Make the financial side of your business less painful by using an accounting package. It will not only make your life easier, but will keep you informed of your current cash flow situation. It will also save you a lot of headaches when preparing for taxes and probably save you fees with your accountant. Immersion Technology uses QuickBooks and as a member of the Intuit Developers Network we have received early access to QuickBooks 2008. This new version of QuickBooks makes it easier for you and your accountant to work together, improved integration with other software (Outlook, Excel), and an improved help interface. It also can integrate with other applications and your web site. Read the rest of this article »

Don’t apologize for being small. You can think big, appear big, and do big things from a home based business. Technology affords you big business opportunities, presence, and appearance. It is possible to run a small business out of your home with a multinational sales force all connected through a single hosted phone system. Companies like CoreDial and other VOIP vendors can setup these systems. You can receive a fax just about anywhere using many of the online fax providers. Your website, business cards, and marketing material can be professional and speak to your customer base and display your professional edge. So next time you think about apologizing for not having a fancy office in a professional center, don’t. Enjoy your bathrobe attire and display your professional edge by leveraging technology.

A USB drive is an easy and portable way to keep your information organized on the go. You can use it to store sales presentations, product photography, proposals, and other essential documents. Going a step further you can also bring your applications with you. PortableApps.com provides a number of free applications that can be installed directly on your USB drive, allowing you to bring programs like your web browser links and settings with you. For busy professionals this low cost solution is cheaper and more portable than a PDA or laptop. It just may be time to put your business on your key chain.

As more business information is stored on computers, it is extremely important that this data is being backed up. We continue to hear stories from non-profits, businesses and individuals about how they lost everything due to a hard drive crash. More often, we suffer from accidentally deleting a file or writing over it. Like the insurance policies we have on our cars, businesses and homes, it is comforting to know there is a way to recover from information loss. Read the rest of this article »

At this point, everyone surfing the web has undoubtably encountered Adobe’s Macromedia Flash files (SWF). Flash is everywhere and can be anything. But what is Flash really, and why is it so prevalent?

Flash is a timeline-based software application which allows artists & developers to seamlessly integrate many forms of media into a single presentation. Using Flash, web-authors can present graphics, photos, video, animation, music, sound fx, text and data in one application.

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