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It's Friday ... oh what a wonderful sound that word has ... Friday ... it just rolls off the tongue and seems to have a magical quality about it that conjures up visions of days at the beach, breakfast by the Bay, dinner and a nice bottle of wine down at the Marina and ...

And now you know what I'm at least planning on doing this weekend what will you be doing? I sure hope that for at least some of the weekend you plan on getting away from your computer, getting out and enjoying the great spring or autumn weather wherever you are. Even if it's cloudy you should still get out because your brain and your body need a break and that's what weekends are for.

I'm sure that there are a few people at a major waste management company in the United States are looking forward to the weekend too because stress levels must be running pretty high there right now. It seems that some time ago they spent $100 million on a computer system that was going to manage their waste collection business and make life easy for them.

Sadly their very expensive tool has been a complete failure and now they're getting ready to start suing the German company that supplied the system.

They're not the only ones that need fancy software and computing packages to maintain their business. Many big businesses these days are almost totally dependent on such systems to manage the very involved logistics that keep their businesses running. Fortunately though we're not quite so dependent on very expensive software as what they are.

Anyone getting into this business can usually make a start with a cheap computer and free software so if you're just beginning don't think that you need to invest in a lot of very expensive equipment. Many webmasters go on for years running their business with very cheap tools but you shouldn't think that will always be the case.

The more you grow in this business the more you will see the need to invest in better tools that will increase your efficiency and quite often those tools can be rather expensive. You can make a start with a free HTML editor and a free graphics program such as Ifranview but, like most things that are free, they have limitations and they will hold you back.

As your business develops you will want to automate a lot of your repetitive tasks and few free tools are sophisticated enough to provide the automation that you may need. That's when you really do need to get serious about your business and invest in some good tools. Of course you don't have to go to the extent that large businesses go to but you should be prepared to spend money and buy legitimate copies of software that can help your business grow.

HTML editors like Dreamweaver and graphics programs like Photoshop or Fireworks are going to set you back thousands of dollars but the investment is definitely worth it and it's quite likely that the cost will be something that you can claim as a cost of doing business for taxation purposes. If you can't afford to pay those amounts in lump sum check out the option of leasing the software you need because that may well be an option where you life.

The same goes for computers, monitors, scanners and printers. You can make do with cheap equipment at first but you should never think that a cheap computer is all you're going to need because you really do get what you pay for when it comes to hardware. Cheap computers, monitors and printers fail ... regularly ... and the last thing any one of us needs is downtime because we've been silly enough to think that buying cheap equipment was the best way of keeping our costs down.

Once again, if you can't afford the upfront cost of good hardware then think about leasing but be sure to read the fine print very carefully because you may find that you're stuck in a leasing loop that you can never escape from. In the beginning we started out leasing both software and hardware but these we buy everything we need outright.

Sure there were some tax advantages for us in leasing but they were certainly offset by some disadvantages so be sure to weigh up your options carefully. The only thing that is a given in all of this is that you will always need good tools that actually do the job you want them to do.

And now it's time for me to get to work. I might be hoping for a pleasant weekend but before I get to it there's a lot of craziness to work through today. Steve has just discovered that, with one car between us, we've got to be in two completely different locations at the same time. I hope your Friday is not going to get off to a start like that.