These tools often can save you time and money and help you communicate in new ways. Some of them are wastes of time and merely cute toys but most leverage the power of the Internet to provide small businesses with solutions that our parents and grand parents would have never dreamed of.

One new service you might want to consider...

Recently Adobe launched Photoshop Express, which makes it pretty easy for just about anyone, including a busy small business person to edit their own photos. Photoshop Express is pleasantly simple and fun to use.

If...

I love VistaPrint for making business cards, letterhead, and other custom branded printed material. I purchased my 2007 Christmas Cards from VistaPrint, business cards and many other things and have been quite happy. Their customer service is in fact quite remarkable and rare - as much hand holding as you need to get things done right.

However, recently I read that VistaPrint is now offering web design services for small businesses. In my opinion this is like getting open heart surgery from the vegetable guys of your grocery store.

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According to DriveSavers data recovery service, 43% of companies that lose data in a disaster never reopen, and 90% are out of business within two years. We talked with John Christopher, Senior Data Recovery Engineer at DriveSavers about why your current data backup system might not be enough, and what to do (hint: panicking is not on the list) if disaster does strike and you're facing a...