Like the seven strategies that I will carry across to 2008 there are also a few software tools that have proved their worth so much in ‘07 that they will remain on my desktop for ‘08. Here are just two that will end up saving you hours of needless work.

This first tool paid its way in the first week I had it running. We manage a lot of different website accounts on behalf of clients – AdWords, Analytics, email software – they all require separate logins and passwords to be remembered. We tried storing these data on a central Intranet, but it quickly got out of control – then we found RoboForm.

This great tool securely stores all this data in one place and integrates cleanly with both Firefox and IE. Now we just pick the site we want to enter from the list RoboForm provides and let it do all the hard work of finding the page, entering the correct details and submitting the form, and then returning to us the client web page we want to start working on. It’s best to check out the site and download the free trial to see it for yourself – go to www.RoboFormTool.com.

My last tool pick has been on my Toshiba Laptop for at least 2 years and as far as I can see it will remain there for a very long time. We are in the business of imparting information and sometimes a picture of what we see onscreen with some highlighting and text to draw the eye to the area we are discussing is all we need to get the message across. SnagIt from TechSmith allows us to capture screen pictures in seconds, highlight them with extra colour and then annotate the parts that need more text. From here we can do a quick copy and paste into an email message and the job is done – now everyone can see what we are talking about. Again there is a trial version – go to www.techsmith.com to download it.