J'z Place

I think that Blog Challenges have become addictive to me. I will be joining The Ultimate Blog Challenge and I want you to join with me. The first one I did was hosted by Connie Ragen Green and I didn't complete it. So when I heard about the Blog Challenge hosted by Jeanette Cates. I knew I was going to complete this one. Even if I had to get up a little earlier before my daughter so that I could prove to myself that I could actually complete it. I must say that you have to be pretty disciplined, but the habit that you gain is priceless. See since the last blog challenge I have been posting on a regular basis. I am not posting everyday, but every other day seems to work best for me.

The Ultimate Blog Challenge is hosted by Michelle Shaeffer and Michele Scism. I have joined these two wonderful women on the previous two blog challenges I did. They have collaborated and have given us, bloggers another awesome opportunity to challenge ourselves, network and make some really good friends.

So if you are ready to make the commitment – then Join Me and the rest of us at The Ultimate Blog Challenge

I came across a great little plugin that I want to share with you today! It's called WP Responder and it's an email newsletter and follow up autoresponder plugin for WordPress. If you are looking to build your list this is an inexpensive way to start. Here are the features that WP Responder offers

• Create Unlimited Newsletters
• Gather Unlimited Subscribers for each Newsletter
• Create Unlimited Follow Up Autoresponders
• Send Unlimited Follow Up Email messages
• Create and Schedule email broadcasts
• Send HTML e-mail broadcasts with customized HTML templates
• Provide e-mail subscription to new posts on your blog
• Provide e-mail subscription to blog categories
• Use blog posts as follow-up e-mail through the Post Series feature.
• Send only excepts to your blog subscribers
• Import/Export subscribers from Feedburner/Aweber
• Find, edit, and manage the subscribers of your blog easily

I will be trying this plugin on one of my other sites to see how it works and if I will be using it or not. Stay tuned for my personal review of this WordPress plugin.

I wanted to share with you different ways you can web chat with multi users. When doing this research I realized that there really isn't too many sites that offer this service for free. Most sites either charge for using there service or limit the amount of users that can be online at one time. Here are a couple that I would recommend trying out:

TokBox – Invite up to 20 people to a chat. Share presentations, documents and videos. Send pre-recorded video messages. Instant message with contacts from Gmail, AIM, etc.



TinyChat – Tinychat is a dead simple, free to use video/audio/desktop chat system. It is entirely web based, requires no downloads or plugins (aside from Flash) and works on all browsers and operating systems. I have used this before and is pretty easy to use.

I hope you find these resources as helpful as I have.

I have been using Skype for over 3 years now. At one point I even used Skype as my home phone. Yes you can do this too!

All you need is a Skype Account, a paid Skype subscription and a device that you can hook your home phone to. The device I used was called Zoom Phone Adapter and I purchased it at Wal-mart. I don't believe they carry the device anymore. In fact Wal-mart doesn't even carry the Skype prepaid cards anymore either. Here is where you can purchase VOIP Phone Adapters online.  This is a great way to have a home phone for about $20 every 3 months, so about $80 a year. The only thing that bothered me was that you had to dial the country code, phone number and then # to make a call.         

You can add all sorts of things to your Skype Account to customize it for you personally. Skype Extras that I have found to be useful were:

1. Yugma – this is a free (up to 20 users) desktop sharing and collaboration tool. If you are wanting to have an online meeting this is great for a small group. There is a paid version for groups over 20.
2. PamFax – use your Skype credit to send faxes over the internet.
3. PamelaCallRecorder – Record your Skype Calls.
4. VodBurner Video Recorder – Record your Skype Video Calls.
5. G-Recorder – Record your calls and chats to Gmail.
6. InACall Indicator – This allows other Skype users to see that you are in a call and that you do not want to bothered.
7. MassMess – allows you to send out bulk messages to other Skype Users.
8. Geo Locator – Let your Skype friends know where you are.

Check out all the other Skype Extras

I know that there are a ton of different options in collaborating online with others. Since most of the options are paid services I decided to share with you some of the Free options available.

1.   Spicebird is open source software that allows others collaborate from the comfort of their own home via the internet. You can use Spicebird to email, calendaring and instant messaging.

2.   Drop.io is a simple private real-time sharing and collaboration tool.

3.    Kaplink is also synced with ifolder which gives you a ton of power to share and collaborate with online teams and workgroups.  You can also have an online meeting using this software.

Hope these help you with your online collaborations…