More and more professionals are working from home, on the go, or in whatever location they choose. With internet applications rapidly developing, online storage mechanisms becoming dirt cheap and often free, and netbook computers becoming more and more common, a huge wave of ultra-portable office applications, extensions, and utilities are popping up.
At the heart of every designer or developer’s office is their browser. This guide is dedicated to making sure that your browser becomes the ultimate productivity suite, complete with word processing and office tools, calculation and finance tools, and a wide range of development and design extensions. Sit back, get your download finger ready, and take a look through our Firefox Home Office Guide.
Part 1: Office Apps
At the heart of every office is the productivity suite. MS Office has sat installed on nearly every office computer for the last decade, but it’s quickly becoming less relevant. For our mobile browser office, we’re going to focus on online applications for two reasons. Firstly, they’re accessible from anywhere, making them perfect for any online businessperson that’s often on the move. Secondly, they offer optimum file security and safety. With everything stored online, you’re less at risk of losing files through error or hardware malfunction.
I use Google Docs for word processing. Sure, it doesn’t offer every feature that MS Word does, but it contains almost every necessary feature, function and utility to make it the best online word processor. You can export files in all the necessary formats — .doc, .txt, .rtf, .odt, .pdf and more! — and the online storage is easy to organize, safe and secure, and conveniently tied to your Gmail account.
Making the Google Apps suite even more simple is the fact that you can open business attachments and documents directly from your emails. Just hit the ‘Open as a Google Document’ link on any email attachment and it’ll automatically be important into Google Docs.
Forget Powerpoint and Keynote, Prezi is by far the best presentation software around. Better still, it’s 100% browser-based. Instead of putting every mindless detail on a separate slide, Prezi allows users to lay out their presentations on a single plane and move through them at their speed, in their own order, and if required, change the presentation on the fly.
The free membership includes 100mb storage and online usage of the software, however heavy users and serious online companies will want to look into one of the paid plans, which offer greater online storage, unbranded presentations, and offline editing tools.
Sure, it’s no Photoshop, but Picnik offers a wide range of powerful editing options and photo manipulation tools. With the ability import your photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa and hundreds of other online photo sharing website, editing your photos and creating visual marketing materials is no problem.
For small files it’s easiest to just .zip them and email them to yourself. For big stuff, you’ve either got to go with one of the many free upload websites (pop-up ads, anyone?) or get your own upload space on Dropbox. With a free 2gb upload box available, even the most frugal of online workers can find ample space to store work-in-progress designs, documents and other important files.
Part 2: Finance, Payments and Currencies
By far the best currency converter for Firefox, FXWare gives you access to over 180 foreign exchange rates at the click of a button. With lots of online commerce crossing borders and requiring payments in multiple currencies, this tool is absolutely essential for working out how much you owe, how much you’re owed, or how much you need to charge.
Yes, it’s big and evil and expensive, but Paypal is by far the most popular online payment processor. By not using it you’ll alienate potential customers, reduce trust, and have trouble accepting payments from online retailers, customers and clients. If you need a backup payment processor, Google Checkout is worth a shot.
Bonus: Want to simplify your Paypal transactions? Check out this Paypal Fee Calculator. Just be careful, this thing has good sides and bad. The good side — you’ll know how much to bill to minimize fee interference. The bad — you’ll know exactly how much Paypal takes on every transaction.
Offering simple invoices and payment summaries, FreshBooks is one of the best online invoicing services available. Easily compatible with Paypal and other payment processors, and featuring a large range of community add-ons and extensions, FreshBooks is the perfect choice for freelancers, service businesses, and anyone looking to provide quotes and estimations for online work.
Part 3: Scheduling and Organization
I have no doubt that this is the world’s most simple, and most effective, online to-do list software. In conjunction with Google Calendar or iCal, this tool will help you schedule events throughout your day, get through bulk work assignments and bug testing, and make your productivity periods less stressful and taxing.
Want the ultimate productivity helper? Run NowDoThis in your Firefox sidebar, and have access to your to-do list and your work on the same screen. Simply bookmark the page, right click it, and check ‘Load this bookmark in the sidebar’. Then, simply tick off everything you complete as you do it.
Calendar and Scheduling: Google Calendar
This one’s nice and simple, with features that will keep you remembering dates and appointments. Simply set your schedule in the simple interface, decide whether or not you want SMS reminders, and leave it for the week. Much better than iCal or any of the offline Windows calendars, Google Calendar offers all the features in offline software along with the convenience of online applications.
Want to batch your tasks together for maximum productivity? Set hour blocks in Google Calendar and micro-manage your tasks on NowDoThis.
Part 4: Firefox Extensions and Add-Ons
The reason that millions of internet users pick Firefox is because of the immense customization options that it offers. From advanced Greasemonkey scripts to simple Ad-blocking software, there’s something to fit every Firefox user’s requirements. Here are some of my favorites for boosting online productivity, output and results.
This extension is essential for webmaster and online marketers that don’t want to bloat their Firefox install with the Google Toolbar. It’s tiny, easy to read, and possibly the most simple PageRank extension around. Just check out that small green bar in your bottom right corner and you’ll learn all you need to know about any website’s authority and search engine power.
Possibly the most useful Firefox extension out there, AutoCopy saves you from having to hit Ctrl+C every time you want to copy and paste text. Just highlight it and it goes straight to your clipboard — perfect for copying URLs, citing sources, and documenting information.
If you’re using del.icio.us for bookmarks (which you should, by the way) this extension saves a huge amount of time and effort in saving, storing and sharing your bookmarks. Simply hit Ctrl+D whenever you come across something that takes your fancy, enter your tags and notes, and the link will automatically be saved to your Delicious profile.
This one is so obvious that it shouldn’t even need to be explained. Simply put, you’ve got almost every conceivable web development option right at the top of your screen with this toolbar. No serious designed would ever be without it, and although it costs you a small amount of screen real estate, it’s easily made up for with a minimal Firefox theme.
I know, I know, there’s already a currency converter listed. This one is slightly different. Instead of offering options for currency conversion as part of the website, this small converter simply sits down in your status bar and offers live updates of different currencies. Perfect if you deal with multiple currencies as part of your business, this will help you calculate billing amounts, minimize Forex fees and plan your Paypal withdrawals for optimum earnings.
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These tools are all part of my home office, and with the right strategy they can dramatically increase your productivity and make your work easier than ever. However, they’re no substitute for hard work, and installing them won’t have you producing at high speed straight away. Take some time to plan a great schedule, use these online tools to get your work simplified, and make sure that you don’t let the tech take control of your work.
Have you got a favorite Firefox extension or online application? If so, fire away in the comments with any suggestions. I’m always looking to make my work better and boost my productivity, and it’s always rewarding and exciting to find something new.
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Your link to NowDoThis links to nodothis.com. Please correct.
Thanks. Fixed.
Very good links I can use for my site.
if anyone wants to start an empire… these are the companies to buy
Nice web apps and add-ons. Since Internet is going to be faster and cheaper, we can do all things just with a powerful browser like Firefox
How could I miss AutoCopy? It’s like: Why the frak do I have to press CTRL+C, just copy it for christ sake.
Hi Mathew,
Thanks for the post on Prezi! Do you use it in your workflow, to do websites or for Presentations?
Great article!
organize your desktop with bump top….
Hi,
the screensaver is awesome.
For those who dont’t find it on the flickr site in the discussions:
http://www9031.com/downloads/screensavers.html
Cheers, Stefan
As if any power users used Firefox. Simply not possible, because you can’t even have a sufficient number of tabs open in it, as it leaks so much memory. Fail.
I’d replace Google Docs, calendar, et al, and many others with Zoho. More specifically, Zoho Business.
Feature rich office suite, with CRM and projects and in most cases entirely free (less than a few users). Also, get free email hosting with Zoho Email.
So much available for free AND an all-in-one interface. They do need to work on integrating tools more, but that’s starting to come.