When it comes to managing my life, particularly if I’m way from my computer, if I can skip or speed up a step I’m more likely to stay on top of things. Google Calendar allows me to quickly add events through my phone through SMS.  I simply scroll to Google in my contact list and choose the option to send an SMS, type my appointment and hit send. Google texts back that the appointment was received. I also use it to send my self to-dos and notes that I don’t want to forget.

To set up the mobile option with Google Calendar:

1. Visit your Google Calendar online.
2. Click on the “Settings” option.
3. Click on “Mobile Set up”
4. Check to see if your Carrier is supported.
5. Enter your country and phone number, and then click “Send Verification Code”
6. You’ll receive a message back with a verification number. Enter that number in the “Verification Code” field on in the mobile settings on your calendar. (If you don’t receive the code, you can request it again through the Mobile Set up in the Settings.)
7. Click “Finish Set-up”.

To send a text of a new appointment:

1. Add Google Calendar’s SMS number to your contacts 48368
2. Send a text to the SMS number. Enter the appointment, date and time for example “Dinner 3/4 8pm” or “Soccer Saturday 10am”
3. Google Calendar will text back that it received the appointment.

Appointments I made through Text (SMS)

You can also have Google Calendar text your appointments to you. To receive the next item on your appointment schedule text “next” (without the quotes) to 48368.  Text “day” to get the day’s appointments or “nday” to get tomorrow’s schedule.

When I first got my Palm Treo, it was more of a novelty than anything. I paid the extra for Internet access and bought all sorts of programs to go with it, but at the time I didn’t really need it.

Today, I have a Blackberry (although I’m taking a close look at the Droid) that I can’t live without. If there is no wi-fi for my laptop, I can check email on my phone. If I need to do some quick cost comparison research, I can access information from the Internet on my phone. If I need to capture a thought, I can do it on my phone either through text, recording or a service like Jott that will send it to my email or calendar. And while much of its use is related to work, not all of it is. I listen to Pandora, read ebooks, and locate where my children have wandered off to.

Here are my top three reasons why everyone needs a Smartphone:

1) You can carry your life with you wherever you go. Contacts, notes, schedule, music and more. You don’t have to carry a bulky planner with erasable ink scribbles in it. Your phone can do it.

2) Get information about anything, anytime, anywhere. Like phone service, your Internet access can be limited but as many times as I’ve hit a dead spot in my phone service, I have very rarely not been able to get online to access important information from my phone. Need to know the traffic or weather where you’re heading? Want to compare prices on that great new doodad you’re planning to buy? Just last week I used my phone in Blockbuster to figure out what disk a specific episode of Stargate was on so my son could rent it. You can even get GPS.

3) Mange your life. Worried about missing an important call or email? Need to update your blog or Tweet with your colleagues? Nearly every great web-based productivity site has mobile options to make doing your work or managing your projects fast and easy while on the go.

Self-employment particularly among women, many of whom are mothers, is growing at a fast rate, faster even than men owned business. While many begin their work-at-home search hoping to find a job, starting a business is probably the fastest and easies way to start making money at home. But once the product or service is created, the real work is getting the word out. A new website helps self-employed parents by offering a directory that consumers can use to find products and services.

Our Milk Money was started by two work-at-home moms Ally Loprete and Kelli Shand who wanted to help parents find ways to achieve the financial means to stay home or provide more for their children, and to educate consumers about the products and services found through self-employed parents. They provide a searchable directory of businesses through Canada and the United States from which consumers can find local or Internet based businesses from which to shop or find work-at-home opportunities.

To learn more or find a self-employed parent near you, visit Our Milk Money.

When I upgraded my Office Suite to 2007, I discovered that they didn’t convert correctly to PDF using Adobe Acrobat. I could make the PDF document, but embedded links weren’t active. But I recently discovered an add-in to Office 2007 that allows you to create a PDF document that converts embedded links into hyperlinks. It works with most Office 2007 products including Word 2007, Access 2007, Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, OneNote 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007 and Visio 2007.  And its free!

1. Visit Microsoft’s download center for the Save as PDF or XPS add-in

2. Download the add-in to your computer.

3. Click on the SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe to install.

4. Open any Office 2007 document and click on either “Save As PDF of XPS” or “Publish To PDF or XPS” depending on the office program you’re using.

While there are a variety of resources to help you download video content, KeepTube offers a wider array of video sites including YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, Mega Video and more. Plus it will grab the highest quality of video including HD.

KeepTube is a free web-based tool, that also offers a Firefox extension. Visit KeepTube.com to learn more.

I’m organizationally challenged, which causes problems because I’m also a multi-business entrepreneur. I’m always on the hunt for the perfect planner system that fits how I work. My preference is to see the whole week at a glance and have all my to-dos (personal and professional) listed along side any appointments. I don’t want to have to turn pages to manage my day because I’m more likely to not turn the page and therefore miss something. The problem has been that I’ve never found just the right planner.

If you’re having the same problem, visit DIYPlanner which has tons of different planner styles…for free. These planner templates are created by DIYPlanner or its members and uploaded for anyone to use. Planners come in a variety sizes depending on your needs.

The site also offers articles and other resources related to planning. The best way to find the actual planner templates is to click on “DIYPlanner.com” or “Time Management” in the left hand side bar. But do take some time to read the articles and other information. There is an itneractive community there with lots of great tips and ideas.

To learn more, visit DIYPLanner.com

A couple of years ago I was checking my web stats and noticed that one URL seemed to making a lot of hits on one of my graphics. Visiting the site I discovered it was using my logo as its own. This was potentially very bad for me as my site was about finding legitimate work-at-home opportunities and the site that was stealing my logo was a scam. People who didn’t know better would think that I was promoting the scam or at the very least endorsing it. It could have ruined my credibility.

Copyright infringement is rampant on the Internet, and its hard to know what materials are being stolen and where they are posted. But at TinEye.com you can an least find out if your logo, image, or other graphics are being used somewhere other than where you placed them.

TinEye has an easy to use image search engine for graphics. Just upload the graphic or give the URL of the graphic and it will show you where else the graphic is being used. You may be surprised to find your pretty mug showing up on a different  site! Or your logo!

To learn more visit TinEye.com

Results of a search on my photo image. Sparkplugging has permission to use this photo.

Ever need a contract or other legal form, but don’t want to hire an lawyer? WhichDraft allows you to automatically create legal forms for free. The site makes it easy by offering wizards to help you put your form together.  WhichDraft has a database of pre-made legal forms in a variety of categories or you can search for documents created by other users. You save your form and even share it with others.

WhichDraft is NOT a lawyer nor does it offer legal advice. But it does offer self-directed assistance to creating legal documents. Learn more by visiting WhichDraft.

The world wide web has made interacting with other cultures so much easier. Even so, many websites are in languages that I don’t speak. And I know that English isn’t the first language of many people who visit my sites. But there is help. Babel Fish from Yahoo can translate a bit of text or an entire web page for you.

If you’re on a website written in a language you don’t know, you can visit Babel Fish and type in the URL of the page you want to translate and the ‘from’ and ‘to’ language. Here is a screen shot of Better Living On the Web from English to French.

Better Living On the Web Translated into French

If you own a website and would like to make it easy for people to translate it into their native language, you can add the Babel Fish translation service to your site. You can test it using the one here at Better Living on the Web (scroll down the right side navigation to find it).

The translation may not be perfect, but hopefully it will be enough to get the meaning of the website.

It is possible to much of your grocery shopping online. But if you don’t live in a delivery area for one of the grocery stores that deliver, you still need to go to the market to get fresh items.

I hate grocery shopping. The very worst part is the unloading and putting the items away. But I also don’t like the actual shopping. I can’t find thing I need and almost always forget something.

Dave Cheong had a similar problem and he found a way to fix it. He created at the grocery shopping helper which is an online program that can help you organize your shopping trip by providing you with a list of all the items you buy sorted by the isles they are found in. No more back tracking or hunting. Simply take the list, mark the items you want to buy, and head straight to the store and isle.

You do need to do a little leg work before using the program by creating the list of items and visiting the store to find out what isle they are in. But once done, it could save you loads of time in the grocery store.

Check out the Grocery Shopping Helper here.