Small Business Computing Staff

PCWorld: Apple Unveils Faster, Slimmer iPad 2 The increased processing power with the iPad 2’s 1 GHz dual-core chip helps support two video cameras that can be used simultaneously. Yet battery life remains the same as with the first-generation iPad at 10 hours. “At a special event in San Francisco Wednesday, Apple unveiled the iPad […]

ITBusinessEdge: Could Switching To Wi-Fi Networking Save You Money? While he has been a strong proponent of Wi-Fi networking for small businesses in the past, Paul Mah now says there are some problems with Wi-Fi that can offset the undoubted benefits for some small business users. “I came across a recent blog by ‘Frugal Geek’ […]

Open Forum: How To Manage And Measure Employee Goals Mashable’s Sarah Kessler finds four software as a service programs for managing employee goals, including Lifetick Coach, CreateSmartGoals, Goalscape and Work Simple. They range in price from $5 to $30 per month. “‘What does my job contribute to the company’s overall mission?’ ‘Which projects are my […]

Small Business Trends: Why SMBs Need To Come To Grips With Web Content Lisa Barone spotlights four “lies” about Web content that may be making it more difficult for small business owners to come to grips it. One is that you have to “write big or not at all.” It’s not true, she says. “Content […]

PCWorld: Review – Lenovo ThinkPad X120e Netbook About the only thing PC World didn’t like about the Lenovo ThinkPad X120e is that the company calls it an ultraportable, suggesting it’s a full laptop, when in fact the reviewer says it’s just a very good netbook. “Lenovo calls its ThinkPad X120e an ultraportable–and its new AMD […]

Open Forum: Gathering Feedback From Customers Online – 9 Web Apps Josh Catone (Mashable) rounds up nine Web apps for processing and analyzing feedback from customers online, including User Voice, Get Satisfaction, Feedbackify, SuggestionBox and more. “Though the adage that the customer is always right isn’t exactly true, feedback is important for small business success. […]

ITBusinessEdge: Protect Your SMB From Gmail Outages – Backup Offline Tape backup which many SMBs have abandoned in favor of online or disk-based systems may even be an appropriate solution for backing up cloud-stored data offline, Paul Mah says. “One corner of Google’s vast cloud skipped a beat over the weekend, resulting in the deletion […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): Making Windows 7 Work For Your Small Business Even we learned a thing or two about the inner workings of Windows 7 from this top ten list of tips for business users – such as how to use the Aero interface’s Shake feature to quickly unclutter your screen. “A little over a […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): Apple To Court Small Businesses With New iPad 2 The new service option will cover five iPad units for $500 a year and provide priority technical support, including help setting up and onsite service calls. “With a mobile media event slated for Wednesday, Apple has done what Apple does best: captured the […]

Wired: Review: Dell Inspiron Duo 2 Convertible Netbook Wired magazine gives the Dell Inspiron Duo 2, a netbook that converts to a tablet by swiveling its screen, a rating of just 5 out of 10. Performance is lackluster and it’s not clear who really needs such a device, the reviewer says. “You can’t deny Dell […]

Entrepreneur: Can Social Media Also Boost Productivity? Burton Goldfield’s own HR consulting firm uses Facebook and Twitter for internal communications and social collaboration, and he says more and more big companies are doing the same. More small businesses should as well, he argues. “Social media may be all the rage for building brands and connecting […]

Open Source: Promote Your Digital Product With A Screencast Sarah Kessler’s five free screencast products include Screenr, Overstream, Jing, GoView and Screencast-o-matic. They make it easy to create narrated, animated slide shows to promote software and web-based products. “Showing people what a product does is a better way to catch their attention than telling them […]