The Case File News - February, 2012

In our long history, we have met hundreds upon hundreds of fellow investigators working for countless agencies, none of which we considered competition. Nor did they consider us competition.

Not that anyone’s better than anyone else, it’s just that so many of us have a different combination of specialties and cover different geographical areas, that we’re rarely in direct competition. In fact, we can’t count the number of cases we’ve referred to others or vice versa. We look at our colleagues as just that; colleagues and not rivals.

It’s with this spirit that we created “The Case File” in the first place. We wanted something to help other investigators look more professional and be more successful so that their reputation would reflect back on us, and so that our cousins in the profession would be around longer so we could all be more able to help each other when the need arose.

It’s also with this spirit that we offer this free newsletter. We want to make your work life easier, your agency more profitable, and to reach out to investigators we’ve never met so we can have additional contacts and friends across the globe.

So! Let’s look at some of the tidbits that can hopefully have an impact on your agency being around for as long as you’d like. As usual, you’ll find helpful sources that cover saving money, managing time, and improving your marketing.

1. We’ve found a great source for free ebooks on office management and IT subjects! It’s called “Book Boon” and you can find it at http://bookboon.com. One of the many things we like is that it has how-to manuals on Microsoft Word ®, Power Point ®, Excel ® and many other popular software programs.

2. Staying on the IT front and covering a little marketing info, many of us are our own webmasters. We found a no-cost, detailed website tutorial source at http://www.w3schools.com/

3. Speaking of IT and managing your computer, one daily time waster for many of us is the time we spend trying to navigate our own bookmarks that we’ve accumulated in our browsers. Tidy Favorites, at http://www.tidyfavorites.com/introduction.html, has a free bookmark organizer that lets you set up your bookmarks as thumbnails for easier navigation and/or deletion.

4. An even bigger time waster than searching through your bookmarks is searching through tons of documents you might have stored on your computer. Nemo Docs looks interesting. It’s free (best of all) and it organizes your documents in an interface that looks like an Outlook calendar. It’s at http://www.nemo-docs.com/

5. Keeping with the free software theme, let’s look at a few interesting sources. Though you probably got the name-brand packages when you bought your latest computer, what do you do if you have new staff come on board, new computers that didn’t come with that much, or you just want some alternatives? Here are a few:
-Libre Office is a free competitor to Microsoft Office: http://www.libreoffice.org/
- A desktop publisher for laying out posters, signs, or newsletters: http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus (and free unrestricted clipart for your marketing newsletter can be obtained at http://openclipart.org/)
- Need something similar to Quickbooks? Try Gnu-Cash at: http://www.gnucash.org/ , Ace Money Lite at: http://www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney/free-personal-finance-software-quicken-alternative.shtml , or Invoice Expert at: http://www.invoiceexpert.com/
- A reasonable Photoshop competitor can be downloaded at no cost at http://www.gimp.org.
- And a good replacement for Outlook can be had for nothing at http://www.spicebird.com/
- For drawings (accident reconstruction, crime scenes, etc.) take a look at Ink Scape at: http://inkscape.org/ or Blender at http://www.blender.org/
- For video work Microsoft Movie Maker is still available and free at http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-movie-maker-get-started and Lightworks can be downloaded for no charge at http://www.lightworksbeta.com/.

6. More and more agencies are using Facebook to market, or just to keep up with fellow investigators. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you’ll soon find out that all Facebook accounts are set to be changed over to the new “Timeline” format. This article explains what to expect: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393464,00.asp . And this article offers pointers on how to make the transition to Timeline easier: http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-timeline-tips-2012-02. But, of course, the final word rests with Facebook, so here’s the link to their Timeline info page: https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline/apps .

7. Still on the marketing front, most of us have (or should have) a blog to keep online awareness of our services high. Here are 100 tips for improving your blog: http://www.dragosroua.com/100-ways-to-improve-your-blog/ and another really good post “101 Steps to Becoming a Better Blogger at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/101-steps-to-becoming-a-better-blogger.html (and remember to look on our articles page at http://www.thecasefile.com/articles.htm for our article “50 Blog Ideas for Marketing”).

8. Part of case management involves the secure transfer of gathered information, and sometimes that information is in video format. In those instances where a client would like to see video and the file is too long to email or security is an issue, “Video Sprout” seems to offer a solution. They’re at http://www.videosprout.com/welcome.jsp and claim to offer secure, private, video sharing.

9. Turning our attention to time-saving tips for your investigative work, we found an interesting site that hosts links to “100 Useful Tips and Tools to Search the Deep Web.” The article and list are at http://www.online-college-blog.com/features/100-useful-tips-and-tools-to-research-the-deep-web/

10. We found this site for you containing “Top 25 Websites for Small Business Help” at http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/10/03/small-business-help-top-25-websites/

11. To help with some of your time management and/or scheduling issues, have you taken a look yet at Google Calendar? It’s free and it’s at http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/about.html .

12. Be sure to look at our latest marketing article “Ten Reasons Your PI Agency Should Have a Blog” at http://www.thecasefile.com/Documents/PIAgencyBlog.pdf .

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That’s it for this issue! At InfoQuest, we’re here to make our investigative colleagues more successful by helping you with the business of running your business. That’s why we created “The Case File.” The only system available that will give you “A lifetime of case management for the price of ONE billable hour!”

We’re so sure you’ll benefit from "The Case File" that we offer a 30 day, 100%, no questions asked money back guarantee.

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