7 Useful Websites and Apps For Local Government

While many local government employees have made the switch to remote work during the pandemic, many or all of these internet tools should be able to find use at times of work from home or the usual office grind as businesses begin to reopen.

This list features resources that alternate between technical and physical website and app tools. Oh, and one more very important detail---every single one of them is FREE!

1. PDF Conversion 

For converting documents to or from PDF, it really doesn’t get simpler than www.freepdfconvert.com. While maybe more straightforward than some of the other suggestions listed here, freepdfconvert.com works with the most popular Microsoft Office applications and along with conversion it can also merge, split, compress, and/or rotate documents. Bonus - If you just need to edit a PDF in your browser (no need for Adobe Acrobat here), try www.pdfescape.com!‍

2. Break Reminder

Stand Up! The Work Break Timer is an app for your phone that reminds you to get out of that chair and get your blood flowing again at intervals you choose yourself. Stand Up! offers customization of which days of the week and the time window during those days the timer will run (if you want your reminders on a recurring schedule) as well as different alert sounds.‍

3. Tab Suspension

If you’re anything like me, you might like to leave lots of tabs open on your computer so you don’t forget about X, Y, or Z. As you may or may not know however this can slow your PC down quite a bit. This one is a Google Chrome exclusive, but The Great Suspender is a Chrome add-on that can make your computer run faster by suspending tabs that aren’t being used. All you have to do is reload a page when you decide you want to come back to it. It’s that easy!‍

4. Background Noise

Have you recently switched to remote work and your house is slightly noisier than the office? Well, Noisli and RainyMood can help! Rainy Mood is just for folks who like to hear rain in the background when it’s not actually raining, but Noisli actually takes background noise a step further by allowing users to combine different tracks to create their own personalized audio.‍

5. Graphic Design Made Easy

Perhaps the biggest free resource on this list, it’s barely an exaggeration to say Canva will marginally change your life for the better if this is the first time you’re hearing about it. Canva is a free graphic design website with templates that you can easily edit and personalize to make anything from flyers to Instagram ads to business cards. More examples you might find useful include logos, infographics, and presentations beyond what Google Slides or PowerPoint have to offer.‍

6. Mental Health

Mental health is probably a more relevant topic than ever to many, and because of that keeping it in check with free options like www.headspace.com feels crucial. Headspace provides articles, guided exercises, videos, and more that maintain different goals, including bettering sleep, reducing stress and anxiety, and healthy living. ‍

7. File Transfers

Ending the same way we started, www.wetransfer.com and file.pizza are fairly straightforward tools to know about, but that doesn’t make them any less useful. WeTransfer allows users to share files that are up to 2 gigs in size for free and file.pizza can transfer files using only a random, shareable link it generates for you.