The products I use every day in my online business...

[Lynn Terry]

What do you use every day to run your e-biz? Lets help each other out here by discussing our favorites and noting the products that arent worth paying for!

I personally use and love:

Web Design:

Dreamweaver
Macromedia Flash
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe ImageReady
Windows Commander (cheesy, I know )

Hosting/Publishing


** The absolute best tech support & service I have found yet! I also use the mailing list that comes included with my package - great script!


** to promote SSWT and announce new articles - $10 program

Marketing, my favorite in content & affordability:

Make Your Site Sell! (MYSS!) by Ken Evoy:
http://myss.sitesell.com/wsn.html

Oh - and I cant forget Mighty Fax! This is a software program so there are no usage fee's - you can download a free trial, and then its only $19.95 to register it... turns your computer into a fax machine and uses your modem and phone line to send faxes. My favorite feature is that you can create a document (or an invoice - or *anything*) and then "Print to MightFax" and fax it directly from any program!! Check it out:
http://www.rkssoftware.com/mightyfax/overview.html

I'll post more as I think of them... What about you?

[danels81]

[Lynn Terry]

[karadawn]

Great topic Lynn! I don't use a lot of programs or tools for my business because I really have close to zero money to spend (my business IS my job, and still very new so I don't have a whole lot of profits to apply to anything - long story and somewhat personal). What I do use are free. Just a few:

~ Yahoo and MSN messengers. Very handy to chat with people and get to know them on a more personal basis. I use AIM as well, but prefer the other two.

~ NoteTab for HTML work. It requires a working knowledge of HTML, but comes with codes on the side for reference.

~ NotePad. I use this for articles, typing out my ezine (although I'm strongly thinking of moving the ezine to a website instead, don't much care for plain text), also used for keeping track of tasks and goals. I keep everything separate in folders, so I can quickly find what I need.

~ Microsoft Excel and Word Perfect - I'm sure almost everyone uses these, but I create catalogs with Word Perfect and keep track of figures on Excel.

These are pretty basic, I know, but I couldn't funtion without them!

[flensborg]

These are the tools that I'm using on a daily basis:

Microsoft Word - for articles, and for pages before they are converted into web-pages.

Microsoft Excel - Once I couldn't figure out what I could ever use a spreadsheet for. I basically saw a spreadsheet as a tool to add numbers together, and I already had a calculator to do that. Now I can't live without Excel. It's excellent for charting stuff and for spotting relationships between data.

Windows Commandor - Couldn't live without it. I use it for navigation, viewing files, editing text-files (with notepad), FTP'ing and packing/unpacking archives.

Microsoft FrontPage 98 - I know it's an oldie, but it serves my need for basic HTML-editing.

[danels81]

The only tool that I use every day would have to be Trillian. I had about every type of Instant Messaging program you could think of cluttering my PC, so I downloaded Trillian and condensed them all into one. It is really great!

You can download it from:



Natalie

[Abbey]

Do sticky pads and notepads count? LOL

I am a combo of old fashioned and modern
(I still go to to the bank and actually walk up to a teller to make a deposit)
but over the past 6 months I have migrated more towards computer stuff.

Still have a paper file system (if you had 3 computer crashes in 2 years, you would too!)

Word and Notepad for basic word processing.

Excel for tax stuff and keeping track of affiliate programs.

ACT!2000 for contacts (just use to it from when did outside sales)
will be using when start to JV more

Affiliate Defender for cloaking affiliate links

Wouldn't do without my cable internet connection (can't believe I stayed on dial up for as long as did!)

ACE Html and FTP freeware (was using CuteFTP and liked that, but free trial ran out). Sort of budgeted now, but really like both of these.

Am bigger on using pen and paper for goal setting and writing out my daily action plan, as I feel that it is more powerful or 'ingraining' if you write it out (even vs typing).
So, have my daily planner - which is just a plain old thing for $4 from Office Max - and a use the sprial notebook for goals.

Headset for my phone.

I plan on using Microsoft Money as well, it is just a matter of time.

Once I start developing web pages, writing ezines, etc. I am sure I will add more tools.

Abbey

[ChristyK]

WARNING: Unfortunately, as mentioned below, a spyware called IGETNET is installed when mycorkboard is installed. I knew it was being installed but did not know it was spyware. Thanks, Henrick, for the heads-up. I had to use adaware to remove it. I'll let you know if I find anything similar - without the spyware attachment. Sorry for any problems I caused for people.

Original message:
Well, I'm getting myself organized for the new year with plans for taking on Google Adwords along with my candle business. I was searching for a post that I thought was in this thread. Some where (here or apparently another board) I read about online index cards. I even reviewed the site and planned to go back to it, but now cannot find it. So if anyone knows where it is, I'd appreciate the help.

A couple tools I cannot do without are my Printmaster Deluxe for desktop publishing, and MyCorkBoard for reminders and staying organized without notes all over my desk. It's lacking in a few features, but considering it's free, I'm loving it. You can check it out at MyCorkBoard.com.

Here's a screen print of my current corkboard setup. It covers my full monitor and I have it set up to come up by just hovering in the upper right of my screen.


Christy

[Warren Contreras]

I enjoy posting to Forums and most recently Ryze but I am a terrible speller.

In order to keep my self-esteem up and heighten my confidence to use words that are more efficient I NEED help that does not come with most Forums.

TA-DA . . . to the rescue (and free too)

I am even learning so I can spell better without it!

[Abbey]

[flensborg]

[Abbey]

[flensborg]

[Abbey]

[alice]

Hmmmmm.....use every day....

FrontPage - yup, I'm a MS whxxe (oops, Lynn -can I say that word?)

Mailwasher - to filter out the junk email

Outlook - for the few emails that make it through MailWasher

Notepad - OH MY! What would I do without Notepad? I use it to remove formatting of text before inputting it into FP, for making notes, for sending copywriting that I do for my clients and gosh...just all the time. Who knew it could be so useful?

Word - For counting my characters & words in documents

WebPosition Gold &/or Internet Business Promoter (IBP) - for analyzing my keyword density and my HTML for SE purposes etc.

BannerMaker Pro - cuz I'm a complete graphics idiot.

Virtual Assistant!!! Muy importante for doing the work in my biz that I loathe (answering general emails, distributing articles, distributing press releases, managing contest...etc...etc.)

Adobe Photoshop Elements - cuz I'm too poor to afford the "real" PhotoShop.

All Recorder - to record mp3s for my friend Kelly's radio show.

I second the Make Your Site Sell Lynn mentioned. Okay, I don't read it every day, but if I had not discovered that ebook at the beginning of my online career, I might still be floundering today. I use the principles I learned from this ebook every single day.

Products not worth it:

Honestly, I haven't come across too many. I think there are so many tools and gadgets you can use to help you in your biz. This is not to say I haven't wasted my money...I have. But it's not because they were bad tools, it's because I probably expected some magic to happen when I downloaded them. I think we need to remember when we try new stuff that even though these ebooks & programs can help us...we still need to put in the sweat and tears to make them work for us.

Alice