With the majority of small businesses seeing less profits than a couple years ago, budgets have gotten smaller. Included in the shrinking budget is money for new computers and software. These are tools that help us small business owners make more money. So we need them. But we have to save money as well so what is one to do?
One option is to find free or open source software that fits your business needs. There is a multitude of software that works great and is totally free. You may have to do more digging to find something that works just as you need it to, but the time spent is worth it. Especially since many of us have more free time than we used to.
Also if you have an old pc or laptop that works but runs much slower than it used to, why not give Linux a try before trashing the computer. You can do virtually anything on a Linux machine that you can on a windows machine,,, except get a virus. 
) I am not against windows, but older machines do slow down over time with windows. I like Ubuntu the best but Puppy Linux is great as well and is more likely to work on very old computers.
I’ve been happy with my ipod touch so far and still am….. BUT iTunes is out o whack. $1.29 for one song? Amazon.com has drm free music for .99 cents all day long. But you can’t download music from Amazon directly to your ipod apparently. Nice way to protect Apple’s profits. I don’t blame them but I will still be using Amazon from my pc and transferring.
Ok I know that texting while driving is dangerous. None of us should do it. That said, it is another money grab by the state looking for ever shrinking revenue. People can easily hide the fact they are texting by keeping phone lower than the window, which makes texting more dangerous! Safety is what is trotted out as the reason for every new law, but really it is about money. Them trying to take ours.
Please drive safely and don’t text while driving.
As I get more familiar with Apple products after being a hater for a long time, one thing does irk me about the apps for my ipod touch. You can only load one at a time. The Pandora app is great but it would be nice to do other stuff on the device while streaming music. for productivity I would say that one at a time apps are better since focusing on one thing at a time gets more done usually. At least it is that way for me. But apps like Pandora would be better in the background while doing other tasks like making notes, setting your agenda, etc.
Phil Benstein has a good post in relation to the recent facebook campaign for breast cancer. He points out the difference in results and response. Link http://philbernstein.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/social-media-lesson-dont-confuse-response-with-results/.
I had a great idea for a domain name tonight in the shower. TweetCred.com . I thought it was brilliant and it was. Unfortunately it had been thought of by someone else and was not available. Just about every idea you have , you can bet someone else has had it too. Just google it and see. That doesn’t mean you can’t be the first to come up with a new idea though. It is just harder than it used to be.
I’m known as the fun sucker in the family but even I can see the use for twitter just for the fun of it. I made fun of twitter at first because it does allow for a bunch of useless information to be spewed into the internet sphere. But upon further review I realized that it is A. fun & B. Useful when filtered. For boring times riding the subway or waiting in a Dr. office, twitter can be cool to read quick posts by friends or random folks. For a small business there is a ton of helpful links and also a lot of local data that you can use to further your customer base. For example a painter could search for a phrase, “need house painted” withing 30 miles of his business. The results are real time so it will show updated results from someone in need of a painter right now. Pretty cool.
A recent article about France wanting to tax successful internet companies in order to hand money to suffering industries made me sick. Their logic is that those who are doing well through technology should “give back” to those who have lost business because of technolgy. They use the words give back as if it is not theft. Taking from one group go given to another is theft no matter what the reason. No matter what! Stuff like this teaches the motivated that they will be punished for their effort. It teaches the slackers they will be rewarded for their sloth.
It must be nice for government people to just steal at will. Public perception is that govt theft is justified. Until that changes things like France pillaging smart Internet companies will get worse.
Think the Internet hasn’t changed every aspect of life? Well now man made snow is available for homeowners yards. A friend on facebook got some plans online and made a snow machine. His house in Nicholson is the only one with snow as of Thursday morning. Pretty neat.
AT&T: landline phone service must die; only question is when.
It is only a matter of time before landlines go the way of vcrs. They will still exist in the future maybe but so few people will use them it will be as though they disappeared. Cell phones and internet phones (VOIP services like Vonage & Skype) have destroyed landlines in service, price, and features. Why would anyone even keep a land line unless they have no internet at all?
The article above states that 700k landlines are being cut off each month! That is an incredible number. The number would be even higher if older Americans could be helped along by people willing to show them how voip lines work. Small businesses are already jumping on that idea I am sure. Setting up cheaper better phone service can be a great profit center.
Landlines only feature to promote it seems is that they can be used to call 911. LOL . I’d hate to know that was my only advantage over the competition. The easy fix for that is get a voip line and program local fire, police, and rescue into the speed dial. And get a prepaid cell phone to use 911 directly. Goodbye landlines. You had a nice run.
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