Free Technologies
for the Office
Brandy Wilson
Career Counselor
Binghamton University
Why focus on free technologies?
 How can we meet students?
Facebook, AIM
 New technology can cost into the thousands
 Let’s not reinvent the wheel
 Career counseling technology is behind the
times
Handouts/Disclaimer
Please check the SUNY CDO site for a
copy of this presentation
Disclaimer: While I have used many of
these personally, some are based on other
recommendations. Please take the time to
explore and experience these tools for
yourself.
Outline
 Free Technologies
Counseling
Connecting with Students
Marketing
Website Enhancement
Office Tools
 Where to Find Them
 What is your office doing?
Counseling
Borrowing from Others
Purdue – Career Clusters
http://www.cco.purdue.edu/StudentMajorList.sht
ml
Ball State – Quest – Majors & Interests
http://bsu.edu/students/careers/quest
Borrowing from Others
National Resource Center
http://www.sc.edu/fye/resources/index.htm
NCDA
http://www.ncda.org/
Even if you are not a member, their resource
area is free and full of information
Interactive Timeline
http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
Mission Statement Builder
Franklin Covey
http://www.franklincovey.com/fc/library_an
d_resources/mission_statement_builder
Step-by-step guide to creating a unique,
personalized Mission Statement
Career Videos
 Career TV
http://www.careertv.com
/about/index.asp
 Career video website
Interviewing
Salary reports
Career related videos
Etc.
Researching Companies
Zoom Info
http://www.zoominfo.com/#
Students with Criminal Backgrounds
Hire Network
http://www.hirenetwork.org/index.html
Provides resources and assistance
information to people with criminal
backgrounds
International Students
Foreign Labor Certification Data Center
http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx
Provides data on companies supporting
H1B Visa’s
Similar to http://www.h1visajobs.com/
(requires paid subscription)
ePortfolio
Epsilen
http://www.epsilen.com
To-Do List Managers
 Remember the Milk
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
 Rainlender
http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php
 Point Motivator
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/PointM
otivator/index.html
 Awards and subtracts points based on your progress
Personal Finances
Mint
http://www.mint.com/
Wesabe
http://www.wesabe.com/
Connecting with Students
Instant Messaging
 Pidgin
http://www.pidgin.im/
 Meebo
http://www.meebo.com/
 AOL, Yahoo, MSN
 Trillian
http://www.trillian.cc/
Create Your Own Chat Room
Chatmaker
http://www.chatmaker.net/
Create your own chat room
Invite anyone by sending them a special
link
Marketing
Calendar
Google Calendar
http://www.google.com/calendar/render’
RSS Feeds
Allows you to view updates from a variety
of websites from just one link
igoogle.com
Google homepage
Google reader
How to Add RSS Feeds to Your Site
http://www.rssgov.com/rssworkshop.html
This site will walk you through creating
and adding RSS feeds.
Blogging
Blogger
https://www.blogger.com/start
Word Press
http://wordpress.org/
Twitter
http://twitter.com/
Keep in touch with groups
Maximum of 140 characters at a time
Website Enhancement
Website Tracker
Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Find out where they “click” from, what they
are clicking on, how often, etc.
Broken Links
Xenu Link Sleuth
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
HTML Generator
NVU
http://www.nvu.com
Tag Your Website
How to add tags to your website
The Site Wizard
http://www.thesitewizard.com/sitepromotion/met
a-tags-nvu-kompozer.shtml
Revver.com
http://revver.com/video/666038/website-tipsadding-title-tags-keywords-description-tags/
Tag Your Website
What tags should you use?
http://www.tagcloud-generator.com/
http://tagcrowd.com/
Social Bookmarking
 Similar to your favorites folder online
 Saves the address of a website for future use
 Can file the website under different tags
(headings, knowledge areas, etc)
 7 Things You Should Know about Social
Bookmarking
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf
Social Bookmarking
 http://del.icio.us/ladare
 http://digg.com/about
 http://www.simpy.com/
 http://www.spurl.net/
 http://www.mixx.com/
Office Tools
Surveying
Survey Monkey
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
Create a Poll
Doodle
http://doodle.ch/main.html
Create polls on your website, through
email
Conference Calls
Free Conference Call
http://www.freeconferencecall.com/index.asp
Allows you to make a conference call with
up to 96 other lines
Only normal long distance charges
through your phone company apply
Library Catalog
Library Thing
http://www.librarything.com/
Creating PDF’s
 http://www.pdfonline.com/
 http://www.koolwire.com/Default.aspx
 http://www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF
/writer.asp
 Turn a document into a PDF file
 Submit/email document to site, receive the
emailed PDF version a few minutes later
Convert PDF’s
pdf2txt@adobe.com
pdf2html@adobe.com
Send a PDF document to this email address as
an attachment and it will come back as a plain
text file or in HTML format
http://pdftextonline.com/
Convert your PDF to word and maintain the
fonts and formatting
Edit PDF’s
Split & merge documents
http://www.pdfsam.org/?page_id=32
Edit document
http://www.pdfhammer.com/
Microsoft Office
 OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
 GoogleDocs
http://docs.google.com/?pli=1
 Zoho
http://zoho.com/
 150 Free Microsoft Office Tools
http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!70F64BC910C
9F7F3!1344.entry
Photoshop
 GetPaint
http://www.getpaint.net/
 Pixifix
http://www.pikifx.com/
 GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/
 Phixr
http://www.phixr.com/
Images and Pictures
Every Stock Photo - pulls images from
other sites
http://www.everystockphoto.com/index.php
Translating
Google Translator
http://www.google.com/translate_t?hl=en
Babel Fish
http://world.altavista.com/
FoxLingo
https://addons.mozilla.org/enUS/firefox/addon/2444
Note Taking
Notely
http://www.notely.net/
Take notes, organize tasks, and access them
from anywhere
Springnote
http://www.springnote.com/en
Voice Recorders
 Jott
http://jott.com/
 Vozme
http://vozme.com
 Converts your voice into emails, text messages,
reminders, lists and appointments
 Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
 Record and edit audio files
Web Accessibility
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
This was a basic site I found, so that I
could get this presentation sent to you
sooner. Please check with your web/tech
teams at your institution as they may have
rules or help already in place.
If You Have the $$
$$ Technologies
Virtual Worlds
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
Interview situations
Training counselors
Just for Fun
For the shoppers…
Online deals
http://dealnews.com/
Find secret Amazon discounts
http://deallocker.com/tool/secret-amazondiscount/
Procrastinating at Work
Watch TV at work
http://www.openhulu.com/
Rules of Thumb
http://www.rulesofthumb.org/
4,000+ Games
http://www.kongregate.com/
Procrastinating at Work
GoogleEarth
http://earth.google.com/
“Tracking People”
http://www.pipl.com
Comprehensive web search
http://www.zabasearch.com
Search for addresses and phone numbers
Where are they?
Where to Look
Google
Google – Google apps
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/var_0.html
Where to Look
http://collegewebeditor.com/blog/
Web, marketing, and PR in higher ed
News and tips
You can RSS it! 
Where to Look
Blog High Ed
http://www.bloghighed.org/
Provides lists of other blogs as well
Where to Look
Lifehacker
http://lifehacker.com/
Where to Look
Mark Greenfield
http://markgr.com/
Leading higher education web expert
Where to Look
The Best Free Software
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2260070
,00.asp
157 types of software
Where to Look
http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/access
-websites-over-email-without-internetconnection/1660/
Top 10 emails when you don’t have
internet
Where to Look
 EDUCAUSE
http://www.educause.edu/
 Nonprofit association whose mission is to
advance higher education by promoting the
intelligent use of information technology.
 Articles such as “7 Things You Should Know
About…”
What is your office doing?