In this multi-part series, I'm covering various applications that I've personally used and can recommend to anyone starting a web-based business. (Click here for Part 1.)
I'm going to dive right in and list more applications I use on a daily basis. I'm on a Mac, so Windows users please bear this in mind. I've tried to find some equivalents out there for you.
For Getting Things Done: Quicksilver, TextExpander, Evernote, Things
Quicksilver is one of those applications that I cannot imagine living without. If you're on a Mac, it is an incredible tool to zip around your Mac and get things done faster than using the Finder and Spotlight. (Dash appears to be a decent PC equivalent.)
I'm not a power Quicksilver user, but it's always at the ready to launch programs and find information super fast.
TextExpander is a Mac program that lets you create unique abbreviations or shortcuts that automatically type out longer words and phrases. These are quite helpful, for filling out addresses on forms and even routine stuff like salutations in emails. For instead, I can type breg and hit the space bar and voila, it turns into:
Best regards,
Brandon
I constantly discover new uses for TextExpander, such as saving tedious code snippets. This cuts down on formatting blog articles and other documents. FastFox is another software that works on both Macs and PCs. Both are around $20-25 for a single license.
Evernote is an amazing program that I'm still getting used to. Available for both Windows and Mac (both a free version or premium one for $45 per year), Evernote gives you a web-based site as well as a downloadable desktop version. Using either the web or desktop version (they work together to keep your stuff), you can "grab" and store just about any information you can think of. It's useful for copying and saving informative web content and images, for example. But probably the best gee-whiz factor is the ability to upload photos to Evernote. That by itself is ho-hum, except when you sync the photos with the Evernote website, any content (text) within your images is now searchable. So let's say you're at Best Buy comparing different products, and you secretly snap a couple photos of the price tag and other info. Later, you can pull up Evernote to remember what you were looking at Ditto for that parking space number at the airport that you'd otherwise forget. Evernote also supports the use of tags to categorize information.
Things is a fairly simple "getting things done" software that I like. It's in beta right now and is free, while the final version will cost $49 when released in January 2009 (or pay $39 now if you sign up for their newsletter before the official product launch).
I like Things mostly because they have a good iPhone app that lets me quickly jot down things I need to tackle, grocery shopping lists or whatever. I could use Evernote for this, but have found it's buggy when I'm out of good cell range (due to the syncing issues). Things stands alone, meaning it is (for now) just a desktop program.
For Phone Calls: Skype and Kall8.com
Skype is crucial for me, particularly to save money on mobile calls. As a small business owner, I decided not to use my home phone for business, nor my cell phone per se. I initially set up a very inexpensive 800 number using Kall8.com. This is a great service, and for about $8 a month (and a cheap per-minute rate) people can contact me there. I set the Kall8 number to go straight into their web-based voicemail, and anytime someone calls I get an email. I could set it to automatically re-route to any other phone, but I've found the voicemail option works well and keeps the charges to a bare minimum.
Skype has proven more beneficial on a daily basis. I bought an inexpensive Logitech USB headset/microphone (around $30) and use it to make calls. I paid for a yearly Skype Out plan, for $29.50. This gives me free web calling in the U.S. and Canada. Since my work is U.S. based (I should reach out to my Canadian neighbors!), this is an unbeatable deal. I also just sprang for my own local Skype number, which comes with its own voicemail. I'm finding that since I use Skype so frequently, it will be nice to give people a number to reach me there. It also has options to re-route calls to my cell phone or wherever. And the cost was also low, $12 for three months (I used a Skype credit I had; otherwise, the longer you commit, the cheaper it is.)
I also use Skype for text chats, along with Apple's iChat.
For E-Mail Campaign Management
I use Aweber to allow email signups through the site, and to send a series of autoresponders and email blasts to subscribers. My research with a lot of the top web gurus out there (like my friends at Internet Business Mastery) convinced me that this was a great, affordable solution (less than $200 invested so far). I'll write more about email usage in upcoming articles.
For Project Management: Google Apps and Wrike
In Part 1 of this series, I talked about my appreciation for Google Apps. Google Calendar, Google Mail Google Docs are a powerful combination for keeping track of tasks to do, as well as all kinds of information related to the business.
When I'm consulting with clients, often it helps to set up a dedicated project management area. This allows a more robust system to assign tasks and deadlines, as well as store and share files in a central place. For years, I used Basecamp. I remain a fan of that product. However, I've been using another solution called Wrike, mainly due to a lower price point ($3.99 per month for Wrike's most basic plan, vs. $24 per month for Basecamp's.) So far, it's met my needsâ€"although with at least one client, we've reverted to using mainly Google Docs and email to share information!
For File Storage/Backups: Dropbox
I signed up for a year of online-based storage using Dropbox, which works with both PCs and Macs. The price: Free for 2GB of storage, or $99 a year for 50GB. The cool thing about Dropbox is that it keeps different versions of your files. So if you mess up and delete a file on your local machine, you can login and view or restore a previous version. Dropbox also makes it easy to share large files with others, either publicly or privately. I've used YouSendIt for big files also, along with Drop.io, two other worthwhile and affordable services.
For Photo Editing: Picnik
Anyone who has a blog or other content-sharing site knows what a pain it can be to resize and fix images. I have stopped using any desktop-based photo editing programs in favor of web-based Picknik (free or $24.95 per year for a premium version). It doesn't get much easier (or fun) to edit photos, especially compared to the learning curve of a Photoshop (or even Photoshop Elements). Picnik also lets you email your photos, create Flickr slideshows and more.
That's all for now. If you have other applications you recommend for web entrepreneurs, please share them in the comments!
Photo credit: Ralphbijker
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