PLANNING AND COMMUNICATING

This section examines resources in the areas of planning and communicating.

Outsourcing

Following are resources for outsourcing:

• Elance (top rated outsourcing) — See www.elance.com. Elance is a premier place to find outsourced talent. Prices are a bit higher than Guru or oDesk, but on the whole, talent may be a bit more reliable as well.
• Guru (popular outsource site) — See www.guru.com. Like Elance, Guru is another outsourcing option. Its prices are a bit lower, and you will find more non-U.S. talent here.
• oDesk (popular outsource site) — See www.odesk.com. oDesk is the newest general outsource site of the big three. You can find great rates here, a lot of non-U.S. talent, and, like Guru, it isn't quite as full-featured a site as Elance, but is capable and recommended.
• Get Apps Done (iOS and other platform outsourcing) — See www.getappsdone.com. Whether you are a developer, or need to outsource to one, this is one site that can help connect the two, primarily focused on iOS and Android developers.

Project Management

Following are resources for project management:

• Basecamp (online project management) — See www.basecamphq.com. “Basecamp” (shown in Figure B-2) from 37 Signals is a full-featured, online project-management app, with collaboration tools, file storage, milestones, tasks, and notifications. It's one of the (if not the) most recommended online apps out there, but there are other good ones as well. “Basecamp” also features a number of iOS (and other mobile) apps that integrate well with it.
• Zoho Projects (online project management) — See www.zoho.com. This is the main competition for “Basecamp” in the area of online project management. Both have their strengths and loyal fans. On the whole, “Zoho” (shown in Figure B-3) appears to be a bit cheaper, but features are also slightly different. For example, it integrates well with Google Apps, whereas “Basecamp” doesn't at the same level.

  

  FIGURE B-2: “Basecamp” has millions of users and relatively affordable pricing for an online project-management app

  

  FIGURE B-3: “Zoho” offers affordable pricing and tight integration with Google Apps

• JIRA (paid project-management solution and bug tracking) — See www.atlassian.com/software/jira/. This is a complete bug-tracking and project-management platform. The interface was recently overhauled to be more “Web 2.0” compliant.
• Bugzilla (open source bug tracking) — See www.bugzilla.org.

E-Mail, Video Conferencing, Chat, and Screen Sharing

Following are resources for e-mail, video conferencing, chat, and screen sharing:

• Gmail (e-mail) — See www.gmail.com. This is the best free e-mail client. It also integrates well with Google Docs, and all of Google's other fantastic free online apps.
• Skype (instant communication) — See www.skype.com. Skype is a great way to freely communicate, to video conference, and to share files directly to outsourced and internal teams. It has some premium features as well, such as calling credits and video conferencing with multiple people.
• Mikogo (screen sharing) — See www.mikogo.com. If you work with outsourced teams, or if you're just lazy and don't feel like walking over to the desk of a teammate, chances are you can benefit from screen sharing. This is a great free option that allows you to log in to a session and use your mouse to click on someone's screen without it affecting them. This is useful when collaborating with large teams or using Skype (that is, having Skype on for voice and “Mikogo” on for screen sharing).