Small Business Computing Staff

New York Times: Managing Phone And PC Passwords: There’s An App For That Using easy-to-guess passwords is an invitation to disaster. These password manager apps make it much easier to use unbreakable passwords and always have them handy. “Lots of otherwise rational people use insecure passwords — “111111,” anyone? — or they store hard-to-remember passwords […]

Entrepreneur: How Small Businesses Use Social Media To Boost Sales Chris Brogan writes about a restaurateur, a specialty retailer and a boutique hotel all successfully using social media to reach out to customers and market their businesses. “Joe Sorge is a soft-spoken guy with a fast smile. He runs a couple of restaurants in Milwaukee, […]

PCWorld: Internet Explorer 6 Users Vulnerable To New Hacker Attack Only Microsoft’s latest browser product, IE9, still in beta, would be invulnerable to the new exploit, the company says, but users of the oldest, IE6, are most likely to be victimized. “Microsoft today warned that attackers are targeting Internet Explorer (IE) with an exploit of […]

CNet: iPad Flash Player SkyFire Stumbles Out Of The Gate SkyFire sounded like it would finally allow iPad and iPhone users to view videos created and distributed using Adobe’s Flash technology, which Apple has banned from its devices. But the application failed to deliver a good user experience and the company stopped selling it temporarily. […]

Entrepreneur: Small Business Security 101: 10 Must-do Security Measures You already know most of these, but it doesn’t hurt to review. Use strong passwords, install a firewall and anti-virus software, update software regularly, etc. Have you checked them all off? Data security should be an important area of concern for every small-business owner. “When you […]

Wired: Fixing iPad’s Flash Problem The new app, a browser, reportedly translates Flash video into HTML5 video on the fly. It will be available later this week. “Steve Jobs has successfully prevented Adobe Flash from getting on the iPhone for years, but a new iOS app promises to bring Flash video to the iPhone, iPad […]

PCWorld: Editing PDFs – Acrobat X And The Cheaper Alternatives PC World reviews Acrobat version 10, but also looks at three alternatives that are a third the price ($99): FoxIt, Nitro PDF Professional and Nuance PDF Converter Professional. “There is certainly no lack of tools — ones that are good and free — to help […]

ITBusinessEdge: Beware The Firesheep: The Dangers Of Unprotected Wireless Networks The Firesheep add-in, which allows hackers tapping into unprotected Wi-Fi networks to hijack users’ social media accounts, has already been downloaded 500,000 times. Secure your Wi-Fi network, Paul Mah tells small businesses. You might have already heard about the Firesheep add-on for the Mozilla Web […]

Entrepreneur: Search Engine Optimization 101 – 10 Basic Tips Tips include the obvious such as liberally sprinkling keywords throughout pages, to less obvious such as linking back to your own site, creating a site map and avoiding flash and frames in page designs. Every business with a website should make search engine optimization — trying […]

PCWorld: ViewSonic Enters The Tablet PC Race The new tablet PC products from ViewSonic are due out early December (the ViewPad 7, the Android model) and early 2011 (the dual-boot model). The ViewPad 7 will be priced at $479. “ViewSonic is jumping into the tablet game. Although the company is best known for its monitors, […]

Smallbiztechnology.com: How To Make Marketing Videos That Go Viral Ramon Ray’s 5 tips for viral videos: know your audience, script your video, use the best production equipment you can, use every communications channel to promote your finished video and be sure to measure and track results. “Video is one of the most powerful ways to […]

PCWorld: Quick, Easy Web Conference Setup With Adobe Connect 8 Adobe has worked to make the Connect 8 interface more streamlined and intuitive and added robust whiteboarding and note taking features. “Have you ever participated in an online meeting or video conference where you’ve logged in at the correct time–or ten minutes early as directed […]