Smart Tech for Small Biz
by James Gaskin

James E. Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area. Gaskin has been helping small and medium sized businesses use technology intelligently since 1986.

This blog covers IT news, views, and product info with the small business angle in mind.

Write him at readers@gaskin.com.

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Windows 7 on Older PCs, Windows 7 on Netbooks

Today I spoke with a Microsoft tech in charge of helping large customers migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7. One of the interesting things he said was that Windows 7 was indeed tweaked and slimmed down to run on lower powered computers than Vista. Let's talk about that, and how Microsoft has a utility to help you load Windows 7 on your netbook.
Posted on 10/30/09 at 9:49 am | Linux, Netbooks, upgrade, Vista, Windows 7
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Windows 7 Smells Far Better Than Vista

Microsoft sent me two copies of Windows 7 Ultimate last Friday (the 23rd) and I installed the 64bit version on the refurbished HP mini-tower I bought last year with Vista on it. Based on my interview with William Stanek, author of the just-released Windows 7: The Definitive Guide I did for the Daily Tip on Windows 7 Upgrade, I felt sure my fairly new HP would run 64bit Windows fine. Stanek promised almost every PC bought in the last three years could run Windows 7 64bit. He's right in my case.
Posted on 10/27/09 at 9:16 am | 64bit, upgrade, Vista, Windows 7, XP
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Google Apps Trump IBM / Lotus iNotes Lame Offering

Did you notice Google Apps has a new competitor? Didn't think so. You'd think IBM and Lotus could come up with 1) a better product to compete on Google's turf and 2) figure out a way to make a bigger splash. All we have here are lame offerings created by idiot vice presidents and marketed by other idiot vice presidents.
Posted on 10/23/09 at 10:50 am | E-mail, Google, Google Apps, IBM, Lotus iNotes
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Hot Rod Netbook Sports Dual CPUs

Leave it to that computer innovation center Columbia (the country, not the university) to come up with a way to turbo charge the lowly netbook into near-laptop performance. Haleron in Columbia spent six months engineering a netbook with two Intel Atom processors to rev up the performance. The lower netbook pricing enables income-limited South Americans to use a netbook in place of a more expensive laptop for general computer needs.
Posted on 10/21/09 at 11:04 am | Haleron, intel atom, SSD, Swordfish N120, Windows XP
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Three Reasons You'll Upgrade to Windows 7 – Time, Money, and Hassle

A few of you will move toward Macintosh and Linux operating systems for more of your computers, but not enough to hurt Microsoft. Windows 7 will become, for three reasons, the most popular personal computer OS in 2012 (assuming ancient Mayan predictions are wrong and we're still here). Those three reasons? Money, time, and hassle.
Posted on 10/19/09 at 10:12 am | Linux, Mac, Vista, Windows 7, XP
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Three Tips on Choosing the Right Technical Book

After my advice on self-training employees a few days ago, some folks asked me how to pick the right technical books for their situation. Valid question, because popular topics may have a shelf-full of books to choose from. How do you find yours? Try these three tips.
Posted on 10/16/09 at 10:28 am | book, learning, table of contents, training
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Are Modern Information Workers Luddites?

Computerworld's interesting story on "8 Ways the American Information Worker Remains a Luddite" carefully hid the fact that people writing for Computerworld, and people like me, too often get excited by shiny objects rather than real work tools. I hope my focus on picking the right tool, rather than the new tool, for the job gives me at least a partial pass. My take? We spend too much time worrying about the glitzy new tools only a fraction of workers use, and ignore ways to get more work done with existing tools, whether hardware or software.
Posted on 10/14/09 at 10:11 am | laptop, smartphone, Vista, Windows 7
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Don't Blame “The Cloud” or SaaS for Microsoft and Sidekick Stupidity

By now, you probably heard about poor Sidekick users who have lost their contacts, calendar entries, and other information due to a massive fail by T-Mobile's Sidekick division and the Microsoft subsidiary providing data services. People who hate “the cloud” or those selling local disk storage (often the same people) are cheering the loss because it seems to bolster their complaints about Software As A Service not being trustworthy. But a little digging shows the blame sits squarely on management stupidity, where you can usually find the root of all business problems.
Posted on 10/12/09 at 10:53 am | Danger, fail, Microsoft, Saas, Sidekick
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Three Ways to Improve Focus and Work Smarter

They tell us to “work smarter, not harder” but working harder is, oddly, easier than working smarter. Why? Because no one gives full attention to anything anymore. My slogan is “always connected, always distracted.”
Posted on 10/7/09 at 4:10 pm | concentration, creativity, distractions, E-mail, focus
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Three Options for Employee Self Training

I know people who used to make a fat living off training, but that train has slowed if not derailed. Well, not the “Train of Knowledge” all employees need to do their job better, but the gravy train of fat training contracts and fatter per diem checks for traveling around the country.
Posted on 10/6/09 at 4:55 pm | books, training, webinars
peer-to-peer

Esther Schindler
If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly

claird
SVG a graphics format for 21st century

pasmith
Take Chrome OS for a test spin

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Solaris Tip: Have Your Files Changed Since Installation?

sjvn
64-bits of protection?

jfruh
Android fragments vs. the iPhone monolith

mikelgan
What Gizmodo missed about the Pro WX Wireless USB disk drive

 

Where Google Chrome security fails: the password
I heard mention that the Chrome OS will have some sort of encryption available a la bitlocker. If it's possible to encrypt personal data using another password or key, then it may have potential for very secure data.... And Ubuntu has an 'encrypt home directory' option, perhaps google should follow suit.
- Dann

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