Small Business Computing Staff

Smallbiztechnology.com: Roundup – Tech News For Small Businesses This week’s edition of the Smallbiztechnology.com roundup includes items on new Dell financing options, a survey report showing small business confidence up for the first time since 2009 and a review of book about how to make sure your technology is not obsolete. “Dell Announces Aggressive Financing […]

Entrepreneur: Social Media Marketing Best Practices For SMBs Susan Gunelius’s 10 laws of social media marketing include: the law of listening, the law of focus, the law of quality and so on. If you don’t obey the laws, she says, your chances of success will diminish. “Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing […]

ITBusinessEdge: Preview – Symantec Endpoint Protection 12, Small Business Edition The new version of the Syamentec product appears to be more than just a periodic update, Paul Mah says. It “suggests a paradigm shift in the technical abilities incorporated into [Syantec’s] anti-virus software.” “At the RSA Conference this week, security juggernaut Symantec unveiled new versions […]

Small Business Trends: How To Use The New Facebook Brand Pages Lisa Barone looks at changes that have been made to Facebook brand pages – changes to how pages are identified, the increased importance of images, changes in wall filtering, etc. – and shows how small businesses can leverage them. “If you’re a small business […]

ComputerWeekly.com: White Paper – Why Growing SMBs Cannot Ignore The Cloud The white paper is based on a roundtable in which growing SMBs explain how and why they’re using the cloud. “Leaders in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) recognise that technology is critical to supporting growth, productivity and competitiveness. But high capital costs, access to […]

Smallbiz Nest: Book Review – The New Small, Gain Leverage Through Technology Simon shows how smart small business owners can spot technology trends and leverage them to compete with bigger companies. He identifies several – the cloud, SaaS, social media marketing – as key opportunities for small businesses. “Phil Simon offers a comprehensive view of […]

PCWorld: Review – Cisco Linksys e4200 Network Router This gigabit Wi-Fi router performs “exceedingly well,” reviwer Jon L. Jacobi says. Plus it has great features and is easy to set up. “Linksys’s e4200 dual-band wireless gigabit router is like a box of chocolates, but not in the “Forrest Gump” sense. You actually know exactly what […]

Open Forum: Free Tools For Automating Your Small Business Online tools reviewed include: Zoho CRM, Zopim (click-to-IM website tool), Hootsuite (social media management), Freshbooks (invoicing) and Spiceworks (IT management). “The challenging economic climate has taught business owners that it’s absolutely imperative they embrace solutions that will help them work smarter and focus on generating revenue. […]

Small Business Trends: Launching A New WordPress Blog: First Steps Lisa Barone’s checklist for launching a WordPress blog includes: setting up an RSS feed, subscribing to your own feed, creating a favicon, changing your permalink structure and choosing WordPress plugins. (Don’t worry, she explains each one.) “You’ve taken the plunge. You’ve finally accepted just how […]

ITBusinessEdge: Should SMBs Be Still Using Tape Backup? Tape backup is still the cheapest per gigabit, still the most robust for taking backups off site, and it can be combined with other backup modes, Tandberg Data executives argue. “I had the opportunity to speak with two business unit managers from Tandberg Data last week about […]

Open Forum: Building Your Online Brand: Show A Little Personality Dave Rogers’ prescription for successful small business online media includes: offering a personal voice, showing “out-size” personality, pulling back the curtains a little and showing customers faces too. “As brands increasingly shift to communicating with customers online, they find a wide variety of tools available: […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): Review – Synology DS1511+ Network Attached Storage With a 15TB maximum capacity, this $900 (list) product can be used as a NAS only but can also be configured for use as mail, print, media and Web server. “The DS1511+, available for $900 (list), has features that not only make it an excellent […]