I’m guessing you’re pretty busy. You’ve got a ton of stuff to get done everyday and you don’t need to waste time doing monotonous and repetitive tasks. But you also are probably pretty cost conscious and don’t have money to throw away on every piece of software that you need. Thankfully, there are several fully-functional free software packages out there that can help you and your business save time and money.

OpenOffice

What it is: office suite that’s compatible with all other major office suites

Where to find it: http://www.openoffice.org/

How it helps you: Are you sick of paying $500 for each copy of Microsoft Office Professional? Well, the OpenOffice suite is a completely free alternative that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and more. Each program has comparable features to its Microsoft counterpart and is completely compatible with Microsoft Office files. I regularly pass .DOC and .XLS files back and forth between the two and have never had a problem. An added bonus: OpenOffice Writer lets you save your documents as .PDF files. Good luck doing that with Microsoft Word without shelling out some more dough!

Mozilla Thunderbird

What it is: email client

Where to find it: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

How it helps you: One program that OpenOffice doesn’t offer a counterpart to is Outlook. Thunderbird is more like a souped up version of Outlook Express with hundreds of free extensions https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/ that let you do anything from change the color scheme to translate your emails to Chinese.

FeedReader

What it is: desktop RSS and ATOM aggregator

Where to find it: http://www.feedreader.com/

How it helps you: Configuring FeedReader can literally save you hours a day of flipping threw newspapers, websites, blogs, and newsletters for news. With FeedReader, all you need to do is subscribe to your favorite RSS feeds http://www.rss-specifications.com/ and watch all of the news come to you. I am able to scan hundreds of news sources in a matter of seconds to find the stories that I really need. Many sites put the entire story in the feed so you don’t even need to open your browser to stay connected.

Web CEO

What it is: web promotion software that promotes, analyzes, and maintains your site

Where to find it: http://www.webceo.com/

How it helps you: It saves me a TON of time. Web CEO helps you research your keywords for your SEO campaign, analyzes your pages and gives SEO suggestions, submits your sites to hundreds of search engines and directories, analyzes your link popularity, and checks your rankings in hundreds of search engines for your keywords. All for free! Web CEO also offers a Small Business and Pro Version too, but the free version should be enough unless you want to use Web CEO to do things like site maintenance and web analytics.

Skype

What it is: PC-to-PC phone calls

Where to find it: http://www.skype.com/

How it helps you: most businesses have a client/partner/supplier that isn’t a local call. That’s just the way that our Global Economy works these days. If you talk to them regularly, why not have them download a free copy of Skype and the two of you can talk all day long for nothing at all. Until the end of 2006, Skype is also offering free calls to any phone number in the US or Canada. You can also purchase a phone number and have the calls directed to your PC. I pay $40 a year for my business phone number through Skype for unlimited calls. How much do you pay?

FeedBurner

What it is: web service that syndicates and promotes your blog, news feed, or podcast

Where to find it: http://www.feedburner.com/

How it helps you: spend the five minutes signing up for FeedBurner when you start your blog and they take care of the rest. FeedBurner gives you statistics on who’s reading your feed, pings feed reading services automatically, manages email subscriptions for you, and about fifty other things.

SiteUptime

What it is: website monitoring service

Where to find it: http://www.siteuptime.com/index.php

How it helps you: SiteUptime will check your web server, email server or FTP server every 30 minutes to check to see if it’s up and running. There’s no software to install and it takes about two minutes to set up. If you’re site is down it will send you an email notification. There are plans starting at $5/month that let you monitor more frequently and get advanced reporting, but the free account should be plenty for most people.

All of that and it didn’t cost you a penny!



By: Adam Mcfarland

For a great many of us technology has the means to provide some form of help. These forms can range from companies that you can ask for help while you are online to that of various debt free software programs. As each of these programs is different you should look at how these can be of help to you.

While these debt free software programs can be of help, you need to understand they are only tools that you will be able to use. For this reason you should also look for information about agencies whose help you can use.

As we are aware there are many items that you can use to help you with the problems of your debt. To see how these items work you will need to gather information about these products. Among the many tools that you can use the different debt free software that is available should be of help.

These items can help you see how your monthly expenditure is being changed by the amount of money that you need to spend to recover from debt. As this amount can rise steadily you will need to look at the way that your overall monthly budget sufferers by the use of items like credit cards.

Once you have worked out the details of your total debts you can use the debt free software programs like debt reduction calculators to see what amount you can free up. This calculator will help you to see the best way that you can reduce your debts without depriving you of the money that you need to survive.

This calculator is not the only debt free software that you will be able to find. There are some debt planners. These guides will allow you to enter the amounts of money that you have. The different sections in this planner will let you arrange your finances in a more accurate style.

The use of these different debt free software programs is that you will have a better idea of the amount of money that you owe. By looking at this information you can then choose a course of action that will provide you with the best ways to reduce your debts.

While using these debt free software programs is a good idea, you will need to change your life. This is the only way that your use of these products will be of any use. The wide selection of debt free software programs that you can choose are your key to taking control back into your life.



By: Muna wa Wanjiru