As you probably know, Evernote can be a huge asset for gathering and organizing information. For some businesses (including at least one real-estate office), it's the hub of the entire operation.

However, if you've ever tried to use the mobile Evernote app to assemble information from disparate sources, you know what a hassle it can be. To copy text, photos, links, and the like into a note, you've got to hop back and forth between those sources and Evernote, copying and pasting as you go.

EverClip ($2.99 for iPhone, $5.99 for iPad) takes much of the work out of the process by automatically aggregating each and every copied item, then letting you export those items to Evernote.

Once you run the app, it stays active in the background for 10 minutes, monitoring the iOS clipboard for any activity. From there you can hit up Safari, Mail, Photos, and any other app that lets you copy stuff.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Back in November, I told you how to get a 60-day trial of the then-new Microsoft Office 2013. That offer is still good, although it does require you to register with TechNet.

If that's not an option, or you received an Office 2013 trial on a new PC or downloaded it via other channels, you're typically limited to 30 days to test-drive the suite.

That's enough for some users, but to really see how it meshes with your operation, a longer trial would be better. Heck, maybe you just need some extra time to save up for the software, which isn't exactly cheap.

Fortunately, as you could with Office 2010, Microsoft allows you to "reset" your Office 2013 trial as many as five times, effectively giving you six months (more precisely, 180 days) of free usage. Although this option was really intended for IT administrators, there's no reason you can't use it with your own installed trial.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you're trying to run your business without spending money on Microsoft Office, you know the occasional hassles that go with being on the receiving end of Office documents.

Google hopes to minimize that hassle with the Chrome Office Viewer extension, which makes it possible to view Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint slide decks right inside the Google Chrome browser. Just a click a link to any such file and presto, it opens.

The extension is compatible with both the Windows and Mac versions of Chrome. At least, it's supposed to be. On my Windows 7-based system, I couldn't install the extension, which is currently in beta. The Chrome Web Store issued me this message: "This application is not supported on this computer. Installation has been disabled."

What's more, the handful of user reviews in the store suggest that the extension definitely needs to have its beta kinks worked out. If you have better luck, either installing or using the feature, let me know in the comments.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many business users rely heavily on Evernote for managing documents and other information, but the service's Achilles' heel has long been its lack of markup capabilities.

That's where Skitch comes in. Now owned by Evernote, this desktop/mobile app provides a simple but effective set of tools for annotating documents, the idea being to get your point across visually when communicating remotely.

And it just got a much-needed feature boost: Skitch for iOS (and Mac) now supports PDF annotation.

That may not sound like a big deal, but for anyone who uses Evernote to store and especially share PDFs, it's welcome news indeed. Now you can mark up PDFs with text, arrows, shapes and highlighter tools, then sync them back to your account and/or share them with co-workers.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spring is upon us, the time of year when lots of local businesses start stuffing neighborhood mailboxes with flyers for services like lawn care, landscaping, power washing, and so on.

That's a time-consuming hassle, of course, and technically it's against the law. Only U.S. postal workers are allowed to put anything into a mailbox. (Newspaper boxes are fair game, assuming there are any left.)

The new service StreetBid offers a different solution. Using your iPad, you snap a photo of each house you want to market to, add the street address, then enter a custom-tailored price for your service.

With that bit of recon work done, you can then create and send a postcard to everyone in your database. The photo of the house, a description of your offerings and your price estimate appears on each postcard.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

About a month ago I offered up four productivity-boosting replacements for stock iOS apps. Among them was Mailbox, a much-anticipated email manager that was available only by joining a lengthy waiting list. (Like, seriously lengthy. Some users found themselves in line behind hundreds of thousands of others.)

Thankfully, as of yesterday, Mailbox has no more waiting list, so it's available to all comers. The question is, does it succeed as a business tool?

The answer is absolutely, with a few qualifications.

When it comes to email, I think Apple's stock app does a pretty decent job. I particularly like the VIP option introduced in iOS 6.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you rely heavily on Google services, as so many small-business users do these days, you're probably familiar with the black toolbar that spans the top of various Google services. It provides quick and convenient access to apps like Search, Gmail, Calendar, and so on.

Ah, but what happens when you're viewing a non-Google site? No toolbar, that's what.

Black Menu for Chrome puts all Google services just a click away. Once installed, this extension adds a button to your browser that reveals an attractive drop-down menu for all Google's best stuff: Search, Google+, Translate, Maps, Gmail, Calendar, and the like.

Even better, when you mouse over any of these items, you get an interactive window for using them. For example, mouse over Search and you've got a Google Search field ready for your terms. Mouse over Gmail and you'll see your inbox, where you can read and respond to messages, compose new ones, and even access your search filters.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If your slide-deck design skills are anything along the lines of basic, fair, or middling, check out Slidevana.

I'm guessing the name derives from "nirvana," which is what the developers are hoping you'll feel once you get a look at the product. Slidevana offers some 150 templates and themes for use with PowerPoint or Keynote, and they're all gorgeous.

The collection includes templates of all kinds: lists, comparisons, tables, maps, timelines, and a wide range of diagrams (everything from pyramid to funnel to quadrant). The idea, of course, is to choose what you need, then plug in whatever data you have.

Presto: Slick-looking slides without all the hassles of actually designing slick-looking slides. (Check the templates gallery for a full preview of everything you get.)

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud-storage provider Dropbox announced today the introduction of Dropbox for Business, a team-oriented version of the service with a particularly IT-friendly feature: single sign-on (SSO).

Dropbox, of course, allows users to archive, share, and access files across multiple devices: desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and so on. Over the years it has grown synonymous with online file storage, arguably beating out every other service for mind-share, if not actual number of users.

The new Dropbox for Business is actually a rebranded Dropbox for Teams, which launched in 2011. Pricing continues to start at $795 annually for up to five users, though you now get "as much storage as you need" rather than a fixed amount.

Back in February, the company unveiled a new admin console and sharing controls for the service. But the marquee feature accompanying the new launch is SSO, which, as described by Dropbox's Anand Subramani, "works behind the scenes to let users sign in just once to a central identity provider, like Active Directory, and securely access all their business apps, like Dropbox. With SSO, companies can put their existing trusted identity provider in charge of the authentication process."

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Speek

If that headline sounds familiar, it's because I wrote a similar one back in January about Speek for iOS. It's an app that brings conference-call creation and management to your smartphone.

At that time, I'm sure at least some folks were hoping for a Windows Phone version. Hope no more, because Speek is now available for Windows Phone 8.

Like its iOS predecessor, Speek for Windows Phone lets you set up conference calls right on your handset, using a highly visual motif. Each person is represented by their thumbnail photo from your address list, this giving you the chance to "see" everyone on the call.

Because I don't have a Windows Phone handset on which to test-drive the app, I'm making a few assumptions about it relative to the iOS version. The latter, for example, lets you set up an account right on the phone. This consists in part of a custom username that doubles as your unique URL, like Speek.com/WidgetCo.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

International travel is enough of a hassle without having to worry about insanely high roaming charges, which is exactly what you'll pay if you try to check e-mail, use maps, or pull down some Web pages.

A new service called Doodad aims to minimize the hassles and expense of international data. The company sells prepaid SIM cards you can pop into your smartphone or tablet for flat-rate data access in any of 54 countries.

What's the catch? The SIM (mini or micro, your choice—nano is coming soon) requires an unlocked device, which might prove more complicated owing to the idiotic phone unlocking ban that went into effect in January. Best bet: ask your carrier if they'll do it for you. AT&T and T-Mobile reportedly will if you're an existing customer and your device is out of contract.

Alternately, a little Web searching will reveal lots of services that will sell you unlock codes, usually for under $10. (I recently used one to unlock an iPhone 4, and it worked perfectly.)

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

YouMail has long been a champion of smartphone users, offering visual voicemail on phones that lack it and better visual voicemail on phones that include it.

YouMail Business Edition takes the service up a notch by catering to professionals who might want an even better voicemail experience, both for themselves and their callers.x

YouMail

In case you're not familiar with it, YouMail (for Android and iOS) provides a scrolling voicemail inbox similar to the one made famous by the iPhone.

But it goes far beyond Apple's implementation with features like transcribed messages, voicemail via email, visual caller ID, message archiving, and smart greetings: callers are identified by name.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

For anyone who gives presentations on the go, an app like SlideShark can be a tremendous asset. With it you can pack PowerPoint slide decks into your iPad, then plug the latter into a TV or projector for easy, laptop-free slideshows.

Last September, SlideShark made its way to the iPhone. And this week, the app learned an even more impressive new trick: broadcasting.

SlideShark Broadcasting works just like it sounds, sharing your presentations over the Web to everyone you invite to view them. Attendees don't need the app or any kind of SlideShark account; they can join your presentation via the Web, a tablet, a phone, or pretty much any Internet-connected device.

This is as practical as it is cool. Suppose you're pitching a product or service to a handful of execs, but the marketing manager can't make it because he's stuck in the back of a taxi in midtown traffic.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Most small and medium businesses (aka SMBs) have some sort of backup solution in place, but not all have made the move to a cloud-based option—perhaps because of price, and perhaps because of concerns about security.

Seagate's EVault tackles both head-on by offering 100GB of enterprise-grade cloud backup free.

Specifically, that's 10GB of cloud storage for you, the administrator, and 10GB each for up to nine additional users. The backbone is EVault's backup-and-recovery version of its Endpoint Protection service, meaning you won't get all the features of a paid account (like remote wipe and device tracking), but you'll still get business-class protection for your users' data.

Indeed, EVault offers 256-bit military-grade encryption and "Geo-redundant Tier 4 data center hosting." That's about as much piece of mind as I'd need for my files.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gmail. Dropbox. Facebook. Twitter. If you're like many busy business folks, you're frequently bopping back and forth between these and other cloud/social-media services. And if you have multiple accounts for any of them, the hassles only increase.

KiteDesk aggregates all your cloud and social services under one roof. That means you need to use only one iOS and/or Web app to view all your feeds, email messages, files, contacts, and more.

I did most of my testing on an iPad, though you can just as easily sign in via your Web browser. There's no cost to use KiteDesk (and no advertising that I can see, so I'm not sure what the revenue model is here); all you do is give permission for it to access one or more Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and/or Yahoo accounts.

Obviously the more accounts you add, the more practical KiteDesk becomes. The interface lets you switch between "streams" (i.e. everything from your social networks), messages (of the email variety), people, events, and documents. For any given category you select, you see everything from all of your connected accounts. That's the "aggregator" part of the equation.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

You're on the train to work. Inspiration strikes. You've just figured out how to double market share and save the company. Now you just have to sell the idea to the team.

Sure, you could pull out your laptop, wait for it to boot, run PowerPoint, and start the slow, laborious process of building a killer presentation.

Or you could pull out your iPad, run Haiku Deck, and start the fast, fun process of building a killer presentation -- and finish it before the train reaches your stop.

This is not hyperbole: Haiku Deck is one of the coolest slide-makers I've ever tried, in part because it's incredibly easy to use, and in part because it's smart.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

There's a lot to like about the new Office 2013. Heck, some might argue that Outlook alone is worth the price of admission.

One thing that bothers me, however, is the startup screen that appears when you launch Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. It's a nice addition, and a quick way to access recent documents or create a new one using a template, but it's not how I like to work.

Fortunately, it's fairly easy to configure Office to bypass that screen for the aforementioned three programs. Here's how, using Word as an example:

1. Run Word. Open a document, create a new one, or whatever. The goal is to move past the startup screen.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Of all the magical things a smartphone can do, I rank business-card OCR among the highlights.

Think of it: Instead of manually transcribing each and every card into your phone or desktop address book, you simply snap a photo and presto: an app transcribes everything for you.

Shape's Business Card Reader has been at this game for years; as far back as 2010, PC World's Lex Friedman noted that it "worked with impressive accuracy."

I'll second that: After CES last January, I used BCR on a huge stack of cards, and it worked almost flawlessly—especially on cards with light backgrounds and dark text. Talk about five bucks well spent.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A little over a week ago, LogMeIn Product Specialist Sean Keough announced a change to the company's LogMeIn Free remote-access product: Instead of using it on unlimited PCs, customers would be limited to 10 PCs each.

As a longtime fan of LogMeIn Free and a self-proclaimed cheapskate, you'd think I'd be outraged by this decision, as lots of other users have proclaimed to be. (Look no further than the comments section beneath Keough's post.)

Quite the opposite: I say, good for LogMeIn. The free ride isn't over, it's just no longer available to mid-size businesses that should have been paying for LMI to begin with. (LogMeIn Free is really intended as a consumer product, though no doubt some businesses have leveraged it for work purposes.)

The mistake LMI made was allowing unlimited PCs from the start. I think there's such a thing as "too much free," and that many of us have grown spoiled by all the gratis goods and services available nowadays—to the detriment of development and innovation. Hence the backlash: Once you give people something for free, it's awfully hard to get them to start paying for it.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How can I put this delicately? Your presentations? Bo-ring.

It's not that your slide deck isn't chock full of useful information. It's that they've seen it all before. At the first sign of a static PowerPoint frame, their eyes glaze over.

To really engage your audience, show 'em a Prezi. This nifty presentation tool creates dazzling custom animations that make ordinary slide decks look like, well, ordinary slide decks.

This is perhaps better illustrated than explained, so take a look at this sample Prezi on social media:

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Possible slogans for Ringya, a new contact-management app for Android and iOS:

"If you like it then you shoulda put a Ringya on it."

"One Ringya to rule them all."

"The postman only Ringyas once."

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

For as long as I can remember, WordPress has been synonymous with blog hosting—mostly consumer blog hosting.

Although the company offered Pro plans for users who need more than the basics and enterprise options for the big boys, there was nothing in the middle for the SMB crowd.

There is now. The aptly named WordPress Business caters to small businesses needing a domain, storage, and a wide selection of themes for building a Web site.

Essentially a bundle of premium upgrades, WordPress business includes not only site hosting and a free domain, but also live support (via chat, or email when chat isn't available), unlimited storage, and your choice of unlimited premium themes.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google Apps offers cash-strapped small businesses a lot of bang for the buck, but one app that can cause problems is Gmail.

Specifically, each Google Apps account affords just 25GB of Gmail storage, meaning it's not uncommon for users to bump into that ceiling—especially if they're on the receiving end of a lot of attachments.

When that happens, the user can't send or receive mail, which is a potentially serious problem. What if a customer submits an order and your sales guy doesn't receive it because his mailbox is full?

Backupify's new FreeSpace promises to help clear out overstuffed Gmail accounts. It does so primarily by scanning inboxes for attachments and identifying the largest ones, then allowing users to delete or download them.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you're an iPhone user, you're no doubt familiar with stock apps like Calendar, Mail, Notes, and Reminders. These are key tools in any mobile worker's arsenal, and yet all four have room for improvement. Some would say a lot of room.

Below I've rounded up four great alternatives to the aforementioned apps, all of them with an eye toward boosting your productivity.

1. Replace Calendar with Fantastical

If you live and die by the calendar, as so many business people do, you've no doubt had some complaints with Calendar for iOS. Fantastical not only provides a fresh, attractive interface for your appointments, but also simplifies adding new ones.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you run a one-man shop and you're looking to sell a product or service, you have a few options. You can build an e-commerce site from scratch, which requires time and expertise, or you can go with a turnkey marketplace like Etsy, which might not be a good fit for your product (unless it's a tea cozy).

Somewhere in between lies small-business management service Planet Soho, which now offers Soho Storefront: a quick and simple way to create an e-commerce site for hawking your wares.

Designed for "the smallest of small businesses," Soho Storefront officially launches next Tuesday as part of the company's Soho VIP package, which includes business amenities like professional designed group emails, secure cloud storage, various documents and templates, and so on.

All you do is sign into your Planet Soho account, click through to your storefront, then start adding products and services. If you have just one or two, it literally takes a matter of minutes to start selling.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many businesses take pains to ensure that company emails stay private and secure, but CIOs and IT managers often overlook another popular form of communication: text messages.

A typical SMS is subject not only to hacker interception, but also basic theft: an inbound text remains on a user's smartphone until he or she deletes it. Likewise, it stays on the carrier's servers for who knows how long.

If your business trades in sensitive information—documents, photos, private client data, etc.—it might make sense to adopt a more secure system.

TigerTextPro offers businesses secure real-time messaging. It's available for Android, BlackBerry, and iOS, but you can also deploy it on Windows and Mac machines.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

I've made no secret of my dislike for Microsoft Outlook. In fact, last year I announced my plans to "divorce" Outlook in favor of a smaller, faster mail client.

Alas, because a lot of the writing I do centers around Microsoft Office, I've stuck it out with Outlook, at least on one of my PCs. And over the weekend I made the move to Outlook 2013, which debuted last month as part of the new Office 2013 suite.

What I expected: More clutter, more bloat, more features I don't need.

What I got: A surprisingly streamlined and pleasant program with some features I actually do need—or at least appreciate.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CloudOn does the seemingly impossible. It hosts Microsoft Office in the cloud, then makes it available on your iPhone, iPad, or Android tablet. PC World's Yardena Arar called it her "favorite cloud-hosted virtual Office service."

With version 4.0, CloudOn is now available for Android smartphones as well. And it brings some much-needed new features to the table, while retaining (for the moment, anyway) the best possible price: It's free.

If you've used the app in the past (on another device), you'll be glad to know that version 4.0 supports both portrait and landscape views, the latter a very welcome (and overdue) addition.

Also new: CloudOn FileSpace, a place to add notes and view all activity on a single file, including edits, for real-time updates on documents. As always, you can share and view Office documents directly from email, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Square made it possible for small businesses to accept credit cards via smartphone. Today the company unveiled a decidedly non-mobile solution: a payment system for brick-and-mortar stores.

The new Business in a Box for Square Register provides a complete point-of-sale system built around Apple's iPad (which, it's worth mentioning up front, you'll have to provide yourself).

Thus you get two Square Readers, a countertop-friendly (and secure) swiveling iPad stand, a cash drawer, and, if you're willing to pay extra, a receipt printer. That does indeed provide everything most retail shops would need to conduct commerce, all "in a box."

In case you're unfamiliar with Square Register, it's the iPad app companion to the Reader. With it you can build a photo-powered inventory of products to make for fast and easy checkouts.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

So you're looking to work with an overseas supplier for parts. Or you need to hire a programmer whose English is fractured at best. Now what? Do you really need to hire a translator just so you can communicate with these folks?

Nope: Hire an app instead. Sendboo for iOS translates text messages in real-time, effectively turning the language barrier into a language floodgate. Now you can communicate with pretty much anyone, anywhere, as long as they have a smartphone or tablet. (An Android version of the app is expected later this quarter.)

Sendboo works like just about any other messaging app you've used. After setting your preferred language, you simply tap out a message and then send it. Servers translate it on the fly to the preferred language of the recipient. Or recipients: The app supports group chats in addition to one-on-ones.

This is kind of a big deal. Without spending a dime, you can communicate with customers, co-workers, suppliers, marketers, and anyone else who might fit into your global business plans. And because it's a messaging app, it's a better solution than, say, Google Translate, which requires you to be in the same room as the other person.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here