Category: Iphone

How to start an eCommerce business: A step-by-step guide

I’m pretty much always thinking about the prospect of starting an eCommerce business. I like my job, but I do not enjoy labor, and the siren songs of any number of passive income streams call to me daily. Tragically, however, I am not cut out for entrepreneurship. I spent a few years freelancing full-time in my early 20s, and I nearly bankrupted myself—I just never did any work.

If you’re thinking about diving into eCommerce entrepreneurship, you should have a clear and thorough understanding of exactly what it takes to be successful as an online seller. So before you start loading up on craft resin or earring hooks, read on to find out exactly what it takes to start an eCommerce business.

Pros and cons of running an eCommerce store

You don’t have to search very far to see what it is that draws people to the idea of starting their own eCommerce business. No micromanaging supervisors to answer to or fat cat executives living off of the fruits of your labor, and without any physical assets or locations, you can go wherever you want and still run your operation. 

Sell more and keep your customers happy

Automate your eCommerce

In short, many people are drawn to eCommerce selling because they think it’s their key to freedom. To those people, I say: au contraire. In many ways, eCommerce sellers are more limited than regular employees. 

Sure, I may have to answer to my manager, but if I mess something up, there’s no chance of her requesting a refund on my last paycheck or claiming the work I emailed her got irretrievably lost. I may not make my own hours, but since my salary is fixed, I can take days off knowing that there’s no chance of it impacting how much money I make. You need to decide for yourself whether the benefits of launching an eCommerce business outweigh the risks of flying without the safety net of job security to fall back on.

How to tell if eCommerce is right for you

In the same way that some kids are terrible at homework but are great test-takers, there are some personalities that do thrive under the pressure of relying on their business’s success for their survival. When it comes to employment vs. entrepreneurship, there is no objectively better, more flexible, more independent choice—there’s just what works better for you.

Here’s a quick self-screener you can use to determine if you’re cut out for online selling:

  • Do you like what you do? This is something you’re going to be spending hours on, day in and day out—and you’re going to have to work really hard to get your business off the ground. Unlike traditional small business owners, you won’t have a staff, coworkers, or a physical workplace; it’s just going to be you, likely in your home, making the thing you sell. If you’re not truly passionate about your product, you’ll be miserable within a few weeks, tops.
  • Are you self-disciplined? It’s not easy being your own boss, especially in an industry as isolating as eCommerce. Many other small businesses don’t have this problem—I taught piano lessons for a period of time and didn’t have a boss then, but knowing that my students were relying on me to be prepared for their lessons still kept me accountable. It’s a lot easier to stay motivated when you’re interacting with customers or a small staff.
  • Do you have a lot of commitments? Anyone who has ever tried to work remotely from their parents’ house can tell you that, for whatever reason, people simply do not perceive solo work on a computer as “real work,” so if you want to run a successful online store, you need strong boundaries and a close relationship with the word “no.” 
  • Can you take on the financial risk? Starting a store on the side while you stay in a day job is one thing, but if you’re making a complete leap to entrepreneurship, you need to be able to get by for a few months or even a year without much income. If you have lots of debt or a family to feed, this might not be the career for you.

Provided you’ve given it some thought and you’re ready to make the leap—or if you’re starting your business part-time until it takes off—you’re ready to get started on launching your business.

Choose an eCommerce business model

When I think of small eCommerce businesses, I think primarily of some of my favorite niche Etsy shops selling things like taxidermied squid jewelry and D&D dice with real mushrooms inside. (I am a very fun person to know at Christmas.) 

But eCommerce selling includes far more than traditional consumer retail. Depending on your needs, you may find that one of these alternatives suits you best:

  • Dropshipping: Dropshipping is a type of eCommerce business where you sell products without carrying any inventory. When a customer places an order on your site, you simply contact the supplier (or have the order sent automatically) and have them ship the product directly to the customer. Dropshipping is a popular eCommerce business model because you don’t need to spend a lot of money up front.
  • Print on demand: Print on demand is similar to dropshipping, but instead of shipping products from a supplier, you have your products printed and shipped by a print-on-demand service. This type of eCommerce business is often used for selling custom-printed products like t-shirts, mugs, and stationery.
  • Retail arbitrage: Retail arbitrage is the process of buying products from brick-and-mortar stores and selling them online at a higher price. This type of eCommerce business can be profitable, but it requires a bit more work than dropshipping or print on demand. You also need to identify a product niche that allows you to do this profitably, where you can be confident that customers won’t just go to the original source to make their purchase at a lower price.
  • Wholesaling: Wholesaling is a type of eCommerce business where you sell products in bulk to retailers. The benefit of wholesaling is that you can get discounts on the products you purchase, which allows you to sell them at a higher price and still make a profit. But this requires a large initial investment since you’ll need to stock inventory in bulk quantities.
  • Subscriptions: Subscription eCommerce businesses sell products or services on a recurring basis, most commonly in the form of a monthly box of curated products (or, in my dog’s case, a monthly delivery of different home-style baked treats). But there are other types of subscription businesses, such as online courses and members-only clubs.

Not sure which way to go? Check out our guide to eCommerce sales channels for more detailed information on how to decide.

Choose a product market

What business model you choose will also rely heavily on the product market you want to target, since not all models will work with all types of products. Naturally, dropshipping won’t work to sell hand-knitted sweaters, while very few people are likely to buy a subscription for artisan coffee tables. The other thing that will help you decide what products to sell is your chosen target market.

A broad target market is the kiss of death for a budding eCommerce entrepreneur. There are over 9.1 million eCommerce retailers in the world, 2.5 million of which are located in the United States. Do you want to compete with between 2.5 and 9.1 million businesses? I didn’t think so.

When you choose a product market, you’re isolating a part of this larger market of retailers that you want to compete within. The more specific your product market is, the fewer competitors you have; the fewer competitors you have, the more likely you are to succeed. In eCommerce, the most successful sellers home in on extremely small, highly specific product markets—also called micro-markets or niches.

How to find your eCommerce niche

A product niche is a very small sliver of a product market that is both large enough to contain a robust customer audience but small enough that it doesn’t contain many competitors. The best way to identify your niche is to start with a product market and whittle it down from there.

Graphic of the five key characteristics of a good ecommerce niche

To choose a product market to start with target products that:

  • You’re capable of creating (at high quality) 
  • You enjoy creating (even at scale)
  • Have a small market/minimal competition
  • People want or need
  • Are profitable

Let’s break down each of these characteristics in detail.

Pick something you’re good at

It’s perhaps the most obvious of the five characteristics listed, but it still bears mentioning: when starting an eCommerce business, choose something that you can do or make well. If you choose something extremely unique and specific that no one else is doing, you may be fooled into believing the lack of competition will make up for poor quality. But the moment you gain some popularity, if someone else can create your product better than you can, your business will be dead in the water.

Pick something you like

Choose something you enjoy making, looking at, and thinking about. More importantly, choose something you won’t hate after the tenth, fiftieth, hundredth, or thousandth time you’ve sold it. Selling can be tedious work, especially if you make your products yourself. Don’t build your business around a product market only to find that you can’t stand working in it.

Pick a small market with limited competition

eCommerce sellers can’t use the same logic and strategy that regular companies do to choose their target markets. You’re one person, with one person’s resources and power—if you try to enter a market where you’re competing with full-sized companies and brands, you’ll be out-marketed and out-maneuvered every time. 

Be specific: instead of lawn services, target the market for environmentally sustainable lawn care in one finite geographical location. Instead of publishing eBooks on finance, publish eBooks on investing for American women ages 18-24. Keep narrowing it down until you’ve found your product niche (more on that later).

Pick something people want or need

This is just common sense: you need to sell something that people will actually buy. Even the biggest brands still mess this up every once in a while (looking at you, Colgate-brand frozen dinners and the Bristol-Myers Squibb nightmare that was the “Touch of Yogurt” shampoo). Don’t wait until after you’ve launched your product to try to match it to a potential customer market. Do your research, and narrow down your target customer’s pains and gains, or the problems they need to solve and the enjoyable things they want to enhance. Make sure there’s a large enough demographic of people who are in the market for what you can provide.

Pick something profitable

There’s no surefire way to guarantee that a product or business will be profitable, but with some thorough research, you can certainly strengthen your odds. Ideally, you want to choose a product market with a strong balance between a large potential customer base and a small number of competitors. You’re also more likely to succeed if your product is truly unique in some way—if you offer a feature or element that no other competitor offers. Keep narrowing down your market until you’ve found your unique niche.

Narrowing down your product niche

Once you’ve identified a promising product market, you can start adding details to whittle your target market down to a target niche. 

For example, let’s say that you make clothes in your free time, and you’re interested in figuring out how to turn that into an eCommerce business opportunity. In the broadest sense, you want to target the clothing industry, but since this is an extremely saturated market—meaning that it contains many, many competitors—it’s not one where you’re likely to succeed as an individual eCommerce seller.

You need to find a more unique product category within the larger framework of the clothing industry. One good choice might be pet clothes, since there are far fewer designers and retailers in the pet fashion industry than the human one. But “pet clothes” is still a pretty broad category, so you might narrow it further to pet clothes that are specifically for dogs. 

When solo eCommerce selling was still a burgeoning market, handmade dog clothes may have been a narrow enough niche to pursue since there were so few non-corporate sellers and even fewer online marketplaces where sellers could compete. But today, you’ll want to get even more specific—perhaps by focusing on dog clothes for specific occasions, like weddings and engagements.

Graphic portrayal of the process of narrowing down a niche

That’s as far as I’m taking this example, but if I were actually launching this business, I’d probably drill down even further just to really make sure that I had my unique micro-market cornered. I might narrow it down by size, theme, or even specific clothing items until I hit on my ultimate niche: floral-themed wedding bow ties for small and medium dogs. (Though there’s truly no limit to how far you drill down your niche—until, perhaps, you reach CelebriDucks levels of specificity.)

Your niche isn’t a permanent designation—if your product does well in your corner of the market, you’ll have more capital to invest in better marketing, audience targeting tools, and maybe even an employee or two. The more your company grows, the more resources and power you have to capture a larger market share.

Set up your store

You’ve found your market, honed your niche, picked your product, and you’re ready to start generating inventory and selling it to your customers. It’s time to choose a platform and set up your eCommerce store.

Choose an eCommerce platform

Talk about a crowded market—there are a ton of different platforms you can use to create a store online. You also don’t necessarily need your own online storefront; you can sell on marketplaces, crowdfunding sites, or a number of other eCommerce alternatives. If you do go with an eCommerce platform, here are a few different guides and comparisons that can help you find the right site for your business:

Set up your store

The platforms above fall into one of two categories, each with different setup requirements.

  • A standard website builder (like Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, or WordPress) will allow you to create an entire website, only part of which needs to be dedicated to your actual store’s functions. If eCommerce selling is only part of your business plan—for example, if you’re a professional photographer who sells prints and posters as a side hustle—you would want your site to be dedicated to your store as well as pages housing biographical information, your professional portfolio, booking information, recordings of photography classes or talks you’ve given, online course signups, and anything else that pertains to your career.
  • If your primary goal is eCommerce selling, you’re better off opting for a purpose-built eCommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce. Both platforms are capable of many of the same features as a general website builder, like adding about pages, forms, image displays, and blogs. These platforms also grant you access to more advanced features and integrations designed specifically for eCommerce sites, which can help supercharge your selling and help your store gain momentum early on.

Ready to build your store? Check out these step-by-step guides to building your store in the platform you want:

Market your business

With your eCommerce shop all set up, it’s time to throw everything you’ve got into making sure that it succeeds. You can’t wait for your customers to come to you—you need to go out and find, reach, and convert your target audience.

Target inbound sales leads

Inbound sales strategies are designed to draw people to you, instead of the other way around—think search optimization (SEO), paid search, social media, email marketing campaigns, and content marketing. 

Explore potential sales strategies in more detail with these guides:

Use what you’ve got

As a small business owner, your plate is going to be full most of the time (frankly, it will often be full-on, Thanksgiving-style overflowing). If you want to keep up with it all, you need to learn to be efficient about using what you already have and drawing multiple marketing materials out of one asset.

For example:

  • Get into the habit of snapping and recording your day-to-day processes and behind-the-scenes moments, so you always have material for social and website visuals.
  • If you’re researching a topic, if it’s related to your business, consider adding an extra step to turn your research into a marketing email or SEO post.
  • Whenever you design a new marketing asset—an email layout, an Instagram Story, a blog structure—aim to turn it into a template that you can use again, instead of starting from scratch on your next asset.

Marketing as a small business owner is a “work smarter, not harder” game. Get as much mileage as you possibly can out of everything you create, and you’ll free up time and attention that would be better spent on business strategy and growing your company.

Automate as much as possible

There are lots of opportunities to automate parts of the eCommerce process. Invest time in setting up automations at the outset, and you’ll save far more time and energy avoiding unnecessary busywork once your store gets off the ground.

In fact, most of the risks specific to eCommerce entrepreneurship come down to the fact that it’s an overwhelming amount of work for one person to handle, so automating as much of your workload as possible can materially increase the likelihood of your business’s success.

Here are a few guides on the kinds of automation that work best for eCommerce and how to set them up:

The best mind mapping software in 2022

Mind mapping is a creative way to brainstorm and find connections between different ideas. Done right, it’s a great way to come up with new ideas and solutions to tricky problems, outline an article or presentation, and generally just get your thoughts in order.

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I do most of my mind mapping digitally—and even when I don’t, I often recreate a paper mind map online so that I can have it safely stored and easily searched. (It’s a weird hybrid approach, but it works for me.) 

Over the past several years of updating this list, I’ve tested close to 50 different mind map tools, many multiple times as they’ve been updated and added new features. I’ve also made dozens of mind maps myself, both on paper and digitally. Pen and paper set a very high bar to clear, but these are the five best mind mapping apps that manage to clear it.

The 5 best mind mapping tools in 2022

  • Coggle for mind map beginners and occasional use
  • MindMeister for collaborating on a mind map with a team
  • Ayoa for a modern approach to mind mapping
  • MindNode for Apple users
  • XMind 2022 for personal brainstorming

What is mind mapping?

Traditionally, a mind map is done with a pen (or, ideally, loads of colored pens) and paper. You start by writing a central idea or theme in the middle of a blank sheet of paper. Then the fun starts: around your central theme, you create “nodes” connected by lines, each with its own related idea or theme. For example, if the central theme was “Summer” (say, for a marketing campaign), the first five or so nodes might be “Good weather,” “BBQs,” “Vacation,” “Air conditioning,” and “School’s out.”

From each node, you then repeat the process, drilling deeper into the different concepts. “BBQs” might lead to “Family time,” “Good food,” and “Burgers.” “School’s out” could lead to “Summer jobs,” “Extracurriculars,” and “Alice Cooper.”

Some ideas will also connect back to other ideas. “Family time” could also link to “Good weather” and “Vacation.” “Burgers” could link to “Summer jobs.” But by getting all these branching concepts down on paper, you can start to see the relationships between different things and generate new ideas. Who’d have thought before we started brainstorming that Alice Cooper flipping burgers at a family BBQ (or maybe in a fast food joint?) could make for a killer summer ad?

What makes for great mind map software?

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

Mind mapping with a sheet of paper and a pen is an incredibly intuitive and natural way to work. You just start drawing and go from there with almost nothing in your way.

It does have its downsides, though. Unless you have a gigantic whiteboard knocking around, you’re limited to a fairly small piece of paper. It’s not searchable, and you can’t easily undo things or make edits. And, worst of all, if you lose your mind map, you don’t have a backup. So even though pen-and-paper mind mapping is delightful, it might be worth considering a mind map app.

While each mind mapping tool on this list has its own unique benefits, they all meet at least the following criteria:

  • It’s actually a mind mapping app. A lot of drawing, diagramming, and flowchart apps are marketed as mind map apps—but they aren’t. While you could make a mind map in them, you could also use PowerPoint, Photoshop, or MS Paint. You could even get a key and carve a mind map into your computer screen. Just because something can be used to make a mind map, doesn’t mean it should or that it will do it well. These more general-purpose apps tend to lack the features that make creating a mind map digitally as easy as possible, like automatically linking nodes, brainstorming modes that let you get a lot of concepts down quickly, and search. For an app to make this list, we dug past the marketing and made sure it was designed from the ground up for brainstorming, not for drawing or creating professional diagrams or charts.
  • It gets out of the way. Mind mapping with a pen and paper is a joy. No app is ever going to be quite as intuitive, but it should come as close as possible. After a short learning period to get up to speed, you shouldn’t have to stop and think to create a node, or dig through menus to connect two ideas. The app should just fade into the background—the same way your web browser does. 
  • It offers an unlimited canvas. A digital mind map tool should have a practically unlimited canvas size, so you can make a mind map as big as you can conceive of, connecting huge numbers of ideas if you want. Using an app is all about overcoming the analog downsides, not reinforcing them. 
  • It allows you to attach files. Sometimes you need more than a few words to fully illustrate a concept—and doodling is a big part of analog mind mapping. For an app to make this list, you need to be able to attach images, videos, documents, web pages, and other assorted extras to your mind maps. 
  • It allows you to save and export. You can’t easily edit, save, or share your paper mind maps, so one of the big reasons to go digital is that you can. The best mind map software lets you come back to a mind map later and change it up, save it, and export it in different formats, so you can send it to your colleagues, classmates, or anyone else.

This is my third year keeping this list updated, so I’m very familiar with all our top picks—plus all the apps that come close to breaking into this list but just fall short. To test each mind map app, I use it. I start with some silly concept and just mind map away to see how it works and feels. (I’m always comparing things back to both paper and the other apps.) If it’s nice to use and ticks all the boxes, it goes on a shortlist to be considered for inclusion. If it’s awkward, gets in the way, or doesn’t have a key feature, I leave it off the list (though all the testing notes get added to an increasingly complex spreadsheet, so I can check if things improve next year). From that shortlist, I pull out the best of the best. So, here are the five best mind mapping apps.

Best mind mapping software for beginners and occasional use

Coggle (Web)

Coggle, our pick for the best mind mapping app for beginners and occasional use

Coggle is, in many ways, the mind map maker to beat. It’s fast, intuitive, and easy to use (with great keyboard shortcuts)—even though it’s only available through your web browser. Perhaps best of all, Coggle is free for up to three private mind maps. As long as you save your mind maps as PDFs, plain text documents, or images, you can delete your old drafts and basically have unlimited free mind mapping. If you’re only looking to use a digital option every few months, it’s practically perfect.

The moment you start a diagram in Coggle, you’ll see the central node of a new mind map. From there, you can create new nodes by clicking on the plus sign or—if you want a faster experience—tapping the tab key. There’s a handy cheatsheet of all the keyboard shortcuts in the bottom-right corner of the app, and it’s worth learning to use them.  

Coggle is packed with thoughtful touches. One of my favorite features is that you can format your mind map items and messages with Markdown, so you can get as fancy as you need to while adding your text, images, and links to the canvas. There’s also collaboration built in. If you want to bounce some ideas off a colleague, you can go ahead and add them to your mind map, carry on a conversation in the messages sidebar, or go into full-screen presentation mode to take a step back and do more high-level ideation.

In short, for occasional mind mapping (whether on your own or with colleagues), Coggle nails it, and it’s your best option s for free mind mapping software. Its paid offering is also great, but for $60/year, you can get other mind mapping apps that work natively rather than just through a web browser.

Coggle pricing: Free for up to three private diagrams; $5/month for unlimited private diagrams and extra mind mapping tools (like additional shapes and color control).

Best mind mapping software for collaborating with a team

MindMeister (Web, iOS, Android)

MindMeister, our pick for the best mind mapping software for collaborating with a team

MindMeister is one of the best collaborative mind mapping tools out there. It’s a little less intuitive to use than Coggle, and some features—like exporting your mind maps as a PDF or image, or attaching images and videos—are limited to paid plans, so it’s a less enticing option for solo mind mappers. For teams, though, its collaboration features are great: you can add team members and guests to your mind map, leave comments for each other, and otherwise work together to brainstorm or present ideas.

It also has a sleek modern interface and plenty of customization options (including some more corporate layouts). Plus, it automatically aligns your nodes, which makes it easy to create great-looking mind maps that won’t look out of place in a meeting room.

MindMeister is owned by the same people that make MeisterTask, a web-based, kanban-style project management app. The two tools are integrated, so you can turn your brainstorm session into an actionable project, assigning individual items on a mind map to members of your team, tracking task progress, and syncing it all with your other project boards inside MeisterTask—which even integrates with Zapier.

For an in-depth look at what a sample MindMeister/MeisterTask project might look like, take a look at our article about how to jumpstart new projects with mind maps.

MindMeister pricing: Free for the Basic plan that includes up to three mind maps and real-time collaboration. From $4.99/month for the Personal plan that includes unlimited mind maps, file attachments, and PDF exports.

Best mind mapping software for a modern mind mapping approach

Ayoa (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)

Ayoa, our pick for the best mind mapping software with a modern mind mapping approach

Ayoa is the follow-up to one of our previous mind mapping picks, iMindMap. It was created by Chris Griffiths, a mind mapping expert and author who has collaborated with Tony Buzan, the man responsible for popularizing mind mapping in the 1970s. Put simply, it’s got a serious mind mapping pedigree—and it shows.

Open Ayoa, create a Mind Map, and you have a choice of making an Organic Map, a Speed Map, a Radial Map, or a Capture Map—though you can also change between them at any time with a dropdown menu. (You can also make a Whiteboard or Task Board if you’re doing some more corporate-style brainstorming, though these features are limited to the more expensive plans.)

  • The Organic Map is the most traditional and mimics the kind of thing you’d draw with a pen and paper. You aren’t confined to just putting words in boxes. Instead, you’re encouraged to label the swooshing, Sharpie-like branches that connect different ideas. It’s a much more natural process than a lot of the other apps.
  • A Speed Map is similar, but with a stripped-down setup designed for rapid brainstorming. You’re almost forced to use keyboard shortcuts, like Tab for a new child branch and Enter for a new sibling branch, as the buttons to do the same are hidden away unless you deliberately click on a node. It’s great when you want to ideate quickly.
  • A Radial Map is a totally modern approach to mind mapping. Instead of nodes and lines, every idea becomes part of a series of concentric circles. A peripheral segment of your central idea becomes the center of its own circle of ideas as you move outward. It’s mind mapping that’s moving beyond the limits of what can even be imagined with paper.
  • A Capture Map is a blank canvas that allows you to quickly add ideas, whether they’re related or not. They float around the page as little thought bubbles. You can then connect them and turn your rough outline into an Organic Map, Speed Map, or Radial Map.

And Ayoa isn’t just limited to basic (and not-so-basic) mind mapping. The chat, real-time collaboration, whiteboard, and task management features make it ideal if you’re part of a small team looking to realize your ideas. It’s also designed to be accessible to neurodiverse people. Ayoa is under rapid development, so it’s worth keeping an eye on their roadmap to see what features are coming down the line. When we reviewed this app two years ago, the whiteboard features didn’t exist. Last year, they were worth mentioning. Now, they’re so good that Ayoa almost made our list of best whiteboard apps.

This year’s surprise feature addition was GenerateIdeas.ai—an AI-powered brainstorming tool (though it’s only available on the most expensive Ultimate tier). Click Open in GI, then right-click on any node and select Ideas, Questions, or Explain, and it will come up with up to four related concepts. I found it was a little too willing to dive into controversial concepts like weight loss (a problem with many AI-powered tools). Using “Spring” as a test bed, I quickly generated ideas like “go for a morning jog” and “chocolate Easter eggs,” which, when the AI expanded on them, led to suggestions like “go for a morning jog to lose weight” and “develop a healthier chocolate to help with weight loss.” Keep this in mind if you’re going to use it in your workplace.

Ayoa pricing: Mind Map plan for $6.95/user/month with all mind mapping features. The Pro plan for $13/user/month adds whiteboards and other advanced features.

Best mind mapping software for Apple users

MindNode (iOS, macOS)

MindNode, our pick for the best mind mapping software for Apple users

Most mind mapping apps are web apps, and if there’s a native app available, it’s really just a shell for the web app. It’s fine if you want the collaboration, sharing, and other features you get with an online service, but what if you just want a simple way to brainstorm by yourself?

MindNode, a native Mac, iPhone, and iPad app, is perfect for Apple users (and when I’m in a big mind mapping buzz, it’s my go-to app). Start a new map on one device and it instantly syncs to your other devices using iCloud. The app is just as easy to use (and as powerful) whether you prefer to tap the plus icon to add a new node on your iPhone or click it on your Mac. And since it’s a fully native app, no internet connection? No problem.

MindNode also has a load of other features that will keep you happy if you’re deep in Apple’s ecosystem, like a Quick Entry dialog in the Menu Bar on your Mac, Widgets for the Home screen or Notification Center, a Watch app, Apple Pencil support, and integration with popular to-do apps Apple Reminders, Things, and OmniFocus. Select any node, and click Add Task to turn it into a to-do item. Or click the share menu and Export to Things (or OmniFocus), and your mind map will get converted into a project in your chosen app with all your to-dos ready to be checked off. It’s a great brainstorming app that lets you turn a brainstorming session into something actionable.

MindNode pricing: Free limited Mac and iOS app; $2.49/month for MindNode Plus with image support, tasks, themes, and styling options.

Best mind mapping software for personal brainstorming

XMind (Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android)

XMind, our pick for the best mind mapping software for personal brainstorming

If you just make mind maps by yourself and don’t need to constantly brainstorm with other people, then a lot of the tools we’ve looked at are overkill. A lot of development time goes into supporting real-time collaboration, versioning, and the like. With XMind, however, all that same dev energy goes straight into making mind mapping nicer, faster, and easier. 

While XMind is available on the web (if you have mind maps stored in a cloud storage provider like Dropbox or Google Drive), its native apps are what shine. It’s available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux. If you need something cross-platform so you and your family (or professional team) can all use the same app, even if you aren’t collaborating in real-time, it’s hard to beat. 

While it’s subjective, I also feel that XMind makes the nicest mind maps by default. It’s got a slightly hand-drawn style that I wish I could mimic with a pen and paper. It’s professional enough for the office (especially if you use the built-in Pitch mode), but also nice enough that you’ll want to use it by choice. 

Otherwise, XMind hits all the marks you’d expect from a mind mapping app. It’s intuitive to use whether you rely on keyboard shortcuts, a touch screen, or clicking buttons with a mouse. There are enough customization options and themes that you can make your mind maps how you like.

Really, the biggest downside is that, at ~$7/month, it’s expensive for one person—especially when you consider all the features it lacks compared to, say, Ayoa or MindMeister. If a nice solo offline experience is more important than the most features for the money, then it’s easy to recommend. On the other hand, if you’re not mind mapping that often or need to work in a more deliberate way with other people, it’s probably not for you. 

XMind pricing: $39.99 for 6 months (or $59.99 annually) for up to five desktops and five mobile devices.

If you’re wary of subscription fees and want something for personal use, SimpleMind is a solid XMind alternative. It’s available from €24.99 for Windows or macOS (€44.99 for both), $9.99 for iOS, and $8.49 for Android. 

Do you need a mind mapping app?

Mind mapping can be a great way to generate and connect ideas, but unless you do it all the time, you probably don’t need a dedicated mind map creator—or at least not a paid one. Because, when it comes down to it, mind mapping software is just brainstorming software—and you can brainstorm pretty much anywhere. If you want a compromise, Coggle is a great place to start for free mind map software, since the free plan is pretty generous.

Also, reconsider the pen-and-paper method. It’s really hard to beat—which is why there are so many mind mapping apps available and so few on our list—and you can always take a photo of it to save it or share it. It’s not as tech-y as an app, but it works if you don’t make mind maps all the time as part of your job, or even in your personal life.

Source :
https://zapier.com/blog/best-mind-mapping-software/

The 9 best free stock photo sites in 2022

How to find free stock images for business and commercial use

Stock photo sites are a dime a dozen, so it can be tough to know where to find free, high-quality images that aren’t also on every other website.

And as a freelancer and a business owner, I’ve done my fair share of scouring the web for that perfect stock photo. So I spent several weeks reviewing dozens of stock photo websites—and I narrowed it down to the nine best for your next project. 

The 9 best free stock photo sites

  • Unsplash for the widest variety of free stock images (and integrations)
  • Pixabay for a variety of media types
  • Gratisography for quirky images you won’t see anywhere else
  • Canva for adding simple enhancements and overlays
  • Burst for eCommerce companies
  • New Old Stock for vintage photos
  • Reshot for UX/UI designers
  • 123RF for photo sizes optimized for social media
  • Flickr for interacting with the photography community

How to find the best websites with 100% free stock photos

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

Finding images that are free for commercial use isn’t as hard as it might sound, thanks to a number of sites that aggregate photos, illustrations, vectors, and more. These sites usually let you search and filter by keyword or category, making it easy to find what you’re looking for. But that doesn’t mean every stock photo site is worth perusing.

The best free stock image sites all meet the following criteria:

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  • They must contain images that can be used without payment for both commercial and personal purposes.
  • I focused on sites that have at least 500 photos, but I favored ones that offer thousands of images.
  • A lot of free stock photo sites essentially offer the same pictures. I looked for sites that offered unique images, so your content can stand out.
  • If you plan to use stock photos for your website or branded content, you’ll need high-quality resolutions. Every site on this list offers at least one high-quality download size for its photos.
  • And of course, the website itself should be fast, easy to navigate, and from this century.

When reviewing these sites, I visited each one and signed up for an account if necessary. I explored the site’s menus and conducted a number of searches to see what types of photos would come up. I reviewed the quality of the photos and took note of things like how advanced the search filters were, whether there were high-resolution download sizes available, and if there was anything uniquely useful about the stock photo site in question.

Best free stock photos site for a variety of photos and integrations  

Unsplash (Web, iOS, Android)

Unsplash, our pick for the best free stock photos site for a variety of photos and integrations

With more than three million photos and multiple plugins, Unsplash is one of the most easily accessible and largest collections of stock photos available. 

It comes with native apps like an iOS app, an Android photo picker, Apple TV and desktop wallpaper apps, and even a Chrome extension that randomly selects a background image when you open your browser. Unsplash’s API is also already natively integrated into popular tools like Figma, Notion, Trello, and Squarespace, letting you search and use high-quality stock photos without leaving your favorite platform. 

The site is also easy to use: type a keyword into the search bar at the top of the page, and browse the results to find the best images for your purposes. And if you don’t know what you’re looking for, there are category tabs along the top of the homepage for inspiration.

Another feature that sets Unsplash apart from other free photo sites is its Collections section. Users of the site are able to create Collections—like “Christmas Traditions,” “Autumn,” and “Milkyway“—by curating photos they come across. If you want several similar photos of a specific theme, Unsplash may be your best option.

Best free stock photos site for a variety of media types

Pixabay (Web, iOS, Android) 

Pixabay, our pick for the best free stock photos site for a variety of media types

Pixabay hosts more than 2.6 million photos, illustrations, vector graphics, and videos—all of which are free to use. Click Images next to the search bar to look for images by type, or you can search more granularly by becoming familiar with Pixabay’s advanced search options. Pixabay lets you search by photographer, orientation (i.e., landscape or portrait), size, and even color. The site also features an Editor’s Choice curation section, which highlights the best images chosen by the Pixabay team. Click the Explore dropdown menu in the upper-right corner of the site to see their selections.

If you need a professional-looking illustration—i.e., a hand-drawn image or a computer-generated graphic—you should begin your search here. Royalty-free illustrations can be tricky to find on many free image sites, but Pixabay has loads of them. Just click Images, select Illustrations, enter in your search terms, and that’s that. You can also use Pixabay to search for vector graphics, videos, music, and even sound effects.

Best free stock photos site for quirky images you won’t see anywhere else

Gratisography (Web, Android)

Gratisography, our pick for the best free stock photos site for quirky images you won't see anywhere else

Gratisography doesn’t have thousands of pictures for you to browse through. What it does have is some of the quirkiest images you will find on the web—images you won’t be able to find anywhere else, like a young kid spray painting and an alarm clock that looks like it’s on the moon.

The site is pretty barebones—and its color scheme is distracting at best, with bright neon colors and cartoonish UI elements. Photos are organized into only nine different categories: Animals, Business, Fashion, Food, Nature, Objects, People, Urban, and Whimsical. And while the photo resolutions are high-quality, they only come in one size (and you have to download each photo to find out). 

But if you’re looking for an odd image that will bring your content to life, Gratisography is definitely the place to start.

Best free stock photos site for adding simple enhancements and overlays

Canva (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android) 

Canva, our pick for the best free stock photos site for adding simple enhancements and overlays

Canva is a web-based graphic design tool that makes modifying images easy. If you’re looking for stock photos for a graphic design project—like designing a social media banner or a flyer—Canva is a one-stop shop for your needs. Even with a free account, the platform offers a library of over 1.6 million free images you can use for any purpose.

If you’re planning on enhancing the images you find with simple text overlays or tweaking the transparency or vibrancy of photos on a regular basis, Canva will help you streamline the process. Find photos, and then use Canva’s built-in design tool to enhance them on the spot.

One helpful feature is that Canva automatically generates a color palette for any photo you choose. If you’re building a vision board or a design presentation, you can easily use the hex color codes to keep your project’s color scheme consistent.

Canva does come with a few downsides, though. As I was testing, I noticed that you can’t directly download a stock photo as you would from another stock photo site. Instead, you’ll have to click Use in a design. Canva takes you to the design dashboard with the stock photo on your digital canvas. While this is helpful if you intend to add text or graphics to the image, it’s an unnecessary complication if you plan to download a stock photo as-is.  

Also, many of the best stock photo sites let you choose the size of your photo before downloading it. Canva only provides one size—though the photos are all in high resolution.

If you’re looking for more stock photo sites for graphic design, PikWizard and Kaboompics are both great Canva alternatives. PikWizard is linked to DesignWizard, a design tool similar to Canva. And Kaboompics focuses on color palettes; you can even download your chosen photo along with with the color scheme it uses, which is useful for putting together vision boards and presentations. Kaboompics also lets you choose a custom pixel width when downloading an image, which is a helpful feature.

Best free stock photos site for eCommerce businesses

Burst (Web, iOS, Android) 

Burst, our pick for the best free stock photos site for eCommerce companies

Burst is a free stock photo site powered by leading eCommerce platform Shopify. The platform offers thousands of free images you can use to strengthen your content, including a large selection of business-oriented photos (e.g., retail, eCommerce, money, and products). The site serves up 28 different categories, several of which are broken down into subcategories to make it even easier to find the images you need.

Browsing, searching, and downloading are standard fare, but as an added bonus, Burst and Shopify offer advice on things like how to turn your online business ideas into reality.

Best free stock photos site for vintage photos

New Old Stock (Web) 

New Old Stock, our pick for the best free stock photos site for vintage photos

New Old Stock publishes vintage photos from the public archives. If you think old photos—like a group of men sitting outside a storefront in the late 1800s or a British dispatch rider in France—would match your brand, spend a few minutes scrolling through New Old Stock to see if anything catches your eye.

Unfortunately, the site doesn’t have as much variety as other stock photo sites—and not all of the photos are free for commercial use. The site creator advises commercial users to check with the originating institution’s rights statement through the provided link to the original Flickr posting of each photo.

The site’s search functionality also leaves much to be desired. And unlike most free image sites, New Old Stock doesn’t offer any way to filter photos. If you’re feeling lucky, though, click the magnifying glass in the upper-left corner of the site, type in a search phrase, and you may strike (vintage) gold.

Best free stock photos site for UX/UI designers

Reshot (Web)

Reshot, our pick for the best free stock photos site for UX/UI designers

Reshot is a relatively new resource for designers, whether they need stock photos, vector illustrations, or icons. The site’s collection is provided by the design team over at Envato Elements, a paid creative subscription service for templates, photos, music, and more. But Reshot provides free visual resources for designers on a budget.

Unlike many other stock photo sites, Reshot has a wide variety of vector illustrations and icons as well. The site boasts millions of images that are free for personal and commercial use. The website is minimalist in design, with a left-hand menu where you can choose to browse collections of icons, illustrations, or photos. Or if you know what you’re looking for, type your search terms into the search bar and narrow the results by media type and orientation. 

If you find an illustration you like, you have the option to download a vector or PNG—while icons come in SVG code or SVG. And since you’ll likely want to make additions or changes to these images, Reshot makes it easy to download files straight into Figma. 

One downside I noticed as I was testing is that while illustrations and icons have multiple download types, it appears that photos can only be downloaded as JPEGs—and only in one size. Those sizes are in high-quality resolution, but you can’t choose from a variety of sizes. But in general, if you’re looking for ideas or raw images for your wireframes or prototypes, Reshot is a great option. 

Best free stock photos site for optimizing images for social media

123RF (Web, iOS, Android)

123RF, our pick for the best free stock photo site for photo sizes optimized for social media

If you’re looking for free stock photos for Instagram or other social media sites, 123RF makes your search easy. The stock photo site not only provides a variety of free photos and vector illustrations, but it also lets you choose from a selection of download sizes, including Facebook cover, email header, Pinterest post, and even brochure cover. 

These pre-selected sizes can save you hours of cumulative time spent cropping and resizing images for social media. You can even apply a filter, add text, and remove the image’s background directly from the site before downloading it.

As I was testing, I did notice that you can’t reposition an image after choosing a social media-optimized size. So if you choose an image whose focal point isn’t the center, you may run into issues if you pair it with a small or narrow aspect ratio. 

Overall, the site is clean and easy to navigate. And if you’re willing to pay a few dollars per image, 123RF provides a wider variety of images as well as a variety of stock footage and audio for use in your next project.

Best free stock photos site for interacting with the photography community 

Flickr (Web, iOS, Android)

Flickr, our pick for the best free stock photos site for interacting with the photography community

Flickr is a photo sharing social network. The site—which boasts more than five billion images—brings together professional and amateur photographers from around the world.

The thing I appreciate about Flickr is that it places artists front and center. When you navigate to Flickr’s homepage, you’ll immediately see a gallery of suggested people to follow. Click into any one of their profiles to see a “Photostream,” or a feed of their latest and most popular images. Flickr is a great way to discover talented photographers, learn more about the field, and refine your own artistic eye.

The photos on Flickr are known for containing rich metadata, including geolocation information, EXIF data, tags, and more. So if you want to find photos taken in France, select the World Map under the Explore dropdown, and click on one of the pink dots that pop up in that country. If you want to find images of golden retrievers, simply type the term into the search bar in the upper-right corner of the Flickr homepage, and thousands of results will come back. Plus, Flickr lets you search by trending photos and most recently added photos. You can even explore galleries and search specific photographers’ collections by clicking on their usernames.

And if you’re a budding photographer yourself, you can even click Camera Finder under the Explore dropdown to see the most popular cameras currently being used in the Flickr community.

Keep in mind that you can’t use every photo you find on Flickr for free—especially for commercial use. But it’s easy to figure out which ones are usable. Run a search for an image, and then click the Any license dropdown menu and select Commercial use allowed.

If you get sick of seeing ads as you browse Flickr, you can upgrade to an ad-free experience for $5.54/month. The premium subscription also comes with unlimited storage (free users get one terabyte of storage). And if you want to even more with your stock photos, connect Flickr to Zapier to do things like share new Flickr photos on social media or back up new Flickr photos to Google Drive.

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If you’re looking for more sites that prioritize the photography community, Pexels is a great Flickr alternative. Pexels offers hundreds of thousands of photos that are free for both commercial and personal use. The site has a leaderboard and a number of photography contests for contributors, which makes it a great site for finding photographers who are engaged with the platform and constantly uploading fresh content. 

Other stock photo sites to consider

If you’re looking for something a little more unique (and you have the budget for it), you could try a paid option like Shutterstock, iStock by Getty, or Adobe Stock. These sites are all very well-established resources for paid—but relatively affordable—stock photos. You can subscribe to any of these sites for $29 per month for up to ten monthly image downloads.  

There are also many niche stock photography sites out there (like Foodiesfeed, which specializes in food photography). So if you’re looking for a specific type of image, it’s worth seeing if there’s a niche site available. These sites might give you a wider range of options in the specific category you’re looking for.

If you’re publishing content on a regular basis, you’ll likely get the best results by using a combination of our recommended sites. Just be sure that you keep your branding consistent: using too many eclectic images can muddy your brand and make it hard to stand out from the crowd.

A note on copyrights

Why can’t you just scour the web for an image you like and publish it? Because creators own the rights to their images, and if you publish one of them without their approval, you may be guilty of copyright infringement. In a worst-case scenario, that could land you a $150,000 fine for each violation, and possibly even jail time. Of course, you’ll receive a cease-and-desist letter first, telling you to take the images down, but even still, you’ll waste time and effort removing them—in addition to the time and effort you wasted finding them in the first place.

But some creators are happy to share their images with others. Creative Commons offers a number of different licenses that creators can use to enable other people to leverage their work freely. Of course, it’s not all or nothing: some licenses allow for personal use, while others allow for commercial use. Some licenses require you to attribute images to creators, while others don’t. Some allow you to adapt or modify an image, while others require you to use it in its original form. When using an image licensed through Creative Commons, be sure to read the fine print and abide by the terms.

Source :
https://zapier.com/blog/best-free-stock-photos/

What Is a Digital Nomad and How Do You Become One?

In the Cascade Mountains of Southern Oregon, there sits a volcano with no peak. But what takes the place of a billowing summit isn’t a barren crater — it’s an electric blue lake, surrounded by pine trees and the jagged remains of the volcano’s collapsed mouth, which crumbled during an eruption almost 8,000 years ago.

This place is called Crater Lake. It’s considered one of the most beautiful national parks in the United States. It’s also where Justin Champion, a Content Professor at HubSpot Academy, spent his work day last Thursday.https://www.instagram.com/p/BkTxa6cHCjr/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=8&wp=648&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hubspot.com&rp=%2Fmarketing%2Fdigital-nomad#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A1813.1999999999534%2C%22ls%22%3A1638.5%2C%22le%22%3A1770.9000000001397%7D

A striking landscape, like Crater Lake, is a normal office view for Justin and his wife, Ariele. After working in the National Park, they headed north to Portland and spent a day in Mt. Hood. Then, they drove through Redwood National Park. And next week, they plan to work in Yosemite National Park.

Justin and his wife have been living, working, and traveling across America in a Ford F-250 with an Airstream trailer hitched to its back for the past two years. And their alternative lifestyle has helped them prioritize life experiences and close connections over material possessions. They’re modern day nomads. Or what most people call digital nomads.

What is a Digital Nomad?

Digital nomads are remote workers who usually travel to different locations. They often work in coffee shops, co-working spaces, or public libraries, relying on devices with wireless internet capabilities like smart phones and mobile hotspots to do their work wherever they want.

With 34% of remote employees working 4-5 days a week out of the office, the digital nomad lifestyle could be an exciting possibility if you’ve caught the travel bug and want to break free from the shackles of 9-5 life. Below, we’ll cover the benefits, job opportunities, and realities of this alternative lifestyle.

Let’s find out if it’s the right fit for you.

Living the Dream? 5 Benefits of Being a Digital Nomad

1. You’ll be more productive.

There’s no time to waste when you travel to gorgeous places almost every day. Exploring your new surroundings will motivate you to get your work done as soon as possible. Adventure can be one of the best types of motivation.

2. You’ll have more breakthrough ideas.

Creativity happens when you mash seemingly unrelated concepts together to form a new idea. Neuroscientists call this synaptic play, and the more incongruent the concepts are, the more synapses occur in your brain. Working in a different place everyday gives you a lot of diverse experiences that you call pull from to make these creative connections. And when your brain is chock full of these diverse inputs, your ideas are much more inventive.

3. You’ll become more adaptable.

Constantly traveling to new places pushes you out of your comfort zone. And to adapt to new environments everyday, you need to be willing to engage with different people and cultures. This makes you more open to new experiences in the future.

Traveling also improves your brain’s reaction to change. When you travel, the stress of navigating a foreign place sprouts dendrites in your brain. These dangling extensions increase your brain’s capacity and attentiveness during new and challenging situations in the future.

In a nutshell, traveling strengthens your desire and ability to learn new skills.

4. You’ll have more time to do the things you love.

Even though work can be great, we still work to live, not the other way around. Finishing work faster gives you more time in your schedule to explore your surroundings, do the things you’re passionate about, and spend more time with loved ones.

5. You’ll make lifelong friendships.

Adventure and memorable experiences forge close connections between people. When you embark on your journey, you’ll meet other digital nomads and become friends with them. And if you travel with a friend or significant other, your relationship will be closer than ever before.

Common Jobs for Digital Nomads

Today, most companies embrace remote work. 43% of American employees spent time working remote last year, and this number will only increase. But being a digital nomad and working a few days at home are two different animals. If you want to keep your day job while traveling, you need to prove to your manager that you can handle full-time remote work before you can do work on the road. Justin Champion decided to work remotely for six months before he even asked to travel.

If you’re looking for job, sift through sites that only list remote jobs, like We Work Remotely or Remote.co, and ask prospective employers if the role lends itself to your nomadic lifestyle.

Freelancing is also a common role for digital nomads. Before you embark on your journey, though, you must be realistic with yourself. How will you be able to make a living? Answer the following questions to help you figure this out:

  • What am I good at?
  • What do I like to do?
  • Is there a need for my skill?
  • Can I do this job online?

Once you know how you’ll be able to make money, you can enter the gig economy by marketing and selling your services on your own, or finding work on a freelance service marketplace like Upwork or Fiverr.

Whether you chose to work for a company or yourself, becoming a digital nomad doesn’t mean pigeonholing yourself in a specific role. Your job just has to be fully digital. Listed below are some common roles that lend themselves well to a fully remote lifestyle:

  • Accounting
  • Customer Service
  • Design
  • Editing
  • Healthcare
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Project Management
  • Quality Analyst (QA)
  • Recruiting & HR
  • Sales
  • Software Development
  • Teacher/Tutor
  • Transcription
  • Virtual Assistant
  • Writing

As you can see, there’s a lot of different industries and roles for digital nomads. Remote work is becoming commonplace, which is exciting and beneficial for the workforce. But that doesn’t mean anyone and everyone should be a digital nomad. It’s still a tough challenge. You need to be organized and disciplined, or you won’t be able to enjoy your travels — which is the point of the lifestyle, right? So how do you set yourself up for success?

How Do You Become a Digital Nomad? 5 Things to Consider Before You Get Started

1. Get rid of unnecessary expenses.

Paying for things that don’t greatly impact your life is never ideal. That’s why you need to get rid of all the expenses that you won’t need living as a digital nomad. Things like gym memberships, subscriptions, and debt are all expenses that’ll bog you down on the road. And if you’re a freelancer, they’ll be even more of a burden because you might experience some periods of inconsistent income. Getting rid of these expenses and paying off debt will allow you to fully focus on your work and travels.

2. Make sure you have income you can rely on for months in advance.

Whatever lifestyle you pursue, it’s always smart to have safety net. You never know when an emergency will arise. This rings especially true when you’re a digital nomad because you’re mostly own your own. You can’t find solace in a warm, comfortable home or family, and if you’re freelancer, you don’t have the luxury of a consistent paycheck. To widen your safety net, you should sell any unnecessary belongings, move the essentials into a storage unit, sell or rent your house, and save as much money as possible.

3. Get travel health insurance.

Traveling can give you some of the best experiences in your life, but it not always a blissful, perpetual highlight reel. It’s still real life. You’ll get sick, have emergencies and accidents, and need regular checkups. You also need immunizations to enter certain parts of the world. Your health should be your number one priority during your travels, so make sure you buy a solid health insurance plan that’s valid in all the places you visit.

4. Set yourself up for financial success.

Ample funds are the key to successful travel. American credit cards will usually charge you a fee if you use it abroad, so ask your bank for an international credit card. You should also sign up for credit monitoring services that’ll alert you if anyone tries to steal your identity.

5. If you travel internationally, unlock your phone.

Most countries have different cell phone carriers, so if you want to bounce from country to country, you need to call your current carrier and ask them to unlock your phone. You’ll be able to use your phone in any country because you can put a different sim card in your phone from each international carrier you use.

Once you square these things away, it’s time to start your new life on the road. But actually living life as a digital nomad is an entirely different ballgame than preparing to be one.

7 Tips for Living as a Digital Nomad

1. Make a budget.

As a digital nomad, your budget should be your bible. And if you follow it, you can live quite comfortably. To create a successful budget, calculate your living expenditures, the cost of traveling to each destination, staying there, the activities you’ll do there, the costs of working, and how it all affects your savings if you can’t earn a salary for a while.

2. Plan for the worst-scenario.

When you live abroad, It’s crucial to have multiple backup plans in case of any emergencies. Nothing really ever works out the way it’s supposed to. Things happen. What if your truck breaks down? Or what if you get stuck in a foreign country with no backup plan? What’s your plan B and C? You need to set these processes in place to handle the inevitable bumps in the road.

3. Join a digital nomad community.

Digital Nomad communities like Couchsurfing and Nomadlist will help you learn the nuances of the digital nomad lifestyle, and reduce its steep learning curve. Fellow nomads will be happy to answer any pressing questions about your new lifestyle and any areas you plan to visit. They’ll also teach you how to work effectively on the road. And arguably the most beneficial perk of these communities is that you can connect with other traveling professionals, which can lead to new business opportunities, partnerships, and friendships.

4. Make sure you have cell reception or wifi.

If your employer lets you work remotely, show them and your team some respect by being available as much as possible online. Not having wifi or cell phone reception should never be an excuse for missing a meeting or failing to get an assignment done. The same goes for client work, if you’re a freelancer.

To make sure you’ll always have internet connection, consider investing in a cell phone booster and a mobile hotspot mifi device. Cell phone boosters can detect the smallest shred of cell phone reception and send the signal to your vehicle. Mobile hotspot mifi devices strengthen your mobile hotspot service, so you don’t have to rely on a spotty, public wifi connection.

5. Make sure you can communicate with locals.

Knowing the language of the country you’re going to or knowing that they speak your language is crucial for successful travel. Assuming that there has to be someone who will understand English is a dangerous move. But if you must go to a place where you don’t know the native language or they don’t speak yours, use Google Translate or another translation app to navigate your new environment.

6. Research your destinations.

If you’re not living in an RV, find affordable housing on AirBnB or Couchsurf before you arrive to your destination. And make sure your lodging is near a hospital, emergency room or clinic in case of an emergency. You should also research the area to find safe neighborhood to stay in.

7. Draw cash from ATMs.

Airports are notorious for charging ridiculously high currency exchange fees. If you need cash, draw it from an ATM. Your bank will charge you a fee, but it’ll be much lower than the one at the currency exchange desk.

Before you set off …

If an adventurous lifestyle sounds appealing to you, then being a digital nomad can be one of the most rewarding yet challenging ways to live. But if you arm yourself with organization, discipline, and a thirst for learning, you could enjoy an exciting and fulfilling life on the road. Just ask Justin and Ariele Champion. They’re living the alternative American Dream. And they’ve never looked back.

Source :
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/digital-nomad

How to Work From Home: 24 Tips From People Who Do It Successfully

Working from home is awesome, right up until the cat throws up on your computer. And your neighbor, who you can only assume is building a time machine, starts firing up all sorts of power tools and noisy machinery across the street.

COVID-19 has caused remote work to become a necessity instead of a luxury for many professionals. But which environment allows us to be more productive: the home office or the office office?

In the office office, your colleagues often pose the greatest threat to keeping you from getting some real, heads-down work done. They drop by your desk, engage you in conversation, and invite you to lunch — or so I hear. The social benefits are nice to have, but they can become a challenge if you’re easily distracted.

However, at the home office, while family members can be a distraction, I find that it’s easy for you to become your own worst enemy. Because without coworkers around, you’re free to drop those pesky inhibitions. At the home office, no one’s watching. You don’t necessarily feel that same peer pressure or communal obligation to get stuff done. (Also, you don’t have to wear pants.)

Download Now: How to Be More Productive at Work [Free Guide + Templates]

Below, I’ve compiled many great work-at-home tips and tricks from some of my awesome coworkers.

How to Work From Home

  1. Communicate expectation with anyone who will be home with you.
  2. Take clear breaks.
  3. Interact with other humans.
  4. Prepare meals the night before.
  5. Pick a definitive finish time.
  6. Eat and sleep.
  7. Talk to your employer.
  8. Join a remote-friendly company.
  9. Start a career as a freelancer.
  10. Start a home business.

1. Communicate expectations with anyone who will be home with you.

Of course, you might be working from home but still have “company.” Make sure any roommates, family members, and dogs (well, maybe not dogs) respect your space during work hours. Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you’re home.

If you share space with another work-from-home adult, you may have to lay ground rules about meeting times, shared desks and chairs, and quiet times.

CEO Sam Mallikarjunan tells how he manages to get work done even when people are around.

“If anyone else is going to be at home when you’re working, they just have to be clear that when you’re in your ‘office’ (in my case, my signal to the family is having headphones on), you’re working — even if it looks like and feels like you’re hanging out at home.”

He continues, “It’s easy to get distracted by the many things that have to be done around the house during the day.”

2. Take clear breaks.

It can be so easy to get distracted as a telecommuter that you avoid breaks altogether. Don’t let the guilt of working in the building you sleep in prevent you from taking five minutes to relax.

However rather than just opening YouTube and watching some comfort clips, use your breaks to get away from your desk. Go for a walk, enjoy fresh air, or spend time with others who might also be in the house.

Take Ginny Mineo‘s advice. “Breaks, like making and eating lunch, can recharge you to do better work. Don’t assume you need to be working 100% of the time while you’re home to be more productive.”

3. Interact with other humans.

When your office starts working from home, you’ll likely miss the casual social interactions with colleagues you’re used to throughout the day. When working from home, you don’t have the small talk and other activities that make each day at the office unique.

So what can you do? Communicate.

Fight boredom and loneliness by frequent communication with other employees. Reach out to them through video chat via apps like Zoom and Slack, a hosted phone system,  or however else your company communicates.

Remember: You’re working from home, not the moon. Interacting with other people during the day is allowed, even if they’re not your colleagues. It’s a good idea to see another face during the day when most of your workday is solitary. So, use your breaks to interact with others.

“Go outside and find a human to interact with — ordering your coffee, running an errand, whatever. It keeps you sane.”

– Corey Wainwright

4. Prepare meals the night before.

When you’re in your own home, it can be tempting to spend time preparing a nice breakfast and lunch for yourself, chopping and cooking included. Don’t use precious minutes making your food the day of work — cook it the night before.

Preparing food ahead of time ensures you can use your meal times to eat and that you aren’t performing non-work tasks that spend energy better used at your desk.

Digital marketing strategist, Lindsay Kolowich, adds, “Cooking at home is time you wouldn’t have spent meal prepping if you’d been in the office that day, and I find the minutes can add up in the end. To mitigate that, I try to cook and prep my meals the night before, just like I would for a day at the office.“

5. Pick a definitive finishing time.

You might be under the impression that working from home establishes more work-life balance, but be careful with that assumption.

Working from home can also feel like being at a casino — you can get so caught up in your activity, in a relaxing environment, that you lose complete track of time.

“If you work from home full-time (or regularly), it’s really easy to let your work life bleed into your personal life,” says Tyler Littwin.

He continues, “Maintaining a boundary is important for both halves of the equation.”

In lieu of coworkers, whose packing up and leaving the office reminds you to do the same, set an alarm at the end of the day to indicate your normal workday is coming to an end. You don’t have to stop at exactly that time, but knowing the workday is technically over can help you start the process of saving your work and calling it quits for the evening.

6. Eat and sleep.

What is the biggest perk to working from home? One of the biggest benefits for some people (me), is complete access to the kitchen.

As soon as I take a break, I automatically drift towards the kitchen for some snacks.

An unhealthy diet can affect productivity and drain energy. When I switched to a healthier diet, it made me function better and get the most from my routine.

So eat well when working from home.

It’s also vital that you keep to a proper sleep schedule. Save binge-watching your favorite shows for the weekend. With the right food to keep energy levels high and sound sleep to refresh your body and mind, you can make a success of working from home.

7. Talk to your employer.

If you like your current job and don’t want to change it, the obvious step is to find a way to pivot the position.

One of the tips for doing this is folding the possibility of going remote into your next promotion cycle. Talk to your boss often about your intention to pivot.

And, if you’re not sure your employer will agree to working completely remotely, talk about the option of working remotely one or two days a week. When you use the work from home tips we’ve provided above, and your boss sees how productive you are, they could allow you more days to work from home.

8. Join a remote-friendly company.

If your work can be done remotely, but your current boss or organization doesn’t allow you to work from home, you might need to get a new job.

When looking for a work-from-home job, you can use the same methods you used in finding your regular office job. This includes channels like job sites, local job ads, and social media platforms.

Job sites that list work from home ads include:

Some remote-friendly firms include:

Check out these firms to see whether you meet the requirements to start working remotely for them.

9. Start a career as a freelancer.

If your current job isn’t remote work-friendly, you can go remote by starting your own business as a freelancer or a consultant.

Depending on the nature of your current job, you may start your own freelance business while still being employed.

The benefit of starting your freelance business while still employed is that it reduces the financial strain experienced by any new business.

10. Start a home business.

Starting a home business is one way to enjoy remote work.

Unlike other fields, certifications and education are not usually prerequisites. Instead, researching, having a smart business plan, and choosing the right business is more essential to the success of your business.

You can find more work-from-home tips in the books listed in this best remote work books article.

Working From Home Tips

  1. Get started early.
  2. Pretend like you are going into the office.
  3. Structure your day like you would in the office.
  4. Choose a dedicated workspace
  5. Don’t stay at home.
  6. Make it harder to use social media.
  7. Commit to doing more.
  8. Work when you’re at your most productive.
  9. Save calls for the afternoon.
  10. Focus on one distraction.
  11. Plan out what you’ll be workign on ahead of time.
  12. Use technology to stay connected.
  13. Match your music to the task at hand.
  14. Use laundry as a work timer.

1. Get started early.

When working in an office, your morning commute can help you wake up and feel ready to work by the time you get to your desk. At home, however, the transition from your pillow to your computer can be much more jarring.

Believe it or not, one way to work from home productively is to dive into your to-do list as soon as you wake up. Simply getting a project started first thing in the morning can be the key to making progress on it gradually throughout the day. Otherwise, you’ll prolong breakfast and let the morning sluggishness wear away your motivation.

Lindsay Kolowich says, “When I work from home, I wake up, put on a pot of coffee, and start working immediately — much earlier than normal working hours. I only start making breakfast once I’ve hit a wall or need a break. I’m a morning person and find I can get a ton done in the early morning hours, so this works really well for me.”

2. Pretend like you are going into the office.

The mental association you make between work and an office can make you more productive, and there’s no reason that feeling should be lost when working remotely.

I know that you love working in your pajamas (I do, too), but the mere act of changing clothes to something more serious will give you a signal to get work done throughout the day.

When you dress up, you give your brain a reason for dressing up, and it can keep you pumped throughout your work hours.

So when working from home, do all the things you’d do to prepare for an office role: Set your alarm, make (or get) coffee, and wear nice clothes.

Internet browsers like Google Chrome even allow you to set up multiple accounts with different toolbars on the top — for example, a toolbar for home and a separate toolbar for work.

Take to heart the words of HubSpot graphic designer, Anna Faber-Hammond, who says, “Get fully ready for the day and pretend you’re actually going to work. Otherwise, you might find yourself back in bed.”

3. Structure your day like you would in the office.

When working from home, you’re your own personal manager and can choose your working hours.

However, without things like an in-person meeting schedule to break up your day, you can easily lose focus or burn out.

To stay on schedule, segment what you’ll do and when for the day. If you have an online calendar, create personal events and reminders that tell you when to shift gears and start on new tasks. Google Calendar makes this easy.

Structuring your day as you would in the office also saves you from work creep. With this structure in place, working from home will not cause your work to invade your personal life.

“Are mornings for writing while you’re in the office? Use the same schedule at home. This structure will help keep you focused and productive.” – Ginny Mineo

4. Choose a dedicated workspace.

Just because you’re not working at an office doesn’t mean you can’t, well, have an office. Rather than cooping yourself up in your room or on the couch in the living room — spaces associated with leisure time — dedicate a specific room or surface in your home to working remotely.

No matter the space or location, have an area of the home to work and stay committed to throughout the day. And, after choosing your dedicated workspace, make the most of it by making it quiet.

CEO, Sam Mallikarjunan says, “Have a place you go specifically to work. It could be a certain table, chair, local coffee shop — some place that’s consistently your ‘workspace.’ It helps you get into the right frame of mind.”

5. Don’t stay at home.

Is your home office just not getting it done for you? Take your work-from-home life a step further and get out of the house. Coffee shops, libraries, public lounges, and similar Wi-Fi-enabled spaces can help you simulate the energy of an office so you can stay productive even when you don’t sit in an official workplace.

Content marketer, Corey Wainwright, comments, “I get out of my home to work and go to an establishment with actual tables, chairs, and people. It helps simulate the work environment and removes the distractions I typically have at home, like the urge to finally clean my room, do laundry, or watch TV. “

6. Make it harder to use social media.

Social media is designed to make it easy for us to open and browse quickly. As remote workers, though, this convenience can be the detriment of our productivity.

To counteract your social networks’ ease of use during work hours, remove them from your browser shortcuts and log out of every account on your phone or computer.

You might even consider working primarily in a private (or, if you’re using Chrome, an “Incognito”) browser window. This ensures you stay signed out of all your accounts, and each web search doesn’t autocomplete the word you’re typing. It’s a guarantee that you won’t be tempted into taking too many social breaks during the day.

Also, many have found it helpful to shut off social media notifications during the hours they work from home.

Alec Biedrzycki, product marketer at AirTable, says, “I remove all social networks from my toolbar bookmarks… you can get sucked in without knowing it, so eliminating the gateway to those networks keeps me on track.”

7. Commit to doing more.

Projects always take longer than you initially think they will. For that reason, you’ll frequently get done less than you set out to do.

So, just as you’re encouraged to overestimate how much work hours you’ll spend doing one thing, you should also overestimate how many things you’ll do during the day.

Even if you come up short of your goal, you’ll still come out of that day with a solid list of tasks filed under ‘complete.’

“On days I’m working from home, I tend to slightly overcommit on what I’ll deliver that day. So even if I get the urge to go do something else, I know I’ve already committed a certain amount of work to my team.”- Corey Wainwright

8. Work when you’re at your most productive.

Nobody sprints through their work from morning to evening — your motivation will naturally ebb and flow throughout the day. However, when you’re working from home, it’s all the more important to know when those ebbs and flows will take place and plan your schedule around it.

To capitalize on your most productive periods, save your more challenging tasks for when you know you’ll be in the right headspace for them. Use slower points of the day to knock out the easier logistical tasks on your plate.

Verily Magazine calls these tasks “small acts of success,” and they can help build your momentum for the heavier projects that are waiting for you later on.

Product designer, Brittany Leaning, says about her routine, “For me, the most productive times of the day are usually early in the morning or late at night. I recognize this and try to plan my day accordingly. Also, music that pumps me up doesn’t hurt.”

The responsibility is on you to know when you are most productive and build your work schedule around the periods of maximum productivity.

9. Save calls for the afternoon.

Sometimes, I’m so tired in the morning, that I don’t even want to hear my voice — let alone talk to others with it.

You shouldn’t have to give yourself too much time to become productive in the morning, but you can give yourself some extra time before working directly with others.

If you’re struggling to develop a reasonable work schedule for yourself as a telecommuter, start with the solitary tasks in the morning.

Save your phone calls, meetings, Google hangouts meetings, video call, and other collaborative work for when you’ve officially “woken up.”

Senior Marketing Director, James Gilbert, advises that you “Take advantage of morning hours to crank through meaty projects without distractions, and save any calls or virtual meetings for the afternoon.”

10. Focus on one distraction.

There’s an expression out there that says, “if you want something done, ask a busy person.”

The bizarre but true rule of productivity is that the busier you are, the more you’ll do.

It’s like Newton’s law of inertia: If you’re in motion, you’ll stay in motion. If you’re at rest, you’ll stay at rest. And busy people are in fast-enough motion that they have the momentum to complete anything that comes across their desk.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to find things to help you reach that level of busyness when you’re at home — your motivation can just swing so easily. HubSpot’s principal marketing manager, Pam Vaughan, suggests focusing on something that maintains your rhythm (in her case, it’s her daughter).

She says, “When I work from home, my 20-month-old daughter is home with me, too. It seems counterintuitive, but because I have to manage taking care of her and keeping her happy and entertained while still getting my work done, the pressure helps to keep me focused. When she’s napping or entertaining herself, I go into super-productive work mode.

The ‘distraction’ of my daughter (I mean that in the most loving way possible) means I can’t possibly succumb to some of the other common distractions of home.”

11. Plan out what you’ll be working on ahead of time.

Spending time figuring out what you’ll do today can take away from actually doing those things. And, you’ll have planned your task list so recently that you can be tempted to change your schedule on the fly.

It’s important to let your agenda change if you need it to, but it’s equally important to commit to a schedule that outlines every assignment before you begin.

Try solidifying your schedule the day before, making it feel more official when you wake up the next day to get started on it.

“Plan out your week in advance to optimize for the environments you’ll be in.”- Niti Shah

12. Use technology to stay connected.

Working from home might make you feel cut off from the larger operation happening in your company.

Instant messaging and videoconferencing tools like Slack and Zoom can make it easy to check in with other remote employees and remind you how your work contributes to the big picture.

It’s also vital to invest in the right technology. For instance, a bad-performance router can take the steam right off your enthusiasm to work, so it’s better to invest in a high-performance router.

CMO and former HubSpot employee, Meghan Keaney Anderson, remarks, “At HubSpot, we use Slack to keep conversations going remotely, Trello to keep us organized around priorities, and Google Hangouts plus Webex to make remote meetings more productive. Getting the right stack of support tools to fit your work style makes a big difference.”

13. Match your music to the task at hand.

During the week, music is the soundtrack to your career (cheesy, but admit it, it’s true). And at work, the best playlists are diverse playlists — you can listen to music that matches the energy of the project you’re working on to boost your productivity.

Video game soundtracks are excellent at doing this. In the video game, the lyric-free music is designed to help you focus; it only makes sense that it would help you focus on your work.

Want some other genres to spice up your routine and make you feel focused? Take them from startup marketer, Ginny Mineo, who offers her work music preferences below.

“When I’m powering through my inbox, I need some intense and catchy rap/R&B (like Nicki Minaj or Miley Cyrus) blasting through my headphones, but when I’m writing, Tom Petty is the trick. Finding what music motivates and focuses me for different tasks (and then sticking to those playlists for those tasks) has completely changed my WFH productivity.”

14. Use laundry as a work timer.

You might have heard that listening to just two or three songs in the shower can help you save water. And it’s true; hearing a few of your favorite songs start and end, one after another, can remind you how long you’ve been in the bathroom and shorten your wash time.

Why bring this up? Because the same general principle can help you stay on task when working from home. But instead of three songs off your music playlist, run your laundry instead.

Doing your laundry is a built-in timer for your home. So, use the time to start and finish something from your to-do list before changing the load.

Committing to one assignment during the wash cycle and another during the dry process can train you to work smarter on tasks that you might technically have all day to tinker with. And when you know there’s a timer, it makes it hard for distractions to derail your work.

People ops manager, Emma Brudner, notes, “I also usually do laundry when I work from home, and I set mini-deadlines for myself corresponding to when I have to go downstairs to switch loads. If I’m working on an article, I tell myself I’ll get to a certain point before the wash cycle ends. Then I set another goal for the dryer.”

Staying Productive While Working From Home

While you might miss the office, working full time from home can be good for you.

For one, you don’t have to worry about commuting every day and you can better care for your loved ones by being around more often.

The work from home tips that we have provided can help you make the most of your new routine. Try out a few and you might find that you’re just as productive working from home as you are in the office.

Take me to Projects

Source :
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/productivity-tips-working-from-home

macOS Ventura adds powerful productivity tools and new Continuity features that make the Mac experience better than ever

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today previewed macOS Ventura, the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, which takes the Mac experience to a whole new level. Stage Manager gives Mac users an all-new way to stay focused on the task in front of them while seamlessly switching between apps and windows. Continuity Camera uses iPhone as the webcam on Mac to do things that were never possible before,1 and with Handoff coming to FaceTime, users can start a FaceTime call on their iPhone or iPad and fluidly pass it over to their Mac. Mail and Messages come with great new features that make the apps better than ever, while Safari — the world’s fastest browser on Mac2 — ushers in a passwordless future with passkeys. And with the power and popularity of Apple silicon, and new developer tools in Metal 3, gaming on Mac has never been better.

“macOS Ventura includes powerful features and new innovations that help make the Mac experience even better. New tools like Stage Manager make focusing on tasks and moving between apps and windows easier and faster than ever, and Continuity Camera brings new videoconferencing features to any Mac, including Desk View, Studio Light, and more,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “With helpful new features in Messages, state-of-the-art search technologies in Mail, and an updated design for Spotlight, Ventura has so much to offer and enriches many of the ways customers use their Macs.”

The new Stage Manager feature stacking several app windows to the left of the Safari window on the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
iPhone 13 Pro being used as a webcam with Continuity Camera on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.
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A New Way to Work Across Apps and Windows

Stage Manager automatically organises open apps and windows so users can concentrate on their work and still see everything in a single glance. The current window users are working in is displayed prominently in the center, and other open windows appear on the left-hand side so they can quickly and easily switch between tasks. Users can also group windows together when working on specific tasks or projects that require different apps. Stage Manager works in concert with other macOS windowing tools — including Mission Control and Spaces — and users can now easily get to their desktop with a single click.

Pause playback of video: Stage Manager in macOS Ventura

Stage Manager automatically arranges open windows and puts the app the user is currently working with front and center.

Apple Devices Working Together with Continuity

Continuity Camera now gives Mac customers the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam, and unlocks new capabilities that were never possible before on a webcam. With the power of Continuity, Mac can automatically recognise and use the camera on iPhone when it is nearby — without the need to wake or select it — and iPhone can even connect to Mac wirelessly for greater flexibility.3 Continuity Camera delivers innovative features to all Mac computers including Center Stage, Portrait mode, and the new Studio Light — an effect that beautifully illuminates a user’s face while dimming the background. Plus, Continuity Camera taps into the Ultra Wide camera on iPhone to enable Desk View, which simultaneously shows the user’s face and an overhead view of their desk — great for creating DIY videos, showing off sketches over FaceTime, and so much more.4

iPhone 13 Pro on MacBook Pro being used as a webcam.

Handoff now comes to FaceTime, allowing users to start a FaceTime call on one Apple device and seamlessly transfer it to another Apple device nearby. Users can be on a FaceTime call on iPhone or iPad, then move the call to their Mac with just a click, or start a call on their Mac and shift to iPhone or iPad when they need to continue on the go.

A FaceTime call on iPhone 13 Pro with the Handoff option to switch to Mac displayed on MacBook Pro.

Powerful Updates to Key macOS Apps and Features

Safari offers the fastest and most power-efficient browsing experience on the Mac, along with trailblazing privacy features. In macOS Ventura, Safari introduces a powerful new way for users to browse together: With shared Tab Groups, friends, family, and colleagues can share their favorite sites in Safari and see what tabs others are looking at live. Users can also build a list of bookmarks on a shared Start Page, and even start a Messages conversation or FaceTime call right from Safari — great for planning a trip or researching a project together.

A Safari window displaying the new shared Tab Groups feature.

In the biggest overhaul to search in years, Mail now uses state-of-the-art techniques to deliver more relevant, accurate, and complete results. Users can quickly find what they are looking for as soon as they click into search, including recent emails, contacts, documents, photos, and more, all before they even start typing. Users can also schedule emails and even cancel delivery after hitting send,5 and Mail now intelligently detects if items such as an attachment or cc’d recipient is missing from their message. In Mail, users can set reminders to come back to a message at a particular date and time, and receive automatic suggestions to follow up on an email if there has been no response.

The new search results in Mail displayed on MacBook Pro.
The new scheduling feature in Mail displayed on MacBook Pro.
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Messages on the Mac now includes the ability to edit or undo a recently sent message, mark a message as unread, or even recover accidentally deleted messages.6 New collaboration features make working with others quick and seamless. Now, when a user shares a file via Messages using the share sheet or drag and drop, they can choose to share a copy or collaborate. When they choose to collaborate, everyone on a Messages thread is automatically added. And when someone makes an edit to the shared document, activity updates appear at the top of the thread. Users can also join SharePlay sessions from their Mac right in Messages, so they can chat and participate in synchronised experiences.

An Apple TV SharePlay session in Messages on MacBook Pro.

Spotlight includes an updated design that makes navigation easier, new features that provide a more consistent experience across Apple devices, and Quick Look for quickly previewing files. Users can now find images in their photo library, across the system, and on the web. They can even search for their photos by location, people, scenes, or objects, and Live Text lets them search by text inside images. To be even more productive, users can now take actions from Spotlight, like starting a timer, creating a new document, or running a shortcut. And Spotlight now includes rich results for artists, movies, actors, and TV shows, as well as businesses and sports.

Spotlight search results across iPad and MacBook Pro.
The new photo search experience in Spotlight on MacBook Pro.
The new search results for a TV show in Spotlight on MacBook Pro.
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With iCloud Shared Photo Library, users can now create and share a separate photo library among up to six family members, so everyone can enjoy all of their family photos. Users can choose to share all of their existing photos from their personal libraries, or share based on a start date or people in the photos. To help keep their Shared Library up to date, users will receive intelligent suggestions to share relevant photo moments that include participants in the library and any other people they choose. Every user in the Shared Photo Library can add, delete, edit, or favorite the shared photos and videos, which will appear in each user’s Memories and Featured Photos so that everyone can relive more complete family moments.

More Secure Browsing in Safari

Browsing in Safari is even safer with passkeys, next-generation credentials that are more secure, easy to use, and designed to replace passwords. Passkeys are unique digital keys that stay on device and are never stored on a web server, so hackers can’t leak them or trick users into sharing them. Passkeys make it simple to sign in securely, using Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, and iCloud Keychain to sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption. They will also work across apps and the web, and users can even sign in to websites or apps on non-Apple devices using their iPhone.

The new passkeys sign-in experience on MacBook Pro.

Immersive Gaming Experiences

The power of Apple silicon enables every new Mac to run AAA games with ease, including upcoming titles such as EA’s GRID Legends and Capcom’s Resident Evil Village. And since Apple silicon also powers iPad, game developers can bring their AAA games to even more users, like No Man’s Sky from Hello Games, which is coming to both Mac and iPad later this year. 

Metal 3, the latest version of the software that powers the gaming experience across Apple platforms, introduces new features that take the gaming experience on Mac to new heights and unleash the full potential of Apple silicon for years to come. MetalFX Upscaling enables developers to quickly render complex scenes by using less compute-intensive frames, and then apply resolution scaling and temporal anti-aliasing. The result is accelerated performance that provides gamers with a more responsive feel and graphics that look stunning. Game developers also benefit from a new Fast Resource Loading API that minimizes wait time by providing a more direct path from storage to the GPU, so games can easily access high-quality textures and geometry needed to create expansive worlds for realistic and immersive gameplay.

Pause playback of video: Gaming with Metal 3

Metal 3 brings new features that unleash the full potential of Apple silicon for even greater gaming experiences.

More Great Experiences Coming with macOS Ventura

  • Live Text uses on-device intelligence to recognise text in images across the system, and now adds support for paused video frames, as well as Japanese and Korean text. Users can also now lift the subject away from an image and drop it into another app. And Visual Look Up expands its recognition capabilities to now include animals, birds, insects, statues, and even more landmarks.
  • The Weather and Clock apps, with all the features users know and love from iPhone, have been optimized for Mac.
  • New accessibility tools include Live Captions for all audio content, Type to Speak on calls, Text Checker to support proofreading for VoiceOver users, and more.7
  • System Settings is the new name for System Preferences, and comes with a refreshed and streamlined design that is easier to navigate and instantly familiar to iPhone and iPad users.
  • macOS security gets even stronger with new tools that make the Mac more resistant to attack, including Rapid Security Response that works in between normal updates to easily keep security up to date without a reboot.
MacBook Air, the 24-inch iMac, and the new MacBook Pro.

Availability

The developer beta of macOS Ventura is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today. A public beta will be available to Mac users next month at beta.apple.com. macOS Ventura will be available this fall as a free software update. For more information, including compatible Mac models, visit apple.com/in/macos/macos-ventura-preview. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages.

Source :
https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2022/06/macos-ventura-brings-powerful-productivity-tools-new-continuity-features-to-mac/

Expansion of FIDO standard and new updates for Microsoft passwordless solutions

Howdy folks, 

Happy World Password Day! Today, I’m super excited to share some great news with you: Together, with the FIDO Alliance and other major platforms, Microsoft has announced support for the expansion of a common passwordless standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web consortium. These multi-device FIDO credentials, sometimes referred to as passkeys, represent a monumental step toward a world without passwords. We also have some great updates coming to our passwordless solutions in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and Windows that will expand passwordless to more use cases. 

Passwords have never been less adequate for protecting our digital lives. As Vasu Jakkal reported earlier today, there are over 921 password attacks every second. Lots of attackers want your password and will keep trying to steal it from you. It’s better for everyone if we just cut off their supply. 

Replacing passwords with passkeys 

Passkeys are a safer, faster, easier replacement for your password. With passkeys, you can sign in to any supported website or application by simply verifying your face, fingerprint or using a device PIN. Passkeys are fast, phish-resistant, and will be supported across leading devices and platforms. Your biometric information never leaves the device and passkeys can even be synced across devices on the same platform – so you don’t need to enroll each device and you’re protected in case you upgrade or lose your device. You can use Windows Hello today to sign in to any site that supports passkeys, and in the near future, you’ll be able to sign in to your Microsoft account with a passkey from an Apple or Google device.  

We enthusiastically encourage website owners and app developers to join Microsoft, Apple, Google, and the FIDO Alliance to support passkeys and help realize our vision of a truly passwordless world.  

thumbnail image 1 of blog post titled Expansion of FIDO standard and new updates for Microsoft passwordless solutions

Going passwordless 

We’re proud to have been one of the earliest supporters of the FIDO standards, including FIDO2 certification for Windows Hello. We’re thrilled to evolve the FIDO standards ecosystem to support passkeys and that passwordless authentication continues to gain momentum. 

Since we started introducing passwordless sign-in nearly 5 years ago, the number of people across Microsoft services signing in each month without using their password has reached more than 240 million. And in the last six months, over 330,000 people have taken the next step of removing the password from their Microsoft Account. After all, you’re completely safe from password-based attacks if you don’t have one. 

Today, we’re also announcing new capabilities that will make it easier for enterprises to go completely passwordless: 

Passwordless for Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 

Now that remote or hybrid work is the new norm, lots more people are using a remote or virtualized desktop to get their work done. And now, we’ve added passwordless support for Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. This is currently in preview with Windows 11 Insiders, and is on the way for Windows 10 as well.  

Windows Hello for Business Cloud Trust  

Windows Hello for Business Cloud Trust simplifies the deployment experience of Windows Hello for hybrid environments. This new deployment model removes previous requirements for public key infrastructure (PKI) and syncing public keys between Azure AD and on-premises domain controllers. This improvement eliminates delays between users provisioning Windows Hello for Business and being able to authenticate and makes it easier than ever to use Windows Hello for Business for accessing on-premises resources and applications. Cloud Trust is now available in preview for Windows 10 21H2 and Windows 11 21H2. 

Multiple passwordless accounts in Microsoft Authenticator 

When we first introduced passwordless sign-in for Azure AD (work or school accounts), Microsoft Authenticator could only support one passwordless account at a time. Now that limitation has been removed and you can have as many as you want. iOS users will start to see this capability later this month and the feature will be available on Android afterwards.  

thumbnail image 2 captioned Passwordless phone sign in experience in Microsoft Authenticator for Azure AD accounts.Passwordless phone sign in experience in Microsoft Authenticator for Azure AD accounts.

Temporary Access Pass in Azure AD 

Temporary Access Pass in Azure AD, a time-limited passcode, has been a huge hit with enterprises since the public preview, and we’ve been adding more ways to use it as we prepare to release the feature this summer. Lots of customers have told us they want to distribute Temporary Access Passes instead of passwords for setting up new Windows devices. You’ll be able to use a Temporary Access Pass to sign in for the first time, to configure Windows Hello, and to join a device to Azure AD. This update will be available next month. 

thumbnail image 3 captioned End user experience for Temporary Access Pass in Windows 11 onboarding.End user experience for Temporary Access Pass in Windows 11 onboarding.

Customers implementing passwordless today 

We already have several great examples of large Microsoft customers implementing passwordless solutions, including Avanade, who went passwordless with help from Feitian to protect their clients’ data against security breaches. Amedisys, a home healthcare and hospice care provider, went passwordless to keep patient personal information secured. Both organizations are committed to using passwordless authentication not only to strengthen security, but also to make the sign-in experience easier for end users. 

We’d love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment, check out the documentation, and visit aka.ms/gopasswordless for more information. 

Best regards,  

Alex Simons (Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons) 

Corporate Vice President of Program Management 

Microsoft Identity Division 

Source :
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-active-directory-identity/expansion-of-fido-standard-and-new-updates-for-microsoft/ba-p/3290633

Why you should act like your CEO’s password is “qwerty”

A poor password at the highest levels of an organisation can cost a company millions in losses.

Recent findings show that half of IT leaders store passwords in shared documents. On top of that, it seems that folks at executive level are not picking good passwords either. Researchers from NordPass combed through a large list of CEO and business owner breaches. Their findings should renew considerations for additional security measures at executive level.

The findings

The five most common passwords among C-level executives, managers, and business owners were “123456”, “password”, “12345”, “123456789”, and our old friend “qwerty”. Terrifyingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, this looks exactly like every other list of the most frequently used passwords, suggesting no extra precautions are in place (or enforced) at the top.

Executives really love to use the names “Tiffany”, “Charlie”, Michael”, and “Jordan” for their passwords. I was curious to know if these are the names of executives’ name their kids. My entirely unscientific trawl for the names of CEO’s children turned up list of CEOs themselves. Henry, William, Jack, James, and David are all very popular names. This doesn’t match up with our list of password names. However, there is one list which claims that the Michaels of this world are most likely to become CEOs. Are CEOs naming their passwords after themselves? I’d like to think not, but then I probably wouldn’t have expected to be writing about “123456” either.

Animals and mythical creatures are popular choices. When not naming passwords after themselves, dragons and monkeys are both incredibly popular and also incredibly easy to guess.

Breaking and entering

Common ways corporate breaches and basic passwords spill all over the floor are issues we’ve covered at length. We recently highlighted recommendations from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency which deal with most of the causes of CEO password loss.

A combination of weak and reused passwords, and risky password-sharing habits make up the majority of hits on the “these passwords can lead to nothing good” indicator.

What happens when you combine bad password practices with human error and poor security infrastructure? These weak and obvious passwords just help to bring the whole thing crashing down that little bit faster.

There are some very smart attacks and compromises out there. Clever attackers can exfiltrate data from a network for weeks or months before making a more overt move. You’d expect people hijacking CEO data to be made to really work for it at every level. Sadly this research seems to suggest the opposite is happening in a lot of cases.

If nothing else, I’d love to see the actual response on the part of the criminals. What do they think when pulling down a C-Level executive’s data and discovering their email password is “sandwich”? Are they surprised? Is it business as usual? Do they think it can’t possibly be real, and they’re staring down the wrong end of a prank or law enforcement bust?

Is the CEO password sky falling? A word of caution…

There are some caveats here. The research doesn’t go into detail with regard to additional security measures in place. Yes, a CEO may have the worst password you’ve ever seen. That doesn’t mean the business has been popped right open.

Maybe they had two-factor authentication (2FA) set up. The password may be gone, but unless the attacker also has access to the CEO’s authentication app on their phone, it may not be much use. The CEO may use a hardware authentication token plugged into their desktop. Admins may have set up that one machine specifically for use by the CEO, for all CEO-related activity. It may not be usable remotely, and could be tied to a VPN an added precaution.

Having said all of that…

Manager? Use a password manager

If we’re talking purely about fixing the short, terrible, obvious passwords, then some additional work is required. 2FA, lockouts, and hardware tokens are great. Ultimately they’re fixing a myriad of additional problems regardless of whether the password is good or bad.

To fix bad password practices, we need to look to tools which can improve them and help keep them a bit more secure at the same time. I am talking about password managers, of course.

A password manager is a software application that gets around the twin evils of poor passwords and password reuse by creating strong, random passwords and then remembering them.

They can function online, so they are accessible via the web and can sync passwords between devices, or they can work entirely offline. Offline password managers are arguably more secure. Online components can add additional risk factors and a way for someone to break in via exploits. The important part is to keep the master password to access your vault secure, and to use 2FA if available for an additional layer of protection. Make your master password long and complex—don’t use “qwerty”.

Password managers with browser extensions can help deter phishing. Your password manager will object to entering a password into the wrong website, no matter how convincing it looks. No more risk of accidental logins!

Some password manager tools allow you to share logins with other users in a secure fashion. They don’t show or display the password to the other users, rather they just grant a form of access managed by the tool or app itself. If your CEO has no option but to share a password with somebody else, this is the only safe way to do it.

There’s never been a better time to wean ourselves away from shared password documents and the name “Michael” as the digital keys to an organisation’s kingdom. It’s perhaps time for CEOs and other executives to lead from the front where security is concerned.

Source :
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/malwarebytes-news/2022/05/why-you-should-act-like-your-ceos-password-is-querty/

General Motors suffers credential stuffing attack

American car manufacturer General Motors (GM) says it experienced a credential stuffing attack last month. During the attack customer information and reward points were stolen.

The subject of the attack was an online platform, run by GM, to help owners of Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles to manage their bills, services, and redeem rewards points.

Credential stuffing

Credential stuffing is a special type of brute force attack where the attacker uses existing username and password combinations, usually ones that were stolen in a data breach on another service.

The intention of such an attack is not to take over the website or platform, but merely to get as many valid user account credentials and use that access to commit fraud, or sell the valid credentials to other criminals.

To stop a target from just blocking their IP address, an attacker will typically use rotating proxies. A rotating proxy is a proxy server that assigns a new IP address from the proxy pool for every connection.

The attack

GM disclosed that it detected the malicious login activity between April 11 and April 29, 2022, and confirmed that the threat actors exchanged customer reward bonuses of some customers for gift certificates.

The My GM Rewards program allows members to earn and redeem points toward buying or leasing a new GM vehicle, as well as for parts, accessories, paid Certified Service, and select OnStar and Connected Services plans.

GM says it immediately investigated the issue and notified affected customers of the issues.

Victims

GM contacted victims of the breach, advising them to follow instructions to recover their GM account. GM is also forcing affected users to reset their passwords before logging in to their accounts again. In the notification for affected customers, GM said it will be restoring rewards points for all customers affected by this breach.

GM specifically pointed out that the credentials used in the attack did not come from GM itself.

“Based on the investigation to date, there is no evidence that the log in information was obtained from GM itself. We believe that unauthorized parties gained access to customer login credentials that were previously compromised on other non-GM sites and then reused those credentials on the customer’s GM account.”

Stolen information

Attackers could have accessed the following Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of a compromised user:

  • First and last name
  • Email address
  • Physical address
  • Username and phone number for registered family members tied to the account
  • Last known and saved favorite location information
  • Search and destination information

Other information that was available was car mileage history, service history, emergency contacts, Wi-Fi hotspot settings (including passwords), and currently subscribed OnStar package (if applicable).

GM is offering credit monitoring for a year.

Mitigation

What could GM have done to prevent the attack? It doesn’t currently offer multi-factor authentication (MFA)which would have stopped the attackers from gaining access to the accounts. GM does ask customers to add a PIN for all purchases.

This incident demonstrates how dangerous it is to re-use your passwords for sites, services and platforms. Even if the account doesn’t seem that important to you, the information obtainable by accessing the account could very well be something you wish to keep private.

Always use a different password for every service you use, and consider using a password manager to store them all. You can read some more of our tips on passwords in our blog dedicated to World Password Day.

Stay safe, everyone!

Source :
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/reports/2022/05/general-motors-suffers-credential-stuffing-attack/

Researchers Find Potential Way to Run Malware on iPhone Even When it’s OFF

A first-of-its-kind security analysis of iOS Find My function has identified a novel attack surface that makes it possible to tamper with the firmware and load malware onto a Bluetooth chip that’s executed while an iPhone is “off.”

The mechanism takes advantage of the fact that wireless chips related to Bluetooth, Near-field communication (NFC), and ultra-wideband (UWB) continue to operate while iOS is shut down when entering a “power reserve” Low Power Mode (LPM).

While this is done so as to enable features like Find My and facilitate Express Card transactions, all the three wireless chips have direct access to the secure element, academics from the Secure Mobile Networking Lab (SEEMOO) at the Technical University of Darmstadt said in a paper entitled “Evil Never Sleeps.”

“The Bluetooth and UWB chips are hardwired to the Secure Element (SE) in the NFC chip, storing secrets that should be available in LPM,” the researchers said.

“Since LPM support is implemented in hardware, it cannot be removed by changing software components. As a result, on modern iPhones, wireless chips can no longer be trusted to be turned off after shutdown. This poses a new threat model.”

The findings are set to be presented at the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec 2022) this week.

The LPM features, newly introduced last year with iOS 15, make it possible to track lost devices using the Find My network even when run out of battery power or have been shut off. Current devices with Ultra-wideband support include iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13.

A message displayed when turning off iPhones reads thus: “iPhone remains findable after power off. Find My helps you locate this iPhone when it is lost or stolen, even when it is in power reserve mode or when powered off.”

Malware

Calling the current LPM implementation “opaque,” the researchers not only sometimes observed failures when initializing Find My advertisements during power off, effectively contradicting the aforementioned message, they also found that the Bluetooth firmware is neither signed nor encrypted.

By taking advantage of this loophole, an adversary with privileged access can create malware that’s capable of being executed on an iPhone Bluetooth chip even when it’s powered off.

However, for such a firmware compromise to happen, the attacker must be able to communicate to the firmware via the operating system, modify the firmware image, or gain code execution on an LPM-enabled chip over-the-air by exploiting flaws such as BrakTooth.

Put differently, the idea is to alter the LPM application thread to embed malware, such as those that could alert the malicious actor of a victim’s Find My Bluetooth broadcasts, enabling the threat actor to keep remote tabs on the target.

“Instead of changing existing functionality, they could also add completely new features,” SEEMOO researchers pointed out, adding they responsibly disclosed all the issues to Apple, but that the tech giant “had no feedback.”

With LPM-related features taking a more stealthier approach to carrying out its intended use cases, SEEMOO called on Apple to include a hardware-based switch to disconnect the battery so as to alleviate any surveillance concerns that could arise out of firmware-level attacks.

“Since LPM support is based on the iPhone’s hardware, it cannot be removed with system updates,” the researchers said. “Thus, it has a long-lasting effect on the overall iOS security model.”

“Design of LPM features seems to be mostly driven by functionality, without considering threats outside of the intended applications. Find My after power off turns shutdown iPhones into tracking devices by design, and the implementation within the Bluetooth firmware is not secured against manipulation.”

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2022/05/researchers-find-way-to-run-malware-on.html