Archive: July 2005

July 29, 2005

Book Review: Home Networking: The Missing Manual

O'Reilly writes that itt all started when personal computers and peripherals became more affordable. Suddenly, the single PC household...

July 29, 2005

Do You Have A Tech Guru? You Should.

I recently received a phone call from a colleague of mine, frustrated at technology. She knows she needs to upgrade...

July 29, 2005

Add Life To Power Point Presentations With Animation

We are creatures of habit. When you saw your first Microsoft Power Point presentation something snapped in you and...

July 29, 2005

Ease of Use And Security For Home Networks

In the office you have your IT person/office or a consultant who can help you install, maintain, support and secure...

July 29, 2005

How Do You Get Rid Of Old Computers, Printers and etc?

As your technology evolves you find yourself with old computers lying around that often times you don't know what...

July 29, 2005

Tech Annoyances? Tech Solutions Online

At times, computers can get VERY, VERY frustrating. Most of my almost 20 years of computing experience has been...

July 29, 2005

HP Has A New Online Backup Tool For You

Hewlett-Packard has a range of backup solutions, online and hardware based to tape or CD. Today, Newport International Group Inc....

July 28, 2005

Top 10 Color Considerations for Small Businesses

HP provided this color guide and I thought it was useful enough to reprint here (with their permission) for you...

July 28, 2005

Security: Which Half Are You Missing In Your Applications

Security is like a puzzle. You can have so many things right, but if you have just one thing wrong,...

July 28, 2005

Saunders.com Perfect E-Commerce

I think some of the best e-commerce examples are by smaller businesses who get e-commerce RIGHT. Today I ordered...

July 28, 2005

Blending Cell Phones and Cordless Phones

What if you could go home, "dock" your cell phone, and then use your cordless phone for incoming and...

July 28, 2005

Staples.com - 110% DEDICATED to its customers

Staples.com has gone through a dramatic transformation. What's most impressive about the new Staples.com is NOT the updated web...

July 27, 2005

Can Microsoft Enter The Hosted CRM Space: NetSuite Thinks Not.

Intuit crushed Microsoft in the SMB financial software market with Quicken and Quickbooks, but that was then and this is...

July 27, 2005

Credit Card Fraud: Be Smart. But Do Shop & Merchants Protect Yourself

Some people don't shop online for fear their credit card numbers will get stolen and used. However, there's many...

July 27, 2005

Use Your Fax Machine To Advertise: But Gently

Sending faxes to businesses as a form of advertisement can be useful, but often times (I know as I'm on...

July 27, 2005

Computer Associates Builds Its Security Suite

The market for protecting your computer is VERY hot and tech vendors are in a battle to a) have...

July 26, 2005

When Your PC Fails What Do You Do?

Cnet's editor, Rafe Needleman offers the following advice if your PC fails: 1. Stop 2. Save your data and reboot...

July 26, 2005

Online Payment Solutions: Various Methods

When selling online there are many payment solutions you can use. Inc Magazine has a good overview of various payment...

July 26, 2005

Cell Phones: Analog or Digital?

Most all of the new cell phones bought are digital phones, however many people still use analog phones as...

July 26, 2005

Mobile Malware - A Real & Growing Threat For Mobile Computing

I now have a Dell Axim with integrated wireless and bluetooth networking. This is a GREAT solution but also...

July 26, 2005

Microsoft.com - Only Honest Folk Need Apply

Downloading software from Microsoft.com in the past (updates for example) has been open to all. However, now Microsoft will start...

July 26, 2005

Motorola Out With A BlackBerry Competitor In 2006

RIM's BlackBerry is a leader in the business world for "Smartphones" with keyboards. Motorola has launched two-way pagers but...

July 26, 2005

Lenovo - Why It Will Succeed

For the many hours yesterday and all day today, I will be immersed and surrounded by technology colleagues attending IBM's...

July 25, 2005

Search Fast Local Inc: Is It Bad For Business?

Search Fast Local enables a small business customer to have their web site "online" with no web site. I applaud...

July 25, 2005

Geek Squad - Tech Support For PC Problems.

I've just seen an add on TLC for the Geek Squad. It reminds me, if you get stuck with...

July 25, 2005

Blogs In Action for Small Businesses

Blogs do work but my fear has been that the HYPE of the blogs is at times more than their...

July 25, 2005

Next Version of Windows: "Vista"

(Photo credit - Erik S. Lesser/Microsoft, via Associated Press) The next version of Windows, no longer code named Longhorn, but...

July 25, 2005

eBusiness: iCode - Refreshes And Comes Alive

eBusiness, or whatever you wish to call connecting your business processes into one integrated operation, is a MUST for any...

July 25, 2005

Encrypting Your Data With Software And Hardware

The data on your computer, by default, is not very secure. The logon you do to access your computer will...

July 25, 2005

ThinkPad: The Man Bridging Old Mngmt And New Owners

(Caption - CEO Steve Ward, left, and Chairman Yuanqing Yang are in charge of the combined company.) Lenovo is...

July 25, 2005

Lesson Learned: Why Big Companies e-Commerce Efforts Fail

I visit a lot of web sites, do a lot of e-commerce and deal with a LOT of telephone support...

July 25, 2005

Ask Dave Taylor - Best "Live" Tech Support

I know most of your day needs to be spent running your business, and you have techs (consultants or in...

July 22, 2005

When You Should Not Buy On eBay

Last week I purchased a $80 SanDisk 256MB+WiFi Secure Digital card for my Dell Axim 50. Guess what? It...

July 22, 2005

Email: So Powerful Yet So Lacking

I was brought up using Eudora and fondly sent and received thousands and thousands of emails over the years. I...

July 22, 2005

Technology: Keeping You From Work?

Technology is GOOD, as we all know, but often times it is the cause for us NOT getting things done....

July 22, 2005

Microsoft's Evangelists: Why Partnerships Will Finish First

Yesterday I had a wonderful dinner with Harry Brelsford of SMBNation, Jordan Shultz (and his associate Timothy) of Ipromptu and...

July 21, 2005

Dell: It Sells Hardware AND REALLY Wants To Manage Your IT

We all know that Dell sells billions of dollars worth of hardware each year. But did you also know...

July 21, 2005

IBM: Securely Printing Your Documents In A Shared Environment

One of the main focuses of printing is on features, speed and print quality - and of course price. However...

July 21, 2005

Kerio's Email Server: Security & Low Cost Right Out Of The Box

There are two main ways to get your email. Your ISP (Earthlink for example) hosts your email for you and...

July 20, 2005

Ben & Jerry's: How You Can Also Use The Web As A Focus Group

On Ben & Jerry's web site their customers can do two things, amongst others, 1) find out if certain...

July 20, 2005

Color Multi-Function Printers Are Feature Rich But Costly

If you are looking to get a feature rich color multi-function laser printer you will get a POWERFUL machine. However,...

July 20, 2005

Inkjets Are Nice BUT They Cost A Lot (Psst - Laser...)

Inkjet printers are nice, but they cost a LOT in ink cartridges. Laser printers can help bring costs down. Small...

July 20, 2005

Data Integration: It Is Still Important - Why NetSuite Is Gaining Ground

At the sales seminar for small businesses that I was moderating last week, an attendee mentioned that she was frustrated...

July 20, 2005

Stopping Spam By The IP Address

A lot of the spam sent, as referenced by John Scarrow, General Manager, Anti-Spam and Anti-Phishing Strategy Team, Microsoft Technology...

July 19, 2005

Getting Voice Mail (+faxes, cell calls and more) In Outlook

As busy business persons it's MORE than a pain to have to check voice mail on your office phone, email,...

July 19, 2005

Gateway Staples Its Notebooks

Gateway will sell two of its notebook models via Staples' retail stores. Starting this week, Staples will offer the Gateway...

July 19, 2005

Making Your Slow Network Faster

10Mbs Ethernet networks are making way for 100Mbps networks. 100Mps networks are making way for 1Gps (Gigabyte) BUT WAIT. Do...

July 19, 2005

Passwords Might Not Be Enough Anymore For Your Business Data

Passwords and a user name are the most security many web sites require to access the information locked in their...

July 19, 2005

Fast Company and Inc Magazines - Advice To The New Owners

Joe Mansueto is now the owner of two great magazines focused on growing businesses: Fast Company and Inc. Like...

July 19, 2005

How To Not Be Affected By HP's Instability

HP is reportedly going to lay off more than 10,000 employees in a major revamp of the company by...

July 18, 2005

Kingston and Migo Team Up: Take Your PC With You

I've written before about Forward Solutions' Migo product ( here and here) which enables you to "take your computer...

July 18, 2005

IBM iSeries - Less Than A Mainframe More Than A PC Server. Possibly Perfect For Your Business.

I have often seen IBM's announcements about its iSeries line of servers but never paid much attention to them as...

July 18, 2005

What To Do With Stolen Credit Card Numbers

When selling online, one of the most frustrating things is having your goods bought with stolen credit card numbers. a)...

July 18, 2005

How To Prevent Tech Project Failures

Often times, when implementing technology projects things can go wrong. But things DON'T have to go wrong if you start...

July 18, 2005

Your Next Notebook Need Not Have INTEL Inside

Intel is the dominant chip manufacturer for PCs and its smaller competitor AMD has always had a hard time getting...

July 18, 2005

Business Week Selects A Sampling of SMB Blogs

Business Week's blog has put together a small sample of blogs run by small businesses. Check it out here....

July 15, 2005

Report: VOIP Phone Service Not That Good

A report reads that Voice Over the Internet Phone (VOIP) service sound quality is not all that good. From what...

July 15, 2005

Faster Connections - More Enhancements

The faster connections we have to the Internet the MORE features and services we'll begin to see in the consumer...

July 15, 2005

Insight from Microsoft's Spam and Phishing Guru

John Scarrow, General Manager, Anti-Spam and Anti-Phishing Strategy Team, Microsoft Technology Care and Safety Group spoke to a gathering of...

July 14, 2005

New York Enterprise Report's Sales Seminar

On 14 July I moderated the New York Enterprise Report's Successful Selling Strategies for Small Businesses: How to Dramatically Increase...

July 14, 2005

Google: The Best FREE Technical Support Ever.

I recently purchased a Dell Axim 50. However, I had problems seeing notes in my contact fields. Notes are VERY...

July 14, 2005

Corel Word Perfect Mail Debuts

Corel is releasing its very good Word Perfect Mail product as a stand alone product instead of only bundling it...

July 14, 2005

Why & How I Moved From Palm To Pocket PC / Dell Axim 50

For the last several years, ever since Handspring's Visor (Handspring nor Visor are around as Handspring was bought by Palm)...

July 13, 2005

WiFi and VOIP - Powerful. Cheap. Communication

PC World writes Skype International and Boingo Wireless announced a partnership this week that will allow users to access Skype's...

July 12, 2005

ThinkFree Office: Cheaper Than Microsoft Office. Better Than OpenOffice

Although Microsoft Office is the leading business application suite it's also very expensive. Open source software and Microsoft Office...

July 12, 2005

Search: Are Your Documents Lost? Help is Here

Search is a powerful component of new operating systems and a major focus of the big three search engines -...

July 12, 2005

Dell: MUCH More Than Computers

If you thought Dell only sold PCs and technology peripherals you're wrong. Dell can also help you business design...

July 12, 2005

Sony's Vaio T350 - Dual Wireleress Options Built In

Sony's latest notebook is small and powerful with dual wireless optoins built in for WiFi and high speed cellular...

July 11, 2005

Helping your manager prepare for a presentation

I did a series of articles for Microsoft.com. Read the first one here: The key to a manager's success...

July 11, 2005

Microsoft's Backup Solution

Included in Windows (I think all versions) is a light version of a backup program. It's not made for robust...

July 11, 2005

Accessories For Your Laptop. Especially While On The Go

Kim Komando dispenses advice to help you keep your laptop powered while traveling. I just bought a batter for...

July 11, 2005

HP Makes Printing Come To Life (Again)!

Today, I witnessed the unveiling of HP's latest technology for the ink jet printer market. HP has engineered a...

July 11, 2005

Microsoft Pushes Deeper Into the SMB Space

In the fall, Microsoft will be releasing Small Business Accounting 2006 in direct competition to Intuit's Quickbooks and Sage's Peachtree....

July 11, 2005

Wireless Email Is For Everyone

The Wall Street Journal has a good overview explaining that wireless email devices are no longer only for busy executives...

July 11, 2005

Upgrades That Don't Do Much

When something goes wrong with your computer, it is often easy to upgrade, update or "fix" the wrong thing. Cnet's...

July 11, 2005

Intranets: HyperOffice Adds New Features

Intranets can be a VERY important communication tool for business - especially smaller business - who need to do...

July 11, 2005

USB Flash Drive With Intelligence

Your average USB Flash drive is great at storing information from a computer and placing information back on a computer,...

July 9, 2005

BOOK Review: Talk is Cheap

Book publisher O'Reilly writes that millions of people are saving money by switching from using their traditional phones to...

July 8, 2005

My Hat's Off to MSFT: Microsoft Recognizes Its SMB Focused Partners

I must say, if there's one company I had to partner with, I think it would be Microsoft (with...

July 8, 2005

Using Your Cell Phone At Work: What's Right and What's Wrong

Using your cell phone at work can be an interesting experience. Some people like it some people hate it, but...

July 8, 2005

Wireless Broadband - More Competition

Being able to get high-speed Internet access from just about anywhere - WiFi or not is a huge benefit....

July 8, 2005

CMP Books Releases 'Partnering With Microsoft: How to Make Money in Trusted Partnership With the Global Software Powerhouse'

Partnering with Microsoft is a lucrative business for thousands of technology consultants. Microsoft's ecosystem of servers and applications REQUIRES support,...

July 7, 2005

Book Review: Word Annoyances
How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is great for typing but sometimes you just can't make it do what YOU want done. O'Reilly's...

July 6, 2005

Keep Passwords Safely In Your Pocket

Managing passwords can be more than a real pain but a security threat. When you're at the library or some...

July 6, 2005

The New Microsoft Money

Although the lion's share of smaller businesses do not use consumer based accounting programs but instead use Quickbooks or another...

July 5, 2005

No Internet Access In My Hotel Room

I'm at a Quality Inn Hotel in Staunton, Virginia and realized that my hotel room has no Internet access....

July 5, 2005

Should Your Business Have A Blog: Yes, With Caution

NY Times photo caption reads: Melissa Payner, chief executive of Bluefly.com, said her company's fashion-related blog "is bringing some...

July 5, 2005

Security Certificates: Is Your Web Server Ready

If you have ever shopped online or done anything secure on your web browser you might have noticed the little...

July 5, 2005

Good-bye Palm. Hello Dell Axim

I've just plunked down over $350 for a new Dell Axim X50 PDA. I've gone through YEARS of Palm's...

July 5, 2005

Experts: Best of breed security may not be the wisest path

Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that best of breed solutions are the only way to go, experts are...

July 5, 2005

Fax Via the 'Net & Save Time

I've used eFax's service for years to give me a virtual fax number. Someone fax's the number and the fax...

July 5, 2005

Do You Know Your Customers: Microsoft CRM Is Coming

Although this is only the second release of Microsoft's CRM tool, it has the distinction of being version 3.0 and...

July 4, 2005

July 4th: Without Sacrifice There Can Be No Freedom

As you celebrate this July 4th, 2005, remember that the freedoms we enjoy in this great country, the United States...

July 1, 2005

10 Applications of USB Device Networking to Improve Personal and Business Operations

This white paper examines USB (Universal Serial Bus) device connectivity and explores the "Top-10" benefits of device interoperability and networkability....

July 1, 2005

Please Tell Cnet.com Why You Like Smallbiztechnology.com

Cnet wants to know what "blogs" you like. I hope you like Smallbiztechnology.com enough to tell Cnet. Please click here...

July 1, 2005

Outsourcing All Your Technology Can Work

For some small and medium-sized businesses, the idea of an information technology "department of one" may soon become a reality....

July 1, 2005

MYOB Will Sell NetSuite In Australia and New Zealand

NetSuite, announced a partnership to distribute NetSuite to medium-sized businesses in Australia and New Zealand with MYOB (ASX: MYO), a...

July 1, 2005

Wireless File Moving From PC To PC

Laplink announces that PC users can now harness the power and convenience of wireless file and data transfer when they...

July 1, 2005

Make Your Web Site Come Alive with SitePal

On July 6th Oddcast will be officially launching the latest version of its SitePal product for small businesses. SitePal talking...