Ok, it’s been done before. But it hasn’t been done by me. Over time, I’ve found some goodies that have helped me work smarter and more efficiently, on a shoestring budget. The following apps help you get your foot in the door when you are trying to build a business on limited resources.

1. Open Office. This is number one on the list, because it is simply great software. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The suite is a free alternative to MS Office, and has the ability to handle word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, and drawing documents. Best of all, it reads and writes MS Office compatible files! http://www.openoffice.org

2. NotesBrowser. Some of you may be tired of me telling you about this little gem, but it rates as number two for its long term value. You never outgrow it! You’ll probably have to download this and play with it to really grasp the power, but it is an information organizer. It categorizes and subcategorizes info, and is a great  place to store info that you have to access over and over. http://www.notesbrowser.com

3. Mozilla FireFox. No big news here! It’s just a browser, right? Actually, it is a powerful tool, which you can extend with plugins. I like it because as a web developer, there are plugins I can add to it that help me keep my tasks central to a single program, and which help make development of websites faster and easier. There are plugins that can help people in other industries as well. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

4. Thunderbird Mail. While we are on the subject of Mozilla, it is worth mentioning this program. I like it better than Outlook, it filters mail more simply. Besides, I never liked MS owning more of my computer than necessary. Thunderbird is mail only, but you can add plugins to it also, to extend the function. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

5. Right after Thunderbird, comes Lightning. Actually, this calendar program comes in two versions – SunBird, which is a stand alone calendar, and Lightning, which is the SunBird calendar adapted as a plugin for ThunderBird. So if you want email and calendaring in the same application, just add Lightning to Thunderbird, and off you go! http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/

6. Serif PagePlus SE. This little desktop publishing program is amazingly functional, and terrific for someone who needs to make business cards and brochures but who cannot afford software to do it. It is also great for graphic designers who want to make downloads of editable templates available on their website, because you can do them in this program, and anybody can download the program and edit them. http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PagePlus/

7. AlZip. A nice little Zip utility that can pack or unpack just about anything, and which leaves cute little eggs all over your desktop. Seriously, this is a highly functional bit of software, and we install it on every computer we own, because it is so good. http://www.altools.net

8. The GIMP. Image and photo editing software. It has its limitations and annoyances, but if you need graphic editing capability that gives you the ability to produce professional quality images, it can get the job done. http://www.gimp.org

9. Audacity. Audio recording and editing. If you need to make a sound blurb, this program can help you do it.  http://audacity.sourceforge.net

10. Infinite Patience. After all that work, you’re entitled to some relaxation! Infinite Patience has a ton of different Solitaire games. For Mac, there’s the classic Solitaire Til Dawn, which Infinite Patience can’t quite measure up to.  www.spf-15.com/infpat.htm

I’d have loved to have added AVG Anti Virus, and TexGen (a terrific little texture generator), but they are not free for commercial use. Friends of mine recommend Inkscape and Scribus, also Open Source programs for graphics and publishing, but I have not used them, so I could not include them on the list. Other favorites that did not make the list (too specific in use, or just not quite as useful), were Max’s HTML Beauty, FreeMind (a mind mapping tool) and Gadwin PrintScreen – a terrific screenshot utility.

I’ll follow this up with some other great finds, for web software, and hosted software services.

Periodically, he will call me and tell me he has purchased a domain, or a website. It is sort of an addiction, I think, this reckless spirit of gambling that possesses him and compels him to purchase without getting a professional opinion. Some of his purchases have been fairly pricy – but they sounded good at the time.

He then comes to me and asks me what it will take to make it into this, or that, and what a good deal he got. I tell him the price, and what it will take to actually turn what he bought into what he thought he was getting, and he wanders off disappointed, to look for the next illusive pot of gold.

He could ask, first. I’d tell him. He doesn’t. So his money is wasted on things that do not work, or for which he was unprepared, because he didn’t realize that he was not buying what he thought he was buying.

Many times, professionals will offer simple tips on getting the right start, and they’ll offer it at no charge. They know if they help you get started right, then there is a high chance you’ll come back to them for the next thing. But many people won’t take advantage of that.

With a website, if you intend to use a professional to help you, they should be involved from the time you purchase your domain name – sometimes even before. And you should NEVER purchase an existing website without a professional opinion, unless you have strong experience in assessing the value from a technical perspective. There are simply too many potential risks involved – things you’d never even consider that someone would do to you under the guise of selling you a website.

Domain names and websites are often not what they seem. Their value runs through many layers – the quality and length of the domain name, the age of the domain name or site, the coding of the site, the quality of the content on a site, prior promotion done for the site, etc. Many “bargain” websites were not built for the purpose of selling the site, they were built for the purpose of link propagation, and they may have hidden or subversive links buried in the code, leading to sites you’d rather not be promoting, and which can hurt your chances of ever making anything of it.

When you have a goal or dream, a professional can help you avoid serious errors, speed up the route to success, and help you get more value and profit from the things you do. That’s worth starting out right for.

Google Base has a feature that sounds like it would help webmasters. You can request a multi-user account. Only problem is, if you do, you may find yourself limited in ways that really don’t make sense.

One of my clients has two sites. They contain similar items, but no duplicates. Each item on each site is completely unique, and one of a kind.

Google Base denied our initial request for a multi-user account with those two sites. Their claim is that they have too similar items. Odd, since each one is entirely unique, and since they are all handcrafted items, no one would ever consider them to be duplicates. Further, one site has antiques, the other has contemporary items.

They also denied us because two other sites had two items that were similar, while all the rest was different. It would seem that rather than indexing the entire web, as they say they want to do, they only want to index what they consider to be unique. Even though services are distinctly different, they consider them to be the same because they are in the same category.

So before you request a multi-user account, make sure you differentiate the sites enough that someone who cannot think for themselves can tell the difference. Otherwise you’ll be denied the account.

Familiarity is where we are comfortable, certain, and secure. It is the basis of experience, predictability, and even reliability. But too much ends up no longer being an asset.

When you only know one thing, and want to make everything you do fit that one thing, familiarity is no longer a strength, but a weakness.

We see this in software choices, where someone tries to do everything with a single solution. We see it in food choices where we refuse to try anything new. We see it in our choices in style, problem solving, and the brands we use.

What frustrates me in business, is when people fall back on familiarity when it is to their disadvantage. One person wants to use HTML for everything, even those things that it should not be used for, instead of finding a more appropriate and functional solution. Another wants to make WordPress do it all – which it was never intended to do and does badly if you push it too far. A third won’t try networking because it is out of their comfort zone.

I like familiarity. But I realize that sometimes it is a trap that stops us from seeing what can be a more effective way.

I’m not talking about breaking rules that should not be broken. The rules that make sense and protect us. I’m talking about thinking outside the box and considering new methods when we are beginning to get bogged down in the existing routines.

Many times, familiarity lulls us into thinking that there cannot be an easier way, when in fact, the learning curve is often low, the time saved from the right step forward will yield profits over and over.

Take the time to honestly weigh the benefits against the drawbacks. And consider it for the long term, not just the short term, because that is generally where the biggest benefits are realized.

I’ve been trying to come up with a topic for three days now, but I’ve been so busy that it has been difficult to even think outside of what I have had to do. In that time, I’ve come to some conclusions, because of events around me.

First, I’ll never willingly choose to work with X-Cart if there is any other option. It goes onto our “do not touch” list, along with OSCommerce, CubeCart, and several others. It rates for it’s complexity, and lack of flexibility. The templating is a nightmare, outdated, clunky, and inflexible. I managed to carry off a site design to be proud of, but it still isn’t what it should have been. I will not pay for a cart that is not even close to the quality of free Open Source options, and whose support is extremely inconvenient to access – no better than that available for Open Source, and in many ways worse.

Second, there is a line that I will not cross. As one of our clients flirts with it, it reiterates my reasons for not wanting to ever promote sites that exceed the limits of my moral principles. There is always a consequence for it. One that I am not willing to court.

Third, I cannot do everything. We’ve consolidated our business again, preferring to give up the less profitable aspects rather than trying to grow in a clumsy way. By refining our services, we can do more, in less time, and profit more. Static HTML sites are not the only thing we’ve given up. We have three other businesses that we are now referring several types of work to. It keeps us focused.

Fourth, the reputation you inspire in others is of more value than anything you say. When other people say it, it has more credibility. Of course, I know this. It has just really been apparent the power this has, in the last several weeks, as we have received calls and contacts that we have not had to hunt, from people who come to us pre-sold. What a blessing!

Fifth… Faith can be tested in ways we do not expect. We never know what the true gifts are in our life until it is. I finally feel like the last bits of healing are taking place since Sidney died. My spirit feels whole again, though not terribly strong yet. It seems to be healing along with my body, which is getting better month by month as Crohn’s Disease has less and less influence on me.

One of those busy times, full of lessons, full of happenings, but much of it not fit for sharing. Too personal, too mundane, but not at all worthless.

A friend emailed, and told me that he had received an unsatisfactory response from a tech support department. I encouraged him to inform them of that, and to not settle for a non-response.

I don’t have anything against tech support personnel. Quite the contrary, I like them, because I depend on them to make me look good. I offer tech support myself, and because of that, I encourage people to let a business know when there is a problem.

See, often, the techies in the background are unaware of the problems in the foreground. This happens because 80% of dissatisfied people just go away, they don’t complain or ask for help with the problem. The other 20% ends up being very valuable. When you complain, you not only represent yourself, you represent 4 other people who DIDN’T complain as well!

Most problems on the user end of things are obscure ones that only happen in certain circumstances. Many are things we can’t even duplicate – so we rely on you to report, and then to see if we fixed it. That is just the nature of computers – they behave differently in other people’s houses, just like kids do!

If you don’t say, we may never know!

Sure, we’d rather you didn’t call and harangue us, or flame us in an email. That doesn’t help anybody, because then we just think you are a crank who isn’t satisfied by anything. But when you call or email and say, “This isn’t working, can you help me?”, we like that. We get a chance to make the problem better, and we find out what else might not be working that we didn’t know about.

People who can calmly state what the problem is, and how it occurred (tell us what you were doing when it happened), are a great help to techies.

So if you get a “non-response” from someone at the bottom of the food chain, holler again. Sometimes the little guys at the bottom of the tech support heap try to put off people with complaints that they can’t fix. Don’t let them. Ask to go to the next level. Keep doing that until you get someone who listens. Be polite, but keep insisting!

Most companies DO want to keep you happy. But sometimes you have to make some noise to get past someone who isn’t helpful. It is worth doing, because for a good company, it can make a difference to more than just yourself. It can help to solve a problem for the entire user base. And that is something to feel proud of.