eWeek just posted an article warning about a spam campaign targeting Facebook users. The email sent to the users supposedly comes from “The Facebook Team” and advised the recipient that their password has been changed. To get the new password, the user merely need to open the attachment, which is how the user gets infected.

This isn’t anything new, but with the amount of Facebook obsession I see among our users, it’s something for you to be conscious of.

I just saw a demo of Liaise an interesting looking add on for Microsoft Outlook. Liaise will watch what you are doing and capture key points that should be tasks, issues, dates and priorities, and AUTOMATICALLY create the tasks for your in Outlook. As you get replies from your co-workers and clients, tasks will automatically update. At any point, you can generate a report summarizing all the tasks and status updates on a specific project you are working on, at the touch of a button. This is such a revolutionary product, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, it’s in a closed beta cycle right now, so you’ll have to hold your breath for it’s release. Check out this amazing demo!

In a recent post, I mentioned a free service called Glympse, that works on the Google Android G1 phone… it’s an app that leverages GPS technology in the phone to map the phone’s location on a map that is accessible via the internet.

My brother-in-law Dan showed me a new tool he’s playing with from Google called Latitude. This is similar to Glympse, yet it works on almost all major smart phones today. Right now it works on:

There are so many cool applications for this. We are thinking about instrumenting all our field service folks and keeping a map up in our network operation center showing their location. When my kids are a bit older and have a phone, I’ll have a map showing their location. Very cool!

New Cell Phone Service Can Track Exactly Where You Are!

If you thought cell phones and text messages were the ultimate way to keep track of what your employees, family or friends were up to, you won’t believe this. A new free service for cell phones, called Glympse, can actually track exactly where you are at any moment and shares your location with whomever you choose.

The software from Android Market will show where a cell phone is on a map and allow the cell phone user to share his location by sending a Glympse to a person or group of people. Right now this is only available on the Aondroid G1 phone (Google’s phone), but by this winter, it will be available for most phones.

Applications for this software could include tracking your salespeople, making sure your drivers don’t take the long way back to the office, keeping track of your unruly teenager or simply letting your spouse know you’re still at the meeting without having to call, text or e-mail the message. Don’t want to be tracked? Simply shut off the software…or leave your phone at home.

Most business owners are aware that Google is a useful tool if someone is searching for your company on the web. However, what many people don’t know is that you can also use Google to help build your credibility.

As a free service, the search engine offers something called Google Alerts, which will e-mail you with any articles, web pages, or news pages that happen to mention your company or you so you can keep track of what your local or national media is saying about you. The benefit to this, of course, is you can use these online articles and posts to show yourself in the spotlight providing more “proof” that you and your company are worthy of doing business with.

To sign up for this free service, simply go to Google Alerts, enter in your company name and e-mail address and click “create alert”.

After you setup an alert for your own company, be sure to create an alert for each of your clients and competitors!

 In an economy where most credit lines are being tightened or eliminated, vendors are becoming stricter about payment terms, and your customers are taking longer and longer to settle their invoices – cash flow is king. So for many small businesses, finding ways to minimize up-front costs and large investments is increasingly important to the survival and success of their company.

One way a small business can minimize up front costs is through using software as a service, or “SaaS”. Instead of purchasing software up front in a lump sum and having to put up the cash or finance it, small businesses can now purchase software through their IT service provider in a rented model. The software you need is typically stored on another offsite server and accessed via the Internet. By renting software on a monthly basis, your business can try different software to improve processes like finances, payroll, customer service, and sales without the financial risk.

Here’s a breakdown of how SaaS can help your business:

1. You Keep More Of Your Money – If you’ve ever had to purchase a piece of software to run your business such as a financial package, customer relationship management (CRM) software, or even a simple Microsoft Office application, you know how expensive of a proposition that can be. Before the software rental model of SaaS, if you needed certain software to operate, you were forced to plunk down hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it, not to mention pay exorbitant support fees. Now, depending upon your needs, you can be up and running with a software solution for under $10/month.    
2. You’re Not Locked In To Something You Don’t Like – Because your IT company is paid monthly for the SaaS, the onus is on them to make sure their product works to the satisfaction of their clients. If you are not happy with the product, you have the option of simply moving on to another monthly fee solution that will work better for your needs. In most cases, your IT service provider can work with you to replace your software with a new solution that is right for you and continue to incorporate it into your monthly IT service agreement so you don’t have to worry about multiple bills. 
3. You Never Have To Think About Upgrades – Since the SaaS model is pay as you go, you automatically get any upgrades that come out for the software you use. You don’t have to set aside a budget for any additional software costs and you don’t have to worry about whether or not you are running the latest version; those things are typically already incorporated into your monthly agreement.
4. You Can Compete With The “Big Boys” – Some software applications are designed and written for large organizations and help companies to streamline many processes into one program. SaaS makes this level of software affordable and accessible to a small business owner and gives you a way to stay up with or ahead of your competition, even if your competition is a much larger company.
5. You Can Have Access From Anywhere – SaaS software vendors typically host the application on their own servers so you have access to it over the Internet, don’t have to worry about buying additional hardware, and have a lower chance of downtime.
6. Disaster proof your business – when your critical systems, such as email or phone service, are hosted in “the cloud”, you can continue to access and use these systems even if your building gets squashed by godzilla!