Canva - great design simplified

Have you seen Canva yet? 

Canva is a free web-based design tool that is bringing the ability to create beautiful images and designs to everyone.  No design experience necessary – Canva is really easy to use. 

Simply choose what you’d like to create – an image for your Facebook page or a Facebook cover, a card, a poster, a document, an invitation or just about anything else you can think of.  There are templates already set up or you can create your own from scratch. 

Once you’ve chosen your background you can drag-and-drop different elements onto your design from Canva’s library of more than one million photos, graphics and fonts.   Most elements are free, but if you use a premium item it only costs $1.  

Even if you use Canva’s templates you can still customise them by changing the colours and fonts; upload your own photos to use; and move elements around.  

Once you’re happy with your design, you can choose to download it as an image or as a PDF, or share it immediately to Facebook or Twitter.

Canva was released towards the end of 2013 and since then I've used it to create almost every image on Techie Mum – Facebook cover and tabs, a media kit, blog header, logo, my app reviews, as well as most of the images on my posts and on social media.

But the first thing I used it for was nothing to do with Techie Mum.  At the end of last year I was struggling with a job I’d taken on for my eldest son’s Year 6 Graduation.  I was putting together a memento for each child using photos from Kindergarten to Year 6.  A Year Book was just too expensive so I had decided on an individual collage for each child.  I tried so many different software options and I just wasn't happy with any of them.  Then, as so often happens, when I was at my lowest and just didn't think these collages would ever get done, Canva was released!  Back then it was by invitation only, and I managed by get one of those invitations!  Within an hour of ‘playing’ on Canva I had found the solution.   Canva has over 100 different photo collage templates!  I think I screamed when I saw this –

  

The photos of each child were uploaded to Canva, the colours and font were changed to match our school's colours and with three other lovely Mums we created 50 photo collages in under two weeks – A3 size – which we then laminated.  This is how they turned out –

Canva regularly adds new elements – more layouts and design features, and they've just added photo filters so you can have fun with your own photos, or Canva’s, before adding them to your Canva creations. 

If you need a little help Canva adds new design tutorials regularly.  There’s no invitation needed now – just pop over here and sign up NOW!

Microsoft Office 2013 Review - Part 2

Last week I posted about the new way to buy Office 2013.  If you missed it you can read it here.

Today I'm going to let you know about the main changes to Office 2013 as against the last version – 2010.  The features below are common to all the Office programs.  My next posts will detail the changes specific to the main three – Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Start Screens

Previous versions of Office programs started with a blank document ready to create; in Office 2013 each program has a colour-coded start screen—blue for Word, green for Excel, orange for PowerPoint, green for Publisher.

These start screens are where you can create a blank document, select a template, search online for templates, search for a document on SkyDrive, or open a recent document. 

 

Working with the Cloud

Office 2013 is designed to work easily with the cloud—specifically Microsoft’s SkyDrive.   If you use SkyDrive, your account details will appear in the top left corner of each of the program’s screens, as well as on their start screens.  When you save a document, worksheet, or presentation, the default option is to save to your SkyDrive account, but you can choose to save it to your computer.

If you use Dropbox, you’ll be familiar with using cloud based storage.  SkyDrive works in exactly the same way by creating a ‘virtual’ folder on your computer just like Dropbox.  The big benefit with SkyDrive over Dropbox is the amount of storage.  A standard account with SkyDrive gives you 7GB of free storage.  When you subscribe to Office 365 you get an extra 20GB.

If you do save your Office documents on SkyDrive, you’ll be able to access them from any device, via Office 2013 on a PC or tablet, or via the WebApps.  Another great feature if you are switching between devices, is that Word, Excel and PowerPoint will save the last location where you were working before you closed the program - down to the letter, cell, or image.  This means you can be editing a document on your computer at work, and you can open that same document on your tablet or computer at home, and the exact position you were at will be shown so you can pick up exactly where you left off. 

 

Work with a touchscreen

Office 2013 gives you the option of easily switching between using your mouse or a touchscreen.  The touch mode spreads the commands out so that it’s easier to use with your fingers on a touch screen. 

Free Trial

If you’d like to try Office 2013 free for one month, click here.  At the end of the month you can continue with a subscription of $12 each month, or you can just cancel the trial at the end of the month without cost.   Also, the trial won’t affect any earlier versions of Office on your computer. 

My next post in this series will be about the new features of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

If you’re already using Office 2013, or if you give the trial a go, please leave me a comment on your opinion of the programs.

Microsoft Office 2013 Review - Part 1

Two weeks ago Microsoft released the latest version of its office suite – Office 2013.  This week I'm going to review what’s new in the new version. 

The first change to older versions of Office is how you buy it.  In the past you would buy the version of Office you wanted, and use the disk to install it on up to three PCs.  Buying Office 2013 is a little different.  You can still buy the version you want of Office in the box, but all that’s inside is a number (the product key) which you use to activate the software  you download from the Microsoft website, and it’s now only for one PC. 

What versions can you buy? 

Office Home & Student 2013 $128 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)

Office Home & Business 2013 $258 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook)

Office Professional 2013 $542 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher)

* Prices from Officeworks

If you need to use Office on a number of PCs – especially if your family has more than one computer – there’s a great new alternative.  Office 365 is a subscription service where you pay $99 per year (for Office Home Premium) and you can load Office on up to five computers.   If you are a university or TAFE student you get an even better deal, at $98 for a four year subscription on two computers.

An Office 365 subscription gives you the full Office suite, not just the basics.  That would normally cost you $542 for Office Professional for just one computer installation. 

As well as having Office 2013 on your computer  you also get 'Office on Demand’ which gives you access to full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher on web-connected PCs running Windows 7 or 8; as well as 27GB of cloud storage on Microsoft’s SkyDrive. You just log in to Office.com with your Microsoft account (same as for SkyDrive, Xbox Live, Outlook.com or other Microsoft service) and you’ll have access to Office just as if it were on your computer, with any documents you create stored on SkyDrive.   If you also save the Office documents you create on your computer to SkyDrive you’ll have access to all your files wherever you have an internet-connected PC. 

Apple Mac users haven’t been left out.  You can also subscribe to Office 365 which gives you Office 2011 for Mac (until a new version is released) and access to the Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote), but it doesn't give you Office on Demand.  Office Web Apps are cut down versions that run in your internet browser, so they don’t have all the features of the full versions, but they are still enough to allow you to access and edit Office files when away from your Mac.  If you have both Windows and Mac computers, the one Office 365 subscription is all you need for both.

If you have a Windows XP or Vista PC, unfortunately you won't be able to run Office 2013. 

Why did I choose Office 365?  I have a Windows 7 laptop running Office Professional, our family has a Windows 7 desktop also running Office Professional, and a new laptop with Office Professional is on the list of requirements for the school my son will be attending next year.  In the past that would have just been one Office Professional purchase.  Now it means paying 3 x $542 – no way!  For $99 a year I can load Office Professional 2013 on all three computers.  Best of all, when the next version of Office is released in a few years, I will get it on the same subscription.  

My next post will about the new features of Office 2013.

How to backup your Facebook Page

I started this Facebook Page back in April and I’ve accumulated quite a lot of posts, comments, messages, and photos.  I would be devastated if anything happened to all that data.  Yet that could happen - a hacker, an error on my part, or a virus, or even sabotage, could result in the loss of some, or all, of my Facebook page (and yours too!).

Facebook allows you to download a copy of your personal Facebook data so that you always have a copy in case something happens to Facebook.   But they don’t offer the same for Pages.    

Luckily there is a way you can back up your Facebook Page so that if the worst did happen you could restore it. 

Backupify allows you to backup cloud-based data, that includes Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, LinkedIn, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Flickr, Blogger, Picasa, and Zoho.  I hadn’t really thought about all the cloud-based services I use before, but looking at that list, I have a Gmail account; I use Blogger for my Techie Mum blog; I use Picasa for photo editing and creating collages; Google Docs for adding documents to my Blog for my students to access; LinkedIn for my business profile, and of course, Facebook and Twitter.  That’s a lot of data I could lose if something happened to those apps.

So, I did a bit of backing up with Backupify last night, and it was so easy.  I’ll run you through the steps of backing up a Facebook Page, but the process is the same for whichever app you choose.

1    Go to www.backupify.com and click on the link for Backupify for Personal Apps

2    Choose which level of backup you need – more about the different accounts below.

3    Choose the accounts you want to protect.

4    Once I clicked on Facebook Fanpage I was asked to click on the Login link to go to my Facebook account

5    On Facebook I had to ‘Allow’ Backupify to access my account so that it can backup my Page.

6   Back to Backupify to choose which Page to backup

7   Click on Continue configuration and you then choose what you want backed up from your Facebook Page.  I had no idea how many different spots on Facebook are all linked to my Techie Mum Page – there’s 30 different options you can choose to be backed up – as well as posts, there’s photos, events, groups, notes, comments, statuses, and more.  I just chose everything, then clicked on Save Configuration.

8    Backupify starts the first backup immediately.

9    To add another cloud based account, click on Add Service.

That’s the basic set up, and for each personal app you select you’ll go through a similar process – select the app, login to give Backupify approval to access your account for backing up – select what you want backed up.

If the worst happened and your accounts were lost or damaged, restoring them from Backupify is either a one click restore, or a quick download to your computer, depending on the individual application.

How much does it cost? 

Backupify is free for cloud based accounts, with a 1GB storage limit.  The free account will back up your chosen accounts once each week.

If you want to backup more accounts there are two other plans available:

$4.99 per month covers five accounts with a 10GB limit and backs up nightly.

$19.99 per month covers 25 accounts with a 50GB limit and backs up nightly.

  

Is it safe? 

Backupify uses Amazon’s Web Services and all data is transferred over encrypted channels.  But one of the ways I like to check up on something I’m about to use is to check who their backers are – who has invested money in them.  In the case of Backupify, one of its latest investors is Symantec – that’s the company that brings you the Norton Internet Security products.  So, if Symantec, who are all about security, considers Backupify a good bet, then I’ll give them a go.

It only took a few minutes to set up Backupify and it does give me peace of mind knowing that if something did happen to all my cloud-based data it isn’t lost forever.

To Do List apps

I love lists!  I have this terrible fear that if something isn’t on a list it will be forgotten.  I’ve been reading a bit about some new apps for making lists and I thought I’d do a bit of research and see if there was something new worth trying.  So I set about researching and testing.  OMG – what was I thinking!  There are hundreds of To-Do List apps in the Android Play and iTunes App Stores.   It’s taken a while, but I’ve put together a list of what I consider are the best To-Do list apps currently available.  Just to clarify – these are To Do List apps – just for making lists.  I haven’t included the more complex productivity apps like Evernote, OneNote, Wunderkit, Cozi and all the others that do so much more than just make lists – they can wait for another post.   

How did I choose what I think are the best?  I started out aiming for apps that were able to be used on computers, tablets and smartphones.  There are plenty that are just phone apps, but I wanted to be able to see and use my lists while I’m working on my computer.  I also wanted it to be able to work on both Windows and Mac, as well as Android and iOS, because no matter what hardware I use, now and in the future, I want my to do lists on everything and syncing between all of them; so I have my lists everywhere I am.   It had to be easy to use – and easy to see on my phone. I didn’t want to pay lots for it either – some To Do apps are over $50 – my limit was $10, and it had better be brilliant for that!  Lastly, I wanted it to look good – not just useful and practical – but pretty!    

I really didn’t think it was going to be so hard to find a few apps to fit my requirements!  Well I’ve had to change my mind.  There are apps that are brilliant for your iPad and iPhone, and others that are perfect for your Android phone or tablet.  There are a few for Windows and some for MACs.  Here are the To Do List apps I think are the best.

2Do

Create your to-do lists, make checklists, setup repetitive tasks, add priority levels, and have it send you emails to alert you.  You can personalise it with 34 different colours, themes, sounds, and pictures.  It’s compatible with iCal (Mac calendar).  It’s even been nominated for the best-app ever award.

iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch - $9.99

Android $7.12
Mac coming soon

Do it (tomorrow)

Really simple, and beautifully designed.  This app is perfect if all you want is a very simple To Do list.  The computer version features two columns, one for tasks to do today, and the other for tasks to do tomorrow.  Anything you don't complete today will automatically get moved to the tomorrow column.  Unfortunately, you don't have the option for anything past tomorrow.

Sign up for an account first on your computer via Chrome or Safari, then download the app for your phone.  Sign in with the account you created on your computer and you'll have your To Do list with you on your phone.

iPhone and Android - Free

iPad - $1.99
On your computer via your web browser at http://tomorrow.do
(won’t work in Internet Explorer – best in Chrome or Safari)

Taskos

Here’s your best Android option.  Taskos is a great looking app which allows you to create multiple categories, set alerts, and even make calls from your list.  It integrates with your Facebook friends, Gmail contacts, and Twitter followers so you can share tasks with your friends via SMS or email.  The cleverest thing is that you can add to your list by speaking to your phone (with the Google voice search app).  

Taskos syncs to Google Tasks and has a home screen widget (so you can immediately see any tasks for the day).  It’s been announced that coming versions will also sync to Google Calendar, Outlook, Springpad and some other to do list apps.

Android - Free

Orchestra

Orchestra is the App Store productivity app of the year.  Orchestra allows you to organise your lists by timeframe - today, soon, someday or a specific date - or create categories for lists like work, personal, this weekend, birthday party.  You can also forward emails and note to Orchestra to merge them into your To Do list.  Your mobile account can be synced to a web account on the Orchestra site, so you can access your list from the site or on your phone.

Orchestra uses voice recognition software; you don't have to type everything in manually.  One of the most helpful features is that you an assign tasks to someone who doesn't even use the app.  So, if you want to allocate a task to your hubby, like "buy present for mother-in-law", you can send it to him via SMS or email directly from the app.

iPad, iPhone - Free

Android coming soon

Paperless

Paperless looks great and is very easy to use.  Apart from the basics of creating lists and tasks; you can email lists, copy and paste lists, search for items on all your lists, even put passcode locks on lists you don't want people to see.   You can sync between your iPhone and iPad too.

iPhone, iPad - $2.99

Today to do

Very clever app – Today To Do uses a sunny sky for showing today’s to-do’s, a night sky showing yesterday’s and a purple-ish eclipse showing tomorrow’s. Every new day when you start this app your todo list will be empty.  Past tasks are hidden in the dark.  To access your old todos, tap on the sun and slide it to the right.  Just turn your phone 90 degrees to add a new task.  You can prioritise tasks, and set recurring tasks.  Very easy to use and a bit different to the rest.  

iPhone, iPad - $2.99

Errands To-Do List

Errands feature categories, checklists, schedules, alarms and a calendar view to help you manage your to do list tasks.  Errands doesn't automatically get rid of completed items, so if you have a recurring task you can check it off when it's done, then uncheck it when you're redoing your list.

iPhone, iPad - Free

Syncs via iTunes

 

Google Tasks

If you use Gmail then Google tasks is a simple solution for your to do lists.  It’s a small window that opens in Gmail, links to Google Calendar, and can be accessed through any browser, like all Google services.  From your inbox you can convert emails to tasks, and if you add due dates to your tasks they’ll automatically be added to Google Calendar.

You already have it on your computer:  Just click the down arrow next to the word Gmail in the top left of your screen, choose Tasks, and the Tasks window appears.  Type your task and if you want to add a date or note, click the arrow at the right of that task.

On your phone, Tasks is separate to Gmail.  You need to go to http://gmail.com/tasks  to access Tasks.  On the smartphone version you can view your tasks and lists, create new tasks and lists, add notes, and mark tasks as completed.  Of course, it syncs with Tasks on your computer.

Clear

Clear is the newest to-do list app, launched in February.  It's a touch-based app, and looks gorgeous.  There are no buttons; you use the gestures you're used to on a smartphone - pinch, swipe and pull.  Pull down on a list to add an item, swipe to the right to complete and item or to the left to delete it, pinch apart two items to insert a new one in between, and pinch vertically to close the current list and see all the lists you have.  Your lists are colour-coded with a heat map to show your most urgent tasks.  Really easy to use if you're familiar with a touch screen.  Currently you can't sync between devices, but hopefully  it will be a feature in a future release.

iPhone, iPod touch, iPad $2.99

All these apps are available through either the iTunes App Store for Mac and iOS devices, or Google Play Store for Android.

So, which one am I going to use?  If you just want your list on your smartphone you have a few great apps to choose from.  However, if you want to also have it on your computer, but don’t want to have to go to a website each time you want to view your list, I have just what you need.

Wunderlist

This one app will do everything on every device – it’s available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry, and syncs between all of them - even if you have a Mac at home, a Windows PC at work, an iPad and an Android phone.  The computer version is downloaded to your Windows or Mac computer; you don’t have to go to a site to view it, although they do have it on the web too.  So, if you use a mixture of Windows and iOS devices and want your to do list accessible on all your devices, you cannot go past Wunderlist.  Yes, the wonderful app I’ve been using for the past four months is the one I'll be sticking with – I originally wrote about it here.  Some of the other apps I reviewed look prettier and some have some very clever features, but I love the simplicity of Wunderlist. 

I love that I can personalise Wunderlist by changing the colour scheme from the default wood panelling scheme (I have a gorgeous pinky/magenta).  I can create as many lists as I need, with as many tasks in each as I need; and add deadlines and notes to them.  I can tick off what’s been done so I can see what’s been accomplished that day, or delete the task completely; change the deadline date for a particular task or move it to a different list.  I have a widget on my Android phone home screen which tells me with one glance if I have any outstanding tasks for the day, and it syncs automatically with my computer.  I can share lists and tasks with friends or keep them private.  If I want a paper version of my list I can print it out too.  Oh, and it’s FREE.  You can get Wunderlist here.

Have you tried any of the apps above, or do you use a different app for managing your To-Do lists?  I'd like to do a follow-up post with reviews from my readers on their favourite apps - so please comment and let me know what you've been using - and what you like about it.

Outlook.com

Microsoft have just announced a new web-based email client – Outlook.com – which will eventually be the replacement for Hotmail.  It hasn’t been released yet, but you can start using the preview now. 

You might be using Outlook on your computer now – but this isn’t the same thing.  You’ve got a desktop application, whereas Outlook.com is web-based – just like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc.  Actually the web-based version is also called Outlook, but I'm going to call it Outlook.com in this post to save confusion with the desktop version.

One of the problems with using a desktop application for your email is that it is only available on your computer, or by accessing your ISP’s website.  With web-based email you can access your messages anywhere you have an internet connection – that means on your smartphone or tablet, as well as your computer.  It’s this accessibility that has seen an explosion in the use of web-based email. 

So, what’s so special about Outlook.com?  Firstly it’s very clean and unfussy.  There’s the usual features you expect from email – being able to set up folders, label your messages, search for messages, etc., as well as some features that Hotmail has – the ability to automatically delete, file or forward certain kinds of messages as they arrive.

There’s also some great new features:  the ability to customise actions, and set up rules for managing your emails, and menu options that change depending upon the current task.  You also get free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint web apps included, with 7 GB of free cloud storage, which means you can open attached Office files in your browser, even if you don’t have Office installed on that device.


The biggest difference between Outlook.com and other email services is the integration with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – if you decide you want it to – and you control who gets to see what.  You’ll be able to receive Facebook messages and Twitter tweets in your inbox, and have photos, videos, status updates and instant chat accessible from the one screen.  If you receive an email from, or are emailing, a friend, Outlook will import their most recent tweets and Facebook updates, along with links to their profile pages.  You can even like, comment, retweet and reply, all from the one screen.  Also coming soon is built-in Skype.


This video gives you an idea of how the integration with Facebook works...

 
There’s virtually unlimited storage for your email messages, and less spam. There are some ads, but they’re very discreetly lined up on the right of the screen, and you probably won’t even notice them. If you still like your desktop Outlook, you can keep using it as well. The newly announced Outlook 2013 will integrate with Outlook.com using Microsoft’s Skydrive cloud service to sync the two. If you’re using Outlook.com over multiple devices, of course your messages and calendar will be automatically synced.

If you’re currently using Hotmail, nothing is going to change yet – unless you want it to. You can use your current Hotmail address indefinitely, but you will eventually be moved over from Hotmail to Outlook.com. However, if you’d like to switch over now you can. Existing Hotmail users can upgrade to the Outlook.com preview by clicking “Upgrade” on the options menu of Hotmail. Your e-mail address, contacts and old e-mail will remain the same and you can still use the e-mail and messaging platforms at hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com.


If you are interested in using Outlook.com or just grabbing an @outlook.com e-mail address in case of future use, then visit Outlook.com to sign-up. If you already have a Microsoft Live login you can use this to access Outlook.com, or you can sign up to get a new @outlook.com email address. You don't have to have an @outlook.com email address to use it - once you’ve logged in you’ll be asked if you want to add any other email account to Outlook.com – Gmail, Yahoo, any ISP-based accounts – Bigpond, Optus etc - you can use Outlook.com to access any email account.   If you’re adding a Gmail account you’ll need to set up forwarding in Gmail as well. You can also import all your contacts from Gmail, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Once it’s set up on your computer you can start using it on your phone or tablet, but for the moment you’ll need to access it via your browser. The separate mobile apps aren’t ready just yet, but it will be available for Windows Phone, iPhone, and Android.


I’ve used Outlook on my computer for managing all my personal and business email accounts for years and hadn’t planned on changing. However, I am really impressed with Outlook.com and, with a few things bugging me when using Outlook 2010 on my laptop, I think I might try a switch to Outlook.com for a while.  I’ll definitely be switching to it for email on my phone.