Small Business Computing Staff

By William C. Gillis Every day, thousands of businesses dial up to access the Internet. Some businesses stay with dial-up because broadband is too expensive, while in many areas broadband service simply isn’t available. A new dial-up standard called V.92, ratified by the International Telecommunications Union last November, offers faster connection and upload speeds, as […]

By Jamie McAfee Storage is taking a new form. More and more business products support new removable storage such as Secure Digital and Smart media cards. This type of storage makes it possible to move data from one computer to the next. It allows users to swap hard drives on the fly and makes it […]

By Robert J. Wagman & William C. Gillis In the August issue of SBC, we reported that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief Michael Powell recommended steeper fines for Baby Bell companies that did not abide by the ‘equal access’ provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 [‘Steeper Fines Might Leave Baby Bells Crying,’ page 15]. […]

By David G. Propson One day in late March, Pete Saewert noticed a problem with the checks his company had issued the previous month: Some of the check numbers did not match up to a payee listed in the register. Saewert asked Marilynn Bozec, the company’s accounts payable clerk, for the bank reconciliation records. When […]

By Robert J. Wagman & William C. Gillis How does where you do business compare to other parts of the country? It depends on whom you ask. The sixth annual ‘Small Business Survival Index 2001,’ compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC), ranks each of the 50 states and the District of […]

By David G. Propson ‘Who watches the watchmen?’ asked the ancient Roman Juvenal (that’s quis custodiet ipsos custodes? for you Latinists). In the case of federal judges, it’s a government agency called the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts – and it recently got a little too curious about how judges and their staffs spend […]

By William C. Gillis It’s hard enough remembering all the new top-level domain names approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. What’s perhaps more confusing is the process used to register new domains. In particular, the two companies overseeing the .biz and .info […]

By John Frederick Moore When most users think of online privacy invasions, they think of companies like ubiquitous Internet advertising firm DoubleClick. After the company completed its purchase of direct-marketing firm Abacus Direct last year, it announced plans to build a database of consumer profiles, including names, addresses, purchase histories, and demographic data, which would […]

By Mike Langberg Guided by VoicesAT&T Labs is pushing the boundary between artificial and human speech. A new AT&T product called Natural Voices uses sophisticated ‘text-to-speech’ software to generate near-lifelike vocalizations. AT&T has developed a library of voices, so businesses can choose between male and female (as well as a variety of languages) for applications […]

By Mike Langberg Guided by VoicesAT&T Labs is pushing the boundary between artificial and human speech. A new AT&T product called Natural Voices uses sophisticated ‘text-to-speech’ software to generate near-lifelike vocalizations. AT&T has developed a library of voices, so businesses can choose between male and female (as well as a variety of languages) for applications […]

By Tom Perrotta For Brian Ardis, managing his firm’s Internet access is a side project. He’d rather not spend more than 10 hours a week on it. This summer, Ardis was putting in upwards of 20, trying to keep the company running when its Internet access -and the company that provided it – disappeared. It […]

By Douglas Gantenbein Sheila Christiansen picks up her phone like anyone else, but when the sound of her voice enters her mouthpiece, it’s broken into packets of 0’s and 1’s, then zooms out of her office over a T1 line, and eventually hits the Internet and heads for the call recipient. Christiansen, the assistant vice […]