Small Business Computing Staff

Portable ProjectorTraveling presenters will appreciate the PJL1005 Litebird from ViewSonic. Weighing in at 5.6 pounds, the Litebird is a digital projector with a native resolution of 1,024 x 768 dpi. It is well suited for all types of multimedia and PowerPoint presentations. With the remote control, users can add on-screen notations, freeze frames, mute sound, […]

by Chris Sandlund Face it. You’re a shrewd judge of quality service. Every day you recognize when the kid getting you a hamburger is pleasant and quick. You appreciate when the cashier at the copy shop slides your job ahead of others because she knows you’re in a hurry. You make these observations because you […]

by Holly Aguirre What PC manufacturers have to offerAre your employees still using old upgraded 486s, squinting into the haze of flickering 15-inch monitors? Before they all go mad and blind, it’s time to give them the tools they need to be productive. Choosing the right computers is not a decision that should be made […]

by Keith Kirkpatrick Despite all of the noise pc vendors make about the virtues of purchasing directly from them, there are other avenues worth exploring. While buying straight from a manufacturer has its advantages, (see the main guide) many customers, especially small businesses, will find more value in other purchasing alternatives. Among these is the […]

by Steve Bennett Amigo 2000Rating 88 Tired of the anemic graphingcapability Microsoft Office offers? If so, consider Amigo 2000. An add-in designed to work with Excel and PowerPoint, Amigo 2000 makes it a snap to add dazzling charts and graphs to spreadsheets and presentations. Even the most graphically challenged user can create stellar visuals. Once […]

by David Batterson Blackberry Internet EditionRating 86 The blackberry pager from Research In Motion (RIM) offers a painless, wireless way to remain in touch via e-mail. While pagers are handy, most of them don’t work well with e-mail. And while a PDA, like the Palm VII, will provide wireless e-mail by forwarding messages from a […]

by Holly Aguirre Brio BA200Rating 90 Gatetway GP7 600Rating 85 For this month’s buyers guide we asked some of the major computer vendors what machines they would recommend for a small business with 10 to 100 users on a LAN needing to buy a bunch of machines. Two of the vendors, Gateway and Hewlett Packard, […]

by Joey Latimer Cobalt Qube 2Rating 90 At first glance, the cobalt qube 2 looks more like a small air purifier than a piece of network equipment, but don’t let the size and shape fool you. This Internet/intranet server device packs more hardware and functionality than products six times its size. It comes pre-configured with […]

by Daniel & Sally Grotta Gaige WebSpace Rating 86 If you use the internet for research, be ready to quickly outgrow Internet Explorer’s and Netscape Navigator’s cumbersome Favorites list. An information management program can do a better job of organizing all the Web sites and information found, so it can all be accessed again easily […]

by Wayne Kawamoto ScanSoft’s TextBride Pro 9.0Rating 90 If your office is like most, it contains a ton of paper. Optical character recognition (OCR) software programs, such as ScanSoft’s TextBridge Pro 9.0 Business Edition, can help. When used in combination with a scanner, OCR software “reads” paper documents and digitizes them into computer text files, […]

by Matthew Klare SPSS 10Rating 90 Data mining software extracts statistical information from data like sales reports and customer databases that you can use to find buying patterns and target potential customers. This makes otherwise static data much more useful in making important business decisions. While SPSS 10 has the familiar look of an Excel […]

by David Schloss Customers, both business and consumer, know that the collection process takes time and costs money. Most pay their bills responsibly, but many will routinely wait 60 days beyond the “due date” before even considering paying. And when dealing with small businesses, some customers also gamble that the company will be too disorganized […]