So you’ve been out all day taking photos of your real estate listings. After downloading them from your camera, you see that they’re good, but they’re just not perfect. You know that with just a few tweaks they’d be perfect. You're not the most tech-savvy and you don’t have the budget to purchase super fancy photo-editing software, so what do you do?

Don’t worry!

I found some web-based photo-editing tools that are not only easy to use, but FREE. Did I say FREE? Many of these tools will give you comparable results to brand-name software, but without the steep learning curve and hefty price tag!

One of my favorites is www.picnik.com. This site has all the basics you need to modify your photos. After registering for a free account, you can upload and modify photos in a flash.

The basic tool set allows you to:

· Rotate

· Crop

· Resize

· Fix exposure

· Change colors

· Sharpen

· Convert to new file type (png, gif, tif, bmp)

Should you feel a little adventuresome and want to test out the advanced tools, you can do the following:

· Convert to black and white or sepia

· Add borders

· Add drop shadow

· Add text

· Touch up

Picnik has all the editing tools that the professionals use, just without the high price tag. Best of all, this site is available to you from any computer connected to the internet—for FREE!

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Is your email inbox more of a dumping ground for the long list of tasks that seem to continuously grow? Have you even tried to find that specific email regarding the issue you know was resolved, but seems to have popped up again? Are you constantly digging through emails from your colleagues to find a signature with their phone numbers on it? I have to share my favorite organizational tool with you, and it is FREE!

This savior of my Outlook Inbox is Xobni! Funny name for a great tool (it is inbox spelled backwards) but it truly works! Some of the features are:

--Easy to navigate, right side tool bar that instantly shows connections between you, the highlighted sender and the people you both communicate with
--Document/attachment history from each contact
--Email conversation “threads”
--Super fast email search through all of your Outlook
--Easy and quick appointment scheduling
--Automatic phone number extraction for each contact
--Editable contact profiles

One feature I love is that you can search by people—and it will search your entire Outlook, not just one folder! This free product has really made my email much easier to use. Honestly, after using Xobni for the last 3 weeks, I don’t think I can go back to not having it!

To download your own free Outlook inbox miracle, visit the Xobni website:

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You may rewrite the body of an email two or three times before sending, but how much time do you spend on your subject lines? Here are a few suggestions:

Keep your subject lines short and sweet. Many email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, etc.) will truncate long subject lines, so keep your subject lines under 50 characters including spaces. Be sure to indicate the most important information at the beginning.

Keep your subject lines professional. Avoid using "smileys" and punctuation marks. These will fall easily to spam filters.

Use capitalization sparingly! Typing in all caps can be construed as the equivalent of yelling at someone face-to-face. This also applies to the text in the body of your email. Using caps to draw attention to a single word is acceptable, but frequent use of all caps is likely to annoy the reader and will ultimately cause your emails to be deleted.

Do not use vague or general words alone. Using general words all alone trigger spam filters. Words like urgent, new, hi, etc are prime examples. Tip: look through your spam or junk folder for examples of what not to use. Use specific information, such as the property address and the consumer's name. "Jan here is the info for 123 Center Street". This validates the email as current, cites importance, and personalizes the message.
Always be sure to check your spelling and grammar!

Remember, the subject line is the first thing the consumer reads and in could determine whether the email is deleted or read based on those few words. Those first seconds are critical, you need to engage the consumer and let them know what you have to say is important.

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