What Are Your Favorite Automation Tools To Get More Things Done In Lesser Time...?

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"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency" - Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman, Microsoft.

"Automation is about building a sustainable, automatic source of income."
- Timothy Ferriss
Author of #1 New York Times Bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek


The elites agree that automation is a powerful leveraging tool
because it helps:
- Save you time and cost...
- Get you to be more productive...
- Cut out unnecessary work for you...
- Reduce human-induced errors and delays...
- Eliminate bottlenecks in your ops...
- Simplify your workflow...


There is nothing more fulfilling and satisfying when you see
the computer performs all the tough grunt work that you
used to do manually.

With this, I want to ask you what's your favorite time-saving
automation weapon and how does it help you?

Here's my list:

1. Big Mike's list of Traffic Mania automation tools
Nothing like getting my social bookmarking, article/rss/directory/
press release submissions done!

2. Metastock - I rely on this to scan and filter stocks that
fits my indicators' criterias.

3. Launchy - A small nifty tool that allows me to open up
programs, files, folders, softwares on the fly - without me wasting
time searching for them

4. Google custom search - allows me to zoom in on exactly the
information I want. I've customized search engines to get me information
for public domain, copywriting, online marketing, answers and a lot more...

Hail Google!

5. Texter - Text substitution application saves me countless keystrokes
by replacing abbreviations with commonly used phrases I define on
the fly.

6. Jack Duncan's Copyright Records Search - Now I know what
exactly books are in public domain. A indispensable part of my
public domain "treasure hunt" arsenal.

7. ArticleIdeas - Low cost research software to get ideas for
articles/products. By a fellow Warrior (Milan).

8. Keyword Analyzer - for keywords/SEO research

9. MetaSpy - Yet another great automation tool by Big Mike
to scrap meta keywords data from my competitors' sites.

10. Roboform - Automated form filler. I cannot do without
my favorite Roboform. I absolutely cannot do without it!!!!!!!
I used to search high and low for my login and password details.

Very painful just thinking about it. But not anymore!


Okay. There's my list. I've got more. But I'll stop here.

You got your favorite autopilot tool? I love to hear yours...

Jag
#main internet marketing discussion forum #automation #favorite #lesser #things #time #tools
  • I'm going to put in Bookmarking Demon and ArticleMarketer.
  • Unique article wizard for article marketing.
  • Okay...I forgot to add in Power Article Rewriter for article rewriting.
    By far the best article rewriting tool I've used.

    It's not exactly automated. More of semi-automated. Because human intervention of
    rewriting is still needed.
  • SENuke is mine!

    Yet i do like to outsource my articles too! Which i suppose saves me time but isnt a too really!

    Tom Brite
    • [1] reply
    • Tom, are you getting good results with SENuke? Maybe I am not doing something right but I am not seeing the results I want.
      • [1] reply
  • I have to second the Icansoft software tools, I use them daily.
  • Nice big list.. I'm a graphic/web designer so there are fewer opportunities to automate stuff But thanks, I'm sure I'm gonna love Texter !

    Cheers,
    aLee
    • [3] replies
    • Hi aLee:

      If you do design, I think Photoshop has action scripts which can
      allow you to automate certain stuff (e.g. creating ebooks graphics etc).

      There are related jobs to your field you can automate as well,
      such as:

      - Resizing/renaming files
      - Opening up your favorite graphic tools in a single click (or with hotkey)
      - Backing up of your work

      There are probably plenty more. If you sit down, and think
      through your daily tasks, there could be a lot more repetitive stuff
      that you can automate than you ever realize.

      Jag

      P.S I love Texter. It's a bit buggy though.
    • Great list!

      I love Texter. Use it for usernames, email addresses, people's names, product names, URLs, emails, commonly used phrases, email signatures, etc.

      There are a ton of tools I use on a regular basis, but here are a couple of my other faves:

      Imacros: This is freakin awesome, I love it! I save so much time using this. It records what you do and then plays it back. So once you've recorded a macro, all you do is press "Play" and it does certain tasks for you, and much faster.

      See: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3863

      Use it to log in to sites (it'll go to the url, put in your username and password, and even navigate around the site for you.). For example, one macro I have logs in to 3 different sites, and gathers stats (such as visitors, opt-ins and sales for the day).

      It does this in about 30 seconds! And did I mention it's free?

      Evernote: creates short web clips of things anywhere on the web. Useful for writing articles, press releases, doing research, etc. Rather than copying & pasting or just bookmarking the URL, you just clip what you need from that page and can label it.

      Very useful for doing research (such as for a sales letter or other marketing materials), writing articles, writing press releases, and more. Also free. http://evernote.com


      ~Elizabeth~
      • [ 3 ] Thanks
    • don't tell me you've never heard of Action Scripts for Photoshop?
  • here is my input:[this is not a automation tool but still a must for everyone for productivity]
    SNIPPELY - this is a adobe air application

    I use this for taking notes about any topic- you can pick quick notes and then paste in this application.it is much better to use this instead of taking notes in notepad or ms word.The major advantage is that it is easier to organize things.

    I also use this to take note of any catchy Adwords ads - there are so many cool ads posted by top marketers.They give me ideas about how to write super catchy ideas.I make note on them in SNIPPELY
    • [1] reply

    • Good tip. I use Sonic Snooper for easy swiping.

      AutoHotkey is another useful tool if you like to use hotkeys for 1 keystroke command to open any applications.

      I use other tools for this though. AutoHotkey is a good free tool though.

      Jag
  • Hi Jag,

    Nice list. Thanks. I think you covered what I like and more.

    God bless,

    Andy
  • Heavens, is there things you can automate??? Just when I think I have learned a heap of stuff, I find out there is more I can be doing - most of the things mentioned here I have never heard of - oh well I see another late night looming

    Lisa
  • Hi Tom,

    I'm interested to know about SE Nuke.

    Currently, I already possess tools to automate certain part of what SE Nuke does. So I don't want any duplication.

    Having said that, there are certain sites that SE Nuke target which I've not automated for yet. Do you think you can share more about your results with SE Nuke?

    Any encounter with bugs? Or submission not going through?

    Jag
    • [1] reply
    • I did have like all the icansoft products, bookmarking demon, tools that i had custom made to automate squidoo pages and hubpages. Yet then i dropped all of those for senuke!

      Results wise... well there are no real bugs (there were but they have really sorted it all out now). Plus it saves me days of work that i can now complete in hours.

      Best thing i like about it is that its all together. I don't have to open up like 10 programs to do each thing. Plus im not transfering site url's etc between programs as senuke keeps them all together.

      Tom Brite
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • iMacros Fan here
  • Nice thread. RoboForm is another great time-saving tool.
  • [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • This is all so true.

      A lot of people seem to want productivity tools in the hope that they'll rapidly do for them the jobs that they themselves are not so great at. They seem to forget that these tools are generally only as good as the person pushing the button, and that they can just as easily automate mistakes at speed too.

      That said, if you've got a handle on your procedures and know that they work well, I'm all in favour of tools that automate them and let you get on with something else instead. Anything that can increase the time available to drink beer can only be a good thing Another vote here for Incansoft tools, and for Market Samurai too, which seems to be sprouting new features just lately faster than the average Triffid sprouts leaves.
      • [1] reply
  • I use roboform before it's quiet efficiency, but still not perfect enough, the catcha words still need you to fill in. I heard that there is a service that helps you to fill in catcha words, right? Need more information. thanks!
    • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Big Mike's social bot and roboform are definitely my favourite. I used to use Imacro, a secret method of getting loads of incoming freinds from myspace.
  • There is only ONE reason why humans have jobs...and that is because a way to automate the task using technology hasnt been found yet....

    But it will...

    IMO...we are seeing the beginning of structural technological Unemployment.

    People want full employment and technological freedom from work...they can't exist together in our current system. We are on the verge of catacylsmic changes.

    All the best

    Barry
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply

    • Hi Barry. Thanks for your input. Allow me to offer an additional perspective.

      First off, automation is not a new thing.

      You are probably surrounded by it and are using it...but you
      just may not be aware of it.

      Think traffic light...gantry at carparks...auto-open doors
      at mall...your autoresponder....

      Automation is not a magic pill. Not everything can be automated.
      Say we want to write an article with unique content, that
      still requires creativity on our part.

      Human intervention is still needed.


      Having said that, automation is designed to help us. Not go against us.
      It is designed to replace us for tasks that are repetitive, mundane,
      and time consuming. So that more precious time will be freed up for us to
      spend more time on stuff that matters more.

      And I'm talking about going out to build relationships...creating products
      ...writing your sales page...making sales...
      or even spending more time with your loved ones...

      You don't have to be spending time manually submitting articles...
      doing research...bookmarking and so on... All these can be automated.

      Since we only have 24 hours a day, why not spend whatever time
      we have on tasks that gives us the most value? And let the computer
      handle the rest?

      Remember the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle)? 80% of our results come from 20%
      of our effort. That is extremely true for many things.

      What if we can focus all our efforts on 20% of such tasks...and
      automate the rest (if it is "automatable")? Do you think that can
      dramatically boost your results?

      Cheers,
      Jag
      • [1] reply
  • I've been enjoying Jonathan Leger's WebDataParser recently. It's been pretty helpful for automating a surprising number of extraction tasks pretty easily.

    And MarketSamurai keeps adding more and more amazing functionality.
    • [1] reply
    • 1. Mincro Nice Finder - Makes it easy to find keywords and tell how easy they will be to rank.

      2. Googles tools (Wonder Wheel and realted searches - Super fast relevancy on cue.

      3. RSS bot - why shouldn't my content be read by more people while also helping me get indexed.. :-)

      4. Search Status (plugin for firefox) - PR, Alexa BAcklinks all in 2 easy seconds.

      5. SEO for firefox - Quite a nifty tool it is too.

      6. SEM rush SemRush.com - find keywords my competitors and soon to be competitiors are ranking for.

      7. Social Bot - Get that landing page as much instant traffic as I can.

      8. Press Bot - Comes in handy for announcing anything new on my blog.

      9. Style Master CSS editor - fast quick and easy CSS editing even for PHP based sites.

      I think that's it for my fav's :-)
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • That sounds good. Where can I find this?

    I couldn't find it on Incansoft's website.
    • [1] reply
    • It used to be on Traffic-Mania.com. But apparently it has been taken down.
      Not too sure why. Maybe you can send Mike a PM on this.
      • [1] reply
  • FeedReader
    Article extractor
    Yahoo answers extractor
    AutoBlogger

    regards,
    ASHISH THAKKAR
  • Micro Niche Finder

    I have to agree with Diane Lane & Jag82 there is still more work involved like thinking through your choices (making intelligent decisions). Also sometimes MNF does not find all the keywords for you, so you have to manually dig for more; but it is a time and labour saver.
    • [1] reply
    • Market Samurai
      SEOQuake
      Unique Article Wizard
      Roboform
      Winautomation

      Market Samurai replaced a lot of my other keyword tools. Checks keyword ranking and PR and ranking of competitors sites and backlinks.

      SEOQuake a ff plugin just gives me information overload.

      Unique Article Wizard is just amazing ...

      RoboForm save me much needed time and a brain cells.

      Winautomation just go my hands on it and it rocks.
      • [1] reply
  • I'm surprised no one said Aweber

    My favorites are Aweber and Roboform, couldn't be nearly as effective without them.
  • Twitterfeed, Aweber, 1Password (roboform for mac) are what come to mind right away.
    • [1] reply
    • Couldn't live with out

      Micro niche Finder
      Bookmarking Demon
      Aweber
      Roboform
      • [1] reply
  • Aha! Now I know where the sudden rash of requests for MetaSpy are coming from!

    The original download page disappeared, so here's a temporary link to snag it from. No optin. Just grab it while the gettin's good.



    John
    • [ 6 ] Thanks
  • Code everything I use myself. My favourite automation tools are the ones that get me my links. Feels good when I type in the command and am getting links
  • I like this list! I'm gonn be here awhile to make sure I didn't miss anything, lol...
  • A few I use that I haven't seen mentioned.

    statsremote.com - Check about every affiliate stat possible.
    mailutilities.com - Several utilities from here.
    econfirmpro - Modified to process general email confirmations
    pitrinec.com - Perfect Keyboard and a few others.
    wavget.com - Typeitin (Maybe not automatic but useful anyway)
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [3] replies
    • statsremote looks pretty sweet
    • does econfirmpro work with yahoo and gmail ids? Do we have to configure it to make it confirm our emails automatically? Will it confirm all kinds of emails?
    • One of my favorite that I really enjoy is "Article Drip Robot" to automate the posting of your site to hundreds of article sites.

      You set when, where, and how often you want your articles posted.
      • [1] reply
  • If you're on Mac you NEED to learn how to use Automator.

    I won't even try and explain it here, but you can do INSANE amounts of automation with it
    • [1] reply
    • Is it a tool that is only for Mac, Kyle? Does it come along with it or..?

      Damn, I knew I should have went for a Mac..

      Anyways, I myself use SEnuke and I absolutely LOVE it. It is an SEO user's dream!
      • [2] replies
  • any of BIG Mike's bots and Market Samurai
  • FreeTrafficSystems proved to be a killer in automation.
  • Thanks for this list, lots of great tools!
  • Just a quick point here Jag, the Gates quote is actually:

    "The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."



    So I think people here first and foremost need to get their processes straight. Also remember Stephen Covey quote: "Begin with the end in mind"

    Not that you should delay forever your actions because you dont have yet a clear end in your mind.

    my 2 cents
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply

    • Sorry I missed that. You made an extremely good point.
      And so very very true.

      Let me add on to that. Automation is not just about putting things on autopilot.

      It's also about elimination of unnecessary steps...and optimizing it.

      Let's think in terms of:

      - How can I make this process complete in lesser steps?
      - How can I make this process faster and more efficient with no compromise on quality?
      - How can I reduce the manpower involved in this process?
      - How can I eliminate potential bottlenecks?

      Always be thinking how to improve.

      Thanks again for bringing up this excellent point, Ryce.

      Jag
  • Can anyone tell me of a tool which can log in to my email account and confirm my emails? If such a tool exists then account creation at various sites can be automated. Thanks
  • I use macros!
  • Here is what i use: Social Marker.
  • Besides many of the tools already mentioned here I love Evernote. I use it instead on Notepad for anytype of cut and paste - copying down ideas, web pages etc.
    • [1] reply
    • After looking through this thread, I went to look at the Winautomation stuff fromt he links given. Looks very nice, but whoa is that an expensive piece of software.

      I was thinking that it would be great to give it a bunch of keywords and have it open spyfu.com and grab info for me. Any thoughts on how I might accomplish this without shelling out $129+.

      Thanks,
      Patrick
      • [1] reply
  • Have to say my personal favorite is SEnuke as it does very well for me and is about as close to complete automation as you can get... but you do have to remember that with any of these automation softwares they are only "tools" not automatic money makers and without using good SEO strategies and techniques you may be a little longer seeing your efforts pay off.

    Alot of excellent tools...thanks guys
  • Just realized I was one of the winners over at Giveaway: WinAutomation - Windows Tasks Automator | Freebies Thanks for the heads up and the free software
  • You can use keyword tracker as well.. But market samurai is way better than the other tool.
    • [1] reply
    • It would be nice to hear more examples of keyword tools that people use and what they like about them. I personally use market samurai also. For automation I mostly use Winautomation which is great at automating anything on the computer, internet related or not.
      • [1] reply
  • Hay, great lists people. Did I mention how much I love lists!

    For me, Roboform is a must, and Caffeinated Content for WP is pretty cool also.

    regards,
    James Pateman
  • SEO for firefox
    Firebug(Makes finding and changing CSS in CMS systems a breeze)
    Google Keyword Research Tool (I've heard of Market Samurai and WordTool but don't use them.)

    Is Market Samurai really that good in finding keywords? I use an excel table and tons of research lol.
    What I would like to find is a article/directory submission tool thats easy to use
  • I use Roboform for form fill up,Pingomatic and Pingoat for pinging my blogs,Mass article control softwares to spin and submit my articles,TubeMogul for submitting my videos to multiple video sites and "Article Video Robot" to convert my articles into video and submit them to various video sites.
  • LOL -- I see, an older (not too much older) thread resurrected from the past.
    Sorry about that.

    My favorite automation tools: unix tools.
    I use them on windows by installing cygwin.
    I use them on hosting accounts by getting ssh access.
    (and lynx, on a hosting account, can save you scads of time
    from downloading stuff from membership sites and then uploading
    it to your site...)

    I'd go nuts without them.

    zip and other archivers. A wonderful unix command known as "find".

    regular expressions, whatever tool they may live in.

    GreaseMonkey -- which makes heavy use of XPath...

    most of this stuff makes texter, webdataparser and such unnecessary.
  • Our company is using the product from this website

    Business process automation

    It will save more time!
  • Magic ListBot is one of my favorites
  • Well Wordpres Mage of course. Puts up a $ site in 5 mins
    .
    .
    .
    .
  • My most treasured and only automation tools are staff.



    Tom
    • [1] reply
    • Having your own staff is good! While I don't have my own staff, I outsource a lot.

      Do think about 1 thing.

      When your staff knock off...or fall sick...will work still get done?

      What if you can have a "team of staff" that can work for you round
      the clock...doesn't rest...doesn't eat...doesn't complain...and just
      obediently do whatever you want it to do...will that be nice?

      If you read through the great tools mentioned in the thread by all
      the contributors here...I think you will discover that these tools
      will complement your staff pretty well...maybe even boost their productivity too! =)

      Cheers,
      Jag
      • [1] reply
  • Some cool ideas here. Heres mine -

    Metastock

    Google custom search

    Google keywords

    Jack Duncan's Copyright Records Search
    Roboform

    If anybody needs any more advice, theres a free ebook on my site which should come in pretty handy.

    John Burton
  • Thanks for the tips, I'll pass them on to my management teams.

    Having gone back and read more of this thread, there's no doubt it will be valuable to many. However, I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with someone starting a thread about great automation tools whilst pitching a product for that very purpose in their sig.

    Call me old fashioned...

    Tom
    • [1] reply
    • You are not old-fashioned. Your concern is valid.

      And that's why I try to be discreet as possible when it comes to talking
      about the product in my signature in this thread. Unless a related question
      or comment comes up.

      BTW, some of the tools mentioned in here are great (e.g. SE NUKE,
      Market Samurai, Incansoft Traffic Mania Bots etc).

      I think you team will like those.

      Best,
      Jag
  • I have a small list guys but here you go :
    • SEnuke
    • Bookmarking Demon
    • RSS submit
    • Power Article Rewriter
    • Google Desktop
    • Dragon Naturally Speaking
    • Market Samurai
    • Ninja Link Cloaker
    • Cute FTP

    Thats almost all the tools I use
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • It runs on YOUR server, you set up the pop3 mail accounts for it to grab your email from.

    You configure it by telling it what strings to look for in a url. Just go through all the email and start looking for common strings(words or phrases) like...

    "confirm"
    "verifyuser.php?*

    If you see something get through without being "clicked", just look for something in the url and add it in so that it catches it next time.

    I've had my copy for a very long time. It comes with strings related to another online industry but you just remove those and add your own in.

    If you're having it check yahoo or gmail accounts, you will still have to log in and delete the email every now and then. If you were mailing from your own domains, the script would delete them for you.
  • I agree, definetly some interesting information here. I'm still researching the Stock Price calculator that you mentioned, Jag.

    I also forgot to mention Gmail! It's very useful for receiving emails from multiple email addresses automatically. It has the POP3 function inside which is also useful for blocking
    emails that contain viruses.

    I use it for all my info@domainname.com emails.
    • [1] reply
    • I use the following programs for my internet marketing and SEO efforts:

      - Traffic bug(auto submitter for RSS, directory, etc. very nice so far during the trial)
      - Market Samurai(really the greatest tool I've ever used!)
      - Web CEO - Small biz edition (various SEO functions. SEO optimize pages, searchengine submission, keyword research using KEI(keyword effectiveness index), and alot more...)
  • - Bookmarking Demon
    - DigiXmas (Article Spinning/Directory Submitter)
    - MS Word, yes you read that correctly...lol


    Thats pretty much it, Ive decided to 'declutter' my life, I used to use a ton now I'm only going to use this as an absoloute minimum.
  • Great resources, Jag!

    I have heard jetsubmitter is a great time saver for writing articles. I believe there is a free section for basic then you can upgrade for $$/month.

    I have not yet (found the time) to use it yet but have it stored to get to in the near future.

    I hope this helps someone.
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