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Talking Tech: A few of the cool apps from Technology SIG's "30 Cool Apps" session

By David Teisler posted 12-14-2016 01:34 PM

  

It's the rare day, indeed, when I attend any kind of educational session and get to use the knowledge the very next day.  Better, when that knowledge is just downright helpful.  Interested? OK, so let me tell you a bit about Denny Wall's presentation at a recent NYSAE Technology SIG event.

Titled 30 Cool Apps, that's what it was: 30 apps in about 45 minutes.  Denny, true to form, started on time and covered them all, and, when done, added two bonus apps.  Rather than list the 30 apps, I thought I would highlight a couple of them that I thought were particularly cool. 

DiffChecker.com was the one I used the very next day.  I was reviewing non-consecutive proposals, so, while the author was using track changes, the text she was changing wasn't the same as the one I had in my files and which I had changed.  I needed to create an account on the web-based DiffChecker.  That took 17 seconds, because I supplied my name, email, and a password, and that was it.  I loaded both documents into the stereo frames and in seconds I had color coded changes marked.  It allows me to save it for several different periods (I chose 1 month) and, best, it allowed me to copy the specific URL and send it to another who could see exactly what I saw.  Perfect!

Doodle.com is another, and this is a lifesaver.  Doodle allows you to have bunches of people from different organizations look at potential dates for a call, choose the time/date available, and save it so all users can see.  Doodle tracks who's participated and tabulates the most popular time.   

WordCloudGenerator is novel, cute, and, in non-intuitive way, useful.  To access it, go to https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/ (one of the few apps whose name isn't the same as its web address); no registry required.  I copied the text of my review into it and it spewed a graphic for me.  Haven't figured out how to show it to you, yet.  Maybe that's our next session.

I'll end with Rhymer.com, which allows me come up with words or syllables that rhyme with my text.  I can choose the number of syllables I want matched. 

So, I've covered 1/6th of the promised apps that Denny presented.  Our next Technology SIG will showcase Google Apps (none were offered at this session because it is a session by itself).  Watch this space for a time and place.

I should also note that I asked Denny to review the article, and he made it betterer, noting that Grammarly (one of his 30) found some flaws in my note to him.  

David Teisler, CAE

David is Director of Communications and Deputy Executive Director at Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, whose last two syllables rhyme with allies, Andes, Aussies, and armies, among others.   

Denny is the Director of Interactive Services at Dolci Interactive, a full-service digital agency specializing in the Association and non-profit industry.

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03-09-2017 10:44 AM

The first of March, and upstate, I was feted by the peepers, who were out chirping their little songs of love; I knew the serenade wasn't strictly for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  In the city, we were treated to something equally rewarding, if less sonorous: Lee Hornstein's presentation of G-Suite, the recently renamed family of apps of which the familiar Google docs and gmail are part. 

Interestingly, only one of the attendees at this Technology SIG presentation already uses G Suite.  The rest of us were in for a treat.

The presentation was a follow-up to NYSAE's Technology SIG's session on free apps, given by Denny Wall earlier in the year.

At Lee's company, C Systems, an iMIS reseller and AMS consulting firm, all 31 employees use G Suite, and, in fact, are required to do so for both consistency and for its functionality.

Most folks are already familiar with G mail, but while I recognize it as a near ubiquitous mail program, i had no idea of some of its functionality.  My favorite aspect is its search functionality, which allows users to search in To, From, subject line, or body, thereby  focusing the search results tremendously, especially if one knows two or more elements, say the sender and a key word, for instance. 

Google docs allows multiple people to all work on a single document, and it tracks the various contributors' work by date and uses colors to ID the different contributors' versions. There are security settings by which administrators can limit access to the doc.  Documents are automatically mapped to the drive and automatically backed up to the cloud. Various amounts of storage are available at different price points.

Calendar can operate by type, that is, sales, marketing, tech, play time, etc., and allows one to add others to meetings being scheduled.  it notifies you if you're creating a conflict. 

Lee, continuing a tradition begun by Denny Wall in his initial presentation of the year, offered a  bonus app for attendees' consideration: Slack.  His organization uses it because it organizes all the various media into a single stream, ridding folks of multiple media.  Further, Slack allows users to specify who is in a given distribution based on criteria (say, marketing and sales). Lee noted that it was implemented in less than a week and now all staff are using it. 

David Teisler, CAE, is Director of Communications and Deputy Executive Director at ABCT and is chair of the NYSAE Technology Committee and devotee of the Tech SIG.