My favorite Dashboard widgets this week

I love finding new ways to be more efficient. This week I found two great little Dashboard widgets that will help me with clients and tech phone calls.

TimeScroller

I am often setting phone call meetings to other parts of the country and sometimes the world. I find myself trying to calculate the time in my head here vs there and trying to remember how many hours difference it is. I could set up a separate clock in my dashboard for each major city – but what I really want is a list of time zones so I can look quickly and compare.

Enter TimeScroller by Terry Brett. What a great little app. Here are some of it’s features:

• Simple, compact, way of displaying up to 20 world times on your Macintosh.
• You can set cites and rename them. For instance, I renamed “New York”, Eastern Time.
• Adjustable color-coded icons indicate what time of day it is in that timezone. For example “green” for normal office hours.
• Normally the current times are shown, but if you want to work out the time for a future event, just click on the scroller and drag…. the times for all the cities will rapidly update. Once you’ve chosen a time, a click on the mail button automatically drafts an email for you including the times for the meeting. SWEET!

Terry also has an iPhone version of TimeScroller too!

You can get it for free on Terry’s website.

Phonetic alphabet

This one is helpful if you spend a lot of time on the phone with tech support, or people you are giving passwords or website addresses  — anytime you need to spell something out  for some one phonetically.

The military phonetic alphabet is a fantastic tool. But, I am terrible at remembering the entire thing. Sure, I can get some of the letters right. But, I end up saying “Um… ‘P’ as in uh… ‘Pea’ when I draw a blank and just make things more confusing.

In walks the Phonetic Alphabet by Alexander Sandstrum. It’s just a simple list of the phonetic alphabet. But, it’s free and its on my dashboard where I can access it easily when needed and keep it hidden when I don’t.

My Navy father might not be proud of my cheat, but at least he can understand the URL I’m giving to him over the phone.

You can get it for free on the Apple website.