3 Free Tools That Changed Everything For Me

Posted on by

I rely on 3 tools to help me with my job. Each one helps me explain things faster, easier, and better. All tools are free and I promise you will love them after you use them.

Tool #1 Skitch

What is it?

Skitch makes it easy to take screenshots and write in fun colors on top of them. I use Skitch on a daily basis to help show people exactly what I’m talking about. I use it to point customers in the right direction on Flying Cart, visualize new features with my team, and on blog posts like this one.

Here is a 90 second video of Skitch that I made:

Tool #2 Rapportive

 

The days of not knowing who emailed you are over! You can now be the creepy guy that knows everything about all the people that send you an email. I like to use Rapportive to stalk anyone that emails me (customers, friends, and even family!)

What is it?

A free Gmail Add-On that shows you social media information of the person that emailed you. It shows you their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn data. This allows me to send super personalized emails!

One of the coolest things about Rapportive is the picture aspect. It humanizes my emails, some days I’m going through 30+ emails and they all start looking the same. Seeing their picture makes me work harder on making sure my emails are friendly and to the point.

39 Second Video Tutorial of Rapportive:

Tool #3 Screenr

 

What is it?

Screenr is the easiest tool to make short screencasts. You can record your computer screen and upload the video to YouTube. No installation required.

Simple screencasts have cutdown my support emails tremendously. 40-step tedious written tutorials are now replaced with a quick 5 minute step by step video. My customers love pausing and following along. (A side benefit to uploading a video to YouTube is for SEO – Google loves videos and it will improve your search ranking – just remember to include a link back to your website!)

I hope you enjoy these 3 tools as much as I do. They have changed my life for the better. All screenshots were made with Skitch. All Screencasts were made with Screenr, and if you send me an email – all know what you look like.

Have any free tools changed your life? I’d love to know, let me know in the comments.

20 Comments

  1. Skitch is awesome! I’ve been using it for the past few months and it does rock.

    I have a PC at work – do you know of a Skitch equivalent for PCs (non mac)?

  4. Great post.

    Have you tried Hazel or SizeUp?

    Both are free-ware (pay for full features), but are rad.

    Hazel lets you configure actions to run on folders. “If a DMG is in downloads, move it to HERE.” “If this folder has files older than 4 weeks, delete them”

    SizeUp gives you hot keys to move windows around the screen. “XYZ → make full size” or “ABC → fill half of the screen and position on the left of the monitor.

    Stay awesome

    • Thanks the props Kai!

      I haven’t heard of Hazel or SizeUp. Thanks for sharing both of those. I’m going to download both of those right now and try them out.

      I have a feeling that I’m really going to like SizeUp.

  5. Such a valuable post…tools, visual, and quick video hand-holdings. It exceeded my expectations. I’ll have to use Rapportive now too.

  7. I’ve been trying a competitor to rapportive called mingly (http://ming.ly) that has been so-so. I’ll definitely give this one a try.

    I’m not sure if this is in the same tool category you are asking about, but I use dropbox every single day. It is by far the best app I have installed on all my computers and phone.

    • DropBox is amazing – I love the revision history feature.

      Mingly is awesome but a little overkill – It is pretty much a CRM suite on top of Gmail. I prefer rapportive because it doesn’t take over my gmail. I think you will really like it.

  8. I already use (and love) screenr as per your recommendation, and now I’m diggin Rapportive. Great tips Rishi!

    Too bad Evernote chrome app doesn’t integrate well enough with Skitch yet that seems mostly for macs and mobile devices.

Comments are closed.