A few great web-based services I can't live without: YouMail, Outright, Shoeboxed, Dropbox

I use a lot of online products and services in my daily life, many of which I now rely on. I thought I'd take a minute to highlight a few of my favorites.

YouMail

YouMail is my voicemail provider, and happens to be located right down the freeway from me. Even though I have an iPhone and could choose to use Visual Voicemail, YouMail is so much better. Not only does it transcribe my voicemail and send a text message letting me know, but it can also transcribe messages and email me the transcriptions or even the MP3 of the voicemail itself.

Youmail also has plenty of other useful features like personalized recordings for different people and you can even greet callers by the name recognized on caller ID.

The weakest part of YouMail is their web interface. It kind of looks like it was made in 2001 (hint hint: we should talk!). But the service is great and an outdated-looking interface isn't going to keep me from the great service they provide.

Check out YouMail →

Outright

Outright is service for small business owners that takes the hassle out of bookkeeping and figuring out taxes. It handles the collection of tax forms from contractors automatically and does all the expected stuff like connecting to bank accounts for easy record-keeping.

Check out Outright →

Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed is, without a doubt, the easiest way to manage receipts. They give you an email address that you can send digital receipts to. Their system automatically parses what you send them and figured out the total, payee, and category the receipt belongs in. You can also scan paper receipts into the system.

On top of that, they also have a mail-in service that lets customers send in receipts and lets them deal with the hassle of scanning. I plan on sending my first batch of gas receipts (among others) to them today. It also plays nicely with many accounting programs, including Outright.

Check out Shoeboxed →

Dropbox

I doubt the need to even mention Dropbox. Everybody I know uses them. I've written about them previously here. Dropbox is a service that backs up and syncs files on your computer between your other computers. When I save a file on one computer, Dropbox instantly backs up the file online and syncs the updates with my other computers. Wherever I go, I always have the latest versions of whatever I'm working on. Dropbox is one of the most important things to happen to computing in the last decade.

Check out Dropbox →

Syncing and sharing files between computers has never been easier, thanks to @Dropbox

Just wanted to give a shout out to a program I rely on daily. It's called Dropbox and it's a desktop utility that automatically syncs folders between my computer and the web, and then automatically updates the files with my other computers. I can also share folders with friends, so when I'm collaborating on projects, I just dump files into a folder and they automatically sync with whoever I've shared the folder with.

Now, this sounds great in theory, but does it really work? YES! There are few utilities that run smoothly in the background, have no issues, and actually work consistently. Fortunately this is one of them. As you may know, I'm extremely demanding and finicky with the technology and programs I use, and I have no complaints here. Dropbox is one of the few utilities, along with Clip2Net and LogMeIn Free, that I use daily - these utilities have changed my workflow for the better.

Thanks Dropbox! Check them out here.