If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. And with estimated tax payments coming up soon, now is a good time to check out Shoeboxed.com, where you can mail-in or upload your receipts to organize them and get rid of clutter. The information can then be transferred to programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV formats. If you scan and upload your receipts yourself, there is a free option. Or if you’d like to mail your receipts for scanning or use one of the mobile photo capture and upload options, there is a fee depending on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.

To learn more or sign up for a free trial, check out ShoeBoxed.com.  Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.

When it comes to managing my life, particularly if I’m way from my computer, if I can skip or speed up a step I’m more likely to stay on top of things. Google Calendar allows me to quickly add events through my phone through SMS.  I simply scroll to Google in my contact list and choose the option to send an SMS, type my appointment and hit send. Google texts back that the appointment was received. I also use it to send my self to-dos and notes that I don’t want to forget.

To set up the mobile option with Google Calendar:

1. Visit your Google Calendar online.
2. Click on the “Settings” option.
3. Click on “Mobile Set up”
4. Check to see if your Carrier is supported.
5. Enter your country and phone number, and then click “Send Verification Code”
6. You’ll receive a message back with a verification number. Enter that number in the “Verification Code” field on in the mobile settings on your calendar. (If you don’t receive the code, you can request it again through the Mobile Set up in the Settings.)
7. Click “Finish Set-up”.

To send a text of a new appointment:

1. Add Google Calendar’s SMS number to your contacts 48368
2. Send a text to the SMS number. Enter the appointment, date and time for example “Dinner 3/4 8pm” or “Soccer Saturday 10am”
3. Google Calendar will text back that it received the appointment.

Appointments I made through Text (SMS)

You can also have Google Calendar text your appointments to you. To receive the next item on your appointment schedule text “next” (without the quotes) to 48368.  Text “day” to get the day’s appointments or “nday” to get tomorrow’s schedule.

Jing Project
Video is the newest must have for website owners. While its easy to capture live action on a camera or webcam, taking video of your computer activities hasn’t been so easy or affordable. I had tried CamStudio, but couldn’t get it to work right. And Camtasia just isn’t in the budget right now. Fortunately there’s a new screen capture software in town called Jing.

Jing is free and incredibily easy to use. Once its install, you have a little yellow ball that sits at the top of your screen waiting for you to request a picture or video. When opened, its easy to pick the area you want to capture and then you simply poke the picture or video. You can hook up your mic to add audio. Jing will even tell you when the video is starting if if the mic is on.

The free version saves file in flash and you can easily send to Screencast or Flikr. For a $14.95 per year subscription, you can get a more advanced version that lets you save in MPEG-4 and can automatically upload to Youtube. You can even use your favorit movie editor to edit it.

Both versions have a limit of 5 minutes of video, but experts say that for basic website needs, 3 minutes is all you need anyway.

Visit Jing Project to learn more or download Jing.

When I first got my Palm Treo, it was more of a novelty than anything. I paid the extra for Internet access and bought all sorts of programs to go with it, but at the time I didn’t really need it.

Today, I have a Blackberry (although I’m taking a close look at the Droid) that I can’t live without. If there is no wi-fi for my laptop, I can check email on my phone. If I need to do some quick cost comparison research, I can access information from the Internet on my phone. If I need to capture a thought, I can do it on my phone either through text, recording or a service like Jott that will send it to my email or calendar. And while much of its use is related to work, not all of it is. I listen to Pandora, read ebooks, and locate where my children have wandered off to.

Here are my top three reasons why everyone needs a Smartphone:

1) You can carry your life with you wherever you go. Contacts, notes, schedule, music and more. You don’t have to carry a bulky planner with erasable ink scribbles in it. Your phone can do it.

2) Get information about anything, anytime, anywhere. Like phone service, your Internet access can be limited but as many times as I’ve hit a dead spot in my phone service, I have very rarely not been able to get online to access important information from my phone. Need to know the traffic or weather where you’re heading? Want to compare prices on that great new doodad you’re planning to buy? Just last week I used my phone in Blockbuster to figure out what disk a specific episode of Stargate was on so my son could rent it. You can even get GPS.

3) Mange your life. Worried about missing an important call or email? Need to update your blog or Tweet with your colleagues? Nearly every great web-based productivity site has mobile options to make doing your work or managing your projects fast and easy while on the go.

One of the challenges of bookmarking favorite resources is organizing them. Using the “Bookmarks” or “Favorites” in your browser is limited by using folders which can become as unwieldy as more and more links are added. Resources such as Del.icio.us offer more help through the use of tags. But Pearltree offers visual organization much like a mind map.

Pearltrees are topical trees that outline your favorite resources in a way that make sense to you. Each bookmark becomes a pearl within a tree. For example, you can have a PearlTree on dieting with branches related recipes, exercise, videos and more. Organizing is easy with drag-and-drop functions. Peartree also offers a Firefox extension, bookmarklet, or Twitter option to add to your tree.

Pearltree also offers a social aspect by connecting with others who have topic trees similar to yours. This option allows to access resources you may not know about as well as provide resources to others.

Pearltree is free and is worth a look if your bookmarks and social bookmarking feels to disorganized and cluttered.

When I upgraded my Office Suite to 2007, I discovered that they didn’t convert correctly to PDF using Adobe Acrobat. I could make the PDF document, but embedded links weren’t active. But I recently discovered an add-in to Office 2007 that allows you to create a PDF document that converts embedded links into hyperlinks. It works with most Office 2007 products including Word 2007, Access 2007, Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, OneNote 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007 and Visio 2007.  And its free!

1. Visit Microsoft’s download center for the Save as PDF or XPS add-in

2. Download the add-in to your computer.

3. Click on the SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe to install.

4. Open any Office 2007 document and click on either “Save As PDF of XPS” or “Publish To PDF or XPS” depending on the office program you’re using.

While there are a variety of resources to help you download video content, KeepTube offers a wider array of video sites including YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, Mega Video and more. Plus it will grab the highest quality of video including HD.

KeepTube is a free web-based tool, that also offers a Firefox extension. Visit KeepTube.com to learn more.

Tired of wasting time sitting on hold? LucyPhone can help. In three easy steps you can contact the company you need to talk to and let LucyPhone sit on hold.

LucyPhone from Decogram Corporation on Vimeo.

1) Call the company through LucyPhone. It will call you first and then connect you to the company.

2) Use the company’s phone menu as you usually would to find the right department. If you’re put on hold, press **.

3) When an agent come on, LucyPhone calls you back immediately.

To learn more, or use the service, visit LucyPhone.com

Journaling is a great way to express thoughts, feelings, concerns, worries, anger…and all those other things that you want to get out but don’t want others to see. The problem is that journal books and blogging aren’t necessarily secure. But Penzu offers a free web-based journaling option that is safe and secure from prying eyes.

Entries made with Penzu are automatically saved and kept private. If you’d like to share your entry with others, you have the option to do that as well. Penzu allows you to add pictures and works with Flickr as well.

A paid version offers even greater security, journal customization, and the ability to past-date entries.

To learn more or to start journaling, visit Penzu.

In my attempts to save money, meal planning and grocery shopping has become more complex. I’m clipping coupons, shopping multiple stores to get the best prices, and planning meals around what’s on sale. Being domestically and organizationally challenged, this new way of cooking and shopping has been difficult for me to manage.

But I’ve just come across a great new web and phone app that can make it easier. Ziplist offers lots of great features to create a shopping list and plan meals. The shopping list can be organized by aisle or store. It can be shared with other members of the family so that they can add items.

Not sure what to make for dinner? Ziplist has tons of recipes and with a single click all the ingredients can be added to your list. It will even show you items that you may already have at home so that they aren’t added to the list. And if you find a recipe on another website, you can save it to your Ziplist recipe box.

When you’re ready to shop, you can print out your list or access it by through your SmartPhone (iPhone app coming soon).

To learn more or to create your own list, visit Ziplist.