Tools for the holidays – New Media Review 1

In the New Media Review, we break down 3 tools that could help you personally and/or professionally. This month’s is on 3 tools that will help you do your work wherever you are: on holiday, abroad or simply away from home or work.

Lino.it

It would be no exaggeration to say that this application changed my working life. Never lose another post-it note! Lino.it is a virtual pinboard and you can create as many ‘canvases’ (pinboards) as you like. I theme my pinboards, such as my separate pinboards for work and home.

You can pin files, videos and photos, as well as the post-it notes which allow you to add hyperlinks and due dates. As you can see, instead of photo frames on my desk, my photos are on Lino.it. I colour code my post-its; red are my most urgent. One of the most useful functions is the daily email reminder of the jobs you have to do that day. Once a task is finished, you can satisfyingly ‘peel it off’.

You can set your post-its to private so only you can see them. I always do. You can share your boards with others. There’s also an excellent mobile app. Lino.it is easy to use and does all you want or need it to and no more.

Moredays

“We’re trying to bring the magic of moleskine to the electronic world.” It certainly looks very pretty and it has lots of functions. It is an organiser and a virtual pinboard, allowing you to save photos, make notes and set tasks, among lots of other things, including a contact list.

It’s not the most intuitive of software, but once you learn to use it, it does become like your own virtual organiser. It’s useful if you’re away and don’t have or want to risk losing your organiser. I can see it becoming indispensable, if you let it.

There is also a mobile app and it synchronises with Google and other software such as Evernote, so usefully you can merge applications together and avoid duplication of effort.

Tricider

This is a very simple crowdsourcing application, similar in feel and look to online polling tools like Doodle. Ask a question or start a topic and invite people to answer by email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. They can add their ideas, along with their argument. Then everyone can vote for each idea.

It is a sort of brainstorming and polling application in one, pretty simple, but that makes it easy to use! You can embed your ‘tricisions’ into your webpage or Facebook for convenience. Tricider offers professional functionality such as statistics. You can also create contests, complete with prizes.

This would be useful when you want input from people you can’t get to see, or if you’re away. You could use it for fun or important things alike.