Over the coming posts I plan to break down each of the tools, tricks, places and things that I use to help make money online, complete projects, develop ideas, research results and everything else that comes into my entire online existance to date.

This post is the start of this mission and I will start it by giving you an overview of a few of the items I currently use to help me online. Some of the items are 100% free, others have a ‘free’ version, and the rest is ‘pay for’ stuff, however I will try to cram as many free items into the coming posts as I can.

Textpad - free - download link

First up I want to start with the most basic of items, something that everyone should always have as it will come in handy time and time again. You may already use a text editor, the default windows notepad, bbedit, or something similar, however you would be an utter fool not to try out this free and high quality item of software.

I have been using it through various versions for more years than I care to remember and must say that it is hands down my number one item on my computer.

• If you have a sudden idea, pop it open, write and save it
• Look at multiple documents at once, in the same window
• Easy search and replace, with regular expressions ta boot!
• Simple re formatting of text lists, phrase lists etc
• A sort function for removing duplicates, even case / non-case sensitive
• A search and replace function that works accross multiple documents!

And so many other things I won’t list them all here. Needless to say you should grab a copy and have a play for a while. Use it as your main editor for at least a week and come back to let me know how you got on, I am pretty sure that 99% of you will fall in love with this simple but useful tool.

Good Keywords V2 - free - download link

I am pretty sure that most of you have been told about, heard about, looked for or otherwise hunted down “keyword lists” and places to generate them. From online tools to text files, paid services and more? My number one tool for niche research and keyword collection is Good Keywords V2.

The software has a few tools inside including one to find bad spellings of terms, however the best utility in its pen-knife like design is the keyword suggestions section. Open the software, type in your desired term, hit the button and get everything you could dream of back.

It doesn’t stop at just serving a list of terms. It lets you choose between a number of data sources via a drop down so you can get a wide scope for terms. Additionally it gives you multiple copy commands so that you can take the terms you want and use them for your other requirements. If the list needs a bit of sorting just jump back into textpad and having a list ready to go in under 60 seconds.

If you are looking for something a little more advanced in the keyword finding area then I would point you in the direction of Web CEO, however seeing as Good Keywords V2 is 100% free I think it is another essential tool to load onto your computer.

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I will be posting about many of the other products and resources that I use over the coming days and weeks so be sure to check back. Also don’t forget to come here and post your thoughts on the software as I am keen to discover how others get on with my selection of tools. Perhaps you have an alternative to suggest that I have missed all these years? If you need a more immediate response don’t forget to head over to the forums.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 9:39 am and is filed under Site News, Resources, Free Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.