Computer Software You’ll Need for Your Online Business

If you have, or are planning an online business there are a number of software programs you’ll want to have – and know how to use. Here’s a list of some you will be happy to have on-hand.

1. JASC Paint Shop Pro. This graphics program is similar to Photoshop, but it’s infinitely easier to understand because it’s intuitive for first time users. Things work the way you might guess they would. This is the opposite of Photoshop which was designed for professionals as the ultimate graphics tool. Unless you’re a full-time graphics designer or employ someone that is in your new business – Photoshop is overkill – both in complexity and cost.

2. Google’s Suite of Business Applications online. These are free apps you use within your browser. There is a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, a presentation program, and a cool program to help you make forms easily and quickly for your website. No longer is Microsoft’s Office suite mandatory software for the business – online or offline. Google has stepped right into this space and their free tools are quite capable and sufficient for most users.

3. Speaking of Google… There are a number of things Google does better than anyone else. Here are some others… forget Outlook, use Gmail; forget PayPal, use Google Checkout as a payment solution for your online products and services; forget Outlook for it’s Calendar function also – and use Google Calendar. Forget expensive website statistics packages, use Google Analytics to keep track of everything on your site.

4. Internet Browser. There’s a new dog in town… the dog’s name is “FireFox 3.5“. It’s a recently updated, VERY fast browser that is heads, shoulders, and tail above Microsoft’s IE browser. Not to mention it’s quite a bit more secure because fewer hackers are targeting it for infiltration. Microsoft’s IE will always be the main subject of attack just by nature of who Microsoft is.

5. FireFox Plugins. These are free mini-programs that run inside the FireFox browser and give you added functionality.

These are some essential FireFox plugins to get up to speed with:

• Colorzilla - an eyedropper you can activate at any time to put over a color you need to know the HTML code for – it tells #xxxxxx code and RGB color scheme.
• FoxClocks - a world clock that resides in the lower left hand side of your browser, when you hover your cursor over it it will show you the current time in the time zones you pre-programmed.
• FireFTP - an amazingly simple program to help you FTP files to and from your web server (files for your website). Very well done – and free. I strongly suggest sending the creator a few bucks as there are no other decent FTP programs for under $20.
• FireShot – takes a screenshot of the page with one click. Allows you save it as a few different formats. This program takes a screenshot of the entire page – not just what you can see in your browser… if the page is 60,000 words long… it takes the whole picture. Priceless. (and free).
• ScribeFire – If your business has a blog, and it should, you will love this post editor. I’m using it now to create all the new business articles on this site. It allows for more customization than does WordPress or Blogger and you can use it on- or offline.
• SpeedDial – Each time you open a new window you usually face a blank page. Speeddial changes that so you can see many pages in a table. You can program each cell in the table with a new page. I have 36 cells on my page – each a link (and screenshot I can see) to a page I frequently visit. The coolest part is you can have multiple tabs of these pages – I have 4 tabs… about 80 links I use frequently. This is an amazing program no new business should be without.

6. Skype – if you call long distance or overseas much at all you’re going to want a very cost-effective way of doing so. Skype is that. Skype is free chatting and internet phone software. You can setup an account quickly and put phone credit on your Paypal account. It’s great quality – and it runs through your computer connection. So, you’ll have headphones and microphone for speaking – or a headset that plugs into your audio/mic jacks in your computer. The quality is quite acceptable. The price – cheap!

7. TweetDeck – it’s a GUI (graphics user interface) way to use Twitter that makes Twitter a joy to use, rather than a pain. Twitter is fast becoming an essential tool for businesses looking to target people in real-time that might have a use for their products.

8. AVG Antivirus – this software is free for the basic edition but it’s worth it to upgrade and receive the full coverage. Other antivirus programs are Norton, F-Prot, and McAffee.

I use many other programs but I thought I’d list the basics and share them with you. Any others that you would consider essential? Let us know!

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