Small Business Lines

This is perhaps the best listing of apps, sites, and services you need to start or manage your small business. I’ve been wanting to build this list myself for that past few months but haven’t gotten around to it.

Aviva Directory

Most small businesses need a way for key employees to access their PCs when they’re not in the office. There are several ways to do this. Some are free (VNC) and some cost a small amount of money for having better support and additional features.

On the Mac, there’s Remote Desktop (made by Apple). All Macs also support VNC clients as well.
For the PC, the best option is Go To My PC

These programs are actually fairly secure. The communication is fully encrypted and set up is pretty easy. You will need to allow access through your firewall and should use a secure password, but otherwise should feel safe.

These services are also pretty fast. They don’t feel as fast as being on the computer itself, but certainly are fast enough to get important work done without going bonkers. You can copy/sync files between computers and otherwise work as if you’re sitting at the office.

Here’s a $10 off coupon for Citrix’s Go To My PC:
Free Trial plus $10 Off!

If you meet with employees, coworkers, partners, or vendors remotely, virtual meeting services can make your meetings much much more productive.

There are several platforms for virtual meetings but the big three are WebEx, Windows NetMeeting, and GoToMeeting.

GoToMeeting is probably the strongest for a few reasons:

1) Incredibly fast meeting setup/configuration and integration with Outlook and IM platforms to start meetings
2) Free voice conferencing
3) Flat pricing — unlimited meetings, as long as you’re under 10 attendess
4) The usual collaborative and management features like screen sharing, meeting recording, etc.

GoToMeeting is offering a Free Trial + $10 Off!

WebEx has been around for longer and has many of the same features. To me, it feels more clunky, but it still works fairly well.

Windows NetMeeting is barely worth the hard drive space. Microsoft is discontinuing it when Vista ships and is moving to something called Office Live Meeting Space.

Basecamp thinks like I do. I use it all time for my small business and at my day job. It’s fast. Simple. And elegant.

Google launched Start Page for Organizations, which offers a customizable home page like Google Start Page for consumers. The tool enables small businesses to customize the page with its own branding and content and business’ domain name. This is in addition to Google Apps for Your Domain, launched in August 2006, which is a first step at offering a low-cost alternative to enterprise software.

Start Page enables the company to define content that shows up on employee machines as well as what content modules employees can modify themselves.

When we covered Google Apps for your Domain package, we were of the opinion that Google chose this combination of apps to start its assault on the enterprise desktop. Robust applications like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes can be overkill for smaller businesses and organizations.

Start Page for Organizations is currently free though Google may charge for the service in the future.

There are plenty of low cost (under $10 / month) hosting providers out there. They offer more bandwidth and disk space than you will ever need. Plus great features such as free portal software, message boards, and streaming media software to boot.

What a great problem to have if you do need more! They typically are shared with other clients, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Think about how many small businesses have 5 page sites with virtually no traffic. Sometimes you essentially get a dedicated server without paying for it.

Here are a few hosts with good value–low prices, good features, fast connections, plenty of bandwidth, plenty of disk space, and reasonable service. Not amazing service, but enough for most people:
1) HostMonster
2) Start Logic
3) Blue Host

OPEN From American Express is having another forum with famous entrepreneurs next Thursday 11/16 @ 8pm EST “Standing Out from the Crowd.”

Participants include: famous chef Mario Batali, maternity clothing designer Liz Lange, and the iconic Blue Man Group. Jeanne Chatzky is moderating

There aren’t any more tickets to the in-person event, but you can watch and participate via webcast:
http://www.openforumonline.com

Then simply return to the site at the following time to participate via the Web. You will be able to submit questions online, too.