But what about the iPhone as an essential business tool? For mission-critical enterprise applications that require a robust and secure operating system, a recent Gartner Group study suggests treading carefully. On the other hand, the iPhone just hit the top of J.D. Power's satisfaction ranks for business smartphones, so some enterprises will undoubtedly find it useful. Perhaps the question should be: Can the iPhone make you more productive when you’re mobile? The answer is clearly yes.

Communicating your clients is a necessary evil of contract web development, design, programming, writing, or any other freelance art form. Some clients are great — they communicate what they need very clearly from the get-go and things go smoothly from spec through to delivery. Others, though, will make you want to pull out your hair in frustration. Our round up of ten must have web-based tools below will help you communicate with either type of client, and generally make things easier on you and help you keep your sanity.

We’ve all heard the call: pay off your credit card debt! This current financial crisis is going to result in tighter lending standards, higher interest rates, and also golden opportunities to invest the cash you’re currently using to pay off debt. Hopefully everyone with debt knows the basics: stop using the card; take it out of your wallet; pay off the highest interest rate first; and pay more than the minimums. This is all great advice, but here are five more ways to pay off your debt even faster.

Millions of American families need a hand as they sort through their health care options during this year's open-enrollment season, which involves much more than checking for the lowest premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Saving money is a false economy if a health plan falls down on the job of providing good care and making it easy to get.

Consumers unable to qualify for a traditional loan, or unwilling to put up with the red tape and high costs, are increasingly turning to peer-to-peer lending sites such as Prosper, LendingClub, Zopa, and Virgin Money. Think eBay for personal loans: Instead of matching individual buyers and sellers of goods, these sites bring together potential borrowers and lenders. I'm all for social networking, but p2p lending is full of risks I don't think many borrowers or lenders fully appreciate, or are paying attention to.

Forming a mission statement forces you to question yourself and the company, and formulate a vision of what your business is or will become. It whittles an organization's purpose down to its very essence, its heart and soul. This can be a powerful way to launch or to rejuvenate the organization and make sure it stays on track.

It’s November, which means it’s a few short weeks before the holidays are in full swing and you know what that means… our consumer driven society gets all whipped up into a fervor and we spend like mad on gifts (I personally see nothing wrong with that!). This year it’s a little different though, the economy has people really concerned about their financial future and it now makes sense to prepare for the holiday spending by saving for the future while there’s still time left.

I was looking over my credit card bills the other day and noticed that I’ve been paying for credit insurance…something I never signed up for to begin with. When I called to ask about it, the representative informed me they had received verbal confirmation from me a few months back when I renewed my card. I most certainly did not give any kind of verbal confirmation to add that to my account. It was a back and forth discussion before the charges were reimbursed, but it got me to thinking. Is credit insurance really worth the money?

In the last two months there has been a rush to exhort start-ups to get to profitability, yet we’re hearing very little advice how to do that other than simply slashing expenses and finding revenue channels. Dogster & Catster were born in a period when web properties were considered loss-leaders, but we decided to find out how big a business it could be.

With the upcoming tax free savings/investment account in 2009, my mind has been racing about what exactly to do with the account. Between my wife and I, we will have $10,000 worth of contribution room available to us in the first year which we intend to fully maximize. How do we intend to use the account? I’ve written a few ideas in the original TFSA column which I’m going to expand on below.