Here is this week’s round-up of technology news small business owners may find informative, useful or entertaining: 

• Companies May Be Held Liable For Deals with Terrorists, ID Thieves - US small businesses must beware of new legislation that may mean they need to vet their customers more carefully
• A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search - Google may soon be able to search for images in a completely new way. They also announced plans this week for ‘Google Ocean‘, a 3D map of the world’s seas that will complement Google Earth & Google Sky
• Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 - In the past five years the average data per webpage has trebled
• The Mac in business: it’s easier than you think - An article about the growing usage of Mac products in the business world
• Happy spamiversary! Spam reaches 30 - Thirty years ago tomorrow the first ’spam’ email was sent
• Performance showdown: Flash drives versus hard disk drives - Testing reveals only a tiny speed advantage from solid state drives
• Xerox touts erasable paper, smart documents - New environmentally friendly paper can be re-used 100 times
• Entrepreneurs and Tech Startups: Who’s Doing What When? - A new study shows a large number of new tech startups are owned by entrepreneurs in their 50’s
• Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee - The creator of the Internet believes we are still just getting started and reflects on what would have happened if he had never released the code into the public domain
• Amazon, or online, tax will hurt small business - A tax ruling in New York will also damage Amazon small business affiliates
• Smaller Businesses Learn From Enterprise : Integrating Business and Technology Initiatives Matters - An article examining how SMEs in Canada use new technology
• Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime - A special USB device supplied to the police by Microsoft acts as a back door to all the data on a Windows PC
• Report: Microsoft close to hostile bid for Yahoo - The talks currently remain ‘friendly’, although news this week regarding a fall in Microsoft’s quarterly income may put the deal in jeopardy
• Dell: We’ll install XP for you, even after the deadline - Dell have bravely gone behind the back of Microsoft and will not acknowledge the June 30th XP cut-off date, whilst the release of XP SP3 was delayed this week due to compatibility errors
• Vista struggles to bust out as business customers snub it - It appears to be reaching make-or-break time for Vista and convincing the corporate world to update will be crucial
• Mobiles help SMEs win more businesses - SMEs are embracing mobile technology like the Blackberry to become more responsive to the needs of their customer base
• Modern technology can help small traders to expand business - Businesses in Kenya are starting to realise the importance of technology in helping their SMEs to grow
• Scented text messages patented in Germany – A new mobile phone chip will soon allow you to send messages that smell
• Building your first business website - A helpful article about creating a web presence - don’t forget to check out OnlineOffice for more help

A few weeks ago the good people from the 3 Network (Hutchison 3G UK Ltd.) sent me their new USB dongle for my laptop, an Apple MacBook Pro. This happened just when I wanted to change from my current mobile broadband provider anyway, so just in time.

I have to say I’m pleased, very pleased with the performance of this little unit and for once feel always connected to the Internet. Some of the postings to this blog over the past week have been made using this little device and it helps me utilizing every minute of otherwise useless time on a train or waiting somewhere else.

For anyone working in a mobile capacity, having a broadband dongle is a must and using the 3 network is fast, certainly much faster then my old provider. More importantly having this kind of technology will improve your productivity in several areas:

• You can work from anywhere, you can take your work home and be more with your family;
• it really makes our OnlineOffice even more valuable since it’s all online;
• it makes you and your business more accessible, by providing a better client experience;

But don’t take only my word for it, go to the 3 mobilebuzz website and see what other people say. I have written about the 3 Network before and praised them for their deal with skype, their current mobile broadband offering is another step in the right direction for mobile data services.

I’m a happy client, well done 3. — ST.

Disclaimer: I was sent this dongle to test by the 3 Network free of charge, but I will be taking out a subscription after my free trail period is finished.

UPDATE: The 3 Network have cut the price for their dongle in half, so from tomorrow you can get the dongle for £49.99, even less reason not to get one.

On our flight back from Australia, fiddling with her PowerBook laptop, my wife said to me out of the blue: “Apple (computers, iPod, IPhone, etc.) is like Australia!”

Now here was a comparison I had not heard before. She explained it this way, when ever I want to do something no my computer I think where would it be if I had designed this PowerBook computer and there it is, easy. When ever I want to do something in Australia, I go and talk to people and there you go no problem done. She then carried on and said, “you try doing that in Europe or the US - everybody is stressed, miserable and our political correctness is slowly driving me up the wall.”

And indeed a few weeks ago I read in “The Age” - a daily paper in Australia - that in Europe and the US about 70% of people had a negative outlook for the future, about 20% a positive outlook and the rest didn’t have an outlook.

In Australia, these figures are reversed, over 70% of people have a positive outlook and it shows in everyday life, the whole society is more friendly and less stressed - why is that? I wonder if Australians are really aware of this fundamental difference? Here people are still interested in improving things and have this “go and get ‘em” mentality, while I fear we in the US/Europe often only care about making money fast, we are often not interested in building long lasting value, but have this “quarterly” outlook in life. This kind of behavior my yet come to haunt us, as it has a profound social impact.

As far as Apple products are concerned this is a pretty big endorsement too. It translates - for me anyway - into, “I have less stress in using this computer, in comparison to all others.” Why would that be so? I believe it to be the outlook of people like Steve Jobs, who clearly does not think about himself first, but his company and he is not motivated by making more money, but by moving things forward.

To bring this down to a simple denominator - I guess you could conclude, that chasing the money makes us stressful and ill, chasing a vision is fun and therapeutic.

So I guess, she is right: Apple is like Australia. — ST.

I’m happy to announce that WinWeb’s OnlineOffice has become even more affordable for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants from today.

From today the monthly subscription will be £ 9.95 / US$ 19.95 / € 14.95 / AUS$ 24.95 per small business. We no longer charge per user, but per business. For each business you can add up to 15 users and an unlimited number of quick-switch links to your and other businesses, including your accountant or book keeper.

OnlineOffice will give you access to:

• accounting software;
• invoicing & quotations;
• web-hosting, including web-builder, blog software and online shop;
• business planning, cash-flow planning and SWOT analysis;
• secure online file-store;
• address book, to-do-list, calendar and meeting organizer;
• Skype and eBay integration;
• full LiveNet access;
• and much more.

So there is even less reason not to start your own business and give it a go. All this comes with our 24/7 live support. OnlineOffice is a complete small business infrastructure, which lets you run your business from anywhere and anytime.

There is a 30 day trail period, so give it a go. ST.

You must be getting bored with reading my blog, my ranting on about outsourcing, cost-contol, OnlineOffice, bootstrapping, work-life balance and so on. To solve this problem for you, I thought I will now and then introduce a new blog to you. To make things as painless as possible for me, I will have the owners of these blogs tell you themselves about the blog and themselves.

First up Tom Lindstrom - Editor, The Home Business Archive:

        Tom Lindstrom

I think it is clear that all businesses today - big or small - need a website, which has to be hosted. You will find some options here, you can go for the free hosted website or you can can go to a web-hosting company and pay for the service.

Nothing in live is free - so the “free” hosted website will be advertising financed. Maybe you do not care that your website is full of ads for other and sometimes competitive services, than you could consider this option.

If however you want the visitor to read and concentrate on your products and services you need a website without distractions, i.e. advertising. A website is like a billboard, you have 20 - 30 seconds to get someone interested in your services, if they get distracted by ads for 20 seconds, you’re left with 10 max. - I guess you can do the math yourself. There are many web-hosting companies out there who give you good value for money, or you could use WinWeb’s - All you need to run your business! offer.

In my opinion free web-hosting on the above basis is no option for a serious small business owner. ST.

As part of our OnlineOffice we offer web-services like web-hosting, email, online shop, online file-store and a wordpress blog. Blogging is most certainly the most inexpensive and direct way to communicate with possible customers, you can

• blog about your products and services; explain certain aspects better;
• blog about your company and your business mission;
• blog about your industry, comment on development and differentiate yourself;
• blog about case studies to do with your product and services.

In other words communicate with others on the internet and market your small business. There are many hosted services out there, which are more or less easy to use. Our approach has been to make the blog a plug-in to the basic web site you can setup without any IT skills. With our free 24/7 live support we can help with any issues, should you have any. problems.

For me blogging is a bootstrapper technique to attract new business without having to spend any more money. In the mid-ninties I used to tell people to get a web-site, today a web-site should be standard for any small business and a blog a must if you want to succeed in the future. You may believe that blogging is all about attracting global audiences, when in reality you can use blogging for very local markets, too. It certainly beats sending out leaflets and it is better for the environment.

If you have a story to tell, tell it - nobody else is going to do it for you. ST.

It may be that you have some spare space in your house, out-building, or you even a whole house, you can’t or don’t want to sell or rent out, then you could generate income by setting it up as a coworking space, a coworking wiki-site explains it like this:

Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents.
Or, it’s like this: start with a shared office and add cafe culture. Which is the opposite of most modern cafes.

All you need is tables, chairs, a WI-Fi setup and apparently a coffee machine and you are in business. But remember you will have people in your house every day, so make sure you are OK with that, before you start. Have a look at the website for coworking to get some more ideas, or read the blog.

It will be a great place for working, socializing, and getting ideas and help from others. ST.

NOTE: If you have any problems with setting something like this up, give our 24/7 live support a “click“, they can help you.

I joined Twitter.com, well I have been signed up for some time now, but with a friendly push from Shama, I’m using it since yesterday. It allows you to stay in touch with colleagues and friends while on the move or on your desk.

It is an electronic messaging service, that works on the web and on your mobile via SMS - you get charged your standard SMS rates - so if you have an unlimited package, this is a great service.

On my new iPhone - I’m an Apple junkie, with occasional supply problems - I can use the ThinCloud web-client for Twitter, thanks to O2 for free, that is really good.

It could be a great marketing and networking tool, that is the idea anyway. I found some friends already, Stuart Jones is “Focusing on the important rather than the urgent!”, or at least he was on Oct 15, 2007.

The jury is still out on how much of a business tool this will be for me, so we’ll see. You can twitter me anytime, I’ll try to be as twitter-able as possible. ST.

With all the new mobile gadgets, with Wi-Fi and free data service, it is obvious that more and more people will consume their news and information electronically. This has been happening for some time now. Local news is still harder to come by, but you could change that with this little business start-up idea.

You could get some pre-designed portal software, blogging software or a forum to set up your portal and then write about local events, with things like this:

• Live events - like Live Jazz in the local pub,
• New Business launch - write about the company, people and products;
• Evening Classes - anything from cooking to phontography;
• Club News - what time they meet, run a prifile.
• For Sale Section - from paperclips to houses and cars

You get the idea, there are many more events you could report about. Take leaflets around to get it started and then get revenue from ad’s of local businesses, clubs, for sale ad’s, and get paid for event announcements. Have a look at your local paper that will give you some idea, what people want.

It will get you involved in many areas of your community you didn’t even know existed, get you out of the house, make new friends and earn you some money - what else can you want. One day Google may pay you some money to supply local news to them, who knows?

There is money to be made in each locality, be the first and hog the niche first. Work from home, keep it cost effective, then the set-up should be about $150/£75 and the monthly cost no more than $20/£10, assuming you have a phone, computer and broadband. ST.

NOTE: If you have any problems with setting something like this up, give our 24/7 live support a “click“, they can help you.