Software and Services I Recommend

Ecommerce/Content Management

I have used several ecommerce packages in the past for my own websites— and have had issues with most of them. Recently, I updated my book website Sonrise Stable Books to Squarespace.

For the price I used to pay for ecommerce alone, Squarespace is a complete content management system with extensive functionality. It's the easiest system I've used in terms of adding products, accepting payments, and processing orders.

When you have a website that sells things, you definitely don't want your ecommerce software to give you headaches!

You can check it out for yourself with Squarespace's trial plan or Contact Me if you want some help.

Phone and Cell Provider

I suppose phones are a necessary evil in today's world. I'll admit they are useful—perhaps too much so—meaning it's easy to spend waste too much time on them.

Recently, I decided to reduce my reliance on my phone. A big factor in achieving that was finding a phone that made it challenging to do things on it. :)

I settled on the Jelly 2E from Unihertz.

This thing is small! It has a 3" screen. While I can (if I have glasses on) read texts on it, that's something I'd rather avoid. I set up texting on my computer using MightyText.

I've had the phone for a while now and really like it. It's been instrumental in helping me cut down phone time. The voice quality is good—and isn't that what phones were created for? My other main use for it is audiobooks. It's nice to be able to easily slip the Jelly into a pocket and listen to books while I'm walking or doing some mundane task.

When I got the Jelly, I discovered it wouldn't work with the phone service I had at the time. In fact, Mint Mobile was the only service I found that it would work with. That turned out well, because I now have a plan that is even less than the inexpensive plan I had before.

I don't know why anyone uses the big name cellular providers. These third party providers use the same networks (Mint uses T-Mobile) and usually are much cheaper.

Get more details on the Mint Mobile site.

Email Campaigns

For the past few years, I've used the MooSend Email Marketing Service for sending my own and client newsletters. While not as well known as some of the big name providers such as MailChimp, it offers most of the same features—at a lower price.

MooSend offers the usual features such as a visual email editor, scheduled email sends, and statistical reports on campaigns. What I like about the service is the option to purchase email credits rather than paying a monthly fee—one credit equals one email send and the credits don't expire.

You can sign up for a free MooSend account to test it out.

Form Builder/Processing

I highly recommend the JotForm form-building service. I have to confess building web forms isn't something I find entertaining.

It's such a relief that JotForm makes it so simple. In addition to an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop form builder, your submissions are emailed to you as well as being stored for viewing in your JotForm admin panel. JotForm is an extremely helpful and reliable service. I just checked my account, and I've been using JotForm since 2009. The form on my Contact page was created in JotForm.

They offer a free plan which provides 100 form submissions per month. On the free plan, the JotForm logo and link are displayed at the bottom of your forms. If that doesn't bother you, the free plan is a good way to get started with JotForm. With a paid monthly plan, the JotForm logo can be removed from your forms. JotForm affiliate link.