best of breed
I use a wide variety of web-based software on a daily basis. The following are services I have found critically useful for operating a small business.
NOTE: Some of these links are AFFILIATIONS.
This means
- The same price for you.
- I make a little bit of money from your purchase.
Did I mention: the price is the same for you.
I like these services well enough that I use all of them, and I recommend all of them without any reservation whatsoever, whether I am an affiliate of the service or not.
For your convenience, I have provided both affiliate links and non-affiliate links. These services are vital to my business, and I want to see them grow to better serve me, regardless of any affiliate commission I may or may not receive.
Note my guarantee at the bottom.
- Hosting: I highly recommend Bluehost for either beginners just learning how to operate web sites, or for more experienced people who need to get something up and running very quickly. CPanel and Fantastico are supported. Shell access! Bluehost affiliate link, and non-affiliate link.
- ALL businesses serious about establishing and maintaining direct communication with prospects and customer use mailing lists, and AWeber is one of the best. I’ve used the AWeber service about 18 months. I’m absolutely delighted with Aweber and happy to recommend them with no reservation. The link will take there… sign up for the free trial, there’s zero risk:
- Mailman mailing list hosting: EMWD — Emerging Markets Web Development
- Subversion Hosting: wush.net
- Simple, collaborative project management: BasecampHQ
- Time tracking: clicktime.com
- Wiki: PBWiki
- Customer Service: getsatisfaction.com
- On line survey: surveymethods.com. Tech support is very good. The range of question types is excellent.
- Mind Mapping: FreeMind works really, really well provided you can break everything down hierarchically into a tree structure.
Every affiliate link in the list is a product which I use regularly, and which I am absolutely delighted with. Here is my promise to the reader: Use my affiliate link, and if you aren’t 100% satisfied with the product, I will send you my affiliate payment via Paypal. (Except for Bluehost because it’s against their terms of service.)
