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Productivity 215: Microsoft Office Shortcuts
NOTE: Most of these sites have alternate software variations you can find through AlternativeTo or SimilarSites. Also, most of the programs that normally cost money have free alternatives with a clunkier interface and effectively the same features.
Useful Websites
Managing Your Online Accounts & Software
Account Killer – delete and disable tons of Internet accounts at once
IFTTT – connect all your online accounts with “triggers”
otixo – manage multiple cloud services
Secure Password Generator – generates safe passwords for your accounts
Surfing The Internet Safely
downforeveryoneorjustme.com – check if a site is offline
WhoIsHostingThis? – see who is hosting a website
Norton Safe Web – verify the safety of a website
BuiltWith – analyze what a site is put together with
LastPass – manage all of your passwords securely
Maildrop, spamgourmet, 10 Minute Mail, Fake Mail Generator, Guerrilla Mail, Throwaway Mail, Mailinator – use a temporary email to avoid signing up for spam
Have I Been Pwned? – check if your email address was involved in any data breaches
Calculators
Calculator.net – calculators for almost anything
Mathway – an educational calculator that shows the answer step by step
Online-Convert.com – convert anything into anything
Wolfram Alpha – a calculator for anything that can be quantified
Google Ngram Viewer – an aggregator for written literature
How Long To Read This – measure how long it will take to read a piece of literature
Finding Information
Charity Navigator – financial records of most charities
Geo Location – find out the approximate postal address for a location
Boxoh – track any package
FlightStats – find out the location of a flight
FindTheBest – a research engine
Hotel WiFi Test – speed test and research hotel internet speeds
Word Hippo – find similar words when you can’t remember the exact word
Simple Wikipedia – Wikipedia using simple language
Expanding Possibilities
Copy Paste Character – copy special characters not on your keyboard
polishmywriting.com or Grammarly – grammar and spell check your writing
Google Translate – translate text or an uploaded document automatically
Mixlr – broadcast live audio
Sharing Ideas
lmgtfy.com – send a pre-Googled webpage to someone
join.me – share your screen
privnote – send private notes that self-destruct
Marker.to – highlight web pages to make sharing easier
goo.gl – shorten URLs to share and link with
unfurlr – figure out what’s behind someone else’s shortlink
scr.im – convert your email address into a shortlink to avoid spammers
tinychat – setup private chats with others
faxZERO – send free faxes online
Tall Tweets – write Twitter tweets longer than 140 characters
everytimezone.com – view the time zones in the simplest way possible
Ge.tt – share files quickly
Scribble Maps – custom editing over Google Maps
Slack – share and collaborate with a virtual shared workspace
Useful Media Tools
Screenr – record your computer screen, with or without audio
ctrlq.org/screenshots – take a screenshot of a website you specify
PDFescape – a quick and dirty PDF editor
Online OCR – text recognition for PDFs
WeTransfer – send massive files
Adobe Color CC – find the right color and pull colors from inside a file
Jotti’s malware scan – upload a suspicious file to scan it for viruses
FreeImages – download and use stock photographs
PicMonkey – browser-based photo editor
SumoPaint – browser-based Photoshop-style software
savefrom.net – save any video or audio to your computer
Inside – daily summarized news brief emailed to you
Pocket – manage your bookmarks more effectively
Corrupt a file – create a corrupted file to send to someone to buy time
PrintWhatYouLike.com – simplify web pages for printing
Canva – edit and create graphics for anything you need
Other Non-Computer Life Productivity
Autodesk Homestyler – design or remodel your home in 3D
Random.org – pure random number generation
noteflight – all-in-one browser-based music notation software
Meetup – connect with people in real life with shared interests
GetHuman or FastCustomer – automate the customer service phone queue
Shyp – a service for shipping anything
Kitestring – a service that will contact friends if you don’t respond after a specified time
Managing A Website
NameChk – check the availability of a web handle
peek – allow others to give a 5-minute evaluation of your website
Google Fonts – open-source fonts to use
iwantmyname – search for domain names you can use
GTmetrix – analyze your site’s speed and make it faster
disposableWebPage – create a webpage that lasts for 90 days
dead link checker – check if a site has a broken link
pancake.io – use a Dropbox or Git account to make a simple website
woorank – find out how a site looks from a marketing perspective
Useful Browser Plugins & Extensions
AdBlock Plus – one of the most effective ad blockers
NoScript – stops all scripts from running on a web page
Grammarly – looks for spelling and grammar mistakes and automatically fixes it
OneTab – consolidates a bunch of tabs into a list for easier processing
Google Similar Pages – finds related pages to the one you’re browsing with
Hola – free VPN for browsing anonymously
MightyText – allows you to send text messages on your phone from your computer
PushBullet – display notifications on any of your devices
Project Naptha – text recognition for images
Useful Apps
Mobile devices
Uber/Lyft – take a ridesharing taxi to wherever you need to go
Circle of 6 – have up to six people you can contact instantly in an emergency
By turning on Google Now, it will remember where you’ve parked your car
PCs
Ninite – automatically update software you use
PortableApps – run many free portable applications from cloud storage or flash drive
Macs
DeTune – transfer all of your iPhone and iPad songs onto your computer, even ones deleted from iTunes