This morning we’re sharing 5 tools the UniTherm marketing team just can’t live without. There’s more than what’s on this list, but we picked these because they are all free (or offer a really great free version). Try them all out and let us know what you think in the comments below!

1. Jing by TechSmith– a screen capture and screencast tool ideal for quick a quick grab and share of your desktop. We use Jing at least a hundred times a day. Need to explain to someone for the eighty billionth time how to do a mundane task on their computer? Just take a quick screencast with Jing and they’ll have a video tutorial to keep forever (they’ll probably still ask you again though). Jing sits on the edge of your screen for a quick grab when you are ready to use it. Select the portion of the screen you want to capture and if you want a video or image. Grab your capture and you’re ready to share, you can even do some call outs, arrows, and text boxes on images. Your sharing options are:
   • Upload to screencast.com – my favorite, get a ton of free storage and Jing automatically places the link on your clipboard. Simply paste into an email, IM, Twitter, or anywhere else you want to share it.
   • Upload to your FTP server – a great option for adding tutorials to your website or blog.
   • Copy – places the image itself on your clipboard for a quick paste into email, a document, or anywhere else you like.
   • Save to directory – pre-select a destination for all your Jing files on your desktop or local network (I like to send mine to Dropbox).
2. Dropbox– The absolute, hands down, best way to backup, store, share, your files and access them anywhere. I have Dropbox installed on all of my computers, on my phone, and I’ve pretty much converted the whole UniTherm clan over to it as well. Dropbox acts like any ‘ole folder on your computer, making it incredibly easy to use. It automatically syncs to a remote backup and to all of your other installations anytime you add, delete, or edit files. You can share folders with anyone in the world with a simple right-click.
   Dropbox also has a very cool Gallery option – ideal for throwing together a quick portfolio or just sharing your photos in a simple, elegant way. You can check out a live gallery here
   
3. Toggl – You are probably just like us and you do a million things a day- probably for every single individual at your company (or at least every sales rep). With all the things we’re responsible for it became difficult to keep up with how long we’ve spent on each project and also how long to plan for upcoming projects to take. We decided tracking our time would be the easiest way to get this done. With Toggl it is so easy for us to track time spent on projects. The stop-watch style time tracker and simple interface make it a breeze to add this extra step to our day. Toggl is really designed for agencies and contractors who need to bill time, but we’ve adapted it for our use and actually our whole office uses it now. Its a great tool for management  to keep a handle on where hours are being spent and also for individuals to see just how long it really takes to complete projects. Their reporting is pretty great too – we all use daily and weekly reports around here broken up by project and company.
   
4. JotForm – JotForm and I go way back. It is hands down the best web form builder out there. And you can do just about everything you need to with it for free. Unlike most “freemium” programs JotForm doesn’t clutter your form up with ads or their branding. In fact, unless you look at the source code, you’d never be able to spot one of their forms. We use Jot to create quick forms for anything from event registrations to quote requests. While we do use our CRM integrated web forms for most of those needs, uses for JotForm still pop up all the time. Check out the video below to see just how simple JotForm is to use.
   
   Click for Demo Video

   (and by the way, here’s the form we just created for the demo)

   
   

   • 
     Full Name*
     
     
     First Name
     Last Name
   • 
     Your E-mail*
     
   • Leave a message
   • 
     Go!
     

   • Should be Empty:
     

   
   
   

   What you don’t see in the video is that you can also set up automated emails for notifications, responses, select a thank you message or landing page, and you can even download the full source code of the form to do some custom tweaks and changes to it.

5. Synergy– I’m a Mac stuck in a PC world – and I think many of us are the same way. I’m lucky enough that everyone I work with understands that my Mac is a better tool for the job I do – unfortunately there are still certain things I just need a PC for. (For instance checking our website in Internet Explorer every time we make changes). I’ve found that running parrallels or VMWare just slows me down to the point that I want to rip my hair out. The best solution I’ve found for the problem is to run 2 machines. It seems archaic and wasteful to run 2 computers for one person, but it saves me my sanity. The problem with this approach? 2 keyboards. 2 mice. I stumbled across Synergy years ago at a former employer where I had the exact same issue of Mac and PC toggling – and I was thrilled! Synergy allows you to put your mouse and keyboard on your local network and then share them out to 2 or more computers. The machines can be running virtually any operating system and it works like a charm. So you can pack away your PC mouse and keyboard and run with just one set. The coolest thing Synergy has done since I started to use it is support clipboard functions across machines. You can’t even do that with Parrallels or VMWare – but Synergy allows you to cut and paste across 2 computers with ease.

Got your own favorite tools? Share them with us in the comments below.