J'z Place

I never could have imagined that a blog post from @DeniseWakeman at Build A Better Blog would have started such an Awesome thing. Here is Denise's blog post that started it all 5 Ways A Blogging Buddy Can Help You Blog More Consistently. See I had just started the 30 Day Blog Challenge hosted by Jeanette Cates and Connie Ragen Green when I came across Denise's blog post about having a blog buddy. This actually made since to me and I was interested immediately. I sent emails to a couple of people who had left comments on the post. I had a couple of responses, but I knew that Eydie of Eydie's Office and I clicked. She has really motivated me to become a better business person. Eydie who is located in California was also contacted by Erno of ErnoHannink.com who is from the Netherlands and Kay Newton of KayNewtonCoachng.com who is from Spain. So we all connected this past Wednesday on Skype. We discussed our blogging goals and how we can keep each other motivated to blog. I learned from the 30 Day Blog Challenge that having accountability and support can help you accomplish things that normally you would put on the back burner. So stay tuned to see what our Blogging Buddy Group is up to.

Check Out My Blogging Buddies:

Eydie – Her site: Eydiesoffice.com connect with her on Facebook.

Kay – Her site: KayNewtonCoaching.com connect with her on Facebook.

Erno – His site: ErnoHannink.com connect with him on Facebook.

What is Mind Mapping? According to Wikipedia:

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

You can read the full definition at Wikipedia – Mind Map

Mind Maps are a great way to share the process or steps of how something works. You can design any type of Mind Map and share it with others.

Learn How To Draw A Mind Map HERE!

Here are some FREE Mind Mapping Tools that I suggest checking out:

FreeMind is a open source mind mapping software that runs on java.

MindMeister – Allows you 3 Free Mind Maps

Xmind – This tool is free for home use, but you can upgrade to Pro which is for businesses.

As my business has been picking up, I was in need of something to really keep me organized..So while I was browsing I came across some really great free programs to help you and I get organized.

Chandler – The Note-To-Self Organizer 1.0.  This is a online notebook that you can organize, backup and share with others. You can collect all your thoughts all in one spot. You can use alarms for Time Management. Track notes, to-do lists and events from the calendar.

Task Coach – This a simple To-Do manager to keep track of personal tasks and to-do lists. Task Coach is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iPhone and iPod Touch.

qOrganizer – This general organizer includes some really great features such as a calendar with schedule, reminders, journal/notes for everyday tasks, to-do lists. It also have features that are great for students to keep track of their absences and online projects.

Are you looking to make a video tutorial or a HowTo to share with others. Here are a couple of Free Screen Capture Programs.

If you use Mozilla Firefox – Make sure to check out the add-on called CaptureFox. When you download this to your Firefox browser, a camera like icon will appear down in the lower right corner of your screen. This makes it easy to access when you need it.

Zscreen is software for Windows. You can do all sorts of things with this software. Some of the features include: uploading screenshots, pictures, text & files and you can also put the URL in your clipboard with one single keystroke.

CamStudio is pretty well know software. You can record all screen and audio that is active on your computer. This software produces industry standard AVI files. It also has a built-in SWF Producer that will allow you to make the AVI files into bandwidth friendly stream flash videos

I received an email from a family member today asking about Open Source Software. If you haven't heard of Open Source Software then you are missing out..Open Source Software is FREE software that others have collaborated on to built for the public. There is some really awesome Open Source Software that I love to use.

One of them is GIMP.org. GIMP is a alternative to photoshop. You can add different brushes and tools to customize your experience while using the software.

Another is OpenOffice.org. This is really awesome software that is comparible to Microsoft's Office Suite. You can write ebooks using the pdf feature. Presentations and spreedsheets are among some of the great features that are offered by OpenOffice.org

Today I am going to share with you the sites that I can spend hours on going through all the different software available.

For Windows Users – Open Source Software

For MAC Users – Open Source Software

dmoz.org

SourceForge.net – Find Great Software

OSalt.com

OpenSource-It.com

Make sure you have some time to check these sites out. Most of the software is just as good, if not better to me than paid software.