Powerful & affordable business tools I use Part 2

Talking about tools I have used in my office to save money & with great features. Okay - so last time I raved about Google with iGoogle & Google Voice. I just upgraded from GrandCentral to Google Voice this week & it looks super cool. I left a test voice mail for myself & was emailed a text transcript of my message. For a CrackBerry user like me - this is a great feature. If you consider that your voicemail may be auto transcribed, it kinda makes you rethink what you say when leaving a voicemail. That rambling message will be posted in its text version - careful!

Moving on, today I wanted to feature two other phone technology options - 1. is for conference calls; and 2. is for a mobile phone system that travels anywhere throughout the world with you.

magicJack - About two years ago, a client told me about this little magicJack USB device because he had been traveling internationally for months. magicJack, he told me, allowed him to be on his trips to Asia or Europe & still make local (without long-distance charges) calls back to the States. Pretty cool. I think most people are attracted to magicJack because of the price: $39.95 gets you the magicJack & one year of free local and long distance calling to the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Basically - for $40 - free calling all year for folks making domestic calls. Very cool, considering Comcast & Vonage are about $24-$30 per month!

Other magicJack features include Caller ID, ability to change your phone number, Voicemail, call-forwarding, etc.

Cons - You can tell by visiting the Web site that this is a great product invention that needs some adult supervision. When going to the Web site to research for this blog post, I even had trouble finding info like basic features & pricing. This shallow-level of thinking extends to the product at times when you have technical problems. My office had two days where we couldn't use the system & finally figured it out after several machine reboots, etc. It also is a VOIP solution, so performance depends on your Internet connection (if I'm on a call I can tell if someone is downloading a large Internet file because the call get choppy). Overall, a great solution for someone who travels, has patience with lack of documentation & support - and a super speedy Internet connection. Honestly, I will keep the magicJack as a back-up number - perhaps a direct line for someone in the office. But for my main office phone line, I'm exploring one of the more expensive VOIP solutions for greater reliability.

Free Conference - Well, most of its key services are free, and offers some professional services, such as automated email invitations w/ RSVP's, real-time conference management controls like self mute, different conference modes like Conference Mode, Q&A Mode & Presentation Mode - I should use these more. You can upgrade and get a toll-free line, online support - and even desktop sharing (think Web X). I have a marketing team in San Diego as we're working on the San Diego Sockers indoor pro soccer team's marketing. We have weekly coordination meetings and Free Conference has proven to be a perfect solution for this - there are four people who join the call & is pretty reliable.

Cons - I have only had one problem with the service. During a client call for Costa Vida, the Baja-inspired fast casual Mexican restaurant & we were presenting the marketing plan for the year to franchise owners/operators across the nation. There were several people on the call - and after I left the call, apparently the quality dropped significantly. It could have been one bad connection - we could have overcome the problem by using the Q&A section, etc.

For an important meeting with clients or customers, I would recommend upgrading and using one of the more professional services. For internal meetings, I think Free Conference can be a perfect solution.

There you go. Still on the hunt for more new cool technologies to make my life easier! Next we'll review some of my fav music services.