Helen Bradley

When Microsoft bought Skype some years ago, disgruntled users—with questions about security, account access, and call quality—went in search of alternatives to the uber-affordable phone-and-video conferencing service. Turns out there are plenty of applications from which to choose, and we’ll show you some that offer free and low-cost calling as well as video calls and […]

Developing a customer mailing list is an essential part of building a successful business. Your mailing list adds value to your business, and it helps you keep in touch with customers. And no matter the size of your list—big or small—you need a tool to manage it. An email marketing service helps ensure that your […]

Any photo you capture with a smartphone or camera is too big to use online in its natural state. Oversize images on websites load slowly and frustrate site visitors, which can drive them into the arms of your online competitors. But a smart resizing tool lets you scale down your photos to a manageable size, […]

You don’t have to look very hard online to find people doing great things with simple animations. Animation can market your small business products and services, explain how complex things work, and encourage buyers to buy. A simple animated sequence can replace pages of text, and it provides a more compelling experience for your customers. […]

Let’s face it; if you’re not a graphic designer, creating graphics can be a daunting task. While most of us recognize when something looks good, actually creating something that looks good is another skill entirely. The folks at Canva, an online graphics design application, understand this and created a tool that practically guarantees that anyone […]

Skype does more than give you a free way to talk online. In fact, Skype has plenty of handy features that can help you manage your small business no matter where you are or what technology you use. We’ve collected the best kept secrets to help you harness the power of Skype for your small […]

You don’t need to invest in Adobe Acrobat to create and work with pdf documents. You’ll find lots of small business software that you can use to create, complete and sign, and even split and join pdfs that don’t require spending big bucks. Depending on what you want to do with your pdfs, you have […]

Did you know that just one email can tell people a lot about your business? And not all of what it says is good. Many small business owners fail to consider how their business email looks to others. Does it say professional, savvy and smart, or—something less favorable? Here are the most common email mistakes […]

Are you hankering to give your PowerPoint presentations a visual boost? Do you want to get away from the “I did this in PowerPoint look” that you (and everyone else) get from using PowerPoint’s built in templates? Do you need a timeline slide or help finding graphics to illustrate your slide content? If you answer […]

Collecting and organizing ideas is a key first step to undertaking any task. When you’re planning a new product, making a decision, organizing an event or solving a problem you’ll be full of ideas, and it’s important to write them down in a logical and expandable way. A mind map is a simple tool that […]

Most of us use PowerPoint to design slide show presentations, but there’s a lot more to a PowerPoint slide than you might think. Many people find PowerPoint so easy to use that they make it their go-to application for diverse tasks such as creating office signage and designing Web videos. We’ve rounded up our favorite […]

There was a time when tying a string around a finger was the way to remember what needed doing. Fortunately we now have phones, tablets, email managers and Web apps to do the remembering for us and help improve our productivity. Today’s range of task-management apps will track your list, organize your day, send SMS […]