If you’re like me, you remind yourself of lofty, back-burner goals every few weeks. “I’m going to write that book, start a business, exercise every day and relax for an hour every evening. This is my year to shine,” you say.

Then life happens. The boss calls and unloads a last-minute project on you. Grandma needs someone to drive her to the doctor’s office, and of course he’s running two hours behind. You waste an hour on the subway every morning and night, and by the time you get home, your hour of relaxation has become an hour of vegetation in front of the television, collar loosened, wondering if you’ll ever catch a break. Your bed calls, then your alarm shrieks a few hours later, slamming you into consciousness and rebooting the never-ending cycle of I’ll get to it tomorrow.

How, precisely, are you supposed to thrive in a world where every hour is claimed, usually weeks in advance?

By utilizing what I call the “untouchable” moments; those slivers of time that exist within an already existing event, a moment that can’t be further ensnared by last-minute appointments, yet is often ignored or underutilized by those who can’t escape them. That hour you spend in the waiting room while grandma gets her check-up is an untouchable moment, as is your hour-long subway commute and overnight delay at the airport.

Thanks to modern technology — specifically smartphones and Internet tablets — utilizing these untouchable moments has never been easier. With these five awesome apps, you can increase your overall productivity, save yourself money and work toward your goals at a steady pace, all while waiting for your plane transfer or granny’s bill of health.

The Top Apps

• Evernote is the kind of app you might hear a geek whisper about in his sleep. As anyone who owns an iPad, smartphone and laptop can tell you, keeping your data organized and up-to-date on each device/machine is an effort akin to crawling where there isn’t a floor. Evernote remedies this problem by forming a digital bridge of sorts between all your devices; it allows you to capture app info from, say, your iPhone, then access it again later via Evernote on your Mac. Handy, right? Now you can brainstorm ideas while on the subway, capture them via Evernote, and have them immediately available when you get home, no effort required. 

• Aggregate all your finances into a single account with Mint.com’s own Mint App. This app was awarded the “Best Finance App” on TIME Magazine’s list of 50 Best iPhone Apps in 2011. You can categorize your spending, create a budget, get alerts when you fall below a certain threshold and more. Mint just released it’s app for iPad, too.

• Penultimate is an app that turns your iPad into a high-quality writing tablet. You’ll quickly forget you’re writing on a digital app once you put stylus to touchscreen and see your words appear on the photo-realistic paper. This iPad app is excellent for sketching out a design you have in mind, outlining an upcoming project or transcribing an audio file as you listen. 

• Yelp!’s mobile app allows you to search for local businesses, read reviews and find out prices – all from the convenience of your smartphone. Need to find a local cafe with Internet access? Launch Yelp! Mobile, search for nearby coffee shops and filter for the ones with Wi-Fi. You’ll get directions alongside customer reviews and other pertinent info, sending you on your way as fast as your finger can tap.

• If you’re a loyal Google user, few apps will do more for your on-the-go productivity than Google’s own suite of apps. Need to send out a handful of emails while you’re waiting for the train to show up? Use Google’s Gmail App. Want to finish up a business proposal and get the document to a prospective client? Use Google’s Docs app, which allows you to create and publish documents straight from your smartphone.

It’s All About You

In the end, the best productivity apps for your untouchable moments are the ones best tailored to your needs. If you’re always adjusting work documents and transmitting them to the relevant colleagues, Evernote and other file-transfer and document apps will serve you best.

If, on the other hand, you’re always on the go, download a plethora of travel-related apps: Yelp!, as well as discount finders and route optimizers, for example.

It’s never been easier to turn your downtime into uptime and you’ll discover fertile working hours you never realized you were missing.

Stuart Pratchett is an East Coast writer who was a featured writer for Logic Media and contributes to many publications. Stuart blogs via Contently.com.

Today’s gadget wars may be bloody and well-publicized, but the battles between gadgets are nothing new. Long before the Kindle and the Nook started throwing punches, there was Sega Genesis vs. Nintendo and BetaMax vs. VHS. Click on the image above to expand the infographic and check out some of the gadget wars of the past and present.

When it comes to shoring up your personal finances, Craigslist is a great two-way tool that both helps you save and make money. Early on it seemed like a well-kept secret, an insider’s way to find apartments, furniture and jobs. But now, 16 years later, though the site is far beyond its humble beginnings in terms of users and page views (nabbing more than 20 billion worldwide page views a month), the service looks and works exactly as it did when it first appeared.

The bad news is that the search and filter functions on Craigslist don’t work as well when handling such a large number of listings, and the filter is either too aggressive or not aggressive enough. This is where your smartphone comes in. There are a myriad of free, unofficial Craigslist apps doing the job that the website should be doing on its own: filtering, sorting and finding you more suitable listings for your dream apartment, a used car, or a buyer for your old Ikea dresser.

Craigslist Free App

If you love the design of newspaper classified ads, but like the content of Craigslist, then this app is for you. The typeface, headlines and graphics look like an old-school newspaper, but the app doesn’t function like one. There is a press-and-hold feature allowing you to interactively “cross off” or “circle” ads. There’s interactive mapping and all the filtering tools that make the other Craigslist apps so useful. So unlike the newspaper, you won’t have to slog through all those two-bedroom apartments in the burbs in order to find that studio in the city. Lifelike Craig looks better on an iPad than an iPhone because you can get the full range of listings at a glance. For iPhone and iPad. (Pay 99 cents and get the HD upgrade.)

Craigslist Mobile

Craigslist Mobile has a free and “ultimate” version. The free app will get you plenty, though, such as filtered searches with tiny photo previews that darken after you’ve viewed the listing (so you don’t look at the same one twice). The mapping feature takes you straight to the location of the apartment or service. From within a listing, you can also e-mail the poster, forward the posting to a friend or mark a listing as a favorite. Bonus: You can post a listing from within the app, so you can snap a picture of that overstuffed chair you want to get rid of and post it immediately. For iPhone, iPod and Android.

Craigsphone

This app takes a different approach and actually looks like a miniaturized version of the Craigslist site itself. Stripped of bells and whistles, Craigsphone is probably the one app that most pleases the site’s purist founder; unfortunately, it’s a little too similar to the too-basic-to-be-functional website. There’s no fancy “mapping” feature, and you can only e-mail the listing from within the page (like the website), and there are no preview pictures. Unless you are an ultra-minimalist, there’s no reason to use Craigsphone when other options do a better job. For iPhone, iPad and Android.

CraigsPro

Feature for feature, CraigsPro does nearly everything Craigslist Mobile does. The main difference users will notice is the app’s graphics, which are colorful and almost cartoonishly cute. But once inside, the guts of the app are less useful. Although there is a mapping function (similar to Craigslist Mobile), the way the listings are displayed isn’t optimal for the phone. Rather than being reconfigured for the device, the original listing shows the listing inside the app in a “frame” (close your eyes and think back to the mid-’90s and all those bad websites, and you can imagine CraigsPro). One bonus: You can tweet listings to your followers. For iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android. (There are also two more robust versions for 99 cents and $1.99.)

iCraig

This free app is easy to navigate—and it filters those pesky listings having nothing to do with your search. You can get more specific (say, turning on that “title only” search) or leave subcategories open. The payoff comes in more finely tuned results that are easier to read at a glance in the palm of your hand. For iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad. (Users can pay 99 cents for the in-app upgrade.)

Cell phone. Internet tablet. MP3 player. Netbook. Digital camera. Digital video camera. Ebook reader. Portable GPS. Digital pedometer. The number of gadgets that slowly work their way into your life is enough to make anyone go ga-ga (and not in the “Lady” sense). With each of these devices comes a spider web of cables, and Murphy’s Law dictates you’ll find yourself short at least charger on your next business trip (the one you needed most, alas). What started as a technological revolution has become a burden of remembering to charge this, update that and download the essential folder off…which gadget was it again?

Not ready to part with your laptop? Forget the iPad and upgrade to a high-end smartphone. You’ll be able to read books, utilize a plethora of apps, listen to music, take pictures and record video, navigate using GPS software, monitor your health, access the Internet cloud apps, such as Google Docs, send email and more, all from a single device.

With a new crop of Internet IPOs including household names like Groupon – and possibly Facebook – set to trade publicly at enormous valuations, many pundits are starting to make comparisons to the heady days we saw at the turn of the century. Will investors’ interest in these social media startups usher in a new bull market or are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of 1999-2000 with a new tech bubble?

So what do you think? Is the investment community’s interest in social media really just Bubble 2.0 or does it represent the fundamentally-sound return of the tech sector?

Simit Patel is a trader, writer, and technology entrepreneur. Simit blogs via Contently.com.

These guys need to hammer out a compromise before my head starts smoking. Here’s what they’ve come up with. Frugal Guy says Gadget Guy can keep his stupid phone, on one condition: he has to keep the monthly bill to the bare minimum. That means the stingiest data and talk plans, and no SMS plan. Basically, every cost-saving measure short of breaking into the cable box and routing the neighbors’ service into my house. (Frugal Guy doesn’t really understand cell phone technology; he’d be fine with tin cans and string.)

Okay, enough shtick. I carry an AT&T-network iPhone. Here’s what it would cost me if I went all-out with unlimited voice, 4GB data, and unlimited SMS:

And that’s not including taxes and fees, which total about 18% here in Seattle. That brings the total to $159. That’s over $1900/year. Frugal Guy just threw up.

The minimal plan is a lot more wallet-friendly, though. For 450 minutes of voice, 200MB data, and no text messages, I pay $65/month—including taxes and fees. That’s far less than the national average smartphone bill of $107, according to J.D. Power’s 2011 Mobile Smartphone CSI Study.

The question is: how do you squeeze your talk, data, and text messages into the minimum plan without taking all the fun out of your phone? Here’s how I do it.

Voice

Among people I know, the pattern is consistent: get a smartphone, spend less time on the phone. I wasn’t a heavy user of minutes to begin with, but now I use even fewer.

So you’ll want to check your usage and make sure you’re not paying for a 900 minute plan if you only use 47 minutes per month. AT&T offers rollover minutes that accumulate from month to month; I’ve accumulated enough of them to make it through several calls from my grandmother.

The carriers charge big money for international calls. For example, to make a call from the US to Canada on AT&T, you’ll pay 39 cents per minute. If you call using the Google Voice app, you’ll just use regular minutes and pay nothing extra. Call Japan, and now you’re looking at $3.49/minute for AT&T and currently free for Google Voice. Sure, you can buy a monthly international plan and pay your carrier less per minute, but as long as Google Voice exists, why would you?

While on wi-fi, you can use Skype or (on an iPhone) FaceTime without using up any minutes. Skype charges (not much—about 2 cents a minute for US and Canada) for outgoing calls to landlines and cell phones; calls to other Skype users are free.

Furthermore, there’s a free iPhone app called Talkatone that lets you make and receive calls absolutely free, via Google Voice. If you use it over wifi, that means no minutes, no data. I tried it and it seems to work fine.

SMS

Two easy options here. Google Voice offers unlimited free SMS. You just to to make sure your friends have your Google Voice number in their phones, not your “real” cell phone number.

Google Voice doesn’t support MMS, however. A popular cross-platform 99-cent app called WhatsApp Messenger offers free messaging and chat of all kinds, but you can only communicate with other WhatsApp users.

Similarly, Apple will be introducing a free messaging service in iOS 5 (due this fall) called iMessenger that will work only with other Apple devices. Because you weren’t already sick of people telling you to get an iPhone.

Data

Back when I bought my phone, in the good old days of 2009, there was only one data plan: unlimited. It was raining data. Hallelujah!

Then last year, AT&T announced it would end unlimited data in favor of 200MB and 2GB monthly plans. But existing unlimited users would be grandfathered in. With my footloose data-slurping ways, I figured I’d stick with unlimited. Imagine my surprise when I went on AT&T’s website and found that I’d never gone over 400MB a month.

I challenged myself to keep it under 200MB. It turned out all I had to do was stop downloading podcasts over 3G and stop streaming YouTube videos on the bus. (I also turned off automatic email and calendar checking, but this helped more with battery life than data usage.)

If you’re a Netflix addict, AT&T’s 200MB plan (or worse, Verizon’s 75MB plan) isn’t going to cut it. But at least go onto your carrier’s website and check your historical data usage. You might be paying for a mile and using an inch.

The Android grass is greener

Yes, this has been totally iPhone-biased so far. Write what you know, and all that.
For another perspective, I emailed Darryl Doak of the Android Authority site. Doak describes himself as “obsessed with saving cash” (part of my brain is nodding in sympathy) and wrote a total cost of ownership comparison for various Android phones on various carriers.

You can implement the same data and messaging strategies outlined above on any smartphone. But if your contract is up and it’s time for a new phone, choosing wisely can save you big money. Doak recommends the Motorola Triumph handset on Virgin Mobile, a prepaid carrier. The phone itself is expensive at $300, but the monthly payment including unlimited SMS and data is $35—with no contract. Compared to an AT&T iPhone, “That’s two iPads worth of savings during your common two year contract time,” says Doak.

Way to make a Frugal Guy jealous, Darryl.

Say you and a bunch of your friend want to go to a concert together. You need to buy the tickets in one batch to get adjacent seats, so you step up to the plate and throw down your credit card.

You think to yourself, “Boy, I was so generous, they’ll definitely have the appreciation to remember AND the respect to pay me back right away the next time I see them so that I don’t have to awkwardly hound them for the hard earned cash that is rightfully mine.”

Not so fast, bucko.

The problem is that we live in a society where there are monetary exchanges going on multiple times per day for everyone. And at the same time we are overwhelmed by the media, by advertising, by work, and everything else. It’s hard to remember to pay people back. Even if your friends do remember, there will still be a few jerks out there who never intended to pay you back unless you shake it out of them.

So how do you get your money back without looking like a desperate, distrustful, selfish jerk yourself? That is what we are all afraid of, after all. That and the painful awkwardness. Luckily, there are a few web services and mobile apps out there today that can help us do the dirty work.

Venmo

• -One-Time Fees: None
• -Service Fees: None
• -Mobile Apps: Android, iPhone
• -Overview: Venmo is the only peer-to-peer payment system that is completely free. No transaction fees, even for debit and credit card payments (which has to make one wonder how Venmo stays in business and when the catch will come). You link either a credit card or a bank account up to your phone number and the rest is magic. Enjoy Venmo while it’s free, hopefully it stays that way!

Paypal

• -One-Time Fees: None
• -Service Fees: None with bank account, fees with credit card
• -Mobile Apps? Android, iPhone, Blackberry
• -Overview: Paypal has become a bit synonymous with fees. However, that’s not the case with their person-to-person payments service – if your friend has a bank account, that is. You choose how much the person your billing owes you, Paypal emails and/or sends a note to that person’s Facebook wall. That person then logs in to their Paypal account (or creates one) and sends the payment. You choose whether you or they pay any associated credit card fees, but there are no fees bank transfers.

WePay

• -One-Time Fees: None
• -Service Fees: 3.5 percent or $0.50 (whichever is greater) for credit card, $0.50 for ACH Transfer
• -Mobile Apps: N/A
• -Overview: WePay is very similar to PayPal, but with a cleaner, more-intuitive interface and some enhanced features, including the ability to set up ticketing events and donation campaigns with their own unique homepage. You will pay for the added functionality to the tune of $0.50 for ACH bank transfers or 3.5% for credit card fees. One big downside: no mobile functionality, so you cannot bill your friends on the spot – often the best time to do it.

GoPayment

• -One-Time Fees: None
• -Service Fees: 2.7 percent per transaction if you use the free card swipe reader, 3.7 percent for manual entries. For those accepting lots of transactions, there’s a pricing plan.
• -Mobile Apps: Available for iPhone, Android, iPad and Blackberry.
• -Overview: Intuit (the owner of Mint.com) has a suite of payment-processing products, including GoPayment, an easy-to-use mobile app and card reader that’s appropriate for either small business or individual use (even Girl Scouts have used it to take payment for their cookie sales).  Since there’s no contract or fee for the card reader, it’s a good option for people who may only need to take payments on an occasional basis.

Square

• -One-Time Fees: None
• -Service Fees: 2.75 percent with reader, 3.75 percent + ) $0.15 per transaction when card is entered manually.
• -Mobile Apps: Android, iPhone
• -Overview: Square is positioning themselves for business use, however, their service could be used for person-to-person payments as well. You get mailed a free card reader that you plug in to your phone, after signing up for the service (which is free). From there, it’s a flat 2.75 percent fee for collecting the payment via the reader. If you enter a card number manually, it is 3.75 percent plus $0.15 per transaction. A bit steep, if you ask me, but it is an alternative to get people to pay right on the spot what they owe you if they haven’t got cash or a check. If you want to be a real stickler with your friends, just add on the service fees on top of what they owe you!

Share-A-Bill

• -One-Time Fees: $3.99
• -Service Fees: None
• -Mobile Apps: iPhone
• -Overview: Whereas all of the other services on this list are ways to actually collect payment, Share-A-Bill is a little more subtle. It’s positioned more as a travel app that allows you to expense out all shared costs, work in currency exchange (for traveling), figure out who owes what, and then email out a report afterwards. It is not a payment collection service, on its own. If you have good trust with your friends, that might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately, it’s only available as an iPhone app at this point.

Looking for other great personal finance apps? Check out this list of the best free financial calculator apps or best Android personal finance apps. And, you can always download the Mint Android and iPhone apps for free.

G.E. Miller is the author of 20somethingfinance.com ñ recently voted as the best money blog for twenty-somethings by Kiplinger. Financial independence is his goal and passion.

Hard. Drive. Fail.

They’re three of the most chilling words in 21st century English. Anyone who’s experienced data loss on a grand scale will remember that full-body flush of panic that hits when you realize your digital life has just vanished into the ether.

With so many of our personal and professional belongings existing only as ones and zeroes, keeping it all on one laptop is asking for trouble.

Why You Need Online Backup

Just as you would buy insurance for your health, home or car, you need to have a plan in place for your digital possessions. Backing up your data onto an external hard drive is an option, but hard drives can get stolen or be destroyed by flood or fire. The solution? Online data backup. Uploading your photos, documents and videos to an unseen, intangible cloud may seem less secure than transferring everything to a physical drive, but the online backup services in this review encrypt your data and store it in centers equipped with motion censors, seismic pedestals, temperature regulators and 24/7 biometrically secured access. In short: once you’ve uploaded your files, they’re not going anywhere.

There are lots of online backup services out there, but we focus here on four popular offerings: Backblaze, Carbonite, iDrive and Mozy. These all cost around $5 per month to backup the contents of one personal computer.

Getting Started

To get started with each service you need to download a small app that will place itself unobtrusively in your task bar. The app will locate all of your personal files, or you can manually select which folders to upload.

Assuming you’ve got a decent number of files to preserve, the initial backup process will take a long time. Think in terms of days rather than hours. But all this uploading happens in the background, leaving you free to use your computer as normal. If your internet is on the slow side, and you want to use other bandwidth-intensive applications without interruption (say, watching high-def streaming video), you can toggle the upload speed in the settings of your backup app.

Once you’ve slogged through the first backup, things get much easier. There are two backup modes: automatic backup, in which files are uploaded as soon as they are created or modified, and scheduled backup, which occurs at a time and interval of your choosing. (The default is usually every night, at a time when your average nine-to-fiver has hit the hay and your computer’s in an idle state.)

Should disaster strike your laptop in the form of theft, a spilled cup of coffee or a hard drive meltdown, the data recovery process is simple, but, as with the initial upload, will take a long time. You can download your entire collection of files or browse and select which ones you need. Excluding Carbonite, which only offers data restoration via download, the other option is to have your files FedExed to you on DVD or USB drive. It’s faster, but be prepared to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Beyond Backup

In addition to safeguarding your digital life against disaster, backup services can be handy for accessing files on the run. Carbonite, iDrive and Mozy all offer mobile apps for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and Android devices. These allow you to view and share your documents and music from anywhere. (Backblaze has yet to release any mobile apps, but the smart money says it’s only a matter of time.)

Four Services Compared

Backblaze doesn’t have the name recognition of Mozy and Carbonite, but its nifty extras and ease of use make it a worthy contender. Five dollars per month gets you unlimited storage. There is a 15-day free trial.

A newly added feature is Locate My Computer, which uses mapping and ISP logging to pinpoint the location of a stolen computer. Data restoration via FedExed DVD is $99, or $189 for a USB drive.

Pros: Unlimited storage. Computer-locating feature. External hard drive backup.

Cons: No mobile apps (yet). Activating the computer locating feature requires you to disclose your whereabouts.

Carbonite costs $59 per year. There are no limits on storage, but upload speed will slow significantly after the first 200GB. A 15-day free trial will let you decide whether to sign up for the year.

Pros: Unlimited storage. Blackberry app.

Cons: Snail-paced upload speed after 200GB. No external hard drive backup. Cannot restore files from DVD or hard drive.

iDrive provides a free Basic option with a 5GB storage limit. The next level up, Pro Personal, is 150GB for $4.95 per month or $49.50 per year.

Pros: Can backup external drives. Free option provides a generous 5GB limit. Data restoration via USB drive is only $69.95 with free shipping.

Cons: Software not as user-friendly as other services.

Mozy also offers a free backup service, but with a 2GB limit. Its MozyHome offering gives you 50GB for $5.99 per month (reduced to $5.49 on a one-year plan) or 125GB for $9.99 per month ($9.16 on a yearly plan). Restoring data via DVD costs 50 cents per gigabyte, plus $69.95 in shipping and processing fees.

Pros: Can backup external drives. Add an additional 20GB of space for $2 per month.

Cons: Higher price for limited storage.

The Verdict

Backblaze is the eager-to-please underdog, and its interface is slick and simple, but the lack of mobile apps is a big minus. Mozy has long been a trusted name, but the recent switch from unlimited storage to tiered, costlier options takes away from its otherwise great service. iDrive’s interface is a little clunky, but its USB drive restoration option is the cheapest by far.

If you’ve got less than 200GB of files and you don’t need to backup an external hard drive, Carbonite is a solid choice. If you have more than 200GB, aren’t fussed about mobile file access and want to include your external drive/s in the great data protection adventure, Backblaze is a better option.

To get the hang of online backup, download a few free trial versions of backup products and take them for a test drive, experimenting with speed throttling, automatic and scheduled backup, and restoring files through the desktop or web interface. That way you’ll get a clearer idea of the best way to secure your digital life — and memories. That’s a process you can’t afford to skip.

Writer with a background in tech and web video. Originally from Australia, now in New York. Ella blogs via Contently.com.

When was the last time you dropped $200 on software? A clever geek might tell you “never.”

Getting free software doesn’t have to mean stealing. The past decade of open-source software culture, along with today’s app economy, has yielded a plethora of fantastic alternatives to traditionally expensive software solutions. Often, free software is every bit as good — or even better — than boxed products.

Here are 9 of the most popular paid software products, and how you can get free equivalents:

WORD PROCESSING — Microsoft Office: $149.99; OpenOffice: Free.

Microsoft Word has become a staple word-processing product both at home and at work. If you love the Microsoft Office suite but don’t mind a knock-off version, download OpenOffice. It comes with similar programs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, all for free. It has nearly all the same functionality as Office, just a slightly different look. With it, you can open documents meant for Office products, as well as save documents so that they can be opened by those who did spend the cash on MS Office.

ANTIVIRUS — Norton 360: $47.99; Trend HouseCall Online: Free.

Viruses are no fun, biological or digital. Whereas $50 virus protection software may be pretty cheap compared to the cost of losing everything on your computer, you can scan your machine for viruses for free using Trend Micro HouseCall , online from any web browser. No download required. If downloaded anti-virus software is what you want (for some reason), several antivirus companies offer free trials, but you have to be careful where you download from. As ironic as it sounds, it’s easy to download a virus instead of the software.

WEBSITE BUILDER — Network Solutions: $27.18/month; Wix: Free.

For unlimited disk space, monthly data transfer, FTP and email accounts, the company Network Solutions supplies professional options for higher traffic sites. But if the word ‘code’ is synonymous with ‘hieroglyphics’ in your mind, Wix makes a good alternative. You don’t need to know anything about html, css, or javascript and can still create a professional website for free.

FTP — CuteFTP Lite: $24.99; Filezilla: Free.

Looking for a way to get your files up to your website server? CuteFTP is among the File Transfer industry’s lead software providers, but there are other popular providers that offer free alternatives with varying capabilities. FileZilla is free, open-source, cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP software.

MUSIC EDITING — Pro Tools 9: $599.00; Audacity: Free.

Music editing experts know Avid’s Pro Tools software produces some of the most professional cuts… for $600. Audacity, on the other hand, offers core music editing features — albeit without frills and extras — for free. For $5 a month, you can do all your music editing online with Indaba. You can even collaborate with other artists and make music together in the cloud. If you’re a budding artist or audio engineer, use Audacity or Indaba to convert, record, splice, speed up, and cut away, and save a few hundred dollars!

VIDEO EDITING — Adobe’s Premier Elements: $99.95; Jaycut: Free.

Adobe’s Premier Elements is the #1 seller for movie making software compatible with Windows and Mac. But if you’re reading this article, chances are you have Internet access, which means you can cut and edit videos for free online with tools like Jaycut. Jaycut allows you to organize video clips, edit-in/out all the details you want and publish videos to show off your video-creating skills.

PHOTO EDITING — Adobe Photoshop 5: $699; Aviary: Free.

Photoshop is the industry standard for photography editing, and it’s become one of the main tools graphic designers use for illustration and web design. Its main barrier for many artists is price.
Fortunately for designers and photographers who are short on cash, Aviary.com offers free online tools for photo editing and vector editing (replacing the need for Adobe Illustrator). Aviary uses layers and many of the same editing tools you’ll find in Adobe programs.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT — Visual Studio: $11,899; WordPress: Free.

The cost of managing website content can get downright ridiculous. Free solutions may not work for enterprise businesses, but if you’re operating a blog or even a website with thousands of pages, try out a free CMS like WordPress before you drop ten grand on a big deployment. Patrick, a customer service representative for Microsoft Dynamics, describes their product, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, which costs around $12,000, as “similar to WordPress.” But if you are looking for basic content management, why not use WordPress for free?

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT — Highrise Plus: $49/month; Insightly: Free.

Running a business without proper CRM is risky, and there are several feasible options online to help, including Highrise, by 37Signals. Highrise is a great product, but if you’re on a budget, take a look at the free professional alternative: Insight.ly. Organize your contacts, integrate your email conversations and notes through Google Apps, and track your customers — it’s all free.

Where to find other freebies

When it comes to free, you don’t have anything to lose. Whatever the software you’re looking for, chances are a web 2.0 company has built a free (or cheap) online version of it. Google it, or check out tech sites like Mashable and TechCrunch. If you know of other good free alternative software, please share it with us below; we’d love to know!

Shane Snow is Editor-in-chief of Contently, which contributed this post exclusively for Mint.com.

Not long ago, Mint.com received a great mention by Kevin Tofel on his site, jkOnTheRun. His article “8 Mobile Tech Tools And Tips For A Tough Economy” suggests ways that can give us a leg up during these challenging economic times. Check out these online tools and tips to help you become more organized and efficient in our increasingly connected world.

Having my father get laid off from his state government job a few weeks back has kept me busy. He’s not what I’d call tech-savvy, although he’s learning along the way. So I’ve spent quite a bit of time with him over the last two weeks: setting him up with one of our extra notebook computers, getting fast Internet service, and sorting out plans for the future. It hit me that right now there’s quite a number of folks in the same boat as the economy has been in a slump for the past eight months or so. Long time readers and fellow geeks can probably bypass the rest of this post, but I’ve gathered some mobile tech tools and tips for the more mainstream consumers in our audience. All of these are the direct result of helping my Dad get organized and empowered…

1. Never, never, never rely solely on a work e-mail address.

The few online accounts that my father had used his work e-mail address for credentials. As a result, when he couldn’t remember passwords for his stock portfolio, online bills and work pension website, all he could do was attempt to reset the password. Sounds great in theory, but the password reset instructions were sent to his work e-mail address, which of course, he no longer has access to. As a rule of thumb: unless you have to use a work e-mail address for a website (like your company’s internal 401k site, for example), always use a personal e-mail address. This way, if you lose access to the work-specific e-mail, you can still access your accounts.

2. Set up a personal e-mail account with a professional-looking address.

This is the obvious follow-up to the above rule and there are plenty of options. I set my father up with a free Gmail account, but you can go with Yahoo!, Hotmail or a number of other free e-mail providers. I recommend one that offers web-based access so you can read or send e-mail from any computer. Also: you’ll likely use that e-mail address for a long time to come, so keep it relatively professional looking. I’ve interviewed many folks for corporate jobs and the ones that had an e-mail address like “hotmama_36D@yahoo.com” went to the bottom of the pile. Your e-mail address is your personal brand, so keep it professional and simple.

3. Own a personal computer, preferably a notebook.

My father had an old clunker of a desktop that he wanted me to set up. It was so bad that it simply wasn’t worth using, so I re-imaged a two-year old notebook we had here and he’s using that. Using a notebook over a desktop gives you the advantage of being mobile; something you’re likely to be more of if you’re looking for a job. You don’t want to be unproductive while sitting around between job interviews or networking appointments. You also don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to get a notebook; there are many capable devices in the $200 to $600 range like the Asus Eee PC and HP Mini. Ideally, you need something where you can comfortably work on your resume, pay your bills, manage your money, search for a job and stay in touch with people. If an inexpensive notebook looks too small, add an inexpensive keyboard and mouse. My father has only used desktops, so an external mouse and keyboard helped him overcome his “fear” of notebooks.

4. Get connected.

My father had no Internet service when he lost his job and in the past, he’s been a dial-up user. We opted to set him up with FiOS at $40 a month. He could have gone completely mobile with a wireless broadband connection like I have, but we didn’t want a two-year commitment and the price was 50% higher. Still you need some type of connectivity. In the past few weeks, he’s been amazed by how much information he has access to with an Internet connection. Most of us take it for granted, but here’s an example of how “in the dark” he was. He actually made a long distance call to a former co-worker to find out what town a certain school district was in. Of course, I had the information on my screen using Google before the person he called could find the info in their Rolodex.

5. Find free hotspots.

In a tough economy, you’re watching your money, so if step four is too expensive, why not use free WiFi access near you? Check your local library and coffee shops as many offer Internet access at no charge. Also consider a WiFi access plan like one from Boingo: for $22 a month or roughly half of a home Internet service, you can use WiFi at nearly every McDonald’s, Starbuck’s and major airport. This is another reason I suggest owning a notebook rather than a desktop. If you do have Internet access, even for a short time, consider bookmarking JiWire’s WiFi directory to help you locate hotspots.

6. Store information online.

Some folks will rightfully argue that keeping sensitive data with a web service is a no-no, but there are safe options. Storing key info online like a resume provides you access to that information at practically any computer in the world. If that notebook battery dies in the coffee shop just before you sent off your resume to a promising job opportunity, you can still access it on any other PC. This ties in with the web-based e-mail tip above as well. Services like Box.net and Microsoft Windows Live SkyDrive offer more than ample storage for free.

7. Set up job agents.

I keep telling my Dad that you have to use the computer as a tool. Now that he has an e-mail address, I’ve suggested he go to some of the bigger employment websites like Monster and CareerBuilder. Most sites like this let you create a profile with your skill-set or a type of job you’re looking for. By providing that professional-looking e-mail address to these sites, they’ll do the job search work for you by sending you new job postings that match what you’re looking for. Why look through pages and pages of job listings when computers can do that for you? That frees up your time to focus on other challenges.

8. Manage your money online.

I don’t just mean bill-paying here (that’s a given), I mean for you to truly manage your money. If you’re in a tight spot financially, don’t you want to know where every penny is going? Consider a free money management service like Mint. Once you get set up, you don’t even need to enter in your transactions as Mint will put them from your financial institutions automatically. Then Mint has the data to show your spending trends so you can determine where your money is going. You can also budget your funds with spending limits in Mint; the service will send you e-mail reminders when your funds hit a specified limit or if your spending exceeds the target you set up.

These are just a few of the lessons Dad has learned so far. Again, regular readers have their finger on the pulse of mobile tech, but it’s evident to me that we’re in the minority. Please don’t hesitate to add more tools, tips and tricks for those that are new to our world!

 
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