The prevalence of free wi-fi means that there’s likely a place near you that you can turn into a virtual home-away-from-home office. Here are some places you can try:

1) Your local library. We have a new library with comfy chairs, tables with booth seating (like in a restaurant) and of course free wi-fi. My library even allows beverages.

2) Panera Bread. If you can avoid overdoing the baked goods, Panera Bread offers free wi-fi access. However, the one in my area turns off the wi-fi during the lunch rush.

3) Barnes and Noble. After years of charging to access wi-fi, Barnes and Noble now offers free wi-fi. Woo hoo! Coffee, books and wi-fi…it doesn’t get much better than that!

4) There are lots of great online resources for finding free wi-fi in your area such as Hotspotr. Check out this post on BetterLivingOntheWeb.com for more wi-fi hotspots.

5) Check for phone apps that can help you find wi-fi spots as well. JWire offers one for iPhone and iPod Touch.

As a WAHM, have you taken your blog training wheels off? Are you feeling pretty good about your blog and you’re creating quality content regularly? Are you ready to take your blog to the next level? Have you considered vlogging?

Vlog = Video Blog

Vlogging’s popularity has dramatically increased since 2005, according to Wikipedia. One resource we found that provides tools, tips and trends is VlogBlog. You can also go to YouTube and watch videos on how to vlog.

For more good tips and examples on vlogging you can visit:

• Jim Kukral Knows Video
• Video Blogging to Promote Your Brand
• Ask Mr. Video Blog

As far as sites to upload your videos, YouTube is the still most popular. There are other services including Viddler, Vimeo, Meta Cafe and Revver. Revver even has a plugin for WordPress with its own video on how to use the video plugin.  There is also a unique site called MomTV that has its own WAHM channel.

While we haven’t personally tried it, Adobe has Vlog It! software and it has received rave reviews.

If you have a webcam, you are ready to create your first vlog. Another very popular vlog tool that we both own is the Flip Video which makes the whole process very easy and is compatible with Windows or Mac.

Finally, here are five WAHM sites that are currently using vlogging as part of their blog content:

• 5 Minutes for Mom
• Barefoot Executive
• Suzanne Franco
• Direct Sellers University
• Happily Blended

Why don’t you give vlogging a try? When you do, leave a comment with your vlog link so we can all see your latest creation!

Read Brandie Kajino’s QuickBooks 2009 review here.

So, now you can get your bookkeeping together and get your digits and customer information organized!

So, I bet you’re wondering how you win? That’s easy. Here’s how:

1. Leave us a comment below by the deadline, June 1, 2009 at 12:00pm (noon) PST / 3:00pm EST. (Be sure to include your email address so we can contact you if you win!)

2. Subscribe to this blog (if you haven’t already).

That’s it!

Winners will be announced Tuesday, June 2, 2009!

Please be sure to visit our giveaway sponsor:

They are running a Small Business Grant Contest – go and vote for your favorite HERE. There are some great small businesses up for some great prizes! Also, check out the Intuit Twitter peeps: @SharnQuickBooks, @kirasw and @rkeuretig

Good luck everyone!

Here are my top 10 free resources for the home office.

AVG – One thing no office can do without is virus protection. There are a host of full-service protection software out on the market and you’d likely do well to invest in one. But if you don’t have the cash on hand, a good basic protection is offered for free by AVG Technologies. AVG Free offers protection against viruses, spyware, adware, and Identity theft. Plus it has a click safe feature so you can click on search results safely. I have been running AVG Free on my Asus which I use for writing and Internet browsing when I’m away from home. The software is a reasonable size (meaning not too big), easy to install and use. There are upgraded options as well that offer greater security from spam, unsafe downloads and instant messaging threats.

Google Calendar -The Google calendar isn’t my favorite planner system, but for the price and having an online system (as opposed to a computer system that requires phone syncing), its not bad. I can text my appointments to my calendar to avoid going online to add my events. You can have multiple calendars in one place allowing outsiders to access them (or just one of them). This is ideal if you have a virtual assistant who needs access to your schedule or if you’ll be appearing in public and want others to know when and where you’ll be.

Remember the Milk is a to-list management system that lets you list and prioritize your to-dos. You can send your self reminders via email, text or instant message. It also offers plug ins for iGoogle, Google Calendar, Netvibes, and a host of other services including mobile access, Jott, and more. Signing up is free and easy.You can add Remember the Milk to iGoogle and/or Google Calendar or you can add and learn about other ways to use Remember the Milk in the Service section. My only beef with RTM is that I can’t text my to-dos to my list directly.

Gantt Project Software offers a free easy to use chart-based project management tool that allows you to create tree-hierarchies to help track tasks within projects, create dependencies between tasks (complete task A before completing task B), create PDF or HTML reports and exchange data with Microsoft(R) Project(TM) and spreadsheet applications.The software can not only help keep business and work-related projects in order, but it can be used for personal projects such as home improvement plans.

Skype is  a very easy to use Internet phone calling system. Its easy to download and install, and the program walks you through a test call to make sure its working correctly. The biggest advantage to Skype is that its free its free to call others who also have Skype.  For the business crowd, Skype offers conference and video calls, mobile Skype and instant messaging. Through Skype applications you can have a virtual receptionist and even record your calls (which is great for podcasts!).

But Skype isn’t limited to Internet calling. You can call landlines and cell phone for a fee. The cost is extremely affordable using Skype Credit in a pay-as-you go manner or through a subscription. SkypeOut calls are about 2.1 cents per minute or for $3.00 a month you can have unlimited calls throughout the United Stats and Canada ($10 worldwide).  For about $60 a year you can get a SkypeIn number whereby people can call you from landlines or cell phones.

SimpleVoiceBox.com can operate as a traditional voicemail or as an information broadcaster. It offers a host of features including multiple configurations (do you want your listeners to be able to leave a message or not), online management tool, RSS Feed capability, email notifications and extended message time. The best part is that you can get instant activation, its private and secure, there are no set-up fees, and no commitments or contacts.The free service comes with a toll dial-in number, private access code and unlimited use. Simple voice box also offers fee-based services that can include a toll-free or private number and no access code.

OpenOffice.org offers free word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and data base software that rivals MS Office Suites. It doesn’t have all the features found in Word and other Office products (has anyone used ALL the features in their office products?), but it offers good document creation with the ability to be shared and modified by Word users as well.

GIMP is a free open source program that will allow you to fix, correct, retouch, and enhance your photos. You can save your projects in a variety of formats including JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF and even special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files.  And its compatible with Linux, Windows (XP, Vista), Mac OS X, Sun OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD.

Jing is a free and incredibly easy to use screen capture software. Once installed, you have a little yellow ball that sits at the top of your screen waiting for you to request a picture or video. When opened, its easy to pick the area you want to capture and then you simply poke the picture or video icon. You can hook up your mic to add audio. The free version saves file in flash and you can easily send to Screencast or Flikr. For a $14.95 per year subscription, you can get a more advanced version that lets you save in MPEG-4 and can automatically upload to Youtube. You can even use your favorite movie editor to edit it. Both versions have a limit of 5 minutes of video, but experts say that for basic website needs, 3 minutes is all you need anyway.

iGoogle offers one place to manage your work-at-home office. Its a start page feature offered by Google that allows you to feed your calendar, Remember the Milk tasks, email, weather, news, RSS feeds, and more. You can create multiple categories for your page as well. For example I have the main page that has all my work related gadgets and a fun page with game and YouTube (for when I want to waste time). It the page my browser opens to when I start the day so that I can see all that I need to do and access all the resources to get it done.

Of course this list isn’t complete. There are host of other free resources that can help you start and run your business. But these resources offer the basic tools needed in a home office. To get more great virtual tools visit Better Living On the Web where I share ways to turn the web into your personal assistant.

iGoogle

When I open my browser first thing in the morning, my iGoogle page loads and with it I have access to everything I need to get working : Gmail, Mail2Web (for business mail), Remember the Milk, Google Calendar, Facebook, Google Reader, Twitter Gadget, Clipmarks, Google Notebook, Delicious, and even the weather. I even have an activity tracker that helps me track how much time I spend with each activity which is particularly help for those projects I bill for.

Google Calendar

While there are some things I’d like that aren’t available with Google Calendar, overall it is my favorite way to track my activities. I can list my tasks from Remember The Milk, feed the week’s appointments to my iGoogle page, and even share my calendar with others. But most of all, I love how I can text an event to my calendar when I’m on the road.  Now if I could find a task manager that worked with iGoogle that I could text my to-do’s to. Then I’d really be in WAHM heaven.

Gmail

I use Gmail for all my accounts except my main business account. I love how I can manage multiple accounts in one spot and the label feature organizes my email much better than the folders used in traditional email programs.  I can have my calendar on the Gmail page and I can have my Gmail fed to my iGoogle page.

Google offers more great tools and gadgets that can help the work-at-home mom such as Google Docs, Google Notebook, Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, news alerts and much more. And because they are free, it can save WAHM’s money on needed productivity tools.

My first rule of PLR: Never Use It Like It Is.

Always rewrite your PLR and make it your own. If you’re not – you’re being a lazy marketer.

I use PLR as idea starter and detail filler whenever I find content good enough to work with. There’s some bad PLR out there in case you haven’t noticed but theres also some really good ones.

I have a few favorite PLR providers:

• Easy PLR – I helped launch this great original source for niche PLR content. You select packs of articles or special reports based on the exact topics you need.
• All Private Label Content – You can subscribe to niche content memberships or you can select packs by topic here.
• Yummy PLR – This is ‘all food’ related PLR.
• Special Report Club – PLR in the form of special reports about internet marketing.

I do buy quite a lot of PLR – you never know what you may need down the road, you know? So does my friend Tracy Roberts on Twitter. She tweeted tonight wondering how to organize all of the PLR on her computer harddrive – so I thought I’d blog about my personal PLR organization strategy.

First, I download all of my membership PLR as soon as a new month rolls over. I unzip the folders and sort through the topics to see if there’s anything I can use ‘right now’. If I find something immediately useful I pull it out and place it in the relevant current project folder on my desktop.

Everything else gets dumped into a general PLR folder in My Documents. Then, about once every three months I pull it all out, review titles, scan the articles and sort the good stuff by topic or potential future project and throw out what I know I’ll never use.

Whenever I start up a new project, I check the PLR folder to see what I have on the subject and decide how I’ll put it to use.

I chatting things up on the topic of Podcasting for the three oclock session and I’m hoping the discussion sparked some great podcasting ideas for attendees.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a broken record – but I really, really DO think podcasting is a great move for online business owners.

In further celebration of this big day – I’m giving away a free copy of my Guide to Podcasting to anyone who DMs me for it on Twitter.  This offer is open until midnight

Social networking among women has come a long way since the quilting bees of yester-year! There are literally hundreds of ways for women to network with other like-minded women to share ideas, give and get advice.

Many women also use social networking to promote their home businesses.

Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools any business owner can use, so networking online is a great low-cost alternative to print advertising methods of sharing this information.

From online forums to blogs and webinars, there are many tools the mom-owned small business community can use to spread this information.

One of the best and most interactive tools moms can use to network and build their business is with live Internet chats. Chatting online has been around a long time, but has evolved to include many helpful features which add to the overall appeal of being able to chat with others in real time.

Chat users can add personalization to their online presence, with unique avatars, virtual environments and links back to their websites. A lot of moms like to include pictures of their children and what they do with their business.

Savvy moms who want to tap into this tool to increase awareness about what they’re doing and selling can set up scheduled chats and invite others to come find out for themselves what the fuss is all about.

Some moms like to use chats to have live auctions to sell their products at special prices or liquidate their inventory at the end of the year.

This is an especially effective way to get other moms interested.

Chats are also a great way to educate other moms about how they too can become business owners to earn a little more cash. Chats are an effective way to step up recruitment efforts for anyone who works with a party plan or product business. Offering special sign up deals or bonuses are some good ways that business owners or managers can get people interested and signed up.

One of the best features of live chats is that it allows women to talk about their businesses and to share with others why they love what they do.

Using this form of networking allows busy moms to take just a few minutes out of their daily routines to learn from other successful business owners how to run their business better to get more out of it. Women form relationships from these chats that sometimes turn into mentoring opportunities and this just increases the likelihood that they will succeed in their business. This can lead to improved motivation and higher earnings for all.

So if you are a woman who owns a small business and you want to tap into an excellent low cost social marketing tool, consider scheduling a chat session and learn how this can help you with your business.

Val Selby is the co-owner of Mom Chats. Schedule a coffee chat, online party, or event and network with other Mom’s for free.

A little note from Kelly: Would you like to submit a guest blog post? Please feel free to contact me!

Twitter is a big source of traffic for my blogs – especially the newer ones.  When you can tweet a new post and see hundreds of visitors within hours, that’s pretty darned cool.

I have started to compare all of my social networking activities to Twitter, figuring out my ROI.  Last month on Profitable Mommy Blogging I shared my results comparing time spent using Entrecard to promote a blog versus time spent on Twitter.  Minute for minute, Twitter is a much better use of my time.

There’s no doubt that Twitter is a powerful promotional tool.

One mom blogger commented to me recently that she never used to get more than ten visitors a day to her blog and now she sees over a hundred from Twitter alone.  She has about 750 followers at this point and can’t wait to see what happens when she had twice that many.

Another WAHM told me recently that she has been using Twitter to double her traffic since the beginning of fall.  She’s been so impressed with her results on Twitter that she hasn’t been doing much of anything else.

That’s great.  Twitter rocks!  But here’s a really important message:

You can’t rely on Twitter for everything.

Twitter traffic is wonderful, but if you pursue Twitter to the exclusion of other important marketing activities you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot.

Why?  Well, Twitter is as Twitter does – if you take a break from Twitter, Twitter takes a break from you.  Those hundreds of visits that flow in response to your tweets disappear.

I know, some of you are thinking ‘Take a break from Twitter?!‘ – and I know that sounds crazy but believe it or not, you will eventually, at least occasionally, want to disengage from the constant flow of information.  Or  simply slow down a bit here and there.

While Twitter is and will continue to be an amazing resource for all of us, we need to make time for other important marketing activities as well.

Think about Long Term Results

If I spend an hour or so tweeting, I can draw anywhere from 50 to 150 visitors to my sites in one spurt.

If I spend that time writing a good article and distribute it to a few popular article directories I can draw hundreds or even thousands of visitors to my sites over the next year and for many years after that.

If I spend the time writing a guest post for a popular relevant blog I gain immediate traffic and build an important authority link to my website, helping to boost my search engine rankings.

Create a Good Marketing Mixture

Do use Twitter – but use it smartly – in tandem with other good long term marketing activities.

Whenever you start a blog there’s a lot of excitement and energy. So much to say and share and do.

Then, as time goes by, even the most passionate of bloggers can run into dry times where they just don’t know what to write.

My friend Lynette has come up with something to help us in those dry moments. It’s called Blog Energizer and it’s launching very soon.

I have a feeling that it will be a lot like having vitamins for our blog

She has created some cool gifts that are free for the taking. Go check them out and sign up to be alerted when Blog Energizer opens up.