Using an Applicant Tracking System

Guest Post
by Toney Naorem

You have to agree with me when I say that life has become a lot easier with the internet. Businesses have several tools at their disposal to make their processes simpler. Highlighting one such function - HR managers and other recruiting professionals are also using various new tools to assist them in finding the right candidates.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is one such tools that can help effectively manage and assist HR in hiring the right candidates. Some of the benefits include:
1. Saving time and money
2. Easy to implement
3. Archiving your hiring process for future reference.

Today many ATS are available and one of the simplest ones I have seen is Recruiterbox. It’s an online application that allows small companies to receive and manage job applications. It is currently the preferred applicant tracking system for companies such as Skyscanner, Groupon, Codecademy, Stripe and many more.

The app allows companies to receive resumes from multiple sources to its platform - from where they can be managed and sorted easily, and decisions can be made as a team. This includes auto-forwarding of emails and attachments to Recruiterbox, and sharing internal notes and scheduling interviews on its platform.

Using Recruiterbox, companies can promote their jobs to social networks and job search engines. The company also can have a dedicated careers micro-site where all your jobs are published. Imagine how useful it would be if all the recruitment was managed from one place, and the company wouldn't have to worry about its inbox being clogged by resumes, attachments flying back and forth, and useful information hidden beneath a pile of email.

Some of the other tools are Zoho Recruit, Simplicant, Unrabble, Jobscore, Theresumator and many more. Now it’s up to you to decide which one fits best with your company.

A.I.Type Keyboard for your PC

In my last post I wrote about the A.I.Type keyboard and predictive text software which allows you to type faster on Android phones. Later I found out that there was a beta version of the A.I.Type for PCs as well. Combining artificial intelligence and complex mathematical algorithms, the predictive text suggests texts and even sentences as you are typing and all you have to do is just point and click to select the next word.

So if you need to write a essay real extra fast, this is just the software for you. A.I.Type works on most popular Windows applications on your PC including Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Outlook, Skype, etc. The great news is that the beta version of A.I.Type is still free.

Faster typing on your android

Though I love Android phones, typing on the touch screen can be a pain sometimes. Anyway, I found out about the A.I.Type with it's amazing text prediction. According to the website, AItype uses a unique technology which combines Artificial Intelligence and complex mathematical algorithms and promises to help you type faster and better. When I last checked it only offers English predictions but hopefully support for other languages will come out later as well.

This Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) based keyboard for Android 2.2 is totally free. I was reading some of the reviews on the Android Market site and most of them were quite positive.

Excited about TeamViewer

One of my friends was really excited about a conferencing software which he had just came across  called TeamViewer and he was telling everybody about it on Facebook. My friend is now using the free (non-commercial) version  to provide online lectures/teaching to students and interested individuals (including videos, audio and of course powerpoint slides). It also allows online discussions and lots more.

Apparently a lot of other guys have used it and I wonder why I have never heard about it.Everyone seems to have positive reviews about the software. One guy said that it was really user friendly.

The one negative comment I read was from a guy in India who mentioned that Internet speeds in some regions affected it's quality due to the lag. I don't think I should have any problems here and I am downloading it right now.

I am really excited about it as well as this is something I can bring up when I meet up with the other blended learning project team at the Warwick Business School. I hope to have a review up soon.

If you have tried TeamViewer, I would love to hear your comments about the software. Is it as good as everyone is making it out to be?

QR Code generating software

This is my blog's QR Code. This is a two-dimensional symbology which was developed by Denso Wave in 1994. It is an improvement on the widely used bar code as it is easily read and contains information in both the vertical and horizontal directions and is really popular in Japan.

You can download the trial edition of QR Code/Bar code generation software on the Denso Wave site or you can generate your own QR code at Kaywa.com.

If you want to read QR codes, all you need is your mobile (with camera) and the Kaywa reader. Just download the reader, scan by taking a picture and you then get the info on your mobile. Haven't tried it myself but according to some reviews I read on the net, including here and here, it's quite good.

Oxite - the new blogging platform from Microsoft

Just got to know about Oxite - an open source blogging platform from Microsoft. Yes! We thought we would never see the day but Microsoft does give away software for free.

Check out the numerous open sources projects on Codeplex - their Open Source community site. Oxite is in Alpha, meaning that it is still in the Internal Test stage. Hopefully they shall have a Beta version out soon ready for public testing. Not sure how it's going to compare to Wordpress but it would definitely need to have more features if they are going to compete against the World's most favourite blog platform. From what I read, they might position it as a full fledged Content Management Systems like Joomla rather than just a blogging platform.

Skypephone now with SkypeOut

One of my major complaints about my old Skypephone was that it didn't allow SkypeOut. I first read that the 3 network was going to allow SkypeOut from compatible mobile phones on their network on the 3 Mobile Buzz blog.

I was really excited when I found out that my wife's new Sony Ericsson K660i came with the new Skype software that allows you to make SkypeOut calls from the mobile - only to phones abroad. However, I was unhappy that I was stuck with the old software on my mobile phone and I couldn't find any info regarding this issue on the 3 website.

Well a few days back, I was playing around with my phone and found out that I could upgrade to the latest software for FREE by downloading the latest software developed by iSkoot

I can now make cheap calls to phones outside the UK using my SkypeOut credit.

Unlocking the iPhone 3G

Now enough of the Google phone and Android. One of my cousins bought a used iPhone from the US. She was looking forward to playing with the various applications and of course showing it off to her friends. Her happiness was short lived. She didn't realise that it was locked and that the new Apple has made it near impossible to unlock it. I guess Apple did this because of their contracts with various carriers.

One of her "IT expert" friends spent a few nights trying to unlock the phone using various iPhone unlocking software freely available on the net but to no avail. Searching on the net for a solution led me to hundreds of dubious unlocking software solutions. However reviews indicate that most of them involved cutting the sim card as well. My own techie friend Fauzan, lead me to one of the so called sim card solutions called EASYiSIM NO CUT available on ebay. Not sure whether it works though.

David Zeiler writes that "Unlocking the new iPhone won’t be worth the trouble" in his blog.


Please contact me if you have successfully unlocked the new iPhone 3G?

More about Android

Watch the presentation about Android, Google's mobile phone software, by Steve Horowitz.



You must be wondering about Google's products on Android:



Google is also giving away the first Google phone at the live cast of T-Mobile’s Android announcement today. Not sure whether I am too late. Just go over to the Android Community forum and sign up. You may be the lucky one.

Recover lost passwords for office documents

It's getting harder and harder to keep track of all the passwords I have for my various emails, online subscriptions, social networks, bank accounts and so on. I follow all the safety precautions -
1. using alphabets with numbers,
2. alphabets in different cases,
3. not forming and word in the dictionary and
4. at least 6 letters (unless more letters are required) and last but not the least,
5. not having the same password for different purposes.

This ultimately leads to my problem - it is practically impossible to remember all the passwords and they literally number in hundreds. The only solution is to write all of the passwords down in a diary. I dread the thought that I might one day lose my diary.

Talking about passwords, I sometimes forget to write them down and this is true for a number of my office documents, which were considered quite "confidential". And yes! I have forgotten the passwords.

Searching for an Excel password recovery solution led me to Password-Studio (http://www.password-studio.com/). For Excel and Word files, the software called Password-Studio Pro, uses a "Smart Dictionary" and "Bruteforce" hacking methods to recover your password. It is said to be the world's most powerful Office password recovery tool. As compared to other simialr tools on the net, I found that it is one of the cheapest at only $16.95 for a limited time(approximately £8.95 or 11.95 Euros). So what do you think?

The crash

I knew it was Inevitable - that it was going to happen one day but when it did, it caught me by surprise. Yes! My eBay computer (so called because it was bought on eBay) suddenly crashed in the morning yesterday. Now to think of it, it's quite surprising that it didn't crash earlier.

Spent a couple of hours making repeated attempts to restart it and later to recover the files inside. The OS simply wouldn't load up. Fortunately I had saved all the important stuff on my storage device and online on IDrive. I probably should have waited for my friend Kyrzul (who's an IT professional) to come back from London but I was impatient and I made a big mistake.

I have an original XP Professional installation disk and quickly loaded it up on my computer, formatting the whole hard disk in the process. It was only after I installed it that I remembered about the Windows activation issue and their stupid "One license, one computer". And there it was, a bubble telling me that I only have 30 days to activate my copy of the operating system. Gives myself a kick on the back side.

I assumed that with the release of Windows Vista, the price of XP would have fallen drastically but no. A "Windows Genuine Advantage Kit" (for Windows XP Professional) would cost me £95.47. Now I am in a dilemma whether to buy the kit or get a pirated copy. I have to admit that the later option is proving to be really tempting. I will also try talking to their customer service and see what they say.

Hoping for the best, I spent most of the day installing the drivers and all my favourite software including Firefox, AVG anti virus, Zone alarm, Irfanview and loads of others, mostly freeware.

Will keep you guys updated.

Great planning software for project planner

I have just discovered an awesome project management tools service provider that provides project management software for Mac OS X and Windows. These easy-to-use yet robust tools can connect from the desktop to their hosted project server. They are quite cost effective as well.

Those who are interested in having an effective project management system, may want to see some samples of project plans (over 1000 of them) on their website. These plans are available for free for reuse and extension.

Improved online event registration software

I have helped organise a few big events in the past, including an international conference. The last event was the biggest I had been involved in. Though we had a online registration ability put in the conference website, it was a simple solution where by information put in by the registrants were sent to the e-mail folder of one of the committee members. We had to hire an assistant just to put all the data in a database - names, organisation, payment method and so on.

All this could have been a breeze had I known about some of the great event registration software available in the market. This gives us the opportunity to focus on other areas of managing the event.

Feature I would look for would include the ability for the organizers of the event to find out details like how many completed the form, the time it took them and if they left without completing, at what position in the registration process they left and much more.

This would help us to further refine the form if we see that a large number of people are leaving without completing the registration process at a certain point in the form. We would also know where the people are coming from and how registrants are finding our registration form, we can see if we are targeting the right people. Thus enabling us to make the necessary changes to the form if we have to.

I cannot emphasize the importance of web-analytics as I have often used the statistical data about my visitors to further improve my blog. For example, now I am aware that visitors come from all around the World, I try not to be so Malaysia-centric but I still carry posts about Malaysian issues and events because at least 40% of my visitors are Malaysians.

Updated: 18 Sept. 2013

Animation software reviews

I once saw a documentary on TV showing how they used to create those Disney cartoons. Each cartoon used to take thousands of drawings and months to complete. Now a few school boys can create similar cartoons (if not better) in a few days ion their personal Mac or PC.

This has been made possible through the availability of various animation software programs, some with more features than the others. Now you can see animation everywhere - in websites, screensavers in ads, music videos and of course, in movies.

Using photo morphing, you can create extremely realistic animations. If you want to compare various animation programs available, go to the Animation Software Review page. They have listed various software along with the prices and features, along with screenshots. If you are looking for a animation software, you might want to take a look here.

Sweep away spyware

It was a few years ago. I noticed that my office PC had noticeably slowed down while I was doing work and would sometimes crash for no reason. It was really frustrating , especially when I was in the middle of preparing an important presentation or writing an article and discovering that I would have to start all over again on starting up the computer.

I initially assumed that it might be an hardware problem - due to RAM failure or overheating of the processor. However, everything was working ok when I checked. I then blamed it on the unstable Windows' operating system. We were still using Windows 98 that time.

I then handed it over to our technical people who informed me that the problem was a multitude of spyware in my computer - probably from a few of the hundreds of software that I had downloaded from the net. To get rid of it, they had to completely format my hard disk and reinstall the operating system.

I wish I had Spy Sweeper at that time. This antispyware software has won the most awards and according to Download.com:

Definitely worth the money

Spy Sweeper has one of the most advanced spyware detection, blocking and removal programs available that can beat dangerous spyware programs. It even detects spyware hiden using rootkit technology.

Unlike other Spyware detection programs which you have to run from time to time in order to clean any spyware that you may have unwittingly let into your system, Spy Sweeper has powerful new Smart Shields that block known and emerging spyware threats as you browse. To ensure that users are protected all the time, Spy Sweeper's definition database is regularly updated automatically. Plus it comes with free customer support.

Don't just believe my words - look at what PC Magazine, PC World, Download.com and SmartComputing has to say about this software. Right now the License for 1 PC is $29.95. However, they are offering the software for only $19.95 now. You save $10.

New logo

Was playing around with this logo creator that I downloaded from the net. It's called The Logo Creator(T5b) from Laughingbird Software. You are allowed to 16 free uses of the software, which expires in 30 days.

It's quite easy to use and I had no trouble getting around it.

Just created this log using it. What do you think?


I finally have a Web 2 logo too.