Small Business Computing Staff

by Matt Klare Intermec 6651 Handheld PCRating 88 Intermec’s windows ce-based 6651 is a handheld computer aimed at users who produce documentation that requires text and images. It’s well suited for taking inventory, conducting inspections in the field, or just carrying on business. Making the 6651 unique in its class is a 350,000-pixel, CMOS-based digital […]

by David Schloss Office Mac:2001Rating 87 Not so long ago macintosh users were content with second-class citizenship in the world of software updates. Some companies, especially Microsoft, released upgrades to Windows/Intel PC versions first, integrating the improvements in Macintosh offerings later or sometimes never. That, however, is changing. The most recent version of Microsoft Office, […]

by Victoria Hall Smith New advances help you crunch numbers like the big guysBy now you have taken a long, hard look at your numbers from 2000 and digested the implications for your business, good or bad. You may have discovered that your accounting system hasn’t evolved at a pace with your business. So, it […]

by Rebecca Rohan Compaq Presario 1800T NotebookRating 87 We don’t normally give ratings of 95 — a product has to wrestle that rating from us with kicks, bites, and insinuations about our parentage. But after reviewing notebooks for years and buying and returning three, we recently bought, kept, and loved the Compaq Presario 1800T. We […]

by Wayne Kawamoto Umax Astra 6450Rating 82 Thanks to its firewire interface, the Umax Astra 6450 flatbed scanner cranks out fast images for companies that need them in a hurry. But beyond pure, adrenaline-rushing speed, there’s little else that makes this model stand out. }The 6450 scans images in a fraction of the time that […]

by Angela R. Garber When gonzalez plumbing opened in 1929, Henry Gonzalez Sr. would sit down in his kitchen every morning with Cuban coffee and two pieces of toast, take calls, jot down job descriptions on a scrap of paper, and send his guys out in the company’s two trucks. When he was done with […]

by David G. Propson Some cities have recently introduced laws to prohibit drivers from talking on mobile phones while on the road. One can picture the excuses (“That wasn’t a cell phone, officer. I just like to shave on my way to work.”) But it underscores the pervasive effects mobile phones have had on people’s […]

by David G. Propson This year the occupational health and safety administration has unveiled a controversial set of regulations to address the problems of injuries caused by office work. The government has previously stepped in to address safety problem in heavy industry and manufacturing companies. But these new regulations are the first to affect those […]

by Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt It was just a little condom store in Greenwich Village, but founder Adam Glickman thought CONDOMania could be more. First he tried growing the store to eight franchises, but he was no good at managing them. So he moved on line, nd that’s where CONDOMania found it’s home. “We knew that condoms […]

by Robert J. Wagman The continuing dot-com shakeout gives hope to small businesses competing for a place on the Web. A landmark study of 2,000 consumers in the United States by Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, and the research firm Online Insight challenges some of the deep-pocket strategies that have made it difficult for smaller sites […]

by David G. Propson Freud wondered “What do women want?” Tech companies have pondered similar questions about users. They create tools to please them, but users often don’t want them, or won’t use them for the purpose they were originally intended. Businesses, too, sometimes cause more problems than they solve by forcing technology down their […]

by David Haskin You don’t want to call them. They don’t want to come. They’re expensive and have better things to do. We’re talking about the mis personnel — on-staff tech gurus or outside consultants — who come running when your employess need help with malfunctioning PCs and Peripherals, when mysterious electronic behavior needs investigating, […]