Here are my four favorite apps for running my business:

Unroll.me

I get dozens of emails every day, many from public relations firms pitching me story ideas. I also subscribe to too many emails from businesses, many of which I found it difficult to unsubscribe from.

Unroll.me takes care of this easily for the two email accounts I have. With one click on Unroll.me’s website or app on my phone, I can choose to either unsubscribe from an email, “roll it up” into an email that Unroll.me sends me every day and read in a digest format, or keep getting the email.

For my business email I’ve so far unsubscribed to 397 emails, rolled up 44 in its “rollup,” and kept 46.

The numbers are less impressive in my personal email account: 169 unsubscribed, 68 rolled up and 137 kept.

That adds up to 566 emails that I’ve unsubscribed to very easily. The phone app lets you do it with a swipe, kind of making it a game. That’s a lot easier than going through each email individually to unsubscribe, and the ones I want to keep getting but don’t want to read one at a time are sent to me in a daily email list.

I no longer fear opening my email in the morning. It’s easily one of my favorite apps.

Karma Go

This is less of an app and more of a physical product, but it’s so important to running my business as a freelance writer that it’s becoming invaluable to me. And I’m just starting to use it more and more.

Karma Go is a mobile hotspot. I’ve written about it before and haven’t been too pleased with how much sharing of WiFi it offers. But on a recent road trip we used it in the car at 70 mph and it worked perfectly.

I’m thrilled with the hand-sized device for many reasons, but mainly because it gives me reliable Internet access without paying a monthly fee. I bought the device for $150 and pay for WiFi access in bundles as I need it.

The Karma app allows users to monitor how many GB they’ve used, and which devices are connected to their mobile hotspot. While I don’t use the app much, the device itself is worthwhile and allows me to work away from home and avoid spotty Wifi at hotels and airports and get a strong signal on my own.

Hilton HHONORS app

I rarely travel for business, but when I do, the Hilton HHONORS app on my phone makes it incredibly easy to find and book a hotel room.

I’ve often used it to plan family vacations — where I can work for a few hours if needed — and have used the app to choose a room and check in to my room before arrival.

Everyone has their favorite hotel chain, and having a Hilton credit card that gives me reward points to use for free hotel stays is a major benefit. I’m a fan of its Embassy Suites hotels, which have a separate living room with fold-out couch for kids to sleep on.

If you regularly use a hotel chain, consider getting a credit card that offers rewards at your favorite hotel, and then using its app to search for rooms. It may quickly become one of your favorite apps.

Check deposit among favorite apps

This is something I wanted 20 years ago when I closed my Bank of America accounts because it wanted to charge me to bank online on a computer. I switched to another bank that offered free Internet banking, though I’ve since returned to BoA as a customer.

No matter which bank you use, Internet banking is an easy way to get things done. I recently upgraded to a new phone, allowing me to use the check deposit app on my phone for Bank of America. It’s one of my favorite apps.

I just sign the back of the check and write my account number on it, as I normally would, and then use the phone’s camera to take photos of the front and back of the check. I then hit “deposit” and the check is deposited into my account.

I know this mobile check deposit app isn’t earth-shattering news among favorite apps, but it’s a simple app and a simple task that makes my business life a lot easier. I no longer have to visit an ATM to deposit checks, giving me time for plenty of other things.

Other favorite apps

As you can tell from this short list, my favorite apps don’t include common ones such as Dropbox, Evernote and others. Why? While I occasionally use them, I operate a pretty simple workflow.

I keep almost everything on my laptop MacBook Pro, using the programs already installed on the Mac such as Pages to write and Numbers to keep track of income and expenses, that mostly sync with my other Apple devices. I also use a paper notebook to take notes — crazy, I know. I use Google docs and its spreadsheets to share info.

Since I’m a two-person team, with a lot of help from a fantastic virtual assistant, there isn’t a big need for a lot of apps to share our work. Email and some Google apps help solve most of it.

There are plenty of phone apps I use in my personal life, but they’re regular ones that are used by millions of people. They save me time every day, but don’t really have a business purpose for me.

I also use a lot of apps within WordPress on my websites, though I’m not expert enough to share them confidently.

What are your favorite apps for work?

4 Favorite Apps for My Business is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

When I first started this blog, I didn’t even look up a comparison of WordPress and Blogger. I should have, but I just jumped to Blogger.

There are pros and cons to each. Many people believe that WordPress is better in every single way. I disagree, but I do like it a little better, so here’s my version of WordPress Vs. Blogger:.

Design

Blogger blogs are easier to design, whereas WordPress blogs have more range and options. I’m not terribly tech savvy, so my designs are never super intricate, but I also liked the range of widgets available at blogger better than I do here in WordPress. Plus, adsense was nice.

Ease of Use

In my opinion, Blogger was much easier to use. I think that’s why they do so well, you can just jump right in. WordPress takes a lot more time to use, but this may be because it has a much broader capability.

Stats

I hated Blogger’s stats page. When I logged on, it was messy, annoying, and hard to look at. With WordPress, it’s all laid out neatly and obviously. You can see more of what happened than with Blogger, such as clicks out and not just clicks in.

Comments

WordPress blogs get substantially more spam comments than do Blogger blogs. However, WordPress does do a great job in catching them – my WordPress blog has about a 95% success rate in distinguishing spam comments between real.

It’s so, so difficult to comment on Blogger blogs. WordPress blogs are intuitively easy to comment on. Many people refuse to comment on Blogger blogs – I don’t. I just hope they have the Name/URL option, because logging into WordPress for Blogger rarely works well. However, if a Blogger blog has a captcha, I’ll only comment if I really like the blogger or if the post is pretty good.

Blogger doesn’t allow you to reply directly to comments. Hate this. WordPress does, and it makes life so much easier.

Posting

To be honest, with my Blogger blog, I never used the schedule post option, and with WordPress I do almost always. They both have the option, so neither is more superior in that regard.

Blogger does not allow private, password protected posts. I hate this. I don’t do many (or any), but I like having the option. WordPress allows password protection.

WordPress allows for both categories and tags, whereas Blogger only allows for one.

WordPress allows for a blogger to publicize a post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Blogger does not.

WordPress allows “likes”. Blogger does not.

Blogger lists followers publicly, WordPress does not.

You can copy a post in WordPress as a template. You can’t in Blogger. You can also request Feedback in WordPress before publishing. In blogger, you cannot.

I’ve stuck with WordPress because the posting, stats, and commenting capabilities are much, much better than Bloggers’. However, it’s personal preference. I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with designing my WordPress blog.

This is just my take on Blogger vs. WordPress. Feel free to tell me yours in the comments. I know Blogger has changed recently, so I didn’t take into account any of the changes the would have done.

Starting a blog? You may also be interested to read some of my other posts about the subject:

Blogging 101

• Why Should You Blog? I Have a Bunch of Reasons!
• If You’re Just Starting Out, You Should Start on WordPress. Here’s why
• Ways to Inject Personality Into Your Posts (because nobody wants to read boring stuff)
• A Post About Knowing Your Audience
• If You Want a Successful, Money Making Blog, You Should Outsource (or quit your job and blog full time)
• Make Sure You Are Running Your Blog Like You’d Run Your Business
• Learn From My Mistakes in Blogging

Should You Blog Anonymously?

• Blogging Anonymously – How to Do It
• A Case for Blogging Publicly
• My Beef with Blogging Anonymously

Feel free to email me with any blogging questions and I’d be happy to help!

You may also be interested in checking out the comments below and leaving one yourself if you don’t know whether to blog on WordPress or Blogger.

Blogger Vs. WordPress is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.