May 5, 2005

Tom's Hardware takes a look at bare metal backup and recovery for small business networks running Windows, and reviews three software packages that get the job done. These solutions allow you to boot from a CD and recover your entire system from disk or tape in a single step, without having to re-install the operating system or applications, thus saving a lot of time and headaches. The article reviews three software solutions: EMC Dantz Retrospect Windows Small Business Server 7, Paragon Drive Backup Professional 6.0, and Symantec LiveState Recovery Advanced Server.

May 2, 2005

Search engines and others are moving into the local advertising space, targeting small businesses who want to reach customers in their communities. Experts agree that switching small businesses from print advertising to online advertising is difficult, but the $60 billion spent on advertising each year by small businesses is a very tempting prize indeed. Companies like Verizon with their SuperPages.com service may have a head start, but look to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others to move agressively into this space. Start-ups like InsiderPages.com are also moving quickly to try and capture a piece of this lucrative market.

April 11, 2005

Jason Kottke, the man recently quit his job to blog for a living, has posted an update of his current financial situation as a full-time blogger. According to his graph, he is quickly approaching one third of his previous salary. While not specifying actual dollar amounts, he has posted enough details about how things are going to make it interesting reading. He also provides tips and advice for anyone else thinking of doing the same thing. Some of these include: consider advertising, build a community, be committed to growing traffic, and keep costs low.

April 3, 2005

HardwareCentral has reviewed the Samsung SCX-4100, an all-in-one black and white laser printer / copier / flatbed color scanner with a retail price of only $199. It has 8MB of memory, prints 600 dpi output at 15 pages per minute, and holds 250 sheets of paper. The standard toner cartridge prints 3,000 sheets with a cost of roughly 2.7 cents per sheet, although the printer comes with a 1,000 page "starter" toner cartridge. The 24-bit flatbed color scanner features 600 dpi optical resolution and the copier feature offers 50% to 200% zoom.

April 2, 2005

A British entrepreneur got rid of his apartment and company office and is replacing them both with an Internet-enabled motor home. The vehicle has computers, a home cinema, solar panels, a satellite broadband connection, and videoconferencing hardware. His business is highly sales-oriented, and being able to show up at a potential customer's doorstep within a day or so is a clear advantage. And the best part? No rent to pay.

March 29, 2005

A BBC reporter decided to try his hand at freelance PC support, so he put up a few flyers and his phone wouldn't stop ringing. Among the things that he found out was that the vast majority of all current PC problems are caused spyware, worms, and viruses. He also found out that there is a huge and unmet demand for fast, reliable PC support for small businesses and individuals.

March 29, 2005

O'Reilly has published a very useful article detailing the tasks that need to be done after the end of the year in Quickbooks in order to keep your accounting records accurate. Learn how to link accounts with lines on tax reports, generate financial statements, generate 1099s, create end-of-year journal entries, create an accountant's review file, perform a closing of the books for the year, and more.

March 14, 2005

An emerging class of VOIP appliances with PBX power is giving small businesses serious telecommunications capability. One such plug-and-play appliance is the Snom VoIP Box which provides many PBX features such as automatic forwarding, music on hold, voice mail, automatic call distribution, management via web interface, call hunting, and more.

February 27, 2005

Web blogger Kevin Kelly has just published a very informative and useful guide for aspiring micro-publishers. Kevin guides you through Amazon's confusing requirements including ISBN, UPC, and bar codes.

February 24, 2005

Jason Kottke has quit his job so that he can update his personal blog full-time. He plans to beg visitors to his blog for monetary support, and refuses to run ads on his site. Whatever this guy is smoking can't be legal. We wish him the best of luck.

February 20, 2005

CNN/AP has an interesting story about Ben and Mena Trott. The young couple runs Six Apart, the pioneering blogging software and services company behind MovableType, TypePad and now LiveJournal.

February 10, 2005

Wired.com takes a look at the shady side of affiliate marketing. Spammers and blog vandals are turning a once promising source of income for small businesses into a nightmare for everyone.

February 7, 2005

A few weeks after announcing fee increases, eBay is now saying that they will reduce some fees.

January 14, 2005

EBay has announced that they are increasing fees charged to sellers by 60 percent.

January 14, 2005

Economic indicators show that small businesses are taking the lead in hiring in 2005.