Top Five Free Web Tools I Use – My Toolbox

A few weeks ago I shared my top apps for productivity, collaboration and learning on the job (and I think there was something about a burrito). This week’s Friday top five is free web tools. Some you might already know, some you might not. Either way, they’re awesome, and rendering many other, more expensive tools obsolete.

1. Screenr - Need to film a quick how-to for a colleague? Interested in sharing your best PowerPoint tips or getting a look at a difficulty one of your colleagues is experiencing? Use this free, web-based screen and audio capture tool to record a quick screencast and share it with the world.
2. Google Docs - Never lose your progress on a writing project to a blue screen of death and never panic because you forgot your thumb drive. Google’s not just for email and calendars - use Google Docs to build and store your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, surveys and forms, and you’ll always have access to your data and projects.
3. Picnik - When I am not using my own laptop and thus don’t have access to PhotoShop, I rely on this web-based photo editing tool to crop, resize, touch-up and edit photos for use in presentations or blog posts. This fremium tool also offers paid upgrades for producing more sophisticated images and graphics.
4. Chrome - This browser is fast and offers a lot of efficient extensions and tools, like Google Talk and Google Dictionary. These extensions help you get information about or share content without leaving the page you are on. Sync your bookmarks across all your computers (home and office, perhaps?), use the Google Reader extension to organize your RSS reader and Google things with a simple right-click. (Pro-Tip: Add the Evernote extension for clipping the entire contents of webpages to your notebooks.)
5. Evernote - Always forgetting where you saw that cool blog post or recipe? Can’t remember what your to-do list is for today? Working on 10 different projects and need to keep your notes and progress organized? Use this multi-platform notekeeping, website-clipping, photo-storing application to get your life more organized. Then, stop worrying about remembering your to-do list and start actually doing things. (If you check out nothing else on this list, make sure you try Evernote. It has changed my life.)

This isn’t even counting my whole arsenal of social media tools. I’ll cover those next week!

Image Credit: prettydreamer.workshop on Flickr