 "5 Free apps for working from home")
Working from home isn’t always a privilege, as sometimes it is forced upon by certain unavoidable conditions. Imagine you have an important meeting or presentation to submit at work and are stranded at home due to unfavourable climate or other circumstances. To add to your woes, your home PC or laptop goes kaput. While the situation seems too dramatic, there are still a host of apps that could come to your rescue. We have listed five such free mobile apps to assist you for working from home.
Mobile VPN for Android and iOS devices
Connecting to your office resources using a smartphone/tablet shouldn’t be difficult via third party VPN clients. The Mobile VPN app lets users securely access corporate resources from their mobile device through a full layer-3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel. As users launch a VoIP or any other app on their mobile device, the transmitted data is encrypted. The app connects to a check point security gateway and one will have to contact their security administrator for first-time setup. For SSL VPN Portal application, one will have to download the “Check Point Mobile” application. Along with support for SSL and IPSe, it has a visitor mode.
Kingsoft Office Free – Android, iOS
Free Office suite for your mobile device
While there are several renowned Office suites available in app stores, most of them come with a hefty price tag. Those looking for a quick, free option can check out Kingsoft Office. It lets you create and view Word document, text, PPT and spreadsheet. The layout and style is almost similar to Microsoft Office. While working on a Word file, one will find rich formatting features such as bold, italics, underline, font colour, alignment, tables, alignment, header, footer, word count, find and replace, full-screen etc. It also comes with spell check and the ability to insert pictures, graphs, charts and so on. Using spreadsheets is simple with options such as filter, sort, cell, fill, find and replace, wrap, format painter, freeze panes etc. You will also find complex cell format settings and a quick calculation feature. Kingsoft “Presentation” also comes with all the basic features such as support for bullets and numbers, frame, paragraph, quick style, and the ability to insert and edit shapes and tables.
Collaborative tool
Google Drive users can conveniently access all their important files on their smartphone or tablet. The app also comes with full integration of Google Docs and serves as an extremely handy collaborative tool. It lets users create and share Word document or spreadsheet with support for real-time editing. This makes it a great option if you are working on a file or project with multiple people. Just like the desktop version, it will let you choose if the other members can just view or even edit the file. It lets you add and resolve comments too. It allows viewing PDF files and Google presentations.
Remote access
TeamViewer is a very popular remote access tool, which is also available for mobile devices. The app will let you access and edit documents from your office PC. Its remote access features are further supported by a smartphone’s multi-touch gestures – left click, right click, drag and drop, scroll and zoom. The app also offers complete keyboard control with special keys such as Ctrl, Alt and Windows. One can access computers behind firewalls and proxy servers. The app also supports automatic quality adjustment and remotely reboots the computer. One can also check out TeamViewer for Meetings.
Stay connected using Skype
If you have to attend an imporant video conference, then Skype is just what you need on your mobile device. You can easily attend video-conference using the Skype app. Amidst several other options, Skype simply comes across as the best and most convenient. Skype-to-Skype IMs and voice calls are free over 3G and Wi-Fi.
While these apps are quite handy, do let us know which other business apps you prefer.
Image credit: Getty Images
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