My son left a Christmas list on the kitchen bench over the weekend – an MP4 player, MP3 player, iPod, laptop and phone – he’s only seven!

Technology is becoming a natural part of everyday life, for a younger and younger age group. Ideas that are still over the horizon today are the tools that the next generation will grow up taking for granted.

Keeping abreast of cutting edge software and technology solutions is a chore I find enjoyable, especially with the outstanding quality and caliber of ideas and initiatives that have appeared on the scene recently.

Even squirreling away the best-of-the-best to use as material for this month’s tips, has now built up such a wealth of useful innovation that it becomes difficult to make a selection of just some items to fit the space available here!

Hard but worth it! This month’s tips and tricks sees a mixed bag of free, or very low cost, office software and hardware productivity solutions, to help you do what you do better, more easily, for less.