As you’ll see from the list, I’m a huge fan of any App that allows you to take work out of the office, or gives you easy access to financial information.

1. WordPress for iPhone

This powerful little App allows WordPress blog owners like yours truly to write posts and update any number of blogs on the go. I have never used it to write complete posts up to the quality required for publishing, but it’s a handy place to jot ideas down. Then when you login on your laptop or desktop computer, all your ideas will be waiting for you to develop them into full length posts.

2. Facebook for iPhone

This requires little explanation. Almost every iPhone user has this installed anyway. In short, it makes Facebook even more addictive than it already is, allowing you to update your status, view your newsfeed, contribute to threads and upload photos on the go.

3. TweetDeck

Tweet from your iPhone. What TweetDeck has over Facebook for iPhone is the built-in ability to let you manage many accounts. Which is handy, given the versatility of third party integration of Twitter into websites, blogs and just about anywhere else on the net.

4. FTPOnTheGo

For webmasters, this is a powerful little App which allows the editing of ANY website from your iPhone. It works just like a desktop FTP client, allowing you to download files, edit code and re-upload the edited files to your web server. It isn’t free, but for the low price of ___, I consider it a worthwhile investment.

5. oDesk

If you use oDesk to hire staff, the oDesk app allows you to see who is online and working at any given time.

6. Sherpa

If you use BaseCamp to manage your virtual corporation, Sherpa gives you the power of BaseCamp on your iPhone, allowing you to do business and manage your company from anywhere – taking work out of the office.

7. PayPal

Send and request money from your phone. See your PayPal account balance in real time. If you own one or more online stores, it’s a real buzz to login to this App from a shopping mall or restaurant or even a beach, and see the balance going up.

8. Skype

Consider what Skype did to the international calls market and now consider how useful it is to have Skype on your phone. Make international calls from your mobile handset without having to remortgage your home to be able to afford it.

9. Simply

If you’ve ever dabbled in the stock market, or would like to learn, this is another app that allows you to take work with you anywhere you go. SimplyStockBroking.com has created this App, allowing you to trade stocks wherever you are. I’m currently a fan of any financial institution that has taken the plunge and put out a free iPhone app for their customers and for that reason, I love Simply. But that’s not the only reason. Simply’s transaction fees are actually lower than any other personal share dealing accounts out there – only £8 per purchase or sale.

10. GoDaddy Mobile

Any time you get an idea for a website, you can check domain availability from anywhere. You can also manage domains you own: change DNS settings and even buy and sell domain names from your iPhone.

11. Natwest

The amount of convenience this allows you cannot be overstated. See your current account’s balance wherever you are.

12. XE Currency

Not everbody will see the handiness in this app, but living in the UK and doing business on the Internet so much and outsourcing labour to countries all over the world, having a currency conversion tool with real time exchange rates within arms reach most of the time, is just plain convenient.

13. TextMeLater

I love my family and my friends. But sometimes it doesn’t seem that way when I forget their birthdays. Thanks to this App I’ve never forgotten a birthday since I got it. While it doesn’t go the whole nine yards and automatically send messages for you, you can prewrite SMS messages and schedule them to be sent. When that day and time come, a popup will appear on your iPhone screen and you can then send the message with a single tap. Handy!

14. CalenGoo

Being an Apple product, of course, the iPhone favours iCal over Google Calendar. CalenGoo gives Google Calendar users instant and tidy Google Calendar on the iPhone. You can add appointments, remove them and it is always synched with your Google Account.

15. Vlingo

For anybody born in the 80s, the idea of talking to a computer and it complying with what you said, was up until now confined to science fiction movies, which might by why I never seem to be any less amazed when I use this. It just seems like Voodoo!

It’s that time of year again! After a couple of weeks of turkey and TV, it’s time to look forward to the year ahead and think about how we intend to improve ourselves and our lives over the coming year. Every year millions of people make New Year’s Resolutions to change personal behaviours, kick habits and realize dreams. But every year, after less than 60 days, most people have surrendered to the world, admitted defeat and put it off until next year.

Whether you aim to stop smoking, exercise more, lose weight or just simply enjoy life more, in this article, I’d like to share with you some killer techniques I’ve gathered over the years on first, how to make a New Year’s Resolution and second, how to maximize your chances of keeping it.

How To Make A New Year’s Resolution

Step #1: Identify Desired Changes

A lot of people ask themselves the question, “What should my New Year’s Resolution be?” and come up with an answer. But often, this is an answer for the sake of an answer. It’s not a “proper” New Year’s resolution. It is not something they really want to change about themselves.

Instead, try asking the question, “This timen next year, what is the single most valuable improvement I could hope to see in myself and my life?” This is a much more meaningful question because it focuses on a desired result rather than {a process or an instant answer}. You may have to search harder to find the answer to this question, but when you find it, a hundred to one, it’s a better answer than the answer to the first question.

Step #2: Be Very Specific About Your Goal

The most specific you are, the greater are your chances of success. For example, lose weight is a goal that is doomed to fail because it is too vague. How much weight? Theoretically, with the goal “lose weight”, I could go take a dump and declare I had achieved my goal – I’ll inevitably weigh less when I get off the toilet than I did when I sat down.

There are a few rules to being specific…

Quantify… make the goal measurable. E.g. “lose 4 stones” is better than “lose weight”

Set a deadline… the chances are that you want to see results before December 2010, so set a deadline. E.g. by 1st May 2010

Specify how achieving the goal will improve your life. What will you be able to do that you can’t do now?

Set Rules: Figure out some of the steps you will need to take to achieve your goal. What do you need to do to make it happen?

Step #3. Record and Document

Where self improvement is concerned, it is always better to write things down. Then you have a record of what you decided and when you decided it. Stick the paper somewhere obvious, like on top of your computer screen on on your fridge door. Write it like a contract…

“I, [Your Name Here], do hereby promise to meet the goal of… losing 5 stones in weight [or whatever your goal is] by … May 2010 [whenever your deadline is]… in time for …. summer …. so that… I can fit into my wedding dress in time for my wedding [whatever your pay off is].”

In order to do this, I am bound by the following rules…

1. I will not eat any cake, chocolate, curry or fried food on any day except Friday
2. I will run 5 miles on the treadmill every day.
3. I will always start this at 9 o clock PM. This is my treadmill time and I must not fill it with anything else.

Do you see the level of detail there? I have specified outlawed foods, quantified how far I have to run every day on the treadmill and I have specified an exact time every day at which I must be on the treadmill. This way I have no escape from it. If you allow room in your contract for you to make choices later, then obviously, when you don’t feel as committed as you did when you wrote the contract, you’ll find loop holes and ways around abiding by the contract.

A word of advice about rules: Set as many as you need to, but as few as you possibly can. The fewer rules you set, the less chance you have of breaking them.

Step #4. Create Leverage: An Army of Naggers

Give a copy of this contract to as many of your friends and family as you dare.

If you are lucky enough to have somebody in your life who will nag you about it, make sure you give the contract to them and explain the importance of it. Sooner or later, they’re all going to ask you how it’s going and because you’re not trying to achieve your goal in secret, it’s much less likely you can give up without some sort of inquisition by your family and friends.

Step #5: Sticking To It All

In most cases, whether your resolution is to lose weight, stop smoking, learn the guitar, increase your income, you are essentially trying to create a habit. You are trying to make sure you carry out the behaviours set out in step 2.

The first 18-28 days will be the hardest. If you can be extra vigillant and really obsessive for the first month, your chances of success are high. Because after 28 days of repetition, the new behaviours should have built themselves into your routine and you will naturally do them without having to force yourself.

When you feel like giving up, imagine the pay off you desire as vividly as you possibly can and remind yourself how much you want it. Review your contract if necessary.

In Closing…

So there you have it. I have had a great degree of success with these techniques. Literally and genuinely they have changed my life and by applying them I have achieved quite a few things that I would probably never have done; and definitely never have done so quickly as I have. I wish you all the very best of luck with using them to improve yourself and your life.

I wish all my readers a happy, prosperous, peaceful, successful and healthy 2010.

Thank you for reading.