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How to clean up your online digital footprint

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How to clean up your online digital footprint

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Your "digital footprint" includes all traces of your online activity, from commenting on news pieces or social media to making online purchases. When you know the boundaries of your digital footprint, and take steps to control it, you can protect your identity and your reputation.

Digital footprints don't merely attract the interest of hackers or those out to steal your identity. They can also be traced by potential employers, schools, or creditors. Managing your identity clearly matters.

Active Vs. Passive Footprints

One way to think about your digital footprints is to categorize them as either "active" or "passive."

"Passive" footprints are those you leave behind without intending to do so or, in some cases, even knowing you are doing so. For instance, websites that collect information about how many times you have visited in the recent past are adding to your digital footprint in a "passive" fashion. You don't choose to hand them this data; they collect it when a device at your IP address connects with their websites. Because this is a hidden process, you may not realize it is happening at all.

"Active" footprints, by contrast, are those you leave when you make deliberate choices on the Internet. Posts you make to your own social media channels are a well-known form of active footprint. When you are logged into a project management or similar site, changes you make that are connected to your login name are also part of your active footprint.

Both active and passive footprints can be tracked and observed in multiple ways and by multiple sources. When you take steps to control your digital footprint, you take steps not only to protect your own identity and reputation, but that of your family and friends as well.

Six Steps for Protecting Your Digital Footprint

Organizations like the Family Online Safety Institute recommend tracking your digital footprint and taking steps to control it. Recommended steps include:

1. Enter your name into several search engines.

Use multiple search engines to perform a search for your first and last name. If you've recently changed your name, look up both your prior name and your current one. Try the common misspellings as well. Review the first two pages of results. Are they positive? Do they show you in a professional and respectable light? If anything comes up that you don't like, ask the site administrator to take it down.

2. Double-check your privacy settings, but don't trust them.

Privacy settings on social media allow you to control who sees your posts on your social media streams. Spend some time getting to know these settings so you can use them fully - for example, Facebook allows you not only to limit posts merely to "friends," but also to make customized lists of people who can see certain posts. However, don't assume that privacy settings will protect you anywhere but on the social media site that uses them. For example, some Facebook users have reported finding their "friends-locked" photographs as public images on Google Image Search.

3. Create strong, memorable passwords.

Any time you need a password, create one that uses a combination of words, numbers, symbols, and upper- and lowercase letters. Make it a password that is easy for you to remember, but would be hard for someone else to guess. Avoid the most popular combinations, like birthdates, anniversaries, or the names of your spouse, children, or pets.

4. Keep all your software up to date.

Many viruses and malware programs are specifically designed to "mine" your digital footprint, and they are constantly being updated. To help protect yourself, make sure that your antivirus software and your other software programs are up to date. Older software is more vulnerable to attack.

5. Review your mobile use: if you don't need it, delete it.

Set a password or lock pattern on your mobile device so that it cannot be accessed by other people if you accidentally lose or forget it. From time to time, review the apps on your phone or tablet. What are their privacy or information-sharing settings? If you don't use an app anymore, delete it.

6. Build your reputation through your behavior.

Contribute to your positive, professional digital footprint by posting only those things that contribute to the image of you that you want your bosses, banks, or professors to see. Skip the negative tweets, "un-tag" yourself from questionable Facebook photos, and keep critical comments to yourself. Instead, build a positive reputation by starting a blog or website that showcases your work or a hobby about which you're passionate.

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How to Clean Up Your Online Digital Footprint

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Your "digital footprint" includes all traces of your online activity, from commenting on news pieces or social media to making online purchases. When you know the boundaries of your digital footprint, and take steps to control it, you can protect your identity and your reputation.

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contributed by Justin Boyle

If you've scratched your head over suggestions to manage your 'digital footprint,' you aren't the only one.

A surprisingly large percentage of people have never even heard the phrase, let alone thought about how to manage theirs responsibly. Among students, the percentage is probably higher. We'll talk about ways you can help students understand and manage their digital footprints before they get themselves in trouble.
The Definition Of A Digital Footprint
Simply put, a digital footprint is the record or trail left by the things you do online. Your social media activity, the info on your personal website, your browsing history, your online subscriptions, any photo galleries and videos you've uploaded - essentially, anything on the Internet with your name on it. Digital natives like today's students rarely think twice about putting their names on things online, so their footprints can be pretty wide.

Luckily for us all, most of the major sources of personal information can be tweaked so we share only certain things with the general public. There are even some third-party bonus tools available to manage the parts of our digital footprints we might not know were there.

For students having grown up in a social/digital environment, helping them see where and how they're vulnerable may be the most critical step. If they're not suitably motivated, very little of what you say will be compelling.

But after a little Google searching and social media dots connecting, just seeing the breadth of info about us that exists online is enough to spur them to action.
What To Tell Your Students About Monitoring Their Digital Footprints: 11 Tips 1. Be kind, helpful, and understanding
Or put another way, demonstrate digital citizenship.

This may not seem like a way to practically 'manage your digital footprint,' but part of managing your digital footprint isn't just about privacy and anonymity. In large part, one of the most effective ways to 'manage' your footprints is to make sure that the prints you do leave are good ones.
2. Use privacy settings
Let's talk Facebook, shall we? Chances are pretty good that your students can be counted among the 1.3 billion monthly active users of the social media giant, and there's practically no other website that contains such a breadth and depth of personal information.

Encouraging students to put all of their social media accounts, including Facebook, on a short leash might be the most important step toward helping them manage their digital footprint. Look into Facebook's proprietary privacy tips or get the works from Lifehacker.com with it's "Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy," then inform students about the steps they can take. Better yet, just pass the links along.

Complete privacy on Twitter is simple - you just choose to protect your tweets under 'security and privacy' on the account settings page - but encouraging students to do so might do more harm than good. Some teachers have gotten great results using Twitter in education, and a class full of students with protected tweets might interfere with that.
3. Keep a list of accounts
Then delete the ones you no longer use. That myspace page you signed up for? Don't just forget about it-find it and delete it.

One tip: Use Pocket (and add the Pocket button to your browser-for Google Chrome, for example). Every time you sign up for an account, add that site to your 'Pocket' account and tag it 'Account.' Then, every six months, go in and deactivate/remove dormant accounts you no longer need or use.
4. Don't overshare
Perhaps the best tip for helping students maintain privacy on twitter is one that can be applied across the whole spectrum of social networking tools: Don't overshare.

As much of an alien concept as it may be to students these days, the only sure-fire way to avoid digital footprint trouble is for them to keep quiet about anything they wouldn't want the world to know. This includes usernames, aliases, passwords, last names, full-names-as-usernames, pictures, addresses, and other important information but also their moods and boyfriends and girlfriends and
5. Use a password keeper
This is more of a security thing, but the worst kind of footprint is the one you didn't make that contains all of your sensitive information. It's too much work to remember 50 different passwords, and every site has their own unique rules.

Until someone solves this problem, the best solution is likely a password keeper
6. Google yourself
You may be surprised what you find.
7. Monitor linking accounts
When you link your facebook or twitter account to that new site (whatever site that might be), you may not realize-or care at the moment-what you're giving it access to. It's usually safest to use a secondary email address to sign-up for new sites rather than granting this kind of access.
8. Consider using an anonymous secondary email
Whether you're communicating with someone new or signing up for a new social media platform, it can be useful to have a secondary email address.
9. At least skim the terms and conditions
Few people read every word of every Terms & Conditions page-and even if you did, you may not understand them all and how they can and might impact you. But to not even have the slightest idea what you're agreeing to when you do 'accept' those terms and conditions only has the potential to harm any legacy of your use of a site, platform, or page (i.e., your digital footprints).
10. Know that sending is like publishing-forever
Every time you send a message, post, or picture, you're publishing it the same way CNN does a news story. And the internet never forgets.
11. Understand that searches are social
There's another side to your digital footprint, too - it's not always information that you choose to make public. Remember, with or without privacy controls, Facebook still records and uses every scrap of information it gets to better determine its users' marketing demographics. Like HIPAA data, digital data privacy matters-thus recent GDPR laws.

Google pulls the same trick with search and browsing habits. If a student is logged into their Google account, the service tracks every keyword they search, every web page they visit, and every time they visit Youtube.

There are ways, however, to control the bits of deep data that we leave strewn around. First of all, even though Google is practically an official synonym for 'web search,' it isn't actually the only game in town. Less profit-motivated search engines like DuckDuckGo.com and bing may take a little getting used to, but they can sometimes make clearer efforts to protect users' browsing privacy.
12. Use digital tools to manage your digital footprint
A host of browser extensions and app add-ons can also limit the surreptitious capture of personal information. VPNs, VPN protocols, and other browser tools and website opt-outs, to name a few. (You can read more about TeachThought's Privacy Policy here, for example.)
Conclusion
There are also some extreme measures. Browsing from behind a virtual private network, or VPN, puts a layer of thick fog between online activity and real-world identity. If even that isn't enough for your suddenly privacy-hungry students, there's also the nuclear option.

You may have heard of Tor, the multi-layered proxy client that's a go-to for anyone looking to access the fabled Deep Web. By routing your IP address through multiple proxies, Tor protects users from anyone anywhere ever knowing who they are or what they're looking at.

Of course, full online anonymity would also require students to avoid all login-based media (including app stores like Apple's App Store and Google Play), which can be a harder task than they're ready to accept. It may also be important to remind them that while we're not browsing in a vacuum and we're very rarely actually anonymous, most of our deep data is probably pretty benign.

Just make sure to let them know that everything that they post, tweet, comment or like is going down on their permanent record. Honestly, everything. That ought to get them thinking, at least.
Justin Boyle is a writer and multimedia designer who lives and works in Austin, Texas 12 Tips For Students To Manage Their Digital Footprints

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12 Tips For Students To Manage Their Digital Footprints

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contributed by Justin Boyle If you've scratched your head over suggestions to manage your 'digital footprint,' you aren't the only one. A surprisingly large percentage of people have never even heard the phrase, let alone thought about how to manage theirs responsibly. Among students, the percentage is probably higher.

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5 Ways Digital Tools Are Transforming the Education Space

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5 Ways Digital Tools Are Transforming the Education Space

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Digital tools are transforming essential elements of the education space. Understanding how they are affecting teaching and learning will help you figure out which tools are useful and how best to implement them.

Online tools:

1. Increase collaboration: Just as social media has given rise to new definitions of community, digital tools are transforming community and the give-and-take between students and teachers. Platforms for Web-based discussion threads and creation of course or class wikis change how students can involve themselves in project-based writing assignments. A piece of student writing can become a diverse and substantive document when it is the basis for a step-by-step exchange of ideas and questions among teacher(s), peers, author(s) and mentors. When digital tools are integrated pedagogically soundly, they also promote and enhance other essential skill sets, such as communication, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, digital literacy, entrepreneurship, global awareness and digital responsibility/citizenship.

2. Innovate assessment: As assignment formats and contexts have evolved, assessment methods have had to keep pace. The openness of the online environment and the integration of such things as game attributes shape all kinds of assessment, especially formative assessment, which measures learning progress, not just learning endpoints.

3. Enable learning about information and research: Research projects will always require substantive research, accurate and relevant synthesis, and defined audience-oriented approaches. However, in an information-saturated world, students are drawing on tools that help them analyze and understand multiple representations from a range of disciplines and media, such as texts, data and photographs.

4. Transform time frames around learning: In many instances, digital tools offer an asynchronous (not simultaneous) environment for response and inquiry not present in brick-and-mortar environments. Written and online-video discussions can enable the exchange of diverse views, opportunities for collaboration, and time to think and plan before responding in ways that in-class discussions do not provide. This is true for both online classrooms and "blended" classrooms - those integrating online and digital tools into a traditional learning setting.

5. Incentivize the ownership of learning: According to John Dewey, the types of activities that stimulate real involvement "give pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results." There are thousands of free digital tools that promote the art of doing. Students can now pick the best ones to create an artifact that demonstrates conceptual mastery through the construction of new knowledge, as well as the acquisition and application of essential skill sets. The process of choosing increases engagement, authenticity and ultimately more value in the learning process. Unleash the power of digital tools and empower students to take ownership of their learning.

Schools must use a dynamic combination of mindset, behaviors and skills to become places where social media and digital tools are integral and beneficial parts of a rigorous program and where they work symbiotically with active, engaged and applicable learning. This is at the heart of digital leadership. How can we take the greatest advantage of this moment in time and create compelling and challenging learning spaces for students?

The most important things to do are to give up control and to trust students and their teachers to use real-world tools to unleash creativity and a passion for learning.

After putting these tenets in the foundation, the specifics can take several forms:

1. Realize that social media is the predominant tool in the world. It fosters personalization, creativity and collaboration, giving students infinite ways in which to create artifacts of their learning and knowledge.

2. If 1:1 is not in the cards, use devices students already have, know and use. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) signals to kids that teachers know and understand their basic makeup. Employing the energy surrounding personal devices allows them to use the tools that help them do what they do better. BYOD enhances learning, increases productivity, allows students to grow their research skills and gives teachers the chance to teach appropriate digital responsibility.

3. Create spaces for making, collaborating and tinkering. Give students chances to build and create using real-world tools (wood shop, electronics, metal work and coding stations) and to solve open-ended, real-world problems. Bring play back into the picture. These spaces provide students with challenging problems to solve where there is no one correct solution. Through self-directed learning, students are driven to find solutions to create a product that has value.

4. Structure schools so that they more accurately reflect the real world. Ubiquitous connectivity, charging stations, and casual zones that promote conversation and play increase students' sense of belonging and engagement. Digitally astute students engage through such models as blended learning, flipped classrooms, games, makerspaces and virtual learning.

5. Give students access to open courseware and open-source technology. Inherent in these approaches is a high level of personalization and choice about what to focus on, which leads to greater ownership over learning and personalized ways to demonstrate understanding.

Ambitious, successful teaching and learning have become inherently intertwined with the digital world. Educators must be able to develop and enact rigorous, relevant instructional methods and formats while using digital tools effectively to underpin their instruction.

Students and teachers can transform learning so that it not only prepares them to excel in academic life, but also endows them with essential digital age skills.

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5 Ways Digital Tools Are Transforming the Education Space

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Digital tools are transforming essential elements of the education space. Understanding how they are affecting teaching and learning will help you figure out which tools are useful and how best to implement them. Online tools: Increase collaboration: Just as social media has given rise to new definitions of community, digital tools are transforming community and the give-and-take between students and teachers.

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Technology is amazing; there's no doubt about that. It's changed just about every part of most people's lives and has almost certainly done so for the better. It's made it easier than ever to communicate with people no matter where they are in the world; you can now find any information you need almost instantly; not to mention all of the incredible ways that technology has improved everything from business to . Of course, that doesn't mean that technology is perfect, in fact, it's far from it! With just about everything in life, there is always a chance that something is going to go wrong and technology is no exception. When a piece of tech, especially one that you use frequently, goes wrong, it can feel like the end of the world. In order to avoid that kind of feeling, the best thing to do is to be prepared. With that in mind, here are some of the most common technology issues that most people will face on a day to day basis.
Slow Internet
Try to just take a moment and imagine life without the internet. For many people, the pre-internet age is something that they lived through quite happily, and yet, now that we're living in it, it's pretty difficult to entertain the idea of going back to it. And that's even more difficult for those who have spent their entire lives living in the digital age. When the internet goes down, it can be a nightmare, and the same goes for when it's suddenly running incredibly slowly. Not only can it be a major inconvenience but it also means that getting work done can be incredibly difficult, bringing many businesses grinding to a halt. Make sure that you're looking at how much internet you're actually using at once. If you have dozens of devices all connected to , then there's a pretty good chance that that's the reason why things are running so slowly.
A Cracked Phone Screen
It's amazing to think that in just a few short years phones when from heavy bricks, covered in buttons that you only used for calling and texting, to being more powerful than many computers with large, highly advanced touch screens. Of course, as amazing as those touch screens are they are also pretty delicate. When your phone screen cracks it can be a terrifying experience, fortunately, cell phone screen repair has become incredibly fast and cheap over the last few years. Rather than being the end of the world, a lot of the time a cracked screen is actually more of an inconvenience. Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't still be careful when handling your phone!
An Overheating Computer
It's not that often that most people use desktop computers anymore. The vast majority of people use laptops because of the incredible convenience that they provide. They often have their laptop sitting, where else, on their lap while lounging on the sofa or in bed. Because of that, it's common for many laptops to start seriously overheating . The fan systems in a lot of computers simply aren't tough enough to deal with the levels of heat that can be generated when the laptop is on a bed or a couch. The best thing to do it to limit the amount of time you spend on your computer like that. You might be better off setting up a desk to use so that your computer can run for long periods of time much more easily without feeling like it's going to melt.

About Sandra: With over 9 years of search marketing experience, Sandra is cross skilled between PPC and SEO. Her experience in search spans across different verticals including Technology, Retail, Travel & Automotive.

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Digital Disasters! The Most Common Everyday Tech Problems - TechGeek365

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Technology is amazing; there's no doubt about that. It's changed just about every part of most people's lives and has almost certainly done so for the better. It's made it easier than ever to communicate with people no matter where they are in the world; you can now find any information you need almost instantly; ...

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51 Online Collaboration Tools to Help Your Team Be More Productive

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51 Online Collaboration Tools to Help Your Team Be More Productive

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At Time Doctor, we are obsessed with remote work. Not only is it what we do, it's who we are.

Our software gives remote teams the ability to be more productive by giving them the tools to manage their time.

And we, at Time Doctor, are our own customer. Every single one of our more than 80 employees use our tool.

Like I said, it's not only what we do, it's who we are.

This obsession leads us to constantly search for more productivity tools for teams, and our customers, be more productive.

Collaboration Tools

Time Doctor

Slack

Invision

Google Drive

Asana

Trello

Basecamp

Zoho Projects

GitHub

Gitlab

and more

Below is the list of tools that we have found to help remote teams to collaborate and be more efficient.

Table of Contents

Time Tracking Tools

Time Doctor is a feature rich app that will help you determine how long it takes for a task or project to get completed. You can see what your remote team members, outsourced workers, and freelancers are working on at any given time.

Once you know exactly what your team members are working on in real time, you'll have a better understanding of when a project will be completed, where the bottleneck is, and what is required to move things forward.

Time Doctor integrates with other top project management tools remote workers use. Integrations include Asana, Basecamp, GitHub, Salesforce, Teamwork, Trello, Zendesk, and many more.

Communication

Yammer is a private social network that helps employees collaborate across departments, locations and business apps.

Yammer is a social network that's entirely focused on your business. In order to join your business's Yammer network, your team member must have a working email address from your company's domain.

In order to segregate relevant information to specific team members, you can create groups that will help reduce the noise in the Newsfeed.

Users can share posts with specific groups simply by utilizing the drop down menus below the Update box (which is similar to Facebook's Status Box).

One of the fastest growing startups today, Slack is the powerhouse messaging app used by remote teams. Its powerful integrations, numerous bots, and the ecosystem being built on top of the platform have quickly transformed it into one of the most flexible communication tools on the market.

At its core, Slack operates in channels. A company can create channels to track and archive conversations around teams and projects in order to get things done. Slack's search feature ensures that you will never "lose" a conversation about a project. Next up is a slack alternative.

One of the biggest reasons that Skype is the most popular communication tool is that it's free.

Skype allows audio and video calls between multiple devices. In other words, one person could be on a laptop and another can be on their phone. One of the most prominent features we use here at Time Doctor is the group call. We routinely have 4, 5, and 6 people on a call from time zones all over the world.

And yes, if you've ever used Skype, you may have run into reliability issues. But for the longest time, it was the best bang for your buck. (Now rivaled by Google Hangouts. See below.)

Freshconnect is a team collaboration tool, built to simplify inter and intra team communication. Team members can communicate with each other, in a 1:1 conversation or a group chat.

If the context of a discussion is a ticket or a deal, instead of sending each other the link or copying in the messages from said ticket/deal, Freshconnect users can simply start a discussion right in their CRM/ helpdesk so that everyone is on the same page and work gets done faster.

Conversations can involve not just people in the org but also anyone who can help like partners and third-party vendors, outside the organization.

With Freshconnect, your team can access all important team conversations - even the ones linked to tickets and deals and casual 1:1 conversations - in the same place.

Freshconnect is available on both iOS and Android platforms so you can stay updated on conversations, even when you're on the go.

Acquire is a live chat software and a complete customer communication solution. The software is built and designed for businesses of all sizes and is equipped with the latest features to provide top-notch customer service to the customers.

The platform is featured with a full range of tool sets that includes live chat software, chatbots, co-browsing, customer profile management, and video and voice call. There are some other features that come with live chat software are chat history, real-time conversation, intelligent message routing, canned messages, targeted messaging, two-way communications, customization, analytics, and reporting.

With Acquire live chat, you can know what your visitors are looking at, which product page they are viewing. Hence by observing customers' behavior you can proactively start a chat with them and can suggest them the products. This greatly impacts customer satisfaction and improve customer retention rate and as a result, this boosts sales and ROI. The software is compatible with any browsers and (iOS or Android) Apps.

There are also a multitude of other live chat software platforms to suit any and all of your business needs.

A simple phone call can often be the easiest way to get your message across to different team members. But the biggest drawback of phone calls is the ability to keep track of the details of your conversation history - with team members as well as clients, vendors, job applicants and so on.

Iovox helps you with:

Call tags: You can add tags and notes to every phone call. Makes it super easy to remember what the call was about.

Search: You can use the search function to find notes and look up what you discussed.

Flag: You can flag calls just as you would flag emails and set to dos and reminders.

Share Details: What if you wanted to share these call details and notes with your team? Usually, you'd email your team. But with iovox, you don't have to leave the app at all. You can instantly share all the call details and notes with your team members with just a couple of taps.

Chat: You can aso have a chat within the iovox app just like Slack.

There are times when you're going to need to gather your team for a meeting. If you're running your business on a budget, Google's Hangouts might be the tool for you.

If you want to record your Hangout to view later on, you can use Hangouts on Air. This feature will reduce the amount to time you and your employees spend taking notes and make sure that you don't miss anything. (Note: There is a privacy setting where you can choose not to display your Hangout publicly.)

Designed specifically to meet with colleagues and customers, GoToMeeting has everything you need to, well, host a meeting.

You can launch a meeting from anywhere, whether that is email or instant messaging tools or project management tools.

GoToMeeting has other features such as the ability to hand over control of your computer and one click recording that make hosting a meeting more productive.

Chanty is a simple business messenger for seamless communication and collaboration powered by AI. It helps small teams to become more productive by featuring instant messages with an unlimited searchable history, handy file sharing and uniting notifications from multiple services in a single place.

On a mission to humanize business processes Chanty goes even further. The AI algorithm predicts responses saving your time spent on typing. Workflow bring structure to conversations allowing team members to coordinate important tasks in a more efficient way. Audio and video calls, voice transcripts and integrations with popular services add extra points to this messenger. For now, Chanty is available in beta.

Mailbird is an email client for Windows.

With Mailbird, you experience a seamless experience managing your online communication. Mailbird's third party integrations allow you manage messenger platforms like Facebook right from the email client.

One of the biggest assets to Mailbird is it's learning curve... or lack thereof. Unlike more complicated client's like Outlook where you may never learn the entire application, Mailbird alleges that a user can learn the app within 5 minutes. It is designed for folks of any age and technology literacy to be able to learn it fast.

Miro (formerly RealtimeBoard) is a visual collaboration platform allowing product managers, designers, developers and marketers to create, collaborate, and centralize communication across the company on a single online whiteboard.

Miro's marketplace has integrations with over 50 apps allowing users to connect their favorite software. Popular integrations include: Microsoft, Atlassian and Slack.

Miro claims to be compatible with virtually any modern device, be it a desktop, mobile / tablet or a Surface Hub. It is also an enterprise-ready collaboration solution with advanced security and controls.

TextMagic is a text messaging platform enabling automated or mass texting to your customers, team and business partners.

The platform is capable of two-way messaging between SMS, email and web app messaging, enabling your whole team to stay updated on text conversations. TextMagic also supports the use of distribution lists, and can conduct SMS surveys to gather vital feedback from customers and leads.

The platform is highly versatile, and is used by businesses to improve both internal communications and customer support, in addition to marketing and sales applications. Potential uses include everything from booking appointments with clients and automating inventory management to staying in touch with remote workers.

Additionally, the platform benefits from global SMS coverage, enabling businesses to contact customers and partners in 200 countries.

TextMagic supports more than 750 Zapier SMS integrations and features a well-documented gateway API, making it simple to add the platform to your business systems.

Flock is an all-in-one messaging and collaboration tool built especially for small businesses. Our goal is to help businesses communicate better so they can build a culture of transparency and speed within teams.

With Flock, teams can exchange messages, share files, video-conference, manage tasks, and centralize access to a variety of business tools and services.

It brings people together and provides an easy and secure place for them to get work done, from anywhere.

Crew's simple and secure frontline workplace gives employees and leaders access to the information, motivation, and people they need to do exceptional work together.

Crew already helps more than 35,000 teams reduce turnover, increase sales, and improve customer service.

Design Tools

Invision is an enterprise grade prototyping tool that enables users to upload designs, create actions such as button clicks, and gather feedback seamlessly from colleagues and customers right from within the app.

With Invision, you can manage your projects from a single dashboard. The dashboard will show you a breakdown of project status as well as comments collected. You can also integrate with various platforms to create a seamless design environment.

Mural is like a digital white board. It allows designers to post sticky notes, images, and videos on a wall in order to gather quick feedback about a specific idea, design, or prototype.

It allows you to seamlessly work within the same space, an analogue to having the entire team in the same room with access to the same whiteboard.

Keep your collaborators in the loop with comments and live conversations no matter where you may be.

Mockplus is the most robust all-in-one product platform for prototyping, collaboration, and design systems. It not only helps you to create interactive prototypes for websites, mobile apps, desktop, and web apps faster and easier, but also gives you a more connected product design workflow that brings designers, product managers, and front-end developers to work better and together.

The team collaboration and management features in Mockplus is a great help to improve work efficiency.

Designers can upload designs from Sketch, PS, and Adobe XD directly, then handoff with all the design assets to developers. Team managers can Manage design tasks and set permission for different roles.

Another visual design collaboration tool that allows you to keep everyone up to speed, Concept Inbox ardently keeps track of versions so that team members and external stakeholders can return to a particular design at any point in time.

Project leads can get real time feedback on prototypes with in-context annotations and email notifications when someone makes a comment on a design.

Designed for smaller businesses, Cage allows freelancers and small teams the ability to share projects with clients and other collaborators.

Like the other tools, Cage will allow users to leave visual comments on the design. Cage also has a powerful project management tool that will enable you to assign and manage tasks with both clients and colleagues.

One of the chief goals of Zeplin is to eliminate the friction between designers and developers. The tool automatically creates style guides and other "resources".

Through its Slack integration, you can notify the team easily when there is a design change.

Zeplin is priced for small businesses and freelancers and leverages a freemium business model.

When you're a designer, you eventually have to present your designs to your clients. Prevue allows you to create beautiful presentations and receive feedback from the client in real time.

Prevue is priced to be affordable for small businesses. Plans start for as low as $5 per month and go up to $25 per month for agencies.

Red Pen is a fast feedback tool for visual teams. As a designer, you can get feedback from your colleagues as well as point and click to explain your thinking.

You can give access to your clients via a private link so that they too can give feedback. And each team member on a particular project will be kept up to date on the version, as well as the comments and feedback that was left by both colleagues and clients.

Another tool for designers to share their creative work, GoVisually is built for small businesses and freelancers.

Clients and collaborators can make recommendations and give feedback without having to log into the system. And if you're wondering, you can have an unlimited number of collaborators.

GoVisually lets you work on multiple projects, design files along with your team members and clients all from one place.

Designhill's artificial intelligence and machine learning based logo maker tool creates cool logo easily within minutes that says a lot about brand.

Designhill logo maker offers 1000+ custom symbols and fonts that goes with the array of industries where one can easily create cool logo within minutes with our unique logo generator.

With 3 simple steps, you can build a professional logo with powerful features:

Start with Inspiration (Enter your company name and select logo design styles, colors and icons you like).

Browse & Customize your design.

Get Ready-To-Use Files.

Just like its name, building prototypes with Fluid UI is simple, smooth and fast. It has an impressive array of features including, over 2,000 built-in high and low fidelity widgets in component libraries, clickthrough presentations, video calling and live team collaboration. Build and share prototypes or ideas in just a few minutes, whether you are a designer or not.

If you're looking for a tool to manage your remote design teams, Bannersnack is an option worth considering.

As a cloud-based, collaborative graphic design production platform, Bannersnack had come a long way since 2008, when they first started out as an online banner maker.

Making graphic design accessible it's what this tool does best, allowing users to create professional-looking designs and animations that are fit for most industries and fields in minutes.

To work your way around Bannersnack, you don't need any coding or design skills. Plus, you can create animated designs and download them in the most popular formats, such as HTML5, GIF, AMP HTML. However, their drag and drop editor, along with thousands of templates, design presets, and custom-made illustrations, are features that also come in handy to more experienced designers.

With Bannersnack, you can share notes, give feedback, send over design links, and ditch email attachments for good-it's all happening online.

Xtensio is a cloud-based collaboration platform that allows teams to easily create presentations and documents altogether. This intuitive tool offers real-time synchronization for everyone who has access. Using this tool users can create pitches, landing pages, sales sheets, reports, case studies, agendas, and other business collaterals. The best part is you can download and present the documents and is responsive to all mobile devices.

Documentation Tools

At Time Doctor, we live in Google Docs. For a remote company of over 60 employees, we have found that Google Docs is the easiest way to collaborate, share, edit, and eventually publish documents of all kinds.

Google Docs allows us to create blog posts (like this one), spreadsheets, and presentations. It's all for free, which is a blessing for startups and small businesses located in various parts of the globe.

This is Microsoft's free version of its original Office suite of tools. You get the core of Office: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Onenote. When you combine it with Outlook.com, you essentially get the Office Home and Student suite.

There are certain limitations on the features that you get for free, however. For instance, if you wish to add a references section such as a table of contents and add citations, you will need to upgrade to the paid version.

There are also some font and formatting limitations as well. But, if you're looking for basic documentation and editing tools, the free version will suit your needs just fine.

The digital landscape has completely transformed but documents, on a fundamental and structural level, haven't changed. Bit is designed to solve that problem by creating a new kind of document that can grow with people's creativity and change the way businesses communicate in the document form.

Bit.ai is the most advanced end-to-end document solution for teams to communicate externally and internally. Create, manage, and track all of your team's documents from one place.

From its website: "Etherpad is a highly customizable Open Source online editor providing collaborative editing in really real-time."

You can write articles, press releases, and to-do lists, with colleagues and clients all working and editing the same document in real time. And because it is open source, Etherpad is free to download.

Zoho Projects provides you with a set of project collaboration tools which helps the team members involved in the project to come together, plan, collaborate and get work done faster.

It helps you create project workspaces that will enable you to collaborate with teams in various geographical locations. You can give feedback, discuss projects in forums, and share a project calendar to increase productivity among team members.

Simple, powerful, and feature-rich, ProProfs Documentation Software helps you create centralized documentation where information can be stored and retrieved easily via any device - mobile phones, tablets, or laptops.

This documentation software brings all your employees together in building and managing the documentation content.

Collaborative authoring and editing features enable your teams to share knowledge, write content, and review it in a collaborative way. You can assign roles like contributor, editor, viewer, and administrator to different employees and teams so that there is clarity and transparency regarding who is responsible for what.

So multiple authors and editors can work on a single document, and in case they want to track the edits, they can see the revision history of a particular article.

It's a great tool to create documentation of all kinds and equips you with everything you need right from content authoring and editing to customizing and finally publishing it.

You can even create multi-branded help sites using this tool and involve all your employees at different stages of content creation.

File Sharing Tools

When you need safe storage for all of your files, this is the app to use. You will have 15 GB of free storage for photos, documents, and any other digital file you need to store for later use. Files are safe, but easily accessible by you and your team, and you can access them from any device. Organize items quickly and easily, and then share them and collaborate with your team.

Dropbox allows you to sync your work no matter where you are or what device you're working on. While individuals can use Dropbox for free, the Dropbox most affordable business version allows more space (1 terabyte, or enough to store 250 movies) and more features, such as priority email support and higher sharing limits.

With Dropbox, when documents are edited each person on the team will get the latest and greatest version.

Box.com is an enterprise level file sharing service. Well, more accurately, these days it can be considered an intranet.

Inside of Box, businesses will get a file sharing service, collaboration services, a content management system and the ability to manage your business from a centralized dashboard.

Hightail is a file sharing platform that allows for creative collaboration among teams. Hightail is designed to help you manage a project from start to finish.

You can bring clients in on projects, track changes, and ultimately speed up the pace at which your team completes projects. You can also implement admin level security measures to ensure the privacy of specific projects.

While many of the other file sharing sites on the list have evolved to more complicated platforms, MediaFire markets itself as a simple file sharing and storage platform. Media Fire focuses solely on bringing its users the best file sharing service possible.

This is perfect for the users who don't want to pay for extra features.

OneDrive is brought to you by Microsoft as part of its Live brand. With OneDrive, you get 5 GB for free and if you need extra space, you can get another 50 GB for just $1.99 per month.

OneDrive is pre-installed on Windows 10, and it works on all devices. Access and share files and photos on PC, Mac, Android, and iOS.

OneDrive allows you and your colleagues to collaborate with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote from your desktop, mobile device, and the web.

Unlike services like Dropbox, SugarSync allows you to backup both your files and your existing folder structure.

This ensures that no matter which device you're accessing your files, you will always know exactly where they are. There is no need to "remember" where a document lives on your laptop and in your SugarSync environment.

Project Management Tools

Asana is a cloud platform that enables all of your employees to log in no matter where they are, as long as they have a wifi connection. The dashboard consists of three panels in order to give you all of the data you need on a given project.

As a business owner, Asana will give you an overview to all projects currently going on in your organization. This is the information on the left hand side of the dashboard. Once you click on a particular project, the middle of the dashboard will allow you to zoom in on the tasks associated with the project. And finally, the right hand side of the dashboard will be even more granular. There you can see who is assigned to a particular task and when it is due.

Toggl Plan is a simple project planning and collaboration tool. It comes with drag and drop timelines to plan projects and manage team workloads. It also has boards to manage agile projects, capture ideas, and track task progress.

What differentiates Toggl Plan from other project management tools is its "hands-off" approach. Where other tools focus on closely observing work, Toggl Plan favors macro-management.

Toggl Plan's fun, intuitive interface makes it easy to get started with. It's a tool that your team will enjoy using every day.

Podio is a powerful tool that helps entrepreneurs and managers operate their businesses effectively.

As a remote team of over 50 employees operating in over a dozen countries in all conceivable time zones, tools like Podio make it possible for for us to get everyone moving in the same direction.

All managers need to know what tasks employees are working on, how employees are spending their work day, and can be assured that employees are able to easily collaborate amongst themselves, no matter where they are located.

Trello is a web-based tool that allows you to organize your projects using cards that are organized on a board. To conceptualize this, imagine writing tasks on Post It Notes and sticking them in columns on a wall. You can write on them, take them off of the wall, and move them around.

Each column represents a different part of the project. As you and your team make progress on a card, you move it across the board. This lets you see the status of everything you're working on with just a quick glimpse at the board.

Even though the guys running Basecamp didn't invent the project management software category, they are probably one of the most loved software companies in the world.

With their simple, easy to use, powerful and very affordable software, it is perfect for small businesses. Its free offer and minimal learning curve mean you can get started without much of a hassle.

According to its website, with ProofHub you get plenty of options to plan everything in your projects and stay more productive at work. From adding people to assigning different roles to them and defining who's who of the project, you can do it all with ProofHub.

You get a 30,000 foot view on important events with the help of native calendar. And, the option to set dependencies on tasks makes it even easier to plan your project activities.

Wrike allows you to break large tasks into smaller goals and manageable pieces. You can easily track each team member's progress and individual contribution to the team.

Wrike's reports provide easy to read data on how much time and money is being spent on a particular project so that you can ensure you come in under budget. This feature is extremely beneficial to agencies and other client service based businesses.

The project management tool designed to serve technology teams. According to its website "Technology teams are continually being asked to do more work with either the same or fewer resources."

LiquidPlanner is flexible enough to allow developers to use either Agile or Waterfall methodologies in order to accommodate the needs of all users to their platform.

Users can organize projects, collaborate seamlessly, and even track time to see how long projects take to complete.

WorkflowMax is the project management tool for mid-sized client service firms. Think of WorkflowMax as a hub for various services such as accounting, billing, project management, lead management, creating quotes, and a whole host of other services required to run a client service business.

With WorkflowMax, you generate beautiful and robust reports that will allow you to make sure your projects, from start to finish, are delivered on time and under budget so that you can ensure each one of your clients is profitable for your business.

According to its website, Mavenlink exists "To serve professional service organizations with a more efficient, elegant, and profitable solution to manage their project-based business."

Like WorkflowMax, Mavenlink is a hub for the various processes that go into a client service business.

Mavenlink realizes that projects in the "real world" are dynamic and ever changing. There is no linear progression. Mavenlink's platform is flexible enough to accommodate the dynamics of projects that come from demanding clients.

Nimble combines your address book and social media contacts into a sales and marketing CRM solution. All contacts are linked with conversations you have had with prospects and customers, and their records are automatically filled with social information under one record. Nimble also has targeted marketing features such as group messaging for one-on-one authentic outreach and offers insights into who has opened or clicked in your message. Nimble browser extension allows you to work with Nimble alongside your webmail, on social media, or in any website.

With over a million users, Zoho Projects is designed to help team members plan, track and collaborate with each other, no matter where in the world they are located.

Zoho allows you to plan projects, track bugs, keep track of time, and manage documents all from a single platform.

SwiftKanban is a web-based visual tool for project management based on Kanban best suited for software development teams, IT Operations and DevOps teams, project managers or business functions. It offers easy visualization to manage team's processes and works well for both co-located and distributed teams.

SwiftKanban offers support for Scrum, Iterative and other software development methods and also integrates well with existing Agile tools. With a highly visual Kanban board, projects teams can access a wide range of Kanban metrics and manage the flow of work and identify bottlenecks through visual cues.

GanttPRO is a Web-based project planning tool based on Gantt charts.

Thanks to its intuitive UX/UI design, the software allows becoming an advanced user of it in 5-10 minutes. This Gantt chart software divides even large projects into clearly defined tasks with start and end dates along a timeline.

The tool allows users to create tasks and assign them to team members, create dependencies between tasks, track progress, and collaborate with project participants, get notifications, browse the whole history of a project, and simply be aware of all the processes in a plan.

Also, GanttPRO has a resource management feature. It provides with possibilities to work with resource workload what allows managers to track how everyone from his/her team is working: whether a resource underperforms or, vice versa, overloaded.

Create a plan or project, hold a meeting, assign tasks to your team, and set deadlines, goals, and milestones. Using Stormboard's digital workspace will cut down the number of meetings by seamlessly tracking the progress of your project to make sure your plan is on target, no matter where your team members are located.

There are hundreds of built-in templates for business processes like Agile, Design Thinking, and SWOT, and a smart reporting function which compiles all the information that is in your Storm (what they call the digital workspace) into a document in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or another format that can be edited and used as meeting minutes or presentations.

Enterprise teams in more than 181 countries use Stormboard's digital workspace to make their meetings better.

Celoxis is an award-winning all-in-one pm tool. It helps organizations to plan and track their portfolios, projects, tasks, resources, timesheets, issues and risks from one place. It has extensive collaboration features including a customizable free client portal. Its dashboards and reporting capabilities are superb and one of the best in the market. It is feature rich, intuitive and highly customizable.

If you are comfortable with the Microsoft Project scheduling paradigm, Celoxis is one of the best alternatives to Microsoft Project.

For more recommendations, check out our review of the best project management tools for different teams.

Software Tools

At the time of this article, GitHub is the most popular software repository on the web. According to a March 2015 Wired article, GitHub is one of the top 100 most popular websites in the world and hosted 9 million software projects.

GitHub wraps a version control system called a Git where developers can host their projects for free as well as exchange and talk "code" with other developers.

Bitbucket is another large software repository platform and is brought to you by Atlassian, the same folks who own the JIRA and Hipchat brands. Unlike Github, Bitbucket offers unlimited private repositories.

Where Github focuses on Opensource, Bitbucket is designed to help developers within enterprises to collaborate on projects.

Codepen is billed as "A playground for the front end web."

You can show off your latest creation and get feedback, build a test case for that pesky bug and find example design patterns and inspiration for your projects.

While you can start for free, CodePen will allow you to upgrade to pro features for $9 per month.

Usersnap is a simple, yet powerful bug tracking & user testing tool. With annotated screenshots, it makes it super-easy to communicate change requests, bug reports or user feedback with your developers and designers.

With point-and-click annotation tools, Usersnap helps you report bugs where they happen: in your browser. No need to switch to a bug reporting application or to fill out endless forms. Bug tracking is now a picnic!

Gitlab is a web based git repository service (like Github and Bitbucket) that is written in the Ruby programming language.

According to Upwork "its permissions, branch protection, and authentication features are what really make it stand out. Teams can secure projects on a more granular level, and projects are kept even safer while they're being worked on."

In case you are also interested, check out the GitLab Handbook. It is where you can see everything they do to run the company.

Fogbugz allows developers to prioritize issues so that they can keep projects organized.

Fogbugz also makes it easy for customers to communicate with developers on feature requests and bugs so they have all the context they need to solve the pressing need of the customer without switching between multiple products.

And last but not least, Fogbugz takes a holistic approach to building (and selling software). You can collaborate with designers, marketers, and support staff to complete projects, not just other developers.

Filestage is an easy-to-use collaboration application that streamlines your approval and review processes. With Filestage you can get feedback from clients and co-workers on videos, images, audio files and PDF documents. Whether you're an agency, content production firm or a marketing department, these are the main ways that Filestage can help you out:

Increase Your Productivity
Filestage reduces the need to spend your valuable time scouring through emails, different versions, and notes to ensure your projects are completed on time.

Achieve Better Results
Improve the quality of your feedback conversations by commenting directly on the files. Keep track of the progress and reduce project management overhead.

Improve Your Internal and External Communication
Stay ahead of the game by using Filestage to collaborate with clients and stakeholders around the globe. They'll be grateful to have a smooth and seamless communication flow to ensure a final product that exceeds their expectations.

Brandfolder is a leading digital asset management platform for enterprise-level marketing and creative teams. Companies such as Slack, Kroger, P.F. Chang's and Mastercard use the platform to upload, store, organize, and share unlimited digital assets, in any format, from a single, secure location.

The platform makes it easy for users to store and organize file types using collections, sections, labels and pins. And, no matter how many creative assets you have, you can find them quickly using Brandfolder's in-document search, filtering, sorting and AI-powered auto tagging and image recognition.

Users can also centralize the entire creative process with Brandfolder's workflow features, advanced video editor, and design tool integrations. Brandfolder's plugin for Adobe Creative Cloud also enables designers to drag and drop assets directly into InDesign, Illustrator or PhotoShop documents.

Brandfolder offers secure file storage, and robust privacy controls and user-level permission setting. Users can also view metrics to see who is using specific assets, where they are being used, and identify the highest-performing assets at scale. The platform also integrates with the tools your company is already using each day, such as Google Analytics, Salesforce, Microsoft Office, Shopify, HubSpot, PhotoShop and more.

Which Tools do you use?

I get it. There's absolutely no possible way that we could have found all of the tools that you use to collaborate and work remotely.

But that doesn't mean we aren't curious about what you use.

So, if you have a favorite tool, whether we mentioned it or not, please share it with us in the comments section below.

Oh, and don't forget to tell us why it's your favorite!

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64 Best Online Collaboration Tools of November 2020

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At Time Doctor, we are obsessed with remote work. Not only is it what we do, it's who we are. Our software gives remote teams the ability to be more productive by giving them the tools to manage their time. And we, at Time Doctor, are our own customer.

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Whether you're dealing with your dad's decade-old computer or your own custom-built gaming rig, troubleshooting PC problems is a part of everyday life. Before you make that $50 support call, though, try your hand at homebrew tech support. We spoke to some of the best support reps in the business about the most common problems they fix-and how you can do it yourself.

Try this first

I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but before you do anything else, restart your computer. Matthew Petrie of Falcon Northwest technical support says that most of his customers solve their problems with this simple step. "This long-standing maxim can work wonders," says Petrie.

While you're at it, make sure that your operating system is fully updated by running Windows Update. Neglecting updates could deprive you of important bug and performance fixes.

If you're having problems with a peripheral, try switching it on and off. If that doesn't work, try disconnecting and reconnecting the device. As a last resort, download the latest drivers and perform a full reinstall.

My computer is too slow

The first step to fixing a slow computer is to verify that your machine is the actual source of the problem. Videos that seem to buffer forever, and websites that take ages to load, may not be your computer's fault. Geek Squad agent Derek Meister claims that many people mistakenly identify a slow system as the problem when "it's actually not the computer, [but] their broadband connection." See "Downloads are taking forever" below for instructions on how to use Speedtest.net to diagnose a slow connection.

If the problem is your PC, check whether you have plenty of free space on the hard drive holding your operating system. Windows needs room to create files while your system is running. If your hard drive is maxed out, performance suffers. Now is the perfect time to clear some space.

Microsoft's System Configuration tool is your next-best bet for tackling slow performance. Many applications launch automatically when your machine boots up, which can stretch out boot time-especially on older, slower PCs. Make a habit of trimming the startup items. Open the tool by pressing Windows-R, typing msconfig, and pressing the Enter key.

Checking the Startup Item and Manufacturer columns is the best way to figure out which potential performance-killers you can safely disable. Avoid messing with any of the services and programs that have Microsoft Corporation listed as the manufacturer. Items such as AdobeAAMUpdater, Google Update, Pando Media Booster, Spotify, and Steam Client Bootstrapper are all fair game. Regardless, err on the side of caution: If you're not sure what the program or service does, don't disable it.

Once you've made all your changes, click OK and restart the computer. It should boot up quicker and feel noticeably faster.

Downloads are taking forever

Speedtest.net is your best friend when you're having connectivity problems. Run a speed test to see what your download and upload speeds are-ideally they should be at least 50 percent of your Internet service provider's advertised speeds, with a ping under 100 milliseconds.

If the speeds seem solid, make sure that you aren't inadvertently downloading or uploading anything. Many torrent downloading programs run in the background and minimize into the system tray instead of the taskbar.

Check your network hardware. Updates for network cards aren't all that common, but if your card's manufacturer offers a newer driver, download it. Resetting your router and modem can help with connection problems, too. Most routers and modems have reset buttons, but pulling the power cable for a second or two can do the same thing. Don't cut the power for much longer, or the hardware may reset itself to factory defaults.

Still having problems? Call your ISP, which can tell you whether the problem is on your end. As a last-ditch measure, the ISP could reset the master connection to your home.

My machine keeps restarting

Hardware problems are hard to diagnose and solve. First, confirm that you aren't just getting the latest wave of Windows updates, which can automatically restart your computer during installation. Then work on updating all of your critical system drivers. Your graphics card, motherboard, and network card drivers are crucial.

"Sometimes it can be viruses, sometimes it can be adware, sometimes it can be overheating, and sometimes it can be something as simple as making sure your video card is updated," Geek Squad's Meister says.

Is your computer making weird noises? If you're lucky all you'll need to do is give the machine a thorough cleaning. Modern computers have safeguards that shut down the system if a component is overheating, which can be the cause of frequent restarts when you're running resource-intensive programs or video games.

Pop-up ads are appearing on my desktop

If you're not running your Web browser and are still getting pop-up ads on your desktop, you've most likely installed adware-a program that displays unwanted ads. Although benevolent adware exists, most of the time adware is up to no good. Getting rid of it isn't easy. "There's a ton of little system-utility tools out there that promise to clean up everything, with names like PC Speed-up, PC Speed Pro, PC Speedifier," Geek Squad's Meister says. "A lot of times those programs are not going to do much. Some programs will work, others are snake oil."

Running a full scan with credible antivirus software is your first step. If that program doesn't find and remove the adware, turn to Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free, a great utility for removing all types of malware. Just make sure to disable your standard antivirus software before running it.

"Multiple antivirus programs working at the same time will often result in problems," Falcon Northwest's Petrie says. "You only want one active, real-time antivirus scanner installed, but it doesn't hurt to run an additional 'on demand' virus or malware scanner."

Searching online for the name of the advertised product can sometimes yield solutions from fellow victims. If all else fails, there's always the nuclear option: a complete system reinstall. It might take a long time, but it's the only surefire way to remove adware or spyware. Remember to back up all your personal files.

Google doesn't look right

Browser hijackers are a particularly nasty breed of malware. Such programs take over your Web browser and can stealthily redirect your Google searches and other queries to fake pages meant to steal your personal information or to further infect your system.

Running a real-time antivirus utility is the best way to stay safe. If your browser has already been hijacked, uninstall the browser and use your antivirus program in conjunction with Malwarebytes to remove the intruder.

My Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting

Spotty wireless connections can be a puzzler. Is it your computer? Your router? Your ISP? Try a few things before calling your Internet service provider.

Confirm that your computer is within range of your wireless router. Weak signals mean weak connections. Next, make sure your PC's wireless card has the latest drivers. Try letting Windows troubleshoot for you by right-clicking the Wi-Fi icon in the taskbar and selecting Troubleshoot problems.

I keep seeing 'There is a problem with this website's security certificate'

Sometimes the biggest problems have the easiest fixes. According to support technicians, the lion's share of issues are due to an incorrect system clock.

Website security certificates sync up with your computer's clock. Old computers in particular run the risk of having a dead CMOS battery-the watch battery in your computer that keeps its system clock ticking. Click the clock in the system tray and select Change date and time settings to correct any issues.

My printer won't print

Let's assume that your printer's drivers are up-to-date, and that it has enough paper and ink or toner to print. Try turning the printer off and on. Unplug the printer and plug it back in. Check your printer's print queue by looking for the printer icon in the system tray and double-clicking it. The print queue shows you the status of each job as well as the general status of your printer.

Ensure that 'Use Printer Offline' isn't checked. Sometimes, printing while your printer is turned off can cause Windows to set your printer to work offline, and that can stall jobs sent later.

I can't open email attachments

If you have ever encountered an attachment that you couldn't open, it was probably because you didn't have the software necessary to view the file.

The usual suspect is the .pdf file, for which you can download a free PDF reader. If your problem involves a different file format, a quick search on the attachment's file extension (the three letters after the period in the filename) should tell you what type of program you need. If the attachment lacks a file extension (which might happen if it was renamed), adding it back should set things right.

My favorite program isn't working on my new PC

Before you call tech support, make sure that the software you're trying to run is compatible with your operating system. Older software might not function on Windows 8, and an app created for Mac OS X definitely won't run on your Windows PC. A 32-bit program might run on your 64-bit operating system, but it doesn't work the other way around.

If an online game balks, you might be missing the required plug-ins-Java and Flash are the usual culprits. Most browsers will alert you to install these items if necessary.

When to throw in the towel

Falcon Northwest's Petrie recommends connecting with tech support for "any problems that you aren't comfortable addressing personally." When in doubt, it's better to steer clear of voiding a warranty or potentially damaging your system. "Being aware of your own skill set and limitations is important," says Petrie, because "it's often easy to make matters worse." If you think the problem is too complicated, call up a more knowledgeable friend, or bite the bullet and work with a professional tech support service.

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How to solve the 10 most common tech support problems yourself

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Whether you're dealing with your dad's decade-old computer or your own custom-built gaming rig, troubleshooting PC problems is a part of everyday life. Before you make that $50 support call, though, try your hand at homebrew tech support.