Three Online Tools You Can't Live Without

[Third Sector Lab]

I'm interested to know what tools SBF folks use online, whether it's email, task management, calendar, photo editing, CRM, etc etc

So post your top three!

Mine, excluding the wonderful SBF are...

1. Google Apps for Domains
It powers our charity partnership's email, calendar, document storage and more.

2. ZOHO Creator
I'm only just getting into this but once I have it fully sussed it will provide us with an online database which can be accessed by upto 5 users. Oh and it's free!

3. Picnik
Perfect for editing photos and graphics on the fly!

 

[Neil]

The only tool I use every day apart from Google aps is Roboform to save all my passwords.

RoboForm - A Great way to Save Time and Remember Passwords | Internet Marketing Digest

 

[Kasumi]

I've not used any of your top 3 tools Ross but I do use Roboform it is a useful tools for passwords and also generating totally random passwords (rather than just the dogs name plus a few numbers!)

 

[Idea15]

1. BT Workspace - project management, to-do lists, scheduling, client communication, file storage and backups, happy days.
http://signup.btworkspace.com

2. FreeAgent - accounting and money management for freelancers
FreeAgent - Online accounting for freelancers - FreeAgent Central

3. WiseWomen - the greatest web design mailing list in the world - or as I call it, my 800 closest colleagues.
Wise-Women: The Mailing Lists and how to sign up

 

[andrewburnett]

I work on the Mac (not that there is anything wrong with PCs, don't want to start anything ) so CRM, email, calendars, task management etc is all nicely synced at "the touch of no buttons" between iPhone, Mac and MacBook.

There are still a plethora of online tools that I use though - to choose just 3 is a tough one, but here goes:

1. Twitter - keeps me updated with my industry at all times of day and night.

2. Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools (ok, they're 2 tools, but work very nicely together).

3. SEOmoz promember's toolbox (also a collection of tools, but well worth the small subscription fee for any SEOs).

 

[Terry]

1. AdSense
2. Google IE toolbar spellchecker
3. AdSense

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

I use iGoogle to pull in all my rss feeds and keep up to date with all the news etc. I also use it to create angles for posts on the forum etc.

Very recently I also started using Gmail much more than I used to mostly because the spam side i've found to be brilliant. I now have most of my email going through it and love the way i can tag messages etc.

I also use Goosync which synchronises my Blackberry calendar with my Google calendar and keeps everything up to date.

My seems to be very heavily Google orientated but i'd be loathe to switch now seeing as they all work very well

 

[ScottJ]

Netvibes for checking various feeds
Google Keyword Tool for research
I also check grabitnow.com just to see what daily bargains they have

 

[Tim Barlow]

1. Sales Force - simple, cheap CRM
2. Google Sites - wiki software - we use it for our operations manual.
3. Google Analytics - enterprise level web analytics for free

 

[Third Sector Lab]

I've had a play about with Google Sites before, with the intention of creating a simple intranet for our charity partnership.

Is your ops manual only available internally or could I have a peek?

 

[Tim Barlow]

Hi Ross.

I am afraid it is internal only. However our use of it is very straight forward. We simply use the plain web page system and don't bother with gadgets, lists etc. It's nowhere near as complicated as the sample sites Google shows. Adding images is about as advanced as we get.

In essence it is just a series of documents connected by hyperlinks that anybody in the team can add to or modify whenever they want, from wherever they want. Google sites is just a very easy way for people who don't code to set one up.

I think wikis are great at motivating people to update things. If you read something that you know is wrong, you can help but want to change it. As a result I don't mind if someone puts something incomplete or inaccurate up because i know it will simply motivate others to tidy it up.

We have a rule (that gets applied occasionally!) that if you ask a question, you have to add the answer to the wiki. (The other rule is if you don't ask questions, no chocolate - a rule that was added by someone else in the team as a result of the collaboration a wiki produces!). As a result the knowledge base grows and grows without a concerted effort being put in to build it.

(BTW thanks for the reminder about the spell check tool on the Google toolbar)

 

[Third Sector Lab]

Thanks for the swift response, it's good that your wiki is getting used. Without constant input they become a waste of time. By the way, love your company's logo!

Does anyone on SBF use any ZOHO applications?