Guest Post by Adrienne Carlson

Almost everything’s done online these days; with the virtual world slowly taking over the real one, more and more people are living amidst the trillions of zeroes and ones that are floating around in cyberspace. In fact, they prefer to do so, because it’s more convenient and mostly free. The Internet is a great place if you’re looking for free software and resources to enhance your business and make it more effective. And some tools are more of a necessity than others, like:

Project management software: If your organization has around 50 or fewer employees, you could easily find free project management software that allows you to allocate tasks and your employees to check them off as they’re done. Each employee’s responsibility is outlined and there is no room for blame games and finger pointing because it’s easy to keep track of who is doing their job and who isn’t. For free options, look up GanttProject and iTeamWork; or if you want the paid kind, try Basecamp.

Scheduling and calendar software: You’re going to have a lot on your mind, so it becomes difficult to remember all that you’re supposed to do in a day or a week. If you cannot afford the services of a secretary or if you’d like to do without one, use tools like Google Calendar and other free options that can be downloaded from the Internet. They allow you to store and remember important dates, set reminders for appointments, share your schedules with other people, and generally keep you abreast of all that you need to do.

Backup and restore software: When all your data is online, this is one tool you must definitely invest in. Your data must be automatically backed up at regular time intervals and stored securely in a location different from your office. Most organizations prefer to hook up with cloud computing services to store their data securely in the event of a crash or data loss. You could check out Back2zip (at a very minimum cost) or FBackup for free software.

Antivirus solutions: Protect all your computers and data with effective anti-virus and security systems. While you do get great service from the big guns like McAfee and Norton, if you’re looking to cut costs, the free versions from Avira and AVG work just as well.

File sharing software: If you’re on the move and have just realized that all your important files have been left behind at the office rather than loaded on to your laptop as you thought they had, what you need is file sharing software. Like Dropbox, for instance. It allows you to put all your files in one folder which can then be accessed from any computer that has Dropbox installed on it. All changes and updates are automatically reflected in the original files. Saves you the hassle of carrying around pen drives or losing them inadvertently.
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This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of online degrees. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson83@yahoo.com.