Despite spending most of my time working on my own startups, I find myself drawn to reading about what other people are up to, or making use of - whether it
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Essential Free Small Business Software
Having a home business, or work from home job, means that your PC will need to be packed with functionality to help facilitate day-to-day tasks.
Fortunately, there is plenty of great free software that can help you do everything from zipping and unzipping files, to reading Adobe documents, chatting and messaging people online and protecting yourself with anti-virus.
There are great free alternatives to products you might usually expect to pay for - like Microsoft Office.
Bear in mind that, in many cases, online/cloud services now provide free accounts that do a better job than expensive software downloads (or hard copies bought from a store).
7-Zip
7-Zip is a free (no payment or registration required) utility that can archive and compress files and folders as well as unzip them using a range of formats - like Windows' .zip, and the superior .tar.gz, and it's own high compression .7z format.
Because 7-Zip can handle multiple compression algorithms its perfect for anyone who works on a windows PC but runs a website (which most likely runs on a Linux server).
Skype (VoIP)
Skype provides free online conversations and instant messaging, file sharing, video sharing, conference calling and VoIP to land-line calls.
If you're tired of paying phone bills then switch to Skype. Anyone who has earphones, a mic and an Internet connection can use Skype to make personal or business calls anywhere in the world for free.
Avast (Antivirus)
Avast offers a free trial of their antivrius software for 30 days. After that time you can choose to extend your free usage period or upgrade to their full, paid protection plan.
I have been using Avast free antivirus for years and noted that on more than a few occasions they were ahead of the bigger names like Norton and Symantec (who I vowed never to use again because they are as bad as malware when trying to uninstall).
Thunderbird (Email)
Thunderbird is a modern, easy to use email client that will have you sending and receiving email in no time on virtually any platform you can imagine - Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
It comes with a wide range of features that you would expect from any top-of-the-line software, and is comparable to Microsoft Outlook. But, because Thunderbird is made by Mozilla, it is completely free for public use - no registration, and no fees.
OpenOffice
OpenOffice is open source's answer to Microsoft Office, which used to be bundled free with Windows, but now costs a small fortune to install separately.
Obviously OpenOffice is doing something right because they have hit the not insubstantial number of one hundred million downloads to date. In many areas, OpenOffice actually offers better functionality than its paid competitors and you should have no trouble learning your way around it.
Adobe Reader
Adobe Reader is an essential free utility for reading (but not creating) PDF documents. PDF is a widespread document format that is common online (if you do any work online, you'll need a PDF reader).
If you need to create PDFs, make use of OpenOffice's Writer (the equivalent of Microsoft's WORD), which has a convenient export to PDF button that generates a PDF from your document.
Dropbox (Cloud sharing & storage)
Dropbox is a free, cloud based application that allows you to store, share and synchronize files online.
It replicates a specified folder on your own PC into a folder held in the cloud. This folder can then be shared with other people who can also view and change stuff. These changes then reflect on your own file system.
Super useful for collaborating or sharing documents with virtual employees and employers. Think along the lines of never losing your presentation, even when you lose the flash-drive it's stored on.
Chrome (Web browser)
Google's Chrome browser has risen to become the most dominant PC browser on the planet. It did this by being fast, and easy to use while rendering Webpages elegantly.
I personally use both Chrome and FireFox because I like to test Website design and development work on a variety of browsers, but I find that Chrome handles responsive design better, which is the clincher for me.
So there's my list of absolute must-have free software - stuff that I couldn't live without in the day to day running of my businesses.
What other free software do you use? Share your tip and suggestions in the comments below.
Being an entrepreneur is something that should be encouraged and nurtured in everyone from an early age - especially in a country like the U.S. where the economy relies on small business.
Every school and university should offer a range of courses designed to empower young people to take an idea and turn it into a profitable enterprise, with confidence and competence.
Sadly, most educational institutes seem intent on sticking to dry, academic curricula that might teach young minds how to think, but don't prepare them for the harsh realities of the real world.
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Having access to a great tool like Google Trends means that it is easy to keep an eye on how important brands and
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Organic search traffic from Google is so valuable that many businesses come to rely on it as their primary source of income.
And while it may seem that the sun will never set on high converting organic traffic from the search giant, you might want to think about what would happen to your enterprise if the flow dried up.
I've experienced both the frustration and despair of losing Google traffic to an unknown and unexplained penalty (only large, important businesses get the information they need to recover in a matter of days or weeks), but have also seen how other companies have thrived without Google entirely.
Among their top 3 challenges, according to most business leaders, is the ability to keep pace with new technology - like the cloud.
Being able to understand what new technology offers and how to use it to increase productivity and maintain competitiveness is not easy, because technology moves moves faster than our ability to keep up.
Small businesses, in this regard, have a distinct advantage over larger ones, and we might well be entering an age where small companies start out-competing big ones because of technology.
Fiverr is an online marketplace offering a huge range of services (from the sublime to the ridiculous) that startups can utilize, for only five dollars.
If you're wondering what service could possibly offer any value for only $5, then you are in exactly the same boat I was.
Most of the services (called gigs) that are available on fiverr are probably not even worth the five bucks they charge. But, if you are willing to dig a bit deeper, there are a few gems that can save you a lot of time and money.
Crowdfunding is a relatively novel way for startups and entrepreneurs to raise money to support their fledgling companies - and sometimes it actually works.
