Monthly Archives: June 2009

It’s a well-known fact that many Internet users would like to create their own websites and start to earn money in the Web, but at the same time the great majority of them don’t want to learn HTML, CSS, PHP and different technical aspects of web page production. Although learning of all the mentioned things is very important; nowadays it’s possible to create a website even if you have no idea about them at all. So how you can do that? The answer is by using website builders.

Generally all the website builders are divided into two types:

1. Online Website Builders: represent online tools or SaaS (Software as a Service) provided by web hosting companies which help users to build and publish the websites without learning something.
2. Offline Website Builders: represent the software which runs on your computer and helps you to create pages for a website offline, so you can publish them on any host you want.

In the given review we are going to discuss the Online Website Builders because they are generally easier to use, so almost every single Internet surfer can use them to build quite decent websites. In fact the only thing you need while using an online website builder is to be a little bit Internet experienced, know how to use your mouse and be ready to create something.

Despite the fact that online website builders are very easy to use, it doesn’t mean that they should be used just in case you want to create a basic personal web page; if you need to create a professional business website or even a design free (not template based) website they can be helpful as well. That’s why some of the professionals use online website builders to save time and easily maintain the websites. Another reason why a pro may decide to use an online website builder is that some of these tools provide users with the source code.

Let’s take a closer look at the major advantages of Online Website Builders:

• it’s a really fast way to create a website
• no need to have any skills or programming experience
• the opportunity to use your tool from any system (any OS, any browser and etc.)
• «what you see is what you get» tools (WYSIWYG)
• the ability to save money (generally such tools are pretty cheap or even free)
• everything you need in one single place
• quite a significant amount of templates to use

Projecturf task management tool

Projecturf is a web-based project management solution that has quite a significant amount of features to help you better manage your projects. Extremely nice and thoughtful design makes it a snap to learn and easy-to-use for both your personal and professional needs. Large icons on the top of the screen represent the navigation that is pretty simple, as each interface icon leads to a corresponding area, which in turn is divided into two or three tabs for different needs.

All plans are loaded with all the features (the difference is just the amount of projects you can manage), so you don’t have to worry about paying more for different add-ons and extras. In addition to the great interface there is another nice thing you will like for sure – no storage limits. It really offers unlimited storage on all paid plans. This means that when you need to share large amounts of files, you won’t be faced with storage restrictions or constraints on the number of files you can upload.

Despite the fact that Projecturf is not the simplest tool created it’s pretty easy to use; so you don’t need to worry about that. The only thing that I personally would like to be changed is the speed. It’s not as fast as many users would prefer it to be. However this is not a characteristic problem just of the given solution, because in fact the majority of web-based applications lack the speed as well.

We already mentioned Projecturf’s design, so let’s check the screenshots to see how nice it is.

Here is the Dashboard Section:

Tasks:

The Milestones:

And The Discussions:

There is a possibility to get a 30-day trial account, so if you would like to you can sing up here. But before that make sure you watch a short tour about this task management solution.

To sum up let’s go through some of the features Projecturf possesses:

• No storage limits
• All Plans loaded with all features
• The possibility to customize the interface using integrated themes and others

Please visit this page to learn about all the features.

Clarizen project management tool

 

Clarizen is online project management software solution that can really impress the users by its functionality. It has powerful project managing tools and helps you to accommodate the variety of users in a dynamic and diverse team. It uses personalized dashboard, innovative roadmaps, and a unique graphical approach in order to make your collaboration much easier. Clarizen uses an email-style look to manage projects in a simple, almost one-click interface.

Though the developers and some of the users especially emphasize how easy-to-use this tool is, given opinion can hardly be taken for granted, because Clarizen is too multifunctional to be considered as a simple solution. There is no doubt we can find quite a decent amount of project management tools (Basecamp, 5pm, and etc) which are much easier than this one. That’s why I would say that Clarizen represents a nice combination of functionality and simplicity being a very balanced web-based project management application.

As regards the disadvantages probably the most important one is Clarizen’s speed. In fact it’s not very low, but it’s no better than the one many other applications of this kind have.

We have already mentioned some of the features of the user interface, but now it’s time to take a closer look at it. Here is the way Home Page looks:

The Projects Page:

And The Work Items Page:

Here you can take a Product Tour in order to learn more.

Finally let’s mention the main distinctive features of this application:

• Actual versus Remaining Efforts Completion Reporting
• ProjectMail: solves the challenge of receiving progress updates from the team by allowing each user to report their progress directly from their inbox, without the need to log in to Clarizen
• Integration: AutoCAD, MS Outlook, MS Project, and Solidworks
• Interactive Resource Load Views
• Delta Change Updates: Instant, Aggregated & In-Contextand etc.

If you would like to go through all the features, please visit this page.

ProjectOffice management system

ProjectOffice represents a web-based project management and collaboration solution built with a cutting-edge Web 2.0 technology. In addition to the standard project management features, it provides all-in-one functionality with more intuitive approach to organizing communication and team collaboration. Despite the fact that there are some disadvantages which will be mentioned in the next paragraph, it’s a really high-quality, nice-looking and multifunctional tool.

The first shortcoming I managed to encounter is the absence of the video tour. The greatest majority of similar products have at least a short video tour. In this case there are just some screenshots of the user account. However taking into consideration the fact that each of those screenshots has a detailed description, this can hardly be regarded as a significant disadvantage. As far as the tool itself is concerned it seems to be pretty complete with a lot of features available. Still it would be much better if the developers implemented a forum, because it really ensures the collaboration.

In the other respects it has a great deal of nice features, but we will discuss them a little bit later. As for now let’s check its really attractive and modern interface.

The Dashboard Page:

Projects and Tasks (in a single tab):

And The Reports:

If you need to check some more screenshots with the description, please visit screenshot tour page.

It’s time to learn what the main distinctive features of the ProjectOffice tool are. Here are some of them:

• The ability to add/import contacts: you can add your contacts or import them from Yahoo, MS Outlook 2003/2007, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL as well as from the resource pool in your space.
• The opportunity to use project templates: you have some options from the very beginning and can create you own templates
• Available Gadgets: you can be notified for all changes that happen in the spaces where you work right there on your web desktop. The iGoogle, Pageflakes and Netvibes gadgets will keep you up-to-date even when you are not logged in the application. Learn more here.
• Buzzer for Desktop: use the Buzzer for Desktop and receive notifications for all recent changes right there on your computer desktop
• Buzzer for Blackberry
• In-house version of the solution: you can install ProjectOffice in-house on your network and infrastructure

Here you can check the complete list of ProjectOffice features.

AtTask project management tool

AtTask (@task) represents very nice solution for all knowledge workers to collaborate and accomplish the work most essential to the enterprise. This tool gives executives and managers the ability to increase productivity and reduce costs by helping bridge the strategic vision and objectives of their portfolios with project execution.

One of the things that really attract attention from the very beginning is AtTask’s Client List. It’s hardly possible to find another company that would have similar client list. Here are just some of the clients: Apple, Adobe Incorporated, Amazon.com, Hitachi, Toyota, Volvo, the Walt Disney Company, Fujitsu, McDonalds and etc.

 

The only thing I didn’t like at once is that there is no way to watch the demo before you leave information about yourself. Probably this can be easily explained by the quality of service company provides and the niche they occupy, still many users may not like it.

Moreover despite the fact that this product is a multilingual one, it supports just most widespread languages (Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Spanish and English).

In other respects you will like this solution for sure. It’s really multifunctional project management tool having some unique features. But we will discuss it a little bit later. Now let’s check AtTask’s user interface.

Here is a fully customizable Dashboard:

Projects:

Portfolio Optimization:

And Timesheets:

As you see it’s a really modern, nice looking, customizable, and user friendly interface. In fact there are much more screenshots to look at; they are divided according to the topics (Management, Collaboration and Integration) and subtopics. Please visit official page, if you want to check all of them (first of all you will need to choose topic).

Finally l would like to mention the main distinctive features of this tool:

• Make the reports you need: over 50 standard reports with the ability to customize them according to you needs
• Complete all-in-one tool: providing Management, Collaboration, and Integration tools in a design that is easy to use and full of powerful features that help companies get work done.
• Clik feature: desktop extension of @task that makes managing tasks and updating status easy, so managers and executives have the up-to-date information they need. You can view, download, and upload documents with Clik.
• Mobile device support (iPhone, Blackberry and etc.) and WAP integration
• What-if Scenario Tools
• Gantt Chart support
• Capacity Planner: planning multiple projects while keeping all resources equally balanced and usable without overloading their workloads or over-booking their schedules
• and many others

To check all the features available, please visit features page.

Basecamp task management tool

Basecamp is a very popular web-based project-management tool developed by 37signals. It offers pretty standard features (to-do lists, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking, messaging system and etc.), and you can hardly find in it something unique, unavailable in other applications. That’s why given solution has been criticized for being too simple.

However to my mind it’s a little bit irrational, because in fact its simplicity is the only reason the great majority of Basecamp users like it a lot. Of course, you can find a lot of disadvantages of the given solution if you want to (we will discuss them more in detail a little bit later). But in this certain case the main idea of the project can be stated as following: “Why should you pay for a more expensive multifunctional tool and spend a lot of time to learn how it works, if there is something cheaper and simpler that includes only the features you need?”.

Another point of criticism consists in the fact that Jason Fried, 37signals Chief Executive Officer, refuses to implement different kinds of changes requested by some of the users. We can hardly know for sure what the reason is for that, but most likely 37signals don’t want to make their tool more complicated.

For justice’ sake it should be emphasized that there were some positive reviews as well (for example, in New York Times). Moreover this tool is not as poor to features as it may seem to be from the very beginning, because there is a decent amount of add-ons and extras. It works with a variety of iPhone apps, third-party billing/invoicing tools, mock-up review software, time tracking tools, widgets, and more. You can learn more about that here. In addition to that Basecamp offers integration with its own Campfire product.

As regards the disadvantages (if we can call them in such a way) here are some of them:

• There is no way to install Basecamp on your own service. Moreover they don’t offer installable versions of any of their products. The products are only available as hosted ones.
• They don’t provide phone support
• At the moment there are not so many languages supported and etc.

Finally let’s take a closer look at the UI of this tool.

Here is the Dashboard:

To-Do List:

Milestones:

Time Tracking:

You can watch a tour or check more screenshots here.

Daptiv PPM online management solution

 

Daptiv PPM represents a browser-based project management solution that makes collaboration easy and efficient. This product should probably be ranked among the best ones. It offers an extra handful of collaboration features, including a discussion board/forum. As developers mention, given tool “being flexible for both simple and complex methodologies, is designed to work the way you work”.

Despite the fact that Daptiv PPM is pretty easy to use, you will need to spend some time to learn all the features and capabilities, because it’s a really multifunctional tool. Its dashboard being very informative is completely customizable. Another thing you will like for sure is a user friendly interface that facilitates your working process.

In addition to that, Daptiv allows you to easily extend the standard capabilities of our software. Designed for business users, not coders, Dynamic Applications give you the power to model and support your business processes with new applications.

Let’s check the screenshots of the main sections of Daptiv’s user account.

The first one is Dashboard:

Capacity Planer Section:

Tasks:

And Investment Map:

Such an intuitive user interface will be accessible to everyone in your company – from product developers and IT teams, to senior executives, marketing departments and portfolio managers. Please visit this page to take the tour and see Daptiv PPM in action.

As far as the main distinctive features of Daptive PPM are concerned they are the following:

• Daptiv’s Capacity Planner allows you to better plan, schedule and manage resources.
• The opportunity to work the way you want:team members can view their tasks in a variety of ways
• Dynamic Applications feature: Daptiv lets you build your own business applications
• Daptiv Work Intelligence ™: critical insight into how your business is performing at both portfolio and detailed execution levels
• Project Transit feature: projects created in Microsoft Project can also be integrated with Daptiv, and vice-versa
• The opportunity to publish web forms to collect data from users outside of Daptiv PPM
• Monitor project health using color-coded Project Health Indicators and etc.

If you feel the necessity to learn more, please check benefits and features pages. To be Continued…