I don’t know about you, but now that I have two 24″ screens on my desk, I have a terrible time finding the icon I need to start a program or open a document. I’ve pinned some programs to my taskbar in Windows 7, but there’s just so much real estate there.

The solution I’ve found is Fences.  It’s free, which is great, and there’s a paid version with more features.  It creates boxes on my desktop that I can move related icons into for easy access.  Download Fences at http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

This is the same company that produces Multiplicity, a program for using one mouse and keyboard across multiple screens and computers. I’ve used it for several years and really like.  I don’t have any financial interest in this company but these utilities make my life easier.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting a huge increase in hacker attacks on small business bank accounts. The hackers are using “spear phishing” emails to small business employees that have bank account access, but this is just one common method. These emails gather usernames and passwords through a fictitious website or a malware keylogger that transmits keystrokes to the thief. They find the usernames and passwords in the keylogger log file, then access the bank accounts remotely, add phony payees and electronically transfer funds from the account. Many small businesses don’t have the resources to protect against this or to recover the funds and they often just absorb the losses.  I’ve personally seen an increase in the number of phishing emails purportedly from financial institutions.

There are many things the small business can do to protect themselves. Consider these steps:

• Use a non-Windows operating system to access bank accounts. Since you’re accessing the bank account through a browser, Ubuntu or Fedora Linux can be used. A bootable CD can be made from many of the Linux distributions. Use that CD in an old machine to access your bank account.
• If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, make sure you have the latest,  version 8.  Make sure you don’t have version 6. If you do, upgrade. It’s free.
• Protect accounts. You can configure accounts to require two approvals for payment.
• Establish a daily limit on how much can be paid from the account.
• Impose restrictions on adding payees.
• Check balances and scheduled payments at the end of every workday to ensure all are authorized. Electronic payments are usually made in the morning, so you may have time to intervene and stop them.
• Know your rights with the bank and make sure the bank has appropriate controls. Small businesses are suing banks for not having reasonable controls. That assumes the bank has any money and isn’t teetering on the edge of insolvency itself.
• Report losses and connect with the FBI’s InfraGard, a group of businesses, educational institutions and local law enforcement agencies that cooperate to prevent attacks by sharing information.

Read the entire article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703483604574630690362605018.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Very interesting reading.

Instinctively, I’m not willing to voluntarily move my data to the cloud. Call it a control issue or a generational problem or whatever, it’s just not for me, at least not yet. The legal issue surrounding privacy and protection of the data from government seizure are alarming. Here’s an article by James Urquhart on CNET News that will begin to get you up to speed.

In essence, according to some legal experts, there are several problems we have to come to grips with:

• First, if you don’t care whether the government has access to the information you store in the cloud, read no further. This isn’t for you.
• The courts are very slow to hear cases that allow the law to keep up with the technology. Technology is evolving too fast and Web 2.0 is coming at us too fast.
• When you turn your data over to a third party, the Supreme Court has ruled in a long standing telephone case that you lose your reasonable expectation of privacy.
• In April, 2009, the FBI raided two data centers in Texas and hauled off their equipment.  They had a court order to get the data concerning one company, but got everyone’s data that was hosted in the data center. See the Wired article here.
• Congress needs to act on this and give users some assurance that their privacy will be respected by the courts and in practice. Of course, we’ll probably have to build something we don’t need in Alabama or Nebraska in order to get any kind of bill through the Senate since that’s the only thing the Senate apparently responds to.

James Urquhart in the CNET article above refers to an opinion written by a third year law student in the Minnesota Law Review. It’s a long read, but it points up the fact that there are many unsettled issues surrounding privacy and the cloud. I’m not comfortable yet with my or my clients’ data in the cloud. Like any new technology, there’s still some work to be done to get it right.

I purchased a new printer during tax season this year. Our long serving HP Laserjet 5si broke down for the first time in 12 years. I purchased an HP Laserjet 2055dn. What a mistake! This printer has a very small cartridge! It’s a great printer, but we just can’t afford to purchase cartridges for $90 each and have them last less than a week. It’s a quarter of the size of the Laserjet 5si cartridge for about 60% of the cost. Save yourself some grief. Don’t buy this printer.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS reader give you the ability to read weblogs and articles from many websites. This is the future of news distribution as it stands now. Newspapers are in financial trouble, are changing their business models and RSS offers a way to distribution news via the web. Once the connection to the website is setup in your reader, a synchronization will bring the latest articles from the websites you’ve subscribed to. It can take a little time to find websites you want to read from and to get them setup in your reader. This is a little like finding a magazine you want to read regularly. The symbol for RSS is an orange and white symbol and websites with feeds available display that symbol. You can Google “RSS” and learn a lot more.

To get started, you need an RSS reader.  There are many available for free and some software has a built in reader. There are even readers available for Iphone and other mobile devices. I use FeedDemon Newsgator, available FREE, but there are many others available. Experiment with them and see what you like. The nice thing is that if you have a FeedDemon installed on a computer, it connects to the cloud and downloads your subscriptions to wherever you are.

If you use FeedDemon, here’s an example to get you started:

• Download and install FeedDemon on your computer.
• Open FeedDemon.
• Open www.lifehacker.com in your web browser.
• The RSS feed symbol is in the lower left pane of the home page.
• Click on the orange and white RSS symbol and you’ll be directed to a page where you can select your reader.
• Choose FeedDemon and click on the subscribe button.
• Return to FeedDemon.  FeedDemon will detect the link and ask if you want to subscribe.  Follow the prompts to subscribe.

There are many interesting websites you can link to and more reading than you have time for. As you browse the web, just keep your eyes open for the orange and white RSS symbol.