The Keller Williams market center in Hudson held a “cool tools” class earlier this week on new technology tools that are available. They were gracious enough to invite Keller Williams agents from other market centers and I was grateful to be invited. Foul weather prevented many of my fellow agents at the Minneapolis Keller Williams from making the treck east to Hudson so I took notes to share. I’ve had the opportunity to check some of these cool tools out and I am impressed enough that I want to pass them along to everyone! Do you know of some cool tools? I’d love to hear about them.

http://docs.google.com
Create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online. Create basic documents from scratch. You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. And it’s free. Upload your existing files. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc.

I did not know about google docs before. Work with MS Office files without buying MS Office. Wish I would have known. Also does PDF conversion.
If you have a google account you have access to google docs already. If you don’t have an account check into it, google has a lot of good tools for free.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

http://www.google.com/goog411/index.html
Google’s new 411 service is free, fast and easy to use. Give it a try now and see how simple it is to find and connect with local businesses for free.

http://jott.com/default.aspx
Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.

I set up an account yesterday and have used this a lot already. Awesome for leaving yourself reminders while driving. Speed dial Jott, leave a voicemail for yourself, Jott converts the message to text and delivers to email or text message. Surprisingly accurate voice recognition.

https://www.photoshop.com/express
Upload, sort, polish, and store up to 2GB of photos. All for free. Resize, tint, distort, and more.

I set up an account here as well. Easy to use, fast interface. 2 gigs of storage will hold a lot of pictures, and the editing tools are easy to use. You can share photos and albums by link or code. Minimal editing features, but the price is right.

http://www.grandcentral.com/
GrandCentral gives you ‘One Number…for Life’ — a phone number that instead of being tied to a device or a location is tied to you. Use GrandCentral to centralize your communication, customize your callers’ experience, and make sure you never miss a call you want to take (or take a call you want to miss).

I love the idea, but I’m apprehensive to change my phone number to a service in beta phase. I did get on the reserve list for a 612 area code.

http://www.randmcnally.com/
Get online driving directions you can trust from Rand McNally. Download maps, add multiple stops, check real-time traffic updates, avoid road construction, etc.

I’m a GPS junkie so I have not checked into this. The consensus at the Hudson class was that this is better than Mapquest.

http://www.roboform.com/
Reduce your many passwords to just one; enjoy easy, one-click logins and form filling.

http://www.mylivesignature.com/
Ever wanted to spice up your posts, emails, blogs and other digital content? MyLiveSignature offers both FREE and paid services of creating personal signatures.

http://www.primopdf.com/
Completely free PDF creator - Create PDF files from 300+ file types.