Gerry Blackwell

Virus protection and Internet security programs, necessary though they may be, make me cranky. My experience is that they gum up the works and, if you don’t configure them properly, interfere with all sorts of things you do, often without letting you know why or sometimes even when they’re doing it. Norton Internet Security 2004 […]

Despite the best marketing efforts of Microsoft and its partners in the wake of last fall’s launch of Windows XP Tablet edition, most corporate IT departments still view the Tablet PC as a niche technology at best, a solution in search of a problem at worst. But a growing number of small businesses are discovering […]

When an unhappy customer e-mailed Ed Sullivan early one morning with complaints about how his company was being treated, Sullivan knew he had to respond quickly — but carefully. A $6-million deal was on the line. Sullivan is president of Hartford, Conn.-based IBC-IndustrialSupplyPlus, a $1.7-billion-a-year consortium of independent cutting tool and abrasives distributors. IBC has […]

When Chris Hackett’s computer systems consulting firm, Chackett Consulting of Roswell Ga., started to take off three years ago, Hackett realized he needed a more business-like way of answering the phone. In the past, he’d always just given out his personal cell phone number, and maybe his home number to selected clients. If he wasn’t […]

Contribute 2, a new Web site update tool from Macromedia, maker of Dreamweaver, StudioMX and other Web creation tools, is a promising but slightly flawed upgrade to an already excellent product first introduced last year. The disappointment is that one of the most important new pieces of functionality doesn’t work in some circumstances — or […]

The new high-capacity OneTouch external hard drives from Maxtor make for a very simple small business backup solution, and one that won’t break the bank. If you can’t afford network attached storage (NAS), this is the next best thing. It doesn’t get much simpler. The OneTouch products have a button on the front of their […]

Many small companies that lack technology skills may be blithely unaware that a revolution is underway in the world of business telephone systems. Why should you care particularly? Because new IP PBXs or voice over IP (VoIP) systems give even small companies the ability to acquire enterprise-class telephone services and features at affordable prices. And […]

Intranets and collaboration software were originally big-enterprise applications. The corporate IT department built a Web portal accessible only to employees, where the company and individual departments could share documents, schedules, announcements and more. Such portals can create enormous efficiencies. Now companies like Mindbridge are making intranets and collaboration tools as much a small business tool. […]

It’s not just printer cartridges either — although consumables of all kinds are available. The selection on eBay in many business-to-business categories — including big-ticket items — is comprehensive, and prices can be amazingly low. Consider Robert Maple’s experience. Maple runs Owen Aerospace, a $1-million-a-year machine and fabrication shop, building parts for big aircraft makers […]

Small businesses are notorious for not managing data well. Information critical to the company resides on distributed desktop PCs and laptops, and backing it up is too often left to individual employees. With no information technology department to ride herd, many small businesses are data disasters waiting to happen. If a hard disk crashes, vital […]

When fraud artists contacted eBay Power Seller Janis Callahan (Lynnsemporium) of Birmingham, Ala. last year to try and sell her on a program for sure-fire online auction success, she knew it was a scam right away. “The course they were offering was at the bargain-basement price of $20,000,” Callaghan says, chuckling. “That had to be […]

When Allstate Steel of Jacksonville, Fla. shut down its Atlanta office last year, one vital employee stayed on in the city. The plan was that he would work from home, but there was one slight snag with the plan. The Atlanta employee is a detailer, an architectural draughtsman who draws up detailed plans of steel […]