Like many of you, I spend most of my working day online using the tools available to do what I do. From keeping my calendar, backing up my work, collaborating with my team, communicating with clients and others, retrieving information and just working.

In order to work online, and to answer some questions I get often. I decide to put together a list of tools I use and some I don’t. There are so many great online tools, there is no way I can mention them all. So leave your comments with your own suggestions.

I am using the Google Calendar currently as my calendar. I have multi-calendars, such as one for my business, home and a new one called “editorial calendar”. I like Google calendar as it will sync with my iCal and than my iPhone via Spanning Sync. In addition to keeping track of where I need to be and what I am doing, I am able to use another great service inside the Google calendar called, Remember the Milk (RTM). RTM is a great way to manage the task I need to complete and it is right in my Google calendar. I can also access RTM via my iPhone.

Jott is another essential tool I use daily. I can use my iPhone to send myself reminders and todo’s directly to RTM. How many times do you leave a meeting or are just driving down the road and think of something you need to do. WIth Jott, I can send myself a reminder and a new todo that goes to RTM and than to my Google calendar.

Two other great tools similar to Jott are reQall and Sandy. I have tried them both and I still like Jott better.

At G2 Web Media we use activeCollab to keep track of our projects and communicate with each other and our clients. Each client has access to their project and know what is going on. Of course the more popular collaboration tool is Basecamp. Both of these work great. If you work on projects and have clients, you really need to check them both out.

The wonderful thing about working online is the great applications and services you find. Backup, backup, backup is a theme I live by. And to do this, I once again turn to the web for one of my tools. Box.net is an online file storage and collaboration tool. Not only can I use it as one of my backups. I can share files with it and I can access it with my iPhone too if I need to. And some of the newer features let you edit documents and photos online. This is one you really should take a look at.

Communicating with clients is always or should always be a priority and one of the web based services I am using to do that is GrandCentral. GrandCentral is a great tool. You give it the numbers you want it to find you at and if you don’t answer, it takes a message. I have mine set to send me both a text message on my iPhone and an email. I can check the voicemail with my iPhone or listen to it from the email. Most of you should be able to get a local number for GrandCentral and what is really amazing, it is FREE.

While I do exchange most items with clients via email, there are times I have to send or receive a fax. I don’t own a fax machine. What I do use is Maxemail. Maxemail is an Internet fax service that allows you to send and receive faxes from your computer without a fax machine or phone line. I have my own toll free number and get my faxes via email. I can send them via email too to the other person’s fax number. efax is another Internet based fax service most are more familiar with. I tried them both and decided on Maxemail.

Since I may need to access my office computer from time to time. Especially those times I get out of the home office and go to my favorite coffee shop. I need a tool that I could do this with. Free is always good too. Most of the time I use my iPhone again to do this and SoonR is the web based application I use. I can access all my files this way. Email them to a client if they need them. Or just review them for my own use. And it is FREE too.

Finally, at least for this post is Google Docs. I am using Google docs more now that you can access your documents even off line. Not that I use it for all my word processing, but it is handy to have an alternative. My main point is however, you can actually do all your work with web based applications and get almost all of them for free. Great for the budget.

Please leave your comments with the web based tools you use in your own home based business. I am always looking for different tools and you may know of some I am not aware. If we get a good list from the comments, I will update the list in a followup post and link back to your own site or blog.