TOP 10 Small Business FREEware, Software, Web Tools

I recommend: Google Chrome
Cost: FREE
Review: The past three years I've only used Internet Explorer if a form or other dinosaur-site tells me it can only open with Internet Explorer (how minus-traffic minded!). Mozilla Firefox used to be my favourite browser. But when I discovered Google Chrome Firefox became a bit like Explorer use to be when I discovered Firefox. It is the most streamlined and speedy browser out there, with the strongest integrated search ability you can imagine. Pages load Bolt-fast, without frills. The menu bar is clutter-free, straight as an arrow. It does not have all the FireFox add-ons, but is that what you want or need? Viewing pages via Google Chrome is sooooo much more crisp and slick looking than Firefox or Internet Explorer. Let's summarise: I like all things fast and slick looking; I am a very impatient web surfer; I like anything soft on the eye, which contributes to the 'health' of my eyes, and lessens the strain I put on it for staring at the screen hours on end. Is that enough reasons for you to accept that I am totally over the moon with Google Chrome?

I recommend: PowWeb
Cost: $4.99 per month
Review: This is definitely an old time favourite of mine. I've had great customer support from them, and may I add a lot of the complaints I've submitted were actually silly mistakes from my side. They've always advised me and answered the question as thoroughly as they could. The PowWeb member user account dashboard is stacked with extremely useful web development tools, including futures such as website graders and analyzers. If you compare PowWeb with other well-known website hosts (getting major marketing exposure) you will be surprised as to how much extra you get for your money, to mention a few:
UNLIMITED disk space and data transfer (bandwidth); UNLIMITED mail boxes, email forwarding (auto responders); FREE website builder (with templates) and FREE domain name.
Now if you are looking for the all-in-one web hosting with SEO tools, with web design and SEO tutorials, your best option on the web is SiteSell! For $24.92 per month you cannot get a better deal, the extra insight and tutorials re website building, marketing, affiliate campaigns and ranking is priceless.

I recommend: FileZilla
Cost: FREE
Review: If your web developer or your VA is not updating your website pages for you, you need a fast, reliable, real-time FTP client that will upload your pages within seconds once you've added or updated web content. I have tried several but FileZilla is just too user friendly and too fast to upset me.

I recommend: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Photoshop CS4 much more expensive)
Cost: $55 - $77
Review: There are some software programmes that do not fail to disappoint you, and you end up sticking with them. Photoshop is one of those for me. If you're doing your graphic and web design yourselves I recommend the cheaper version of Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. At a much cheaper price you can do a lot of advance image manipulation tasks, even create slick animated GIF files for your site. But if you are looking for FREEware to do most of what Photoshop can do try GIMP. I was not that impressed with GIMP, maybe because it was too hard to figure out, although it looks very much like Photoshop and has a similar interface, including tools. If you're a newbie to Photoshop I guess rather download GIMP and see how you go, before you spend the bucks on buying Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.

I recommend: KomPozer
Cost: FREE
Review: If you have not outsourced your admin or web management
yet, and does the updating yourself, I thoroughly recommend KomPozer. Kompozer is a great improvement on the old NVU architecture it was based upon. It is by far the greatest WYSIG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor out there, that is FREE and runs on Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Its simple and convenient tab and menu features makes it easy to learn and use. I've tried quite a few HTML editor freeware options, but time and again I uninstall them and go back to my beloved KomPozer.

I recommend: PDFill
Cost: FREE
Review: Having a PDF writer on your PC or laptop as a small business owner or entrepreneur, in my opinion, is one of the most crucial pieces of software. But if you can have a PDF writer AND editor, for FREE, that is plain hip-hop cool man. For those who do not know: with a writer you can only generate PDF's, with an editor you can generate and manipulate. Why would you spend $529 on Adobe Acrobat 9, if you can download one for FREE? The sun does not shine out of Adobe Acrobat anymore full stop. With the FREE version of PDFill you can merge PDFs; split and reorder them; rotate them; add watermarks or form fields to them; compress them; even create an ebook. OK see the endless manipulation options on this page. In my opinion, for security purposes, it is advisable to PDF all company branded documents when sent externally. More than 101 daily admin tasks forces you to install at least a PDF writer on your PC or laptop. Every time I generate a PDF with PDFill and it opens up the PDF automatically after saving, I get a cheesy WHAU feeling eye-ing the high quality, crisp look of the document. It does not look 'scanned', or like a copy of the image or document, NO dear, it looks exactly like the original document. So you get it: I cannot praise and hallelujah PDFill enough.

I recommend: PayMo
Cost: FREE
Review: As an independent consultant all my projects are coded and tracked individually. I generate a time record with each invoice or account statement monthly. For years I used TraxTime, and I was pretty happy with it, and still recommend it for its user-friendliness. PayMo is so much better than TraxTime and other time trackers. Personally, the fact that it is extremely clever, interactive, and generates useful business management statistics for each project is secondary to the fact that it is an online application. No need to download and access from one PC. You can go into your PayMo Management Interface from any location from any PC. It has endless integration capabilities allowing you to: overview all projects via interactive graphs and charts; generate reports; stay on target with allocated project budgets; invoice clients, etc. So, the extremely user-friendly and easy-to-use PayMo is sooooo much more than a simple time tracker.

I recommend: SurveyMonkey
Cost: FREE
Review: Whether it is to get specific marketing niche product info, or just to establish whether customers are satisfied with my service I can easily and quickly implement and collect the data for FREE via SurveyMonkey. Note: if you are already using an online newsletter management system, you most definitely will have online survey capability via your newsletter management provider, so no need to subscribe for yet another application. But that said, how much do you spend on your newsletter management service provider monthly? Consider if it is worth the cost or changing over to a FREE version, like MailChimp (see below).

I recommend: MailChimp
Cost: FREE
Review: I've tried a dozen before I got hooked on ConstantContact a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, I was extremely happy with ConstantContact. But, I do not send out several newsletters to millions of subscribers per month. So I really started evaluating the cost of keeping ConstantContact ($15 per month) versus my rare use of it. And as per the previous recommendation, I had already so many online surveys setup via my SurveyMonkey account, that I unfortunately did not use extra futures such as online surveys. It was time to cut cost, move to a cheaper one, or better: FREE one. I did the tedious task of subscribing to the trial versions of several, again. RatePoint was a great discovery, it has more web savvy tools than ConstantContact, and most of all: is cheaper. It has a slick design dashboard interface, with great diversity and options. But cheap-skate as I am I considered again all the freeware options and measurements I already have in place that RatePoint gives me at a rate of $9.95 per month. I wish I discovered RatePoint a few years ago. Now I am just too stingy and too happy with all the FREEware at leisure. So that is why I am totally happy with MailChimp now, it does the job fine, not as good as ConstantContact or RatePoint, but hey it is FREE!

I recommend: Google Apps (Standard Edition)
Cost: FREE
Review: Last but not least: would you like to access your emails, documents, calendar remotely? But you still want to access your business' email account via MS Outlook from your laptop or PC at home? Google Apps is the best FREE tool out there that allows you to collaborate with staff and clients, and basically run your entire small business from any remote location 24/7. With a MS Office feel it is user-friendly, and easy to setup via your own domain. I love the option of sending my Google Calendar appointment reminder as a text message to my mobile phone. If the standard version is too basic, you're after a bigger account size, more business features, controls and support you can try the Google Apps Premier Edition at a low annual cost of $50 per user, NO user maximum.