Here is a list of five basic categories of tools all remote workers should have at the ready, and a variety of options to consider for each category.

Document Collaboration and Workspaces

There is a bit of a blur between virtual workspace and project management tools. These tools emphasize collaboration:

1. ideapi. Recently reviewed by Simon, this is a simple online tool for creating documents and collaborating on discrete sections of the documents.

2. Glasscubes. I’ve been using virtual workspace Glasscubes for a while now. Here’s my latest post taking a fresh look at the app.

3. Binfire. A free solution that lets you “manage projects by adding members, creating tasks and milestones, and assigning responsibility.” Here’s what else Amber has to say about Binfire.

4. Hyperoffice. A collaborative suite bundling email and communication, project management, database management and group meetings. Reviewed here by Amber.

Project/Task/People Management

Some of these tools also offer collaboration features, but they are more focused on managing tasks and people and getting things done efficiently.

5. Huddle. Many moons ago, we reviewed Huddle, and the team collaboration space is still going strong.

6. Cohuman. Delegate, assign and prioritize tasks with others for free. It even integrates into Google Apps. Simon published a screencast about this app.

7. Teamly. A collaboration tool with an emphasis on priorities, as Thursday explained in her initial review.

8. ProjectTurf. A collaboration app for running a project including briefs and time cards. Thursday reviewed it here.

9. Zcope. Simon felt this combined project management and collaboration tool had a lot of potential. It has slightly more advanced project management features than many of its competitors.

10. Mavenlink. This SaaS app neatly integrates project management, collaboration and invoicing. I reviewed it recently.

11. Microproject. Simple,  online project management for the smaller team. Here’s our review.

12. Wrike. We’ve covered Wrike several times, including most recently when the company added mobile apps to its project management and collaboration solution.

Desktop Sharing/Presentation/Web Meeting Tools

GoToMeeting is one of the leaders in the desktop sharing/web meeting space  (did you see the announcement of its Skype integration?), but there is an array of other useful remote presentation tools out there:

13. iMeet. Elegantly combines video and audio calls with document sharing. I reviewed it in March.

14. join.me. A  no-registration, free screen sharing app that fills a gap now that DimDim is now defunct. We’ve praised it here on WWD before, including announcing its iPhone app.

15. yaM. An app to streamline the process of holding meetings including planning, scheduling and note taking. See our review.

16. Zipcast. Slideshare’s quick presentation tool adding video and chat to your slideshows for public (free) or private (fee) presentations. Mathew reviewed it here.

17. CrunchConnect. Charles recently reviewed this web conferencing solution with an emphasis on sales.

18. FuzeMeeting. A fee-based video conferencing solution with collaboration features.

19. Yugma. Free and fee-based Web video conferencing with desktop sharing.

20. Zoho Meeting. Free for one-to-one video call meetings, or starting at $12/month for up to five participants.

File Storage/Sharing/Syncing

Giving the entire virtual team access to files – especially big ones – without having to email them back and forth is critical for remote work processes.

21. Dropbox. Store and share files in the cloud securely, and get access to them from your mobile device. Ryan covered the latest version of Dropbox late last year.

22. Box.net. An enterprise-friendly file sharing and collaboration, reviewed most recently by us here.

23. SugarSync.We’ve written about this file sharing and backup solution before including most recently about new features for its iOS app.

Miscellaneous Useful Cloud-Based Tools

A couple of online tools that help you do things that previously required pricey desktop software.

24. Diagram.ly. Simon recently reviewed this easy-to-use site for creating flow charts and other diagrams.

25. Tom’s Planner. A Gantt chart-based planning tool, with easy drag-and-drop functionality; it’s now iPhone and iPad compatible.

What are some of your must-have tools for remote work?

Image courtesy stock.xchng user spekulator

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This week, Yugma announced a new version for Skype: Yugma SE (Skype Edition).

Yugma SE is a plug-in for Windows- or Mac-based Skype users, and is available for free here.  Like the standard Yugma application, it allows Skype users to share their desktops with each other during Skype sessions. Users can sign into the plug-in with their Skype names, and up to 20 participants can collaborate at one time for free. (Yugma itself went from a maximum of 10 to 20 participants recently.)

Yugma already had a Skype edition available, but the new SE plug-in eases the process of using the applications together with single sign-on in Skype. I’ve been noticing that a lot more people I work with are using Skype, and I’ve been a fan of Yugma for a long time. If you’re on Skype, give the plug-in a try. You can learn more about it here.

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Now, Yugma has just announced several improvements to its free and paid plans that can make a big difference for those who regularly use this application. At the top of the list of improvements is a fix for a bone I had picked before.

Room for more meeting participants in Yugma’s free version was at the top of my wish list for version 4.0 when I wrote about it last month. Yugma has historically only allowed 10 meeting participants in its free version, while the open source free conferencing application Dimdim has routinely allowed 20 participants. That shortcoming has been addressed, and you can now have 20 participants in a free Yugma conference.

There are also a number of changes to the paid Yugma plans, including a 25 percent reduction in the cost of the Yugma Pro plan, which is now available for $14.95 a month. The paid versions of Yugma allow for very large groups of meeting participants and the lower prices may attract many people, but I think a lot of web workers will be happy with the 20-participant threshold that Yugma Free now offers. Among the new service additions, there is also an inexpensive option for putting on webinars, at $19.95 a month for all Yugma Pro subscribers.

If you haven’t upgraded Yugma in a while, definitely use the latest version 4.0. Among other conveniences, you can invite people to online meetings without requiring them to have downloaded and installed Yugma. Some of the lowest prices now available for Yugma services are only availabe until February 15th, so if you’re interested, look into the additions listed here.

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Here are some of the other bells and whistles in the new version.

I downloaded version 4.0 and installed it as an upgrade in about two minutes. As you soon as it’s installed, you get a prompt to sign in and start a session.  The ease of initiating sessions remains one of the strong points of the application.

In addition to the new Viewer for people who don’t have Yugma installed, version 4.0 brings a Linux Beta version that allows Linux users to host meetings and share desktops. Other free conferencing applications are catering to Linux users, so this is a good move.

Another notable feature in version 4.0 is a Microsoft Outlook plug-in. Many of us Windows users out there have to use Outlook whether we like it or not. With the new plug-in you can either host or join a meeting from within Outlook. This is especially nice if you manage your meeting schedule in Outlook’s calendar and send out meeting notifications from it.

A few of the new features are found only in the paid version of Yugma, Yugma Pro. Only Yugma Pro gets improved annotation tools, for example. This is in keeping with Yugma’s strategy of offering an appealing free version, but more functionality in its paid versions.

Although Yugma does come in paid versions that offer features like meetings for very large numbers of people, most web workers will find everything they need in the free version. One limitation Yugma still has is that the free version only supports 10 people in a meeting. The open source conferencing application Dimdim allows you to have 20 participants for free, and Dimdim also lets you record meetings for no fee.

Still, Yugma is a standout for the instant messaging-like ease it brings to online conferences, and the new Viewer feature that means no download for meeting participants adds to that simplicity. Inviting people to meetings in Yugma has always felt very much like starting an IM conversation from a buddy list, and the Viewer means that you can reach out to people who aren’t on your list and don’t even have Yugma.

You can download the new version for Mac, Windows or the beta for Linux here.

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I recently reviewed Rondee, the easy-as-pie phone conferencing site, but just heard about a new conferencing site worth mentioning to expand your options for free conference calls.

Calliflower provides services to cover the entire process of conference calls – from setting them up to holding them to the followup and continued dialogue after the call is over. Calliflower is all about “building conversations” and sharing media, and they do it through a relatively clean dashboard so all of the elements of your call are on one screen.

Calliflower actually began as a FaceBook application adding free audio conferencing capabilities to people’s FaceBook accounts. As the app grew in popularity, the demand for the services apart from FaceBook became increasingly apparent to the company’s founders. They expanded their solution for not just conference calls but kept an eye toward being a solution for holding teleseminars and teleclasses as well.

To showcase their site’s capabilities, the company is offering their Calliflower Communiques, regular tele-conversations between a host (life enhancement speaker and writer Allan Hunkin) and authors and celebrities ranging from Alan Alda to William Shatner presented as teleseminars.

Here are some of the aspects of Calliflower worth noting:

1. Pin-free access to calls. After registering a call participant’s phone number becomes their personal pin. Easy to remember. Those who don’t want to register can access calls with a pin sent to them when the call is set up.

2. Controls at your fingertips. You can mute and unmute participants; acknowledge raised hands (a little hand icon that participants can use to signal they have something to say); lower hands; and other moderator functions. Everything is visible on a handy dashboard, a single Web -page view of your controls.

3. Multiple ways of accessing calls. Participants can opt to use VoiP (Truphone) or even a “call my phone” service (Sitofono) which is especially popular in Europe were mobile phone calls are free when received but incur a fee when made.

4. Enhancing call with a chat wall. You can carry out a simultaneous text chat as well as drop in links to MP3 files, flicker URLs to embed photos, share slides, and other multimedia resources to supplement the call and allow others to follow along.

5. “Seeing” the callers. You can see the names, pictures and caller status of everyone participating in the call – all on the dashboard. You can also see if their mike is open or closed or if their hand is raised.

6. Accessible call archives. You can archive the call agenda, any handouts, links and files to be accessed anytime after a call has been completed. This can also include an MP3 recording of the call.

Calliflower is looking to “reinvent business conversations” and provide new ways for people to interact within a conference call. Looks like they are on their way.

Some other conferencing call sites and services we’ve covered recently include FreeConference.com, SightSpeed (video conferencing), and Yugma.

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