Small Business Special…
Daylite is a purpose built database for tracking clients, quotes, estimates, projects, pipelines and more.
PROS:
CONS:
One of the great things about Daylite is that at any point during its use you really do feel like your using a mac application, which, as you all know, greatly increases the usability factor.
VERDICT: A generally sound all round contender that although a bit pricey can be purposed for pretty much any type of business. The real winner is the accompanying iPhone application that means you can be mobile with your company data.
USEABILITY 4 STARS
Next up….
37SIGNALS have created a suite of web apps that help you stay connected wherever you are.
The three main applications are…
Basecamp – “Manage projects, collaboration and communications.”
Backpack – “Organise and Share information across your Business.”
Highrise – “Track your contacts, leads and deals, always be prepared.”
PROS:
CONS:
VERDICT: A genuinely innovative attempt to shake up and revolutionise the CRM and Business communication market that works well and is very easy to use. Being able to access anywhere and the fact that your data is safe and backed up are a huge advantage but not being able to use off line. Having a rolling fee may also put off small businesses and freelancers.
USEABILITY 4 STARS
Lastly…
FMStarting point is deceptively simple looking. It is actually an amazingly straightforward yet powerful solution for any business.
The nature of a filemaker database is that you need to understand the basics of Filemaker but in this case the hard work has been done for you. Even customising invoice templates for your business is a breeze.
The upside of a Filemaker database is that it is infinitely customisable.
It is hard to believe that this is free as its power certainly warrants a levy. Richard Carlton Consulting also make a home version called Data4Life which offers similar functionality for running your personal as well as your business data.
CONS:
VERDICT: A super addition to any businesses arsenal. Incredibly easy to use, impressive looking documents such as invoices, estimates etc, built in email distribution and most of all COMPLETEY FREE!
USEABILITY 5 STARS
Use your own domain with GMAIL! – FREE!
Hey one and all!
Are you paying for rubbish POP inboxes from your domain registrar? Well its completely Unneccasary!
Google have offered their App account for a long time, but I only recently discovered that if you sign up as a business or instution you are able to map your domain (MX records to gmail, allowing you potentially unlimited IMAP accounts at your domain i.e brad@bigmacblog.com for the altogether reasonable sum of nothing!
Its not altogether too easy to setup so I would say its a weekend job! but well worth the effort and only really needs to be done once!
Check it out below!…
Moo.com – Not strictly Mac but too great to miss!
Moo cards, the biggest thing in contact cards since the victorian carte de visite!
Quite a community has built up around moo.com and their prices are very VERY competitive. For me the most amazing thing is that they let you have a different image on every card!
Please do check em out and post your moo cards on here for all to see!
b
