape your financial future and manage your money. The site is also one of the best if you are looking for stock market opinions coming from industry experts.

15) Yahoo Finance Financially Fit

Yahoo Finance’s Financially Fit might just look like a great financial news site at first glance, but it’s a lot more than that. Yahoo members can manage their financial portfolios through the site and always have access to it online. Overall, it’s a fantastic site for getting credible tips on how to manage your money, what financial pitfalls to avoid and where to invest in order to make money.

SlideShare is the world’s largest and leading online community for hosting, discovering and sharing presentations. It is safe to say that SlideShare has become a must-have tool in every presenter’s toolbox today. Business professionals, teachers, public speakers and students alike often use it to find inspiration and ideas, learn or present their own work here.

However, SlideShare is not the only website that specializes in hosting and sharing presentations. There are other great, high-quality sites that let you upload, host and create or discover great presentations and slideshows shared by other presenters.

1. AuthorStream -  a free platform for uploading, hosting and sharing PowerPoint presentations online. It has a pretty large user base and helps you discover great presentations in various categories: business and finance, education, product manuals, science, technology, and many others.

2. Empressr  – a free online tool for creating rich media presentations without having to be a technology expert. Add images, video, audio and music to your Empressr presentations to create visual stories and share them privately or publicly in an instant.

3. MyPlick is a free service for sharing, embedding and discovering slide shows and presentations on the web. They support Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF and OpenOffice documents for slides, and various audio formats if you want to add narration to your presentations.

4. PowerShow - yet another community for hosting, sharing and viewing PowerPoint presentations online. It converts uploaded PowerPoint slides to multimedia Flash slideshows while preserving all types of embedded effects, photos and live links to YouTube videos. Everyone can publicly share and view personal and educational presentations for free. PowerShow additionally allows its users to earn money with their presentations by marking them as “pay to view” and setting a price for viewing them.

5. Prezi - a virtual whiteboard for transforming presentations into compelling stories and visually flowing lessons. Prezi is perfect for creating impressive resumes (called Presumes) and portfolios that will undoubtedly help opportunity and job seekers to stand out from the crowd.

6. Projeqt - create and share dynamic presentations from scratch or by converting old static slides. Simply upload PowerPoint, PDF or multiple image files at once and create a dynamic and portable online Projeqt with no coding required. Created Projeqts can be embedded and shared anywhere.

7. Reel - present your ideas online and get feedback. The app allows you to upload your slides as documents in the PDF, PPT or DOC file formats or as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), describe them, and share.

8. SlideBoom - an easy to use online slide hosting service. This service allows you to upload, convert PowerPoint presentations and slideshows to Flash and share them online. You can also search for presentations in more than 30 categories and 100 different languages.

9. SlideRocket - an online tool for creating, sharing and managing presentations. It allows you to import your existing PowerPoint presentations or create SlideRockets from scratch.

10. SlideServe - one more way to take your PowerPoint presentations online and share them privately or publicly with others. You can email presentations hosted on SlideServe or embed them to blogs and social networking sites.

11. SlideWorld  – a medical PPT search engine geared toward health professionals and students worldwide. Users can upload and share their presentations as well as browse over 700,000 educational medical presentations.

12. SpeakerDeck - upload your PDF slides and turn them into online presentations. Once uploaded to the site, presentations can be described, added to an appropriate category, and shared with the rest of the world. You can share a link to your presentation, embed it on a website or blog, or simply share with Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

13. VCASMO - a multimedia presentation solution for business presentations, academic teaching, seminars and training, photo-video slideshows and more.

14. Zentation -  create online presentations by combining video and slides. It is a handy solution for creating webcasts, webinars, training, e-learning and other virtual events. You can publicly share Zentations that you create and browse other shared presentations.

Pinterest is one of the most popular photo-sharing websites that allows users to create their own image boards where they can “pin” images they like. People usually start by creating different boards for different categories of their interest spheres: art, food & drink, geek, design, technology, travel, etc. Then they start filling each of their boards with photos, illustrations or videos that belong in that group, either by adding visuals they created or browsing the Internet to find good content, or by repinning images they like on other Pinterest users’ boards.

If you’ve ever used or just seen a Pinterest account, you know that many of these pins are light, humorous aspects of a topic or interest sphere. So, one would think that serious, intellectual content for CPAs and accountants-to-be doesn’t belong to such a fun-sharing portal. You’d be surprised!

Pinterest hosts many Pinterest boards designed for accountants, bankers and other finance professionals, but also those who are just entering this exciting field. Pins in the CPA and accounting category are there to:

- Motivate
- Provide money-saving tips and other frugal advice
- Offer sympathy to CPA exam takers
- Point us to quality articles on the topic
- Present helpful infographics for accountants (job-hunting tips, average salaries, etc.)
- Point us to good test-prep websites
- Make us laugh when we feel like crying
- Show us beautiful locations and fun things to do after passing the CPA exam

Without much ado, let’s take a look at some of the best Pinterest boards created by individuals who want to share their accounting experiences, thoughts and good tips with others. The boards are separated into categories, so it will be easier for you to find them and start following them. Let us know in the comment section if there’s another great Pinterest board to follow!

CPA:

1. http://www.pinterest.com/ashtoncartee/cpa/

2. http://www.pinterest.com/smchapman21/cpa/

3. http://www.pinterest.com/mzzpink53/cpa/

4. http://www.pinterest.com/natzann/cpa-to-be/

5. http://www.pinterest.com/pdfconverter/accountancy-cpa-taxes/

6. http://www.pinterest.com/weldongirl/accounting-ba-to-mba-to-cpa/

7. http://www.pinterest.com/lormaneducation/cpa-corner/

CPA Exam:

8. http://www.pinterest.com/ckratz1/places-to-go-after-i-pass-the-cpa-exam/

9. http://www.pinterest.com/missjones513/cpa-examaccounting/

10. http://www.pinterest.com/mandiv77/career-moves-getting-ready-for-the-cpa-exam/

11. http://www.pinterest.com/laurencarr33/cpa-exam-motivation-board/

12. http://www.pinterest.com/cpaexam/cpa-exam-study-groups/

13. http://www.pinterest.com/saraheikk/work-study/

Accounting /CPA Humor:

14. http://www.pinterest.com/AshleyNguyen7/taxes-cpa-accounting-humor/

15. http://www.pinterest.com/happyhoney03/cpa-humor/

16. http://www.pinterest.com/francisncompany/cpa-humor/

17. http://www.pinterest.com/collegefrog/accounting-humor/

18. http://www.pinterest.com/dmkrueg/accounting-humor/

Accounting

19. http://www.pinterest.com/ashleybruette/accounting/

20. http://www.pinterest.com/3sisters4/accounting/

21. http://www.pinterest.com/nessastamps/accounting-nerd/

22. http://www.pinterest.com/bamcadams/finance-accounting-things/

23. http://www.pinterest.com/nicraven/accounting/

24. http://www.pinterest.com/barrettjr12/accounting/

25. http://www.pinterest.com/mariamcgilton/accounting/

If you want to find similar boards, pins and pinners, simply search Pinterest database. For example, if you are interested in exploring what Pinterest has to offer regarding “accounting jobs,” all you need to do is type these two words in the search in the upper left corner of the page and conduct a search (click on the search icon):

Pinterest will return related pins, boards, and pinners which you can search, like, repin, follow and connect with other accounting and financial pinners. Maybe you can even land your very first accounting job through Pinterest!

Similarly, you can search for anything you want: CPA exam tips, accounting humor, taxes preparation, etc. Pinterest makes your search even easier by offering you suggestions. When you type in “CPA”, you’ll see several options appearing in the drop-down menu: CPA study, CPA funny, CPA exam and similar helpful suggestions you can choose from. Happy pinning!

Beautiful and appealing images and graphics can liven up any document, report, presentation, lesson or book. Graphics, photos, charts and other imagery are important not only because of their aesthetic aspect, but also because they help us convey our message more clearly, learn and grasp new concepts more easily quickly, and easily understand business and financial data better.

One of the best indicators of how visual presentations of words are important in our lives is the ubiquitous popularity of image sayings, quotes and other text images on social web sites. They simply grab people’s attention, just like nice charts and graphs work better for presenting financial and numerical data. Images with text can be used not only on the web, but also in business or school presentations, documents or ebooks. If you think beautiful pictures with text are difficult to create if you have no designing skills, this might be true. However, there are many web apps that can make up for your lack of design prowess. All you need are basic Internet skills, text to convert to images, and some time to test and choose your favourite tools from this list of free online apps for creating quote images that the PDFConverter.com team has put up for you.

1. Quozio

Quozio lets you quickly and easily convert a text quote to an image. All you need to do is type in or paste the text you want converted to image in the field Enter your quote…. and the name of the author in the Who said it field. Click the Go button and choose among 28 styles for your picture quote. You can download the text image to your computer and share it on social networks as well. Quozio additionally offers the option of creating a free Quozio user account, or you can log in with a personal Facebook account. If you do that, you will be able to save your image quotes in your account by clicking the Keep button or by sending them directly to your Facebook album of choice.

2. Pinwords

Pinwords  allows you to instantly add stylized text to images. You can add your poetry, headings and titles, notes, stories, love letters or quotes to images in a few moments. Pinwords offers you the possibility of uploading your own image from a computer or the web. If you don’t have an image, you can choose among four attractive patterns or backgrounds for your text image. Style your text with one of six caption styles, eight fonts and an unlimited number of font colors.

3. Someecards

Someecards is an extremely popular website for creating electronic cards and greeting cards for all sorts of occasions. From Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and anniversary cards, to funny, business related or novelty cards – Someecards has it all. It is recognizable by its vintage design: a single color background with black and white comic book style drawings. If you have a quote, you can browse one of many categories to find an image that would best match it and communicate its message. For example, party, workplace, college, birthday, and so on.  You can then change the drawing and color of the background, add text and save your card. All e-card images with usually somewhat funny text can be shared on social networks, embedded to a website or blog, or downloaded. Your free e-cards will have the recognizable someecards logo.

4. LiveLuvCreate

LiveLuvCreate  is a free website for creating images with quotes and stories. It offers many different backgrounds for text, but also allows for adding your own images from a local drive or Facebook account. Additionally, it offers various effects, borders and Instagram-like filters. Created artwork can be saved on a computer or shared across social sites.

5. Quote4fun

Quote4fun is another great text images generator. It is great for creating memes. You start with an empty canvas (once you’ve clicked Create Your Own Quote), enter text in the Your text goes here field, choose from black-and-white images organized in several categories (meme, vintage, silhouettes, or random), and format the text. The vintage category has some really neat old-fashioned picture frames, so you can literally frame your words.

6. Keepcalm-O-Matic

Keepcalm-O-Matic is a free website for creating posters, but it also allows you to put your thoughts in beautiful images as well. To do that, switch to the Thoughts Canvas tab from the Keep Calm poster tab, or visit the page directly: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/?engine=thoughts#create. The tool offers quite a few options for creating beautiful and personalized text images like:

- adjusting the text position on the image
- artistic background patterns or a single background color of your choosing, as well – - as the option to add your own image from Facebook, Instragram, a web address or – - upload from computer
- 10 text fonts
- unlimited number of text colors, and so on.

You can even add a message or description for sharing on social sites and also use #hashtags, @usernames and links. If you want, you can download the image to your computer for future use.

7. ProQuoter

ProQuoter is an excellent tool that is very easy to use while offering many different styles for creating quote images.

8. Recite this

Recite this is a free service that offers you the ability to turn quotes into masterpieces. Users can choose from over 40 predesigned templates for making text images. Like most similar tools, it allows for sharing these masterpieces on social networks or downloading them.

9. Pinstamatic

Pinstamatic is, as the name implies, geared toward Pinterest buffs. Its purpose is to make it easier to create images from words for their Pinterest boards and directly pin them as soon as the quote images have been generated. However, it is also possible to download the text image to your computer with one right-click of the mouse, save it and use for your documents and presentations. Pinstamatic is great for creating for sticky notes.

10. QuotesCover

QuotesCover is an interesting free web app for turning text into stylish typography art pictures. It provides users with the ability to quickly and easily create a cover photo for their Facebook and Google+ profiles or pages. Basically, you get to create a unique and memorable design with only a few clicks.

11. Findings

Findings  is a good choice for quoting and sharing text published somewhere on the web. It lets Internet users easily style, save, share, and most importantly, properly cite the source of wise words they wanted to frame.

12. Curate.us

Curate.us  is a similar tool to Findings. The main point is to turn text highlighted on the web page into a visually appealing quote.

13. Share as Image

Share as Image  is one of the best known web tools for adding text to pictures and sharing them on the social web. This is how it works: you install their bookmarklet in your web browser, highlight the text you want to share from a certain page that you came across while browsing the web, click the bookmarklet to create image with text. You can share or download your output image with quoted text.

So, what do you think about these tools? Have we missed your favourite? If we did, we’d be happy to know about it. Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter by mentioning @PDFElite in your tweet!

If you want to remember to do something, you had better write it down. This is especially true when it comes to our daily chores, tasks and all other to-do’s that just seem to keep piling up and coming down on us. One has to remember all sorts of dates like anniversaries and birthdays, groceries and other items to buy, an ever growing number of assignments and tasks to accomplish at work as an employee and a team member, and the list goes on and on. Most of us find it hard to keep up with all these responsibilities without a sort of to-do list that helps us get things done on daily basis. Some prefer to scribble down their chores and tasks on a piece of paper, while others, mostly business people and employees, have long preferred neatly typed and printed assignment lists. However, we all know that paper is very expensive in terms of environment sustainability. Thankfully, technology offers solutions and a really wide array of alternatives to printable to-do lists. It’s all a matter of finding and choosing the most suitable one. Let’s then inspect some of the best available free ones out there, for desktop and mobile productivity.

1. Google Tasks

Google Tasks  is a top of the line, fully free solution for Gmail users. Google Task is a simple but powerful to-do list that you can take with you wherever you go and cross off your completed tasks without wasting a single sheet of paper. The list will be automatically updated regardless of how you update it – from your mobile device or personal computer. Google Tasks features some great capabilities and productivity boosters like the ability to directly convert emails into tasks or add a task with a due date in your calendar to help you stay organized. Another mention-worthy capability of Google Tasks is that you can quickly email your lists to anyone – forgetful spouses or children, your students and course participants, colleagues, team members, other employees or personal assistants.

Most die-hard aficionados of printed to-do lists will argue that in case one goes offline, without the possibility to access Internet at some point while doing errands or on business trip, it’s impossible to check and update the Google Task or an alternative web-based electronic to do list. However, there is still a way to go paperless and cut down the paper usage, and stay on top of your tasks. One most obvious way is to print the task to PDF, which you can save locally on your mobile device, laptop or PC and check out whenever needed. As you can see on the image above, right below the option to email the task list, there is a Print Task list option. Click on it and instead of choosing your hard-copy printer, click on Save as PDF. Users of advanced PDF printers like our FreePDF Creator or PDFConverter Elite 3 can also choose any of them to print their lists to PDF.
 

 

2. Google Keep

Google Keep  is another great and free Google product for keeping checklists. It’s available for Web and Android, which makes it a perfect companion for keeping up with one’s tasks on the fly.

3.  TeuxDeux

TeuxDeux  is a visually attractive iPhone app for making to-do lists. It’s free to download and use, and gives you the ability to work offline and then sync later. With an app like this for your iPhone, there really is no excuse for printing lists of tasks anymore.

4.  Any.do

Any.do  is a great alternative to both Google Keep and TeuxDeux for planning and organizing one’s daily chores, as it is available to both Android and iOS users. It’s worth mentioning that it’s an award winning app.

5. doitdoitdone

doitdoitdone  is a streamlined, and user-friendly web-based app for creating and managing todo lists. It mimics paper notes and lists and allows users to quickly “jot down” their tasks on the list without having to read through help files and figuring out how to set up the list. The interface is intuitive, to-do lists  can be accessed via unique URL or even dragged to the desktop (MiniMe). There are stylish stationeries  that use different colors and fonts to make your lists fun and pretty. To-do lists can be posted on a blog or website, emailed to friends and coworkers, and printed, of course. One of its most appealing features is that there is no need to register and login to use the app.

6. Todo.ly

Todo.ly is an online tool for creating to-do lists and managing tasks. It’s free, easy to use, intuitive, and yet pretty powerful for organizing life and getting things done. It allows for creating separate projects and subprojects, assigning due dates for tasks, even postponing tasks, and a bunch of other things that daily task management may require.

7.HiveMinder

HiveMinder  is a to-do list management tool geared toward groups and colaborative work. HiveMinder proposes a concept of “braindumping” tasks, tagging them, attaching notes, setting up dates, sharing the tasks with others and setting reminders, priorities, and so on. Its features enable individuals and teams to be “bee productive”.

Do you have a favourite tool for managing your tasks and daily chores? Share it with us in the comments!

If you’re in the process of looking for a job, there’s a good chance that you are struggling with putting together all of the elements you are going to need to create a strong job application.

Not only do you have to create a resume that is informative, well-presented and unique, but you are also probably spending a lot of time thinking about and writing cover letters, seeking out letters of recommendation, sprucing up your portfolios and whatever else you need to make a good case for yourself when applying for a position.

One of the most important aspects of this preparation process is to make sure that all of your materials look great and are presented in the best possible way. If you are student fresh out of college and looking for your first real place of employment, then you probably don’t have a lot of money to spend on productivity apps and software that can help you to create these documents.

Thankfully there are free alternatives. For example, you can use the Google Docs suite instead of Microsoft Office to create resumes and cover letters. And on top of that, Google has creative a bunch of great add-ons for Docs that can help you to create professional-looking and compelling job application documents even when you are working with no budget at all.

Here are some great Google add-ons to check out if you are looking for tools to make your job applications shine in order to get you your dream job.

Template Gallery

Just like Microsoft Office offers a lot of great template for getting started when creating professional resumes, CVs and cover letters, Google offers some great ones as well. This template gallery offers a huge variety of fantastically designed templates that can get you started when trying to put together a neat and professional-looking job application.

ProWritingAid

If your writing skills are not up to par with the skills presented in your resume and you don’t want your mediocre writing to ruin your chances of getting a job, this is a great tool to use. It allows you to improve your writing by showing you mistakes that you make. It helps you to avoid redundancies and clichés in your writing while helping you to brush up on grammatical mistakes and much more.

Thesaurus

This is yet another tool to improve your writing, especially when putting together a cover letter. It’s a great way to find new words to use by finding synonyms for words that you tend to overuse in your writing.

Clipboard

Clipboard is a fantastic note-taking add-on to use when researching other CVs and cover letters. We all spend time on the Internet searching for great examples of resumes and cover letters, looking for new ideas to make our applications better. This tool lets you take notes while doing your online research and keep your new ideas organized and saved so that you can have them to look at when trying to put together your own material.

Consistency Checker

This tool is great for long documents that you need to check for writing consistency, but really, it’s effective for documents of any size. Make sure that all of the hyphenations, abbreviations and other style-related characteristics of your documents are consistent before submitting them to potential employers.

Abbreviation List

Anyone using a lot of abbreviations in their job applications owes it to themselves to check out this tool. It scans your document for abbreviations and generates a list of abbreviations used so that you can make sure that they are consistent throughout your entire documents. Consistency is important when trying to put together serious and professional job applications.

DocumentMerge

If you want to wrap your job application up into one package that’s efficient and easy to read, you might want to consider using this add-on. It can take your cover latter, resume, portfolio and all other documents and create one master document out of them all. It’s a good idea to upload all of your materials, including scanned diplomas, resumes, references, letters of recommendation, etc. to Google Drive so that you have them all in one place. From there, you can use this tool to merge all of the documents you need into one, smart, professional presentation.

Running a small business by yourself is no small task, and small business owners need all the help they can get. Thankfully, organizing your business does not have to be that hard if you are a Microsoft Office user.

Microsoft offers a huge amount of free templates for its 2013 Office suite that can make running and organizing your business a much easier process. Here are 25 great Microsoft Office templates to check out if you need some help keeping all of your business-related data in order.

1) Meeting Agenda Template

This is a great template for Microsoft Word that allows you to effortlessly plan out the agenda of a business meeting. You can quickly note all of the topics that you need to discuss at the meeting and share the agenda with everyone who will be in attendance so that they can prepare for the meeting ahead of time.

2) Invoice Template

If you are looking for an invoice template that is very basic but still very well designed and professional in its appearance, this is a great option. This custom Excel template will allow you to send invoices to customers and clients and keep track of all of your expenses and income in a very orderly fashion.

3) Company Memorandum Template

Do you need to send official announcements to your co-workers or clients? This is a great Word template for issuing announcements company-wide in a neat and effective way. Include all of the basic information that goes with the announcement (date, who is sending the announcement, etc), and input your message.

4) Time Management Template

This is a great tool that you can use to keep your daily tasks straight and to help your small team of workers organize themselves better. Use this Excel template to prioritize your tasks and keep all of your daily work responsibilities on schedule.

5) Task Planner Template

You will probably be looking to achieve many of your company projects and goals in phases. This excellent Word template allows you to plan your project out in a calendar setting and focus on meeting all of the goals that you have set for yourself and your company chronologically.

6) Progress Report Template

This is a perfect template for presenting the progress your company has made to the team or even to potential investors and partners. Give background information about your business goals and then present your results using great looking charts and graphs. It’s a PowerPoint template, which means it’s perfect for presentations.

7) Corporate Calendar Template

Never miss an appointment again with this excellent calendar template. One of the great things about this Excel template is that it automatically adjusts if you set up meetings and appointments that run over or under the time allotted for each in the template.

8) Business Brochure Template

Do you need a sleek and professional looking brochure template to present your business to others? This PowerPoint template is perfect for educating people about your business. It’s perfect for pitching your business ideas to potential clients and investors and it’s just as good for creating introductions to your business for new employees.

9) Net-Worth Template

This template gives you a clear and easy way to tally up your net-worth, taking into consideration your income, investments, properties, and anything else that adds or takes away from your net-worth. The Excel template is very easy to use – simply input the data where specified and receive a colorful and easy-to-follow presentation of your total net-worth.

10) Expense Report Template

All small business owners want to run a tight ship, and a big part of that is knowing where your money is being spent. This great Excel template will allow you to enter all of your expenses into a spreadsheet chronologically and tally up the costs. It’s great to use for business trip expenses, equipment and maintenance costs, or salaries.

11) Business Report Template

This Word template has multiple uses. It is a neatly designed template that can be used to send out company-wide announcements, status reports, or a number of different memorandums.

12) Business Trip Checklist Template

It’s easy to forget something at home when taking off for a business trip. Allow yourself to focus on your company tasks instead of worrying whether you brought the right amount of socks or toothpaste with you by using this business trip checklist template that will ensure that you’ve packed everything you need before you board the plane.

13) Business Card Template

Business cards are a must for any serious small business owner. This template allows you to design and print your personalized business cards easily and then hand them out whenever you are making new contacts and spreading the word about your company.

14) Employee of the Month Certificate Template

Building company morale is a very important part of running a successful small business. This is a diploma-like template that makes it easy for you to personalize and print out a certificate to honor one of your employees each month and show them that they are appreciated.

15) Quick Business Pitch Template

A fantastic template called “Elevator Speech” which guides you in an effort to create a quick and effective sales pitch when you have a minimal amount of time to get your point across. The Word template includes guides for creating a 12 second, 30 second and 3 minute pitch.

16) Employee Performance Evaluation Template

This is a great evaluation sheet for Word 2013 that will enable you to grade your employees on their work progress. It allows you to set goals and objectives for the evaluation period, record accomplishments and achievements, inform employees in what areas they need development and give them an overall evaluation of their work efforts.

17) Company Newsletter Template

Company newsletters provide a good way to keep all of your employees in the loop and let them know what the company has been up to recently. This professional Word template allows you to create a great looking newsletter that can later be emailed or printed and distributed to all of your co-workers.

18) Income and Expense Tracking Template

This is a yearly profit and loss statement for Excel that allows you to effectively keep an eye on your company money. Not only can you input all of the information for each month into a spreadsheet, but you will also get line graphs made automatically to help you visualize the data.

19) Business Presentation Template

If you need to create a professional presentation of your business goals or accomplishments, but you don’t have time to make one from scratch, this is a fantastic PowerPoint template to use. It’s well-designed and professional looking, letting you easily create a great presentation by simply entering in the data you want to show and highlight.

20) Fax Cover Template

Anyone who needs to send a fax can use this Word template to quickly send a professional looking fax message to clients.

21) Equipment Rental Agreement Template

If you ever need to rent equipment for your company or you are renting out equipment to others, this template provides you a professional form for getting all of the necessary information down before performing the transaction.

22) Note Taking Template

This is a great template to use when taking notes at a meeting. It is a OneNote template that allows you to record your notes in an organized manner and then save them for later reference or easily share the notes with co-workers.

23) Inventory Template

Taking inventory can be one of the most daunting and difficult tasks when you are running a small business on your own. This Excel 2013 template makes the process much easier by allowing you to not only list your inventory and reorders, but also the cost of both.

24) Purchase Order Template

Here is a handy template to have when sending out orders that your clients have purchased for you. The Word template provides a ready-made form; all you need to do is fill in the necessary purchase and shipping information for the order.

25) Employee Attendance Tracker Template

Keeping track of employees can be difficult if you don’t have an HR department in your small business and you are doing everything on your own. This Excel template makes it easy to keep track of attendance, sick days, holidays, and vacations.

These templates can help you take control of all your paperwork and organize yourself and your company better. Running a small business is all about multitasking and MS Office templates such as these can give you a head start and simplify just about every process related to running your business.

Binders Image Credit

Halloween is just around the corner and you haven’t even started your preparations? That’s very unlikely, since there are pumpkins, spiders, black cats and “boo’s” in all forms, colors and shapes scaring us from almost every window shop, and reminding us that it’s time to get ready for what’s probably the most entertaining holiday in a year.

However, if due to a hectic schedule you really are behind with the Halloween warm-up, and don’t really know where to start your search for original costumes, home decorations, gifts and food, don’t get scared yet! Thinking about you, we went straight to one of the best sources of creative ideas on the Web – Pinterest, and did some research for you. We hope our collection of 13 inspirational pinboards with all things Halloween will come handy. Everything you need for this year’s horrendously fun October 31 is waiting for you in there!

1) DIY Halloween reminds us that no matter how old we are, Halloween’s still probably our favorite holiday. Even if it’s not, the ideas and photos of costumes, make-up, food and decor inspiration will probably change our minds.

2) Halloween Stuff  abounds with all sorts of pins, but their food pins will probably interest you the most. From meatball mummies and spooky smile cookies, to green witch fingers and graveyard pudding cups, this board has everything you need for a hideous but yummy Halloween dinner.

3) Halloween Craft Ideas is excellent for fun family projects as it is geared more towards crafts and ideas for kids and made by kids.

4) Halloween Costume Ideas is all about “creative costume ideas for kids and adults, groups and individuals, couples and families!” Searching through this pinboard, you’ll certainly come up with an original idea for a costume.

5) Halloween Food, Decor, Crafts & More: Brace yourself for a wild ride through incredible crafts, decor and food ideas. It might be difficult to choose only a few, because many of them look so good!

6) Hallloween Ideas, Decorations, Costumes is another costume-oriented Halloween pinboard, with very useful photos of close-ups.

7) Halloween Simple Crafts and Accessories invites you to “get spooky with scarily simple crafts and gory accessories.” If spooky, gory and simple is what you’re looking for, you’ll really be pinned to this pinboard.

8) Halloween party, gifts, snacks, cards and more  is a very big collection of Halloween ideas for parties, gifts, trick-or-treating, printables, and decorations.

9) Cool and Scary Halloween ideas is packed with ideas for scary costumes, masks and home decor, but also particularly nice tips for decorating your garden and front yard.

10) Halloween Make Up Ideas  is a specialized collection of “face” ideas. If you’re looking for mask and makeup tips, you’ll probably find what you’re looking for here.

11) Halloween Masks and Make-up simply overflows with ideas for make-up and masks.

12) Halloween by Baby Center  is a rich treasure trove of ideas for parents, and especially for baby costumes.

13) Halloween Treats, favor bags, and more DIY: And finally, the lucky number 13 goes to this pinboard that will make it difficult to move away from the screen and actually start with preparations!

Hopefully you’ll find something spookily original, or originally spooky, among the amazing Halloween photos and suggestions you’ve seen. If you fall in love with the photos of one or more boards so much that you want to keep them as they are, learn how to convert entire boards into PDF albums!

This way you’ll be able to view your favorite Halloween pictures, tips and DIYs even when you are not online, plus you’ll actually have a nice album which you can even use as a gift to your friends and family.

Trick or Treat!

We have all heard the saying “words have power”. Nowadays, we rely on technology to help us get through our work day, forgetting that sometimes all we need is a few inspirational words.

“The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.”  Aristotle

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible!”  Audrey Hepburn

“Those who can say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.” Chinese Proverb

“If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” Bob Hooey

“It’s not personal Sonny. It’s strictly business.” Michael Corleone

“The only way around is through.” Robert Frost

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

If you remember this quote and its author then, you’re most likely an 80’s fan. The epic“ Wall Street” movie and Michael Douglas’s Oscar-winning role of Gordon Gekko, a greedy Wall Street con artist distinctively portrays the office environment and business style of the well-known decade.

The era of emerging technologies, first yuppies and spectacular financial frauds has, for better or worse, left a huge impact in history and a nostalgic sentiment in our hearts.

In the last few years, several movies following the same thematic have been released causing many of us reminisce about this time. The first thing that rings a bell is the 80’s corporate fashion which was so over the top – fluffy hairdos, suits with shoulder pads and suspenders as a must have men’s accessory. From today’s perspective, it is safe to say that 80’s may have gone but they’re certainly not forgotten. When it comes to generating new ideas and competing in creativity across industries, this retro epoch is often used as an inspiration.

For now, let’s stay on technology path and take a look at what has really changed.

Probably the most popular item in the 80’s business world was the brick phone. The first portable cellular phone, known as “the brick” was Motorola DynaTAC, a revolutionary and statement-making accessory.  At time when most people talked via landline telephones, owning this bulky device was a trait that separated business sharks from other fish in the pond. Now, 30 years later, with smartphone technology advancing each day one would consider a brick phone a toy or a collector’s item. Well, UK’s Binatone is obviously taking it seriously since they produce their own “Meet the Brick” and let you travel back in time -80’s style.

Another great accessory from the 80’s was the well-known Casio calculator watch. As its name says, it was basically a digital watch with a built-in calculator. Everyone used to wear it, from academics to musicians. Aspiring businessmen preferred more advanced models that had additional functions such as phonebook and appointment reminder. The frenzy about this watch was very similar to the one about Apple Watch we are experiencing today. You can still find it on Amazon and Ebay or if you already own an Apple Watch or any other iOS device, you can download Geek Retro Calculator Watch application and  have the best of both worlds.

First Apple’s personal computer Macintosh 128k that appeared in the 80’s was considered a milestone in the success of the Apple brand as we know it today. However, at that time the competition was strong since Commodore 64 was already a big hit among offices around the world as well as Epson’s first notebook and handheld computer which had advanced features and could perform intricate operations for that time. Epson HX-20 was in fact, the closest to what MacBook stands for today.

80’s business affairs were all about flamboyance and making a statement to impress the other party. Probably the best scene that captivates this is from another awesome movie called “American Psycho” where Patrick Bateman and his co-workers are fighting the “silent war” over who has the best designed business card. Believe it or not, business cards were extremely important part of business etiquette and could tell a lot about person’s status and success. Today, with social networks such as LinkedIn, you don’t have to go so deep into presenting yourself to potential associates.

What is your favorite 80’s gadget and what do you think were the quirks of that time?

One way or another, all students need to write a research paper. Choosing the topic is the easiest part but when it comes to putting that topic on paper, it becomes tricky. From doing research and making notes, through literature management and team evaluation, to writing the thesis statement and headline, and finally checking grammar and spelling, it’s easy to conclude that it takes much time and effort to wrap up a research paper. Luckily, there are tons of tools that can help you out, so let’s get started:

I Research Tools

Research is the most important part of every research paper. It implies a lot of creativity and consistency. There is no tool that can do the research for you, but at least some of them can help you save time and better organize the materials and information you come across. Internet libraries such as World Digital Library or ipl2 are historical databases with a lot of knowledge treasure you can find. Once you’ve found everything you need to start writing, it’s wise to have Evernote to organize your collection.

II Evaluation and Preparation Tools

Okay, you found everything you need, so now it’s time to sort things out and see what can be used and how. Mendeley is a good reference management program for managing your literature. It makes every literature review process easier and your research more organized. Once you have sorted out your literature collection and organized your data, the next step is evaluation. For this you need team collaboration tools, because you need to get feedback from someone else, your college peer or a professor. There are really tons of such tools but Dropbox is maybe the most reliable. Dropbox keeps your research paper safe and at the same time easily accessible to other people you want to get involved in the evaluation. Sometimes you will have to make historical charts, statistical tables or any other form of data that implies using spreadsheets. In that case, Microsoft Excel is the number one choice. There is no better tool than MS Excel for organizing data, but if you prefer to put your data in the cloud, you can use Google Sheets and still do excellent work.

III Writing Tools

Finally you’ve reached the stage where you can actually start writing the paper. If you did your research and prepared your data properly, there is no need to worry – words will write themselves. However, you still need a set of tools for writing. First of all, the MS Word if you prefer desktop tools, or Google Docs if you are more comfortable with online tools. Since thesis statement is the most important sentence in every research paper, try using this thesis statement generator which can help you generate your thesis. If you are having troubles with the headline, there are a lot of headline generators as well, and surely one of them can help you think of the best possible title for your paper. During your writing you may run out of words or notice that you’re using the same words over and over again. Thesaurus is a very useful website with a large number of synonyms and it can definitely help you make your research paper sound more impressive and academic. In the end, don’t forget to include citations. Since you probably use them in your work, you have to cite all the bibliographies you have used in your writing. The most popular citation tools are OttoBib and EasyBib.

IV Editing Tools

When you have finished writing the research paper, you need to check if there are spelling or grammar mistakes. Turning in a paper with spelling mistakes will just ruin all your effort and work, and it will make it look like you haven’t been so dedicated, although you were. Again, there are a lot of tools that correct spelling and grammar errors and Grammarly and Reverso are some of them. Also, if your research paper needs images, experiment with some of the image finders. Once you’ve finally completed the editing process, let’s assume you want to save your file in PDF because it will best preserve your research paper, and you won’t have to worry whether the file’s formatting will be messed up when opened on your professor’s computer. To create a PDF, you can use a PDF creation tool called PDF Converter Elite which also converts PDFs to different file formats. This feature may be helpful when you want to edit your research paper or any work you previously saved in PDF.

All these fantastic, time-saving tools and websites we mentioned here allow you to focus only on research and producing excellent papers, so we strongly urge you to give them a try or find similar aids to help you out in your academic pursuits.

We can trace Microsoft Office to the beginnings of the digital age. And it has grown since then. In the past, being skillful with MS Office programs was considered an advantage and today it is compulsory to know at least the basics.

MS Excel is certainly one of the most used MS Office formats. Because of its popularity, there are tons of Excel resources on the Internet which makes searching for helpful material very time-consuming and your effort to learn Excel even harder. But don’t give up before you have started. It is just a matter of patience and time before you realize that you’re using Excel in everyday and business operations. To do so, you just need to know what to look for and where.

Excel Tips – Solutions to Specific Excel Problems or Tasks

If you already know how to use Excel but you are looking for specific Excel tips, these are some of the blogs that give you the best insight into what you need.

Contextures explains how to copy numbers only in Excel, how to make an interactive dashboard chart in a drop-down list or how to compare Excel worksheet values and formulas.

The Spreadsheet Guru has a wide range of Excel tips, from basic things on how to password protect your Excel file to very advanced VBA Excel functions. Here you can learn how to make your own functions or add-ins with VBA and totally extend the Excel functionality.

Clearly and Simply explains difficult things the easy way. It helps you with data visualization and data analysis by showing you how to present data in Excel. For instance, it shows you how to create Excel choropleth maps, motion charts, animated charts like gapminder, or how to make cartograms in Tableau.

Chandoo is a true gem when speaking of advanced Excel tips. If you want to become an Excel pro, this is the right place. You can learn to apply conditional formatting, perform better data analysis by making pivot tables, write and debug advanced formulas etc.

Excel y VBA is a Spanish blog for Excel users of all levels. It provides you with Excel and VBA exercises and different functions examples. It also provides good tips on how to learn to use Excel for data analysis.

Peltier Tech gives you very detailed explanations to every explicit question, providing you at the same time with a great number of screenshots. Although it can be hard to make waterfall charts in Excel or to set up error bars, you just need to follow the instructions and you cannot fail.

Excel Tutorials – Visual and Interactive Ways to Learn Excel

If you are among those learners who would rather listen to someone than just read the instructions by themselves, you should check out Youtube channels of Excel professionals. Video tutorials are definitely more interactive and visually appealing. However, if you learn better with visually presented materials but you cannot concentrate on someone’s speeches, you may try to follow tutorials.

Excel is Fun Youtube channel is probably the largest storage of Excel video tutorials. It has a huge number of playlists sorted out in categories. Every playlist has far more videos with detailed audio and video instructions. Every video can be downloaded and the channel is being updated all the time. There are how-to-guides for Excel beginners as well as for Excel professionals. You can learn Excel payroll and time tricks, Excel database tricks, sumproduct functions tutorials, Excel array formulas, PowerPivot basics and so on.

Tom’s Tutorials for Excel haven’t been updated recently but you can still have some use of his old tutorials. If you want to know how to find the number closest to zero in Excel, how to copy your page setup to multiple worksheets, how to transpose a dynamic list from horizontal to vertical and much more, dig through these Excel tutorials.

Excel Guru gives you tutorials on how to list outstanding cheques, how to calculate hours worked, and a lot of Power Query guides on data analysis. Tutorials are described in a very detailed and simple manner, and there are a lot of graphics following the text which help you understand even better what it is about.

Excel Exposure helps you improve your Excel skills. It is a kind of a free training provided by University of Reddit. There are both video and textual lessons about formula editing, data monitoring, advanced pivot tables and so much more.

Excel TV is another great Youtube channel for learning Excel. It has quite a different approach from other Excel channels. You can listen to interviews with Excel experts, Excel industry news, and different discussions, but there are Excel tutorials as well (how to automatically insert cells, for example), etc.

Exploring Excel is one more channel on Youtube that shares useful tutorials on Excel. Apart from regular Excel tutorials, here you can find Excel VBA guides on how to make bigger size fonts, how to delete blank row utility or highlight your comments.

Learn Excel Through Games

Maybe the best way to learn Excel is through games. It’s fun and more interesting. Okay, you cannot become an Excel professional if you just play Excel games, but it is a good start, especially for younger learners and for beginners. So, here are some useful games that can improve your basic Excel skills.

Excel Hero will help you master your Excel shortcuts knowledge. It’s a simple game where you type keyboard shortcuts that correspond to given Excel commands.

Excel Hurdles is one more game that challenges your Excel shortcuts skills. Not only does it show how many shortcuts you know, but it also helps you practise your keyboard typing speed.

Game Creation in Excel is actually a Youtube tutorial on how to create a simple game in Excel and lets you practice conditional formatting, resizing cells, formatting text and so on.

Battleship Excel Game is a well-known game made in Excel. You already know how to play the battleship game and doing that in Excel will help you learn the basics of Excel.

Excel Treasure Hunt Game is a good way to have fun, especially with your children, but as you adjust the game, you also practise conditional formatting, data validation and count and sum functions.

Excel Resources – Lists of Excel Websites and Blogs That Are the Most Popular

Those enthusiasts who have time to do a more thorough research on different approaches to learning Excel, they should look for Excel resources. They will find website pages with lists of different Excel learning websites. It’s good to have all of them stored in one place, you never know when you might need one of them. Here are the best organized lists:

Spreadsheetshoppe provides you with a list of Excel blogs, Excel templates and add-ins, and Excel learning resources.

LT Techno Spreadsheet Resources provides you with Microsoft lessons on Excel, spreadsheet usage ideas for elementary, middle school and high school students, spreadsheet tutorials and general data resources.

SkilledUp offers 133 best Excel resources starting from tutorial websites, blogs, Youtube channels, Excel reference guides and much more.

Rick Grantham has a list of Excel forums and chat boards, Excel resources in different languages, VBA and PowerPivot sites.