I needed to host a remote training session recently and had to do a little research to determine the best, free way to do it. As a result I’m sharing my research so you don’t have to go through it as well.

My remote training session had two requirements. A live tele-conference, and a live Web based demo. As a result, I’ve broken this article into two sections; free conference calling, and free Web based presentations.
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Yesterday’s post about the Annoy-a-tron brought back fond memories from long ago when I worked in an office where people actually liked one another and we all used to pull practical jokes.

In fact, we were very competitive about our pranks, with each of us attempting to out do the other. Here now is a list of the top pranks from the ‘good old days’.
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This is an interesting application of Google Maps and mashup technology, which is basically the concept of taking information from multiple sources and blending them together.

So, here they are:
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Over the years I’ve collected a huge stack of business cards. This is primarily the case because I just don’t have the energy to either type them all in by hand or scan them into one of those card readers - which incidentally cost a couple hundred bucks.

So, imagine my delight when I discovered a free service which allows you to take a digital photo of a business card, e-mail or upload it and then have the contacts information automatically e-mailed back in Vcard format ready to import straight into Outlook!
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The following anti-rejection letter was floating around the Internet so I snagged it and put it here. This would be an awesome strategy for people in certain fields, most notably sales.

If nothing else, it shows creativity, risk taking and guts. I’d have probably hired this person for this letter alone.
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Folks, this link is not kid friendly, and only marginally work friendly - but it is too hilarious not to share!

This guy apparently spent some time as a technical support staffer for Verizon. He was obviously working in a Canadian call center, where Verizon had outsourced some work. This is fairly standard in the telecom industry.
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People are generally curious as to how their compensation package stacks up to others in their field. This knowledge is useful as a measuring stick to make sure that you aren’t being taken advantage of.

Of course, it can also be detrimental to one’s job satisfaction, so keep in mind that this information isn’t vetted so people may be exaggerating, lying or their situation may be entirely different from yours.

There are a few new sites that allow you to compare your earnings to others:
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So, you run a small business and don’t really know where to turn to get decent health insurance at an affordable cost? Well, Home Depot has got what you need over on aisle 10 by the hammers.

That’s right, in an effort to inspire greater customer loyalty (and no doubt to earn a little referral revenue) Home Depot has done a lot of homework and struck up some deals to help the average individual or small business owner to better their health care position.
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There is a new breed of online service providers all trying to gain position as the office document system of choice. Big players like Google and Microsoft have already announced their intentions, and small upstarts such as ThinkFree and Zoho have also thrown their hat in the ring.

I previously posted my review of Zoho.com so I won’t duplicate that work here. However, here is some information regarding other online services.
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Zoho.com is one of the most innovative Microsoft Office competitors I’ve seen. The only difference is, the entire suite of tools is FREE, and completely Web based.
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What’s the most unethical thing you can do with a Business Card? Post it on Jigsaw.com.

I give Jim Fowler, CEO and co-founder, full credit for ingenuity in coming up with the idea for this site. Just like I give the first real spammers credit for creativity as well. Heck, I guess while we’re handing out credit we might as well credit Jack the Ripper for never getting caught, and throw in a little for whomever made Jimmy Hoffa disappear.
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