Small Business Computing Staff

Small Business Trends: List – E-shopping Carts For Small Businesses This long list of shopping cart products and services appears to be comprehensive but doesn’t offer much in the way of evaluation. It does include links to the products listed, though. “Making it easy for your customer to buy from you is a mantra most […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): Preview – Apple Mac Mini Server It comes with 4 GB of memory, a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and two 500 GB SATA hard drives. It also comes with unlimited client licenses. Apple claims the Mac Mini Server can be up and running in 10 minutes. “Apple’s latest small […]

Small Business Trends: SMB Marketing 101 – Blog For Business A quartet of recent items selling the merits of small business blogs, especially but not only sales and marketing blogs. One suggests sales reps should all be blogging to sell their expertise to prospects. “Blogs aren’t just for personal journaling anymore. In fact, they may […]

PCWorld: Windows XP Soon Officially Obsolete The looming deadline for discontinuing support of WinXP SP2 means users may be at risk from new hacking exploits targeting it – and hackers are still targeting the operating system. Microsoft will not include patches for it in monthly updates, but may choose to issue special patches. Barring an […]

Wall Street Journal: Is A BlackBerry Tablet Coming From RIM? The story suggests that RIM has developed or is developing a multitouch interface similar to iPhone and iPad and is currently testing products that use it, including an iPad-like device. “Research In Motion Ltd. is readying a slate of new devices and software as it […]

PCWorld: How To Keep Your iPad Secure Suggestions range from keeping it close, to using a passcode, to using a VPN to encrypt data, to using Apple’s MobileMe service which includes advanced backup and recovery options. “The recent AT&T data leak underscores the need for iPad security precautions. A few simple steps can help protect […]

Small Business Trends: The Case For Opt-In Marketing Would you rather alienate prospective customers and blacken your name in the marketplace or build relationships with customers. The choice is that stark between permission-based marketing and sending materials unsolicited. “The other day a friend of mine asked me what I thought about text marketing. My answer […]

InformationWeek SMB: SMB Web Security Best Practices Best practices suggestions include using software as a service (SaaS) security offerings, locking down the browser and not letting employees run computers with full administrative privileges. “If Bonnie and Clyde were alive today, they’d be quite amused at just how easy it is to make a dishonest buck. […]

InformationWeek SMB: Where SMBs Should Focus Their Security Efforts Preventing fraud and identity theft should be the main concerns for smaller businesses, IW SMB blogger says, not protecting intellectual property. “Too many small and midsize businesses are gearing up for the wrong fight when it comes to information security. Used to be, SMBs could borrow […]

InformationWeek: Cisco Launches Quad Communications & Collaboration Platform The Quad platform works with content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and Documentum and integrates with Cisco voice and video systems and company directories to create a single source for searching for content and finding and talking to employees. “Cisco has introduced an enterprise collaboration platform […]

InformationWeek SMB: Microsoft Scrambles To Fix New Security Vulnerability The vulnerability, which exploits linking to the Microsoft Help Center and could effect other software, including e-mail, can be fixed by disabling the HCP Protocol. That breaks all links to the Help Center, however. Microsoft may issue a patch separate from its regular monthly security updates. […]

Social Media Today: Driving Traffic To Your SMB Blog Techniques discussed range from optimizing your blog’s loading speed, to choosing the right domain to using Google and Bing webmaster tools. “Driving massive amounts of search engine traffic to your blog can be a lot easier than you think, it really depends on some key factors […]