Archive: March 2008

March 31, 2008

Is Replacing QuickBooks On Your Agenda? Should It Be?

Millions of small businesses use Intuit's QuickBooks. However, there's a few dozen other accounting / bookkeeping programs on the market...

March 28, 2008

The New, Confusing and Exciting World of Small Business Communication

I'm at Montclair State University (NJ) at Harry Brelsford's 3rd Annual SMB Nation East - a gathering of about 100...

March 28, 2008

Are You Facebooking? You Should Be. It's Time.

I've been using Facebook a lot more and I've found it to be a very powerful business tool. More and...

March 28, 2008

Another Reason Not To Use Excel

Excel is a great tool, if you use it properly. Using it properly means only using it for "spreadsheet" activities...

March 28, 2008

Unified Communications: What’s In It For Your Small Business?

I thought I knew all about unified communications, however, after listening to Geoffrey Baird, Vice President and General Manager of...

March 28, 2008

Cool & Useful Web Apps: Try Them With Caution

This nice thing about some of the web applications from emerging startups is that they are hot, new and most...

March 27, 2008

Your Point of Sale System: Powerful Asset for Retailers

When you walk into your local retail store you probably don't notice the cash register that's ringing up your sales....

March 27, 2008

Never Pay For Tech Services That Should Be Free

InfoWorld is reporting that Sony is charging customers $50 to remove needless trial-ware software from some notebook computers. I understand...

March 27, 2008

Linux Is Still Not Viable for Most Customers

Last night I was in an informal get together with a group of gentlemen (it was a private meeting my...

March 27, 2008

Desktop Scanners. Ideal Business Tools for Vanquishing Paper

I've used a variety of scanners over the years and there's two main components to any scanning. The scanner itself...

March 25, 2008

Ari Friedman: Learning From An Expert

Ari Friedman is a technologically-oriented entrepreneur with a varied and successful background that includes web ventures, real estate and Wall...

March 25, 2008

Business Week on Social Media

I highly suggest you have a look at Business Week's updated article, originally written in 2006 (and focused on blogging),...

March 25, 2008

All In One Routers (Appliances) - Reduce The Blinking Lights

If you look at the server closet of any decent sized business you'll find a mess of wires, boxes, blinking...

March 25, 2008

What Do Home Based Professionals Really Do? What SHOULD You Be Doing

Plantronics, makers of headsets and other gadgets for mobile professionals conducted a survey of work habits and pain points of...

March 25, 2008

Flash Presentations: Do Them Yourself No Guru Needed

Flash presentations are great as you can upload them to a number of social media sites and share them with...

March 24, 2008

Why Race Cars, Airplanes and Space Shuttles use Dashboards

Have you ever wondered why race cars and other machines whose operators need to make fast decisions don't have long...

March 24, 2008

$100,000 Technology Makeover and Other Things You Are Missing Out On

What kills me about small business owners is that while some small businesses are using technology as a tool to...

March 24, 2008

Notebooks: Just Any One Won't Do When You Need Ultimate Mobility

While a desktop computer can be thrown under a desk and pretty much ignored, your notebook computer can't. It's a...

March 24, 2008

Kinkos, Local Printer or Your Printer?

As color printing gets cheaper, the decision to use your in-house printer, ink and paper or outsource a smaller print...

March 22, 2008

Managing Human Assets Using Technology

Jennifer Walzer of Backupmyinfo.com tells me that her number one corporate interest is her employees. On the other hand, her...

March 22, 2008

WiMax: It's Really Here

For some months we've been hearing that WiMax would be launching...apparently it's here already. The Wall Street Journal reports that...

March 22, 2008

Unlimited Storage: What To Look For On Your Next Spec List

It's fair to say that Google started the process of offering tons of online storage for minimal cost. This started...

March 20, 2008

Making Technology A Key Part of Your Business: Six Guidelines

I have my own Six Rules for Leveraging Technology In Your Business which covers things such as: Email is Not...

March 20, 2008

Defensive Computing: Keep Your Online Service and Domain Name Separate

If you have the opportunity to register your domain name with the same company providing you online services - don't...

March 19, 2008

When Your Hosted Service Goes Down

Google's Grand Central virtual telephone service was down in in middle of February. Hosted application provider Long Jump was down...

March 19, 2008

Getting More Done and Seeing the Big Picture With Project Management

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying out 37Signals Basecamp. It's simple to use tool that was recently reviewed...

March 19, 2008

Managing Your Employee's Technology: Loose or Strict

As your business grows from one employee and consultants, to 5 employees to 3 branch offices, having technology standards is...

March 18, 2008

Using Google Analytics to Monitor Email Campaigns

Google Analytics, and for that matter any web analytics software is very good at helping you understand important trends in...

March 17, 2008

An Introduction To Online Marketing: Is A Widget In Your Plan?

When I hear and see traditional marketing, I think of how "traditional" it really is. Radio advertising, print advertising (magazines),...

March 17, 2008

Moving Up From Contact Management to CRM

I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but I'm sure there's quite a number of offices around the country who...

March 17, 2008

Security From Two View Points: Millennials and Others

In your business, you are going to hire Generation "Y". This is the group of people born between 1977 and...

March 17, 2008

Getting More Out Of Microsoft Office: Education (it's free)

Most of you use Microsoft Office to run your business in one way or another. You use Word and Excel,...

March 17, 2008

What Corporate Data Is On Your Employee's Cell Phone? Is It Important To Backup?

A lot of time is spent warning small businesses about the importance of backing up data on computers and servers,...

March 15, 2008

Drooling for a Wide Screen Monitor? New Study Justifies The Benefits

The "Productivity, Screens and Aspect Ratio," study, conducted by the University of Utah and sponsored by NEC, found that employees...

March 14, 2008

Choosing An Email Hosting Service. My 3:00am Experience.

Over the past few weeks I've had some problems with Microsoft Outlook not opening quite right, being very slow and...

March 14, 2008

Where Will the Good Technology Consultants Be in March?

They'll be in Montclair, New Jersey at the SMB Nation East 2008 workshop. I usually don't write solely about events,...

March 13, 2008

Why Video Creation Is Growing And How You can Leverage It

Over the past few months I've been dabbling in video and find it VERY exciting. I was delayed in Phoenix...

March 12, 2008

Hosted Telephone Systems: WSJ

I've written about hosted telephone systems many times, but it's always nice to read about it in a newspaper like...

March 12, 2008

The Cost of Bad IT Economics: CIO Insight

CIO Insight had an article written for larger businesses but one that smaller businesses can learn from. I've excerpted the...

March 12, 2008

A New Search Engine That You Won't Yawn At

I saw a press release for a new search engine, RedZee.com that played off Ask.com's announcement that Ask is going...

March 11, 2008

Business Etiquette from Anna Post

If you're a "nice guy" you might have never given thought to business etiquette. Check out Anna Posts’ Business Etiquette...

March 11, 2008

Netflix for Receipts: Neat Service for Paper Receipts

If you find yourself collecting an envelop, or shoe-box of receipts you have to painfully organize them, categorize them, add...

March 11, 2008

eBook: 49 Pages of Insight and Experience

Last week I was discussing with Clate Mask, CEO of Infusion CRM and another journalist how Clate and his co-founders...

March 11, 2008

Lesson Learned from Elliot Spitzer News: News Papers vs Online News

I was walking in mid-town Manhattan yesterday as the media frenzy regarding NY Governor Elliot Spitzer was in full swing....

March 11, 2008

Spyware, Not Just Viruses Need to Be Blocked

Concentrating on viruses and not clicking on the wrong links in email, is important, but remember, spyware is also a...

March 10, 2008

Taking Advantage of Free Seminars: Learning About Technology

Every day there are dozens, hundreds maybe, of free seminars (technology and more) for small businesses that you or your...

March 10, 2008

Using Your Hosted Applications With No Internet Access

Some months ago, Google announced Google gears, a programming tool set to allow programs to enable their hosted applications to...

March 9, 2008

The New Technology Consultants - Specializing in Software Solutions

Traditionally there’s been quite a large barrier between two types of IT consultants. Those who know about, install and repair...

March 9, 2008

What Google's New Service: Sites.Google.com Means to You

Towards the end of last month Google launched a new service, as part of its Google apps offering, Google Sites....

March 8, 2008

Delayed in Phoenix: Why Gadgets and Knowing How to Use Them Matter

I was in Phoenix, Arizona for a few days at an Infusion Software User Group conference. As I type this,...

March 7, 2008

ToDo Lists: Why Can't We Find A Good Solution

I have two ways I keep track of my to-do lists. I use Microsoft Outlook's to-do list and I use...

March 7, 2008

Going Beyond Search Engine Marketing: Matchmaking for Business

Web Sites, Blogs, RSS feeds, email newsletters and social media services are all great and good, but sometimes it can...

March 7, 2008

Paper: It's Wonderful When You Don't Have Any

I'm always amazed at the amount of paper that businesses still go through in what I thought was supposed to...

March 7, 2008

WiFi vs Mobile Broadband

WiFi is great but increasingly I'm seeing so many people carrying around their notebook computers to be get work done...

March 7, 2008

LinkedIn Best Practices

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for finding someone in a business. Maybe you want to do a major contract with...

March 7, 2008

Tip: Upgrading Internet Explorer

I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser of choice. I know many of you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, but from...

March 7, 2008

CRM: Do You Even Know What It Is?

Over the past 2 days I've been attending the third Infusion CRM User conference. This annual gathering of Infusion staff,...

March 2, 2008

Product Review: HP Office Jet 7780

Over the past few days, I've been trying out HP's OfficeJet 7780. It's a multi-function ink jet printer that combines,...

March 1, 2008

Small Business Collaboration Tools

This page has moved to http://wwww.smallbiztechnology.com/collaboration...