Small Business Computing Staff

by Mark E. Battersby Looking for quick cash? You need to pay bills and buy supplies, but can’t make a move until customers pay what they owe you. Rapidly growing start-ups, manufacturing firms, and service companies without track records, collateral, or personal resources are often unable to obtain the financing they need to weather the […]

by Eric Grevstad I’m not a fan of Emeril Lagasse, the TV chef who runs around yelling “Bam!”, but I like his constant exhortation to “kick it up a notch.” So this week, I’ve decided to expand on the technology predictions I tossed off at the end of last week’s column, when I bet you’d […]

by Jamie McAfee Here is a reason good office supplies come in small packages — desk space in any business is at a premium. As a company grows in size, it requires tools that can handle big jobs, without leaving a large footprint. So whether it’s uninterruptible power supplies, networking stations, firewalls, or storage devices, […]

by Rebecca Rohan IBM THINKPAD T20 41URating 89 The thinkpad t20 looks good — let’s get that right out on the table. With desktop-competitive notebooks becoming a commodity item, the prestige and cache of the sleek black T20 with the IBM logo help set it apart like a Chanel bag at an executive power lunch. […]

by Steve Bennett POLYCOM VIAVIDEORating 98 When it comes to judging videoconferencing technology, seeing is truly believing. Polycom’s “communications appliance,” ViaVideo, is built from the ground up for excellent video communications. ViaVideo does one thing well: Bring outstanding image and sound quality to any desktop over LAN/WAN, DSL, and cable networks. It costs more than […]

by Eric Grevstad In case you missed it, Microsoft announced this week that it’s giving up on numbered releases such as Windows 95, 98, and 2000 or Office 97 or 2001. The next version of the Microsoft Office suite, due at midyear, will be called Office XP. And the next, targeted-to-be-in-time-for-Christmas release of Windows, now […]

by Michael Grebb How technology can help — and hurt — a growing businessSometimes it’s the little things that hurt the most. Paperwork, for instance, may seem like nothing more than a minor inconvenience to most, but companies like Donnelly Mechanical have found it can be a major stumbling block for a business in hyper-growth […]

by Tim Duggan Forget regulation, there’s a more lucrative game in town. The U.S. government has taken to selling e-commerce services, and just what that means for the private sector has become a hot topic of debate among business advocacy groups, Congress, and government agencies. The U.S. Postal Service’s eBillPay, which lets consumers schedule and […]

by Matt Klare If you have a svelte subnotebook pc, lugging around huge peripherals is probably not for you. Whether you’re traveling light, shoehorning into a tight cubicle, or simply seeking good, functional equipment, you don’t have to settle for clunky peripherals. We shopped around and came across five devices that meet some of the […]

by David Schloss EZQUEST BOA 12x10x32x EXTERNAL FIREWIRE CD-RW DRIVERating 85 Anyone who has used a scsi cd-rw drive knows the headaches caused by the configuration process, and the inevitable “buffer underrun” errors. EzQuest’s Boa Firewire CD-RW drive takes advantage of the Firewire standard and minimizes this painful process. Packed in a sleek, iMac-inspired shell, […]

by David G. Propson Rock-and-roll is here to stay, and it seems like Napster and its many imitators are also in it for the long haul. Any businessperson who hasn’t heard about the electronic-music distribution program, and the many copyright-infringement lawsuits filed against the company in the past year, has been living on a different […]

by Cathy Brower Any new technology brings with it new problems, and broadband Internet access has been no exception. Many businesses have had to endure long waits for services like digital subscriber lines to become available in certain areas. Now that these high-speed, “always-on” connections have become more common, business owners need to be aware […]