Tools of trade

I find it amazing how many tools foe entrepreneura on the internet are free and how available they are. I'm Mac biased, however I'm sure you can do the same thing with Wins or Linux. The point is on cloud based and online tools, not on the computer. Here is my list of tools I use, when I'm sketching out new projects/prototypes for internet services. 

- Gmail and everything G: I host all of my mailing addresses there. Some say that Google is evil and that they don't want to have the Big gBrother checking their mail. Well they are many more ways how somebody could tap into your account than hacking Google abusing it. Unless you're from another planet, you've heard of google docs, forms and other stuff. It's useful and what I really like, it's good enough for me. Price: 0

- gContacts and Isync: again Google, I have my addresses tagged and synced with my phone mac's address book and than it syncs through Isync (standard on mac) with my Nokia, works with everything else out there as well. iSync has a great feature that allows you to sync only those addresses with your phone that have have phone numbers, thus leaving all mailing lists alone. I use gContacts to generate lists who I should contact if i'm in NY, notify if I have something new or just update every 3 months. Checks gContacts tag feature, it's really powerful. Price: 0 

- LinkedIn: I don't use Facebook, because I can't find a good use for it, but I definitely use LinkedIn. It's the source of of my business contacts and I use it frequently when I need to find someone close to my network. Price: 0

- DropBox: the ultimate file syncing tool, I use it on my Mac, iPad, everywhere. It simply works. Price: 0

- iWeb and Google Sites: iWeb is limited to Mac but I use it to generate prototypes for web sites and even production ready web sites. If I need any kind of interaction, like subscriptions or order forms, I simply use gForms. I don't care if it looks slightly lame. It's good enough for low traffic, reliable and it works. Google Sites works well as well, I don't use it, however it's perfect for any kind of site generation/hosting that is occasional in nature and it's aimed at sited that convey information and not interact with users a lot. Price: 0

- Skype: talk, talk, talk, for free

- gChat: yeah I know, again Google. It's free, widely used and it works 

- TechMeMe: the fastest way to learn about important stuff, I'm not fan about browsing through a lot of web sites, I even don't follow TechCrunch. I know I should, but I don't. If something really important happened somewhere I'll stumble over it. It's very unlikely that I'll fail in a business opportunity if I don't read all the blogs. 

- Twitter: I use it as an alert tool for my followers and friends. I'm not a heavy user, and I don't use it to gather information. I use it more to stay in touch with companies I'm interested in, rarely with people. Don't DM me, because it's likely that I won't read it for several days. 

- EverNote: not ideal, but the most useful way to sync your text files all over. Price:0 or a few dollars if you want to have an offline ability on Ipad