1/3/06

Good news: enough of you gave this experiment a thumbs up (keep those e-mails coming) that we can keep going. In other words, small/medium business technology people now have a permanent home here.

New year, new resolve to get organized. In an effort to be a good role model for my son in college (so he doesn’t ask any questions about what I did in school), I went looking for an easy way to track hours spent on various projects. Even if you don’t need to be a good role model, you may want to work smarter in 2006 than you did in 2005.

I found free personal time tracking software from Advanced Time Reports. So far, it’s doing what I need and the free version works well for me.

About 60 percent of small businesses are interested in “software as a service” products (according to a Yankee Group survey). Now SaaS, these are the ASPs (Application Service Providers) from the 90s with a new acronym. Paying a third party a small fee per month to provide and host your applications means less outlay upfront for you, and less ongoing maintenance as the vendor must keep the app updated and server security holes patched. Advanced Time Reports has a hosted version, also free for testing with a limited number of users.

I’ve been testing HyperOffice for a few weeks. They offer a complete suite of applications every business person in companies small and large need. More on this soon.

More on other hosted apps soon, including a profile of a hosted application that allowed a New Orleans business to keep running even when all their employees were scattered around the country.

Keep visiting, keep writing, and feel free to make more noise. The asylum run by inmates received official blessing, so let’s talk SMB technology until the Power That Be come to their senses.

James