Lauren Simonds

Do any of these office rituals sound familiar? Afternoons spent in the conference room stuffing customer invoices into envelopes; hovering over the fax machine to make sure the faxes actually go through; mass-e-mailing prospective clients. Ah yes, good times. Esker, a Madison, Wisc., company that deals in document delivery solutions, believes its FlyDoc online service […]

Microsoft Exchange is standard fare in larger enterprises. The server-based application provides e-mail, shared calendars, tasks, collaboration technology, mobile device support and Web access to company data along with support for data storage and other services. However, small businesses that may be attracted by the features can be turned off by Microsoft’s licensing fees or […]

Anyone who uses multiple computers — say a notebook while traveling, the computer at the office and, occasionally, the PC at home — knows that keeping all the files synchronized can feel an awful lot like working in a three-ring circus. BeInSync, a leading a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program, lets you create a secure, private […]

The end of the year may be a mere 31 days away, but there’s no end in site to new products aimed at SMBs. The latest items to cross our editorial desk address three key small business needs — printing, communication and data storage. If new hardware is on your business wish list, take a […]

Big businesses that want to dive into Vista don’t have to wait until January 30 to get their hands on Microsoft‘s long-awaited operating system. Now small businesses that have the hardware to handle Vista won’t have to wait either. In a little more than two weeks, Microsoft and CompUSA will make the new Vista Business […]

Dell recently announced that it’s rounding out its line of OptiPlex business desktops with two new models. The company says the new desktop lines will provide a choice of AMD or Intel processors, increased life-cycle, energy efficiency and improved, built-in security. The OptiPlex 320 is an entry-level line that features Intel dual-core processors and graphics […]

Earlier this week I was at a client site setting up a PC. Everything was going fine until the system needed to be authenticated to the network. In order to accomplish this, you need to be using an account with administrative privileges. The one I was using didn’t have them, so I needed the office […]

Last month, we reviewed BlueTie.com, an impressive online e-mail and calendaring service (and alternative to Microsoft Exchange). We don’t generally make a habit of covering the same product in such a short time frame, but we’re making an exception in this case for one simple reason: After creating a new business model and integrating SMB-oriented […]

Backing up data over the Internet to an off-site storage facility takes a huge weight off the shoulders of many small business owners. No more worries that Shirley in accounting forgot to switch the backup tapes (again) or scrambling to buy enough hardware to keep up with the growing amount of data your business generates. […]

One of the major benefits of having a mobile workforce is being able to respond to clients, customers and colleagues at any time from just about anywhere, including cafes, airports and hotels. Things can get a bit tricky, however, when it comes to protecting your data whenever you plug in and logon to these very […]

Computers, e-mail, high-speed Internet access, secure networks and a host of other technologies have changed the way we work, and now even more, they’re changing the way we commute — or whether we even commute at all. Across the country and around the world, more companies, small businesses included, are catching on to the economic […]

Business data is an untamable beast with an insatiable, consuming need for storage. OK, so maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but still, the one thing small businesses can’t get enough of is storage. Adaptec‘s latest storage servers, the Snap Server 110, 210 and 410, attempt to fill the gap. Snap servers have been around for […]