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This Week's Headlines
Three Awesome Pocket-sized Projectors for Presentations or Entertainment
Simple Ways to Maximize the Value of Virtualization
The Psychological Barriers to Cloud Entry
Three Tools That Easily Make Your Small Business Website Mobile
Seven Simple Social Media Moves That Work
New Integration Between Xero and ZenPayroll Gives Small Businesses Greater Access to Finance and Payroll in the Cloud
Creating Viral Tweets for Your Business
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Three Awesome Pocket-sized Projectors for Presentations or Entertainment
Small Business Technology (05/08/13); Ravina, Vincenzo
There are three pocket-size projectors small businesses can purchase for conducting presentations. Eyesee is a mobile projector that is iOS compatible, useful for viewing videos, slideshows, and PDFs. Costing $150, eyes includes a LED 15 lumens projector lamp, manual focus adjustment, and a rechargeable battery that can be used to charge a smartphone. The 3M Projector Sleeve is another useful tool, costing $105 on Amazon. The 3M is bright enough to show videos as large as 50 inches, though 36 inches is its optimal size for viewing images. The Brookstone is a HDMI pocket projector displaying at 85 lumens, includes a HDMI cable, Micro HDMI adapter, Mini HDMI adapter, and AC adapter. The Brookstone projector includes dual built-in speakers and accepts 1080p and 1080p video input.
(http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2013/05/3-awesome-pocket-sized-projectors-for-presentations-or-entertainment.html/)
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Simple Ways to Maximize the Value of Virtualization
Processor.com (05/03/13) P. 26
There are several ways to maximize the value of virtualization, starting with committing to the platform. While some businesses might hesitate about adopting the virtualization platform, the technology offers a greater return on investment as well as improved efficiency. Quantifying the value of virtualization depends on the implementation process, so virtualization should be adopted as a best practice for a business. Implementing virtualization as a best practice results in greater savings, while eliminating failed servers. Firms should avoid focusing only on costs, and instead consider allocating resources more efficiently. Additionally, firms should recognize that virtualization machine sprawl can replace server sprawl. Finally, testing virtualization deployments is critical to the success of rolling out the platform, and firms might want to consider storage on private clouds for a virtualized environment.
(http://www.processor.com/articles/P3509/12p09/12p09.pdf?guid)
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The Psychological Barriers to Cloud Entry
Accounting Today (04/29/2013); King, Jeremy
Accounting firms have experienced a number of psychological barriers preventing adoption to the cloud. There is a definite lack of knowledge about cloud infrastructure and benefits, as well as risks. Confronting these psychological blocks begins with addressing cloud uncertainty, which is accomplished by asking cloud providers to clearly outline their services. Firms should determine the security of a cloud provider's finances, ensuring that their data center bills are paid; asking to review financial statements under a Non-Disclosure agreement is advised. Firms should additionally ask for references and to speak with other companies working with the service provider. Essentially, cloud providers must effectively conduct the operations they have been outsourced to mange, including security, scalability, and data backup and recovery. Firms should negotiate Terms of Service or Service Level Agreements that clearly define mission-critical points governing data security and ownership; jurisdictional issues; and maintenance and support.
(http://www.accountingtoday.com/accounting-technology/news/psychological-barriers-to-cloud-entry66528-1.html)
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Three Tools That Easily Make Your Small Business Website Mobile
Small Business Technology (04/29/13); Leiva-Gomez, Miguel
There are three mobile tools that will assist small businesses with their Web sites. The first, Shopify, is a simple tool for featuring products and services. At $14 per month, Shopify is affordable and provides 1GB of storage, as well as the ability to showcase up to 25 products. Zuznow is another useful site for optimizing mobile pages, generating reports about mobile traffic, and includes an automatic smartphone feature for creating a Web site. Zuznow costs $35 per month and offers site management capabilities. For SMBs with WordPress, securing a mobile theme plugin is useful for serving mobile users. Through WordPress' plugin, mobile themes are easily added, with WPTouch and MobilePress as popular plugins for detecting mobile devices. Remember all mobile sites should be tested following any new content addition.
(http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2013/04/3-tools-that-easily-make-your-small-business-website-mobile.html/)
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Seven Simple Social Media Moves That Work
Inc.com (04/25/13); Fass, Allison
There are seven social media strategies that work, starting with listening first to clients. Small businesses should respond to everyone online, but any inappropriate or biased comments should be deleted. Firms should tell customers about personal stories social media, rather than simply using the platform to sell products. Analysts say that personalizing social media is more effective and will encourage sharing and liking these stories across several channels; clients should be encouraged to share their stories, too. Firms should be as authentic as possible when using social media, which will project a genuine presence that is more likely to attract leads. Social media can significantly drive sales, so using major advertising channels like Facebook can allow SMBs to target ads for potential clients. Firms should use social media to give away products or services, as well as information. Finally, firms should use social media posts to thank their clients and partners.
(http://www.inc.com/allison-fass/dave-kerpen-social-media-moves-that-work.html)
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New Integration Between Xero and ZenPayroll Gives Small Businesses Greater Access to Finance and Payroll in the Cloud
CPA Practice Advisor (04/18/13); O'Bannon, Isaac M.
ZenPayroll has partnered with Xero to provide small businesses with greater financial management capabilities. Through the new solution, SMBs will be able to better track their cash flow automatically. A centralized dashboard assists firms with payroll data management, reducing the potential for error. The ZenPayroll and Xero integration has debuted alongside findings from Zogby noting that 70 percent of SMBs say real-time access to client financials would improve their services. Since accounting and payroll are integrated, SMBs will benefit from a greater ease of exporting and importing data, eliminating manual reconciliation. The integrated solution is expected to save businesses time and money, while offering scalability.
(http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/news/10923349/new-integration-between-xero-and-zenpayroll-gives-small-businesses-greater-access-to-finance-payroll-in-the-cloud)
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Creating Viral Tweets for Your Business
Entrepreneur (04/18/13); Prodromou, Ted
Businesses can use Twitter strategically to maximize their marketing and generate client leads. Twitter, which allows businesses to post status updates in 140 characters, is a prime social media channel. To create viral Tweets or status updates, businesses should include a call to action; for example, "Retweet this post if you want to learn more about tax codes!" In this manner, followers will automatically follow a business' call to action while growing their online exposure. Phrases that encourage Retweeting include: "Check this out;" "I need some help;" and "You should follow..." Retweeting should be strategically executed and businesses should monitor their success rates with their calls to action. Tweets generally receive more attention during working hours; SocialBro is a great tool for helping users determine the "Best Time to Tweet." Tweets with links have an astonishing success rate of receiving Retweets 70 percent of the time, supporting the case for businesses to Tweet links as a viral business strategy. Finally, providing important resources to a Twitter fan base is a great way to grow a brand and add followers, resulting in potential opportunities for expanding a client base.
(http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226444)
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