Resources

We encourage all of our members to submit their favorite business links, resources and tools. Please send your links to us at info [at] thevirtualnation.com.

Visit TVN's Online Store filled with business books, computer gadgets, electronics, software and other interesting things.

23 Most Used Programs
The Virtual Nation Members Can’t Live Without!

We were going to write a “Top Ten” but the choices were so good we couldn’t stop! We got so many responses when we asked our Virtual Professional friends about what programs and websites they cannot live without and we had a difficult time choosing. So, we whittled it down to the cream of the crop and still came up with over 20!

So here’s the 23 Most Used Programs Virtual Professionals Can’t Live Without! that will have your business running like a fine tuned machine. Some are free or have a free trial, some will save you big bucks, some will save you time and some will make your job so much easier!

Here they are! Whatever type of Virtual Professional you are, designer, writer, virtual assistant, accountant or one of the more than 100 different professions who make their living via the internet you will find much of what you need right here.

This is just a sampling of the countless resources located inside of our member forum library. If you'd like to join, check out how to become a member.

Audacity: This programs is one of the easiest sound editors around. you can record and play sounds and import and export WAV, AIFF, MP3, and OGG files. Edit your sounds using cut, copy and paste techniques(if you don’t like what you did, the undo feature is unlimited), mix tracks or apply effects to your recordings. The program also has a built-in amplitude-envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode, and a frequency-analysis window for audio-analysis applications. Built-in effects include bass boost, wah wah, and noise removal, and the program also supports VST plug-in effects. www.audacity2008.com
Camtasia: Easily show exactly what is on your screen to anyone, anywhere. This screen recording tool makes lectures, training videos, PowerPoint presentations look terrific. You can immediately record what you want at any size and save it for later use. Edit and enhance your recording, add background music on a third audio track, and send it to millions of iPhone and iPod touch users! You can customize Flash FLV videos and build a web menu for them with Camtasia Theater. www.CamtasiaStudio.com
Carbonite: Hard drive crashes, theft, fire or water damage and your data, your business is gone! Carbonite is a completely automated, secure and private application that backs up your files in their secure data centers. Your files are encrypted twice, before they even leave your PC, and remain that way. Only you have access to read them. It’s always there, unseen in the background protecting your data. This could save your business. Only $49.95 per year! Let’s hope you never need it, but if you do, you will be so happy you have it! www.carbonite.com
Cayra.com If you like to mind map, this free program is for you! Brainstorming ideas, making family trees, anytime you have to get your head around a lot of different ideas and figure out how they work and connect together you can use Cayra. The “official” description is “create graphical representations of thought processes and ideas.” Link paths and change the colors, add images and hyperlinks. Hard to describe, worth checking out! www.cayra.com
Central Desktop: This site is perfect if you are working with a team and handling multiple projects/clients. All the files and communications are in one place, your clients can update their calendar for easy scheduling, to do lists and milestones keep everyone on task and time tracking is easy so you can know exactly how much time is spent and where. Clients can also access their projects, or not—your choice. www.CentralDesktop.com
crm.zoho.com Zoho CRM lets you integrate sales & marketing with campaigns, leads, sales pipelines, an integrated inventory management system, helps you streamline customer support, synchronizes CRM Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, and emails with Outlook. First 3 users are free, from the 4th on the price is $12/month/per user.
www.crm.zoho.com
Dreamweaver: This website design software is one of the best tools for building websites. No waiting for it to go live, you design it in real-world browser conditions. Your clients can edit their web pages easily without help from you or without having to buy additional software. They will love that the changes are immediate. You still maintain control by limiting changes to specific regions of the page. www.adobe.com
Fireworks: Design a website prototype or application interface for your client, including crating and optimizing images, package the whole thing into one PDF file that is clickable to demo it and get great comments from reviewers. With Fireworks you can apply lighting and shadow effects, styles, and blend modes, including seven new Adobe Photoshop® blend modes, to add depth and character to text and symbols. www.adobe.com
Go Daddy - Go Daddy has become the world's #1 choice for domains by providing innovative, competitively-priced products, delivering the highest quality customer service, and by always appreciating and listening to its customers! www.GoDaddy.com
GoogleDocs.com upload your document to Google Docs and you can access it from any computer in the world. Share it with your virtual team and they can work on it too in real time. You pick who has access and who doesn’t. Secure online storage—and it’s free! www.googledocs.com
iContact: Everything you need for your email marketing and to set up your clients. Easily track it all: your sends, opens, clicks. Charts and graphs track your email blasts in real time, newsletter templates make it easy, or use your own design for your email marketing campaign .Easy to set up, organize and leverage your email mailing list. Surveys, autoresponders and RSS feeds are included. www.iContact.com
Juffler trouble keeping track of your contacts, projects and invoices? Juffler has what you need: invoice management, including invoice totals along with paid invoices, custom invoices with your branding, import and keep details of your contacts and intuitive project management. $10/year. www.juffler.com
Logoworks - Your logo is the cornerstone of your business identity. It will appear on your signs, business cards, stationery, T-shirts, ads, and other promotional material. In short, it's critical to your business to have a professional, memorable logo that accurately reflects you and your company.

We provide small businesses with graphic design services that inspire you and enable you to emotionally connect with their customers. www.logoworks.com
MyFax: Only $10/month includes 100 sent and 200 received faxes right through the internet. Never out of paper or busy. Fax by email wherever you are: at home, at work or traveling. No charge for a local or toll free phone number, no long distance charges for your out-of-state clients. www.myfax.com
Open Office: A free, open and high-quality alternative to the pricey Microsoft Office. Many of the components are designed to mirror those available in Microsoft Office such as: a word processor similar to Microsoft Word, a spreadsheet similar to Excel, presentation program, a database program, a draw program similar to Publisher, In their own words, “OpenOffice aspires to compete with Microsoft Office and emulate its look and feel where suitable. It can read and write most of the file formats found in Microsoft Office and many other applications.”
http://download-new.com/openoffice/
Paypal.com if you don’t want to get a merchant account just yet…Paypal is an online bank. You clients can pay you via paypal, you can pay bills, customers can purchase products, and you can now have a debit card for your account. You pay a % of money you receive into your account. www.paypal.com
Professional Cart Solutions: Grow your business with your own merchant account, affiliate program and shopping cart. Accept credit cards in real-time for your products and services. Offer a variety of payment methods and reach potential clients on a global scale! Conduct teleconferences and hold forums! No expensive and complicated software and with three low-priced cart options you will find the perfect one for your business needs. www.practicepaysolutions.com
Quickbooks: The flow of money is the life blood of your business. This downloaded or online program helps you know to the penny where your money is going. Create invoices & reports, track sales & expenses. Free trial. www.quickbooks.com
RememberTheMilk.com is a list maker’s dream. This free (yeah!) program lets you set dates for your tasks and get reminder via phone, SMS or IM, locate the tasks on a map so you can decide the easiest route, share your to do list with others (or write one to remind your significant other to get the milk), store notes with your tasks and create as many lists as you need. www.rememberthemilk.com
Ring Central - RingCentral combines a toll-free or local number with advanced call management, PBX, voicemail and Internet fax, enabling customers to set up multiple extensions with voicemail, automatically screen, forward and place calls, take voicemail, send and receive faxes, and receive message alerts. With RingCentral, businesses never miss an important call, or waste time on unwanted calls. www.ringcentral.com
Skype.com grab a headset and mic and get ready to talk to anyone in the world—for free. With Skype’s free download you can talk to anyone who has a computer no matter where in the world they are. You can call a landline or cellphone for a small monthly subscription: unlimited anywhere in US & Canada: $2.95/month, unlimited to Mexico: $5.95.month, unlimited world: $9.95/month, or pay as you go for 2.1 cents/minute to most parts of the world. www.skype.com
SmartFTP.com SmartFTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. Use it for web site publishing and maintenance, uploading and downloading of images, documents, movie and music files, sharing your files with your friends and coworkers and backing up local or remote files. Free 30 day evaluation, then $36.95/year for 1 user. www.smartftp.com
Survey Monkey: You can send a survey invitation to your own email list or put a link on your blog, track who responds to your survey and send follow-up reminders to those who don't. It can be multiple choice, rating scales, drop-down menus, and more... You can change the color, size, and style of any element in your survey. Upload your own logo, and save custom themes to use on all your surveys. Results are collected in real time.www.surveymonkey.com

What else you will find at The Virtual Nation?

This community of Virtual Professionals provides members a safe place to share information, ask questions of their peers and find educational resources to help you grow your virtual business.

Browse through our website right now and see how we can serve you.

Learn the latest on what’s happening in our virtual world with our free blog access
Free monthly ezine, The Vision, with tips for running your business, thriving as a virtual professional, juggling all the responsibilities you are faced with—virtually all of the issues that face you as a virtual professional.
Free monthly teleseminars with top rated professionals with advice and suggestions from how to market yourself to balancing your professional and private life.
Advertising opportunities: articles or banner ads in The Vision ezine and announcements of your product, service, teleclasses, workshops. Check out the details! www.theVirtualNation.com
Group coaching or one on one mentoring available.
A boatload of helpful products and services

There are even more goodies if you decide to become a member of The Virtual Nation:

Access to The Virtual Nation™ forum for members only:

Membership directory
The Virtual Nation™ logo to proudly display your membership
Online file cabinet with documents and sample forms
Online forum to share best practices, resources and tips resource library
Networking opportunities
Monthly teleseminar recordings available for FREE to members only
Preferred Partner Program offering member discounts
Ambassador program - leadership-building
Volunteer opportunities for further exposure and mentoring
By invitation only - potential access to a high-level forum for Virtual Professionals who want to play a bigger game and collaborate with like-minded peers

Membership in The Virtual Nation is regularly $97 per year. The time you save and the experience you will draw from in discussions and asking questions inside the forum is worth more than that! Special member discounts will be availalble to member only. Membership in The Virtual Nation will be one stop to help you grow your virtual practice. We want to be your business hub as a reliable source of information, assistance, products and services. We are virtual professionals just like you, so we know how important a community really is!

Membership Sale:
Save $20 off a full year’s membership!

If you act right now you can get the membership price of $77 for an entire year.

Save up to $200 on eligible upgrades to CS4

Resources

23 Most Used Programs The Virtual Nation Members Can’t Live Without!

Membership Sale: Save $20 off a full year’s membership!

23 Most Used Programs
The Virtual Nation Members Can’t Live Without!

Membership Sale:
Save $20 off a full year’s membership!