How many monthly hours do you spend on the web typing in usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc? Or wrangling with printers, or mailers about postal pieces? Here is some software that will definitely save you time, if not your sanity.

A Form-Filler-Outer (Free or Paid-For)

Most people spend an hour or so a month typing contact info, credit card numbers, usernames, passwords, etc. into empty boxes on the web. Yes, Windows®, or one of the free toolbars, will fill in some of them for you, but usually you need a more complete "fill-in" service than these limited built-in ones.

You can't go wrong with Roboform, a one-click web form filler and password manager. There's a free version as well as a paid pro-version. You should, at the very, least try the free version for 30 days.

This handy utility fills in virtually everything you ever come across on the web with just a single click. It will even SUBMIT the form for you after it fills it out, if you choose.

Here's what Roboform says it does:

• Autosaves passwords in browser

• Autofills passwords to login form

• Will click "login" button for you

• Fills personal info into online forms

• Fills in bank card numbers

• Saves offline passwords and notes

• Generates secure random passwords

• Encrypt passwords and personal data using 3-DES

• All personal info is stored on your computer only

• You can take RoboForm with you on a USB disk for ultimate portability

• Sync your passwords and notes to Palm or Pocket PC devices

• Backup and restore, or print your passwords

Both my Realtor wife and I use Roboform and love the time it saves us. There's a free trial version, and afterwards you might want to buy the Pro version, which remembers an unlimited amount of bankcard numbers, passwords, usernames, etc. instead of the slightly limited amount with the free version. Try it... you'll never go back to manually filling out forms again.

Design and Print Your Own Great Marketing Materials

If you have a good printer, you'll bless yourself for using "Design and Print -- Business Edition." It lets you easily create brochures, newsletters, letterhead, business cards, post cards, farming materials, greeting cards, labels, envelopes, and much more. It has over 1,000 fonts, over 1,800 professionally designed layouts, 2.6 million photos and images, and it works with Avery Paper Direct® and more.

My wife saves tons of money using this software, making her yard-sign flyers, farming tools, drip mailing pieces, and more on our new HP 8150 printer. I use Design and Print to dazzle my friends with cozy family montages of pictures, holiday greeting cards, postcards, and jokes, embellished with cleverly relevant artwork taken from the program.

Other features: Customize pieces by adding your company logo or local scenery. Create mailings in minutes with the built-in address book. Save your design as a jpeg file and email to your entire contact list. It lets YOU (yes, even you) create professional looking materials that will WOW your clients and peers alike.

There's no free version of this software, but it's only $39.95 from Avanquestusa.com.

Combine Design and Print With "MyMailList" for Integrated Mail Handling

Once we've created our printed pieces, we use MyMailList Deluxe to manage the mailing of them, and to keep our address book organized and up to date. Since Design and Print and MyMailList are both from the same manufacturer, they integrate nicely, unlike so many other products we've tried, where each one is from a different source.

Here's what MyMailList offers:

• Manages contact records

• Prints labels, envelopes and post cards

• Creates address books and form letters

• Adds Zip+4 codes

• Inserts USPS barcodes

• Presorts for bulk mailings

• Imports database files

• Sends personalized email

• Supports Avery®, NEBS® and other third-party labels

Best of all, both of the two above products are quite easy to use, which isn't the case with many similar products. We'd be lost without either of them.

Published: April 20, 2005

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Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .