5 Free Apps Every Marketer Needs
Good software is usually costly. Current versions of Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and Camtasia are all over $500 each. Many internet marketers who are starting out can’t afford them. Yet they are needed in operating an internet business.
One option is to find earlier versions of these high-end software programs on eBay.com.
Another option is to find software programs similar to these that are completely free.
That’s what I want to share with you in today’s message. Five free software programs that every internet marketers needs…
1. OPEN OFFICE (Compare to Microsoft Office). From their website…
“OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.”
Visit http://www.openoffice.org for more details.
2.PAINT.NET (Compare to Adobe Photoshop). From their website…
“Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.”
Visit http://www.paint.net for more details.
3. CAMSTUDIO (Compare to Camtasia). From their website…
“CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)”
Visit http://www.camstudio.org for more details.
4. AVG ANTI-VIRUS FREE EDITION. (Compare to Norton). From their website…
“Antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. NEW! LinkScanner® Active Surf-Shield checks web pages for threats at the only time that matters – when you’re about to click that link. Award-winning antivirus and antispyware, Real-time safe internet surfing and searching, Quality proven by 80 million of users, Easy to download, install and use, Protection against viruses and spyware, Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.”
Visit http://free.Avg.com for more details.
5. TROUBLE TICKET EXPRESS (Compare to Kayako). From their website…
“Welcome to the home of an open source trouble ticket system. Use this CGI script on your web site for everything from bug tracking and customer support to project management and to-do lists. Creating a trouble ticket is now as easy as submitting a web form, while the help desk software assigns unique number to each service request and saves it in the database to review at any time. Truly scalable solution: start with a plain text database, upgrade to the industry-strength MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server engine as your needs grow.”
Visit http://www.TroubleTicketExpress.com for more details.
Enjoy these free alternatives to costly high-end solutions.
And feel free to post a comment with your favorite completely free applications.
Jimmy
May 13th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Trouble Ticket Express, not so much. Get the free edition of the Web Help Desk Software . Much more esthetically pleasing and a true jewel. Hope this helps!
May 14th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Great list. Another image editing program you might consider is GIMP. It’s not as good as photoshop, but it’s getting better all the time.
Mike Flouton, Monument Associates
May 14th, 2009 at 8:18 am
[...] 5 Free Apps Every Marketing Needs [...]
May 15th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Thanks for this great list Jimmy, I have most of these already, including gimp and kayako, but never heard of paint.net and web help desk software recommended in the comments.
can you also recommend a good free pdf creator, besides open office?
thanks guys.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:10 am
Hi Michael
You can try CutePDF Writer. I have been using it for years, works like a charm.
Download: http://www.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.exe
More info: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 am
Try CutePDF Writer
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
@Michael, one of the overlooked things that OpenOffice does is PRESERVE hyperlinks in PDF creation! This is THE main benefit to this software, in my opinion. Compared to Office, OO is really clunky, but one thing it does that most “PDF Exporters” cannot do is preserve the links. To an affiliate marketer, this is highly valuable functionality.
Another route to go on image editing is Adobe’s “Elements” software - costing a literal small fraction of its bigger siblings, Elements pulls in the 80 percent of all the functions you might ever use at less than 20 percent of the cost. For example, Photoshop Elements has everything *I* need for less than $100. Full-blown Photoshop is hundreds of dollars.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I needed something like Camtasia for some ideas I had. Thank you for giving an alternate. I’ve used Paint.net for a long time and was pleased to know that Open Office did pdf.
Thank you for providing this list of resources.
- Jeffery