Business Feeds

The launch of Microsofts cloud-based Office 365 service is not exclusively news for small businesses, but small businesses were clearly the target audience for the services official unveiling on June 28.

While Microsoft was careful to stipulate Office 365 will meet the needs of any size enterprise, the companys press release also repeatedly touted the particular benefits of the service for small businesses. Elia Wallen, owner of the 35-employee temporary housing provider Travelers Haven, was quoted as saying the cloud service, which combines Microsofts Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync programs, will save his company $100,000 annually. According to Microsoft, Office 365 will cost between $2 and $27 per user per month, depending on the service plan.

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The funny thing about “time management”, is the multitude of books, articles and seminars on the subject, all suggesting “easy” or “guaranteed” techniques and tips. Set goals, prioritize your tasks, eliminate nonessential “todo’s” and find that magical system that will give you more time for your family. While many of these articles, books, podcasts etc., usually vary in catchy vocabulary and clichés, successful time management boils down to one’s determination and discipline.

Spending your time reading about how to manage your time, the techniques to use and steps to follow seem to waste rather than save time. Also, not every system is onesizefits all. Different authors or speakers have different perspectives that my not tie into your individual situation. Besides, at the core

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New Google tools have been launched to help small businesses more effectively reach customers on their mobile devices.

Last week, Google made small business technology news with its Mobile Sites feature, which the company described as an easy way to create websites tailored to mobile devices like smartphones. By enabling the tool, users who build their pages using Google Sites can automatically have their web page features, such as width and sidebars, adjust when loaded on an Apple or Android mobile device. Since launching Mobile Sites, Google has added templates for landing pages, eCommerce and other website components, making it easy for businesses to set up mobile-friendly web pages.

A June 29 post on the Google Mobile Ads Blog cited a company survey that found 61 percent of users were unlikely to use their phone to access a site they did not find mobile-friendly.

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Business demand for rapid time-to-market and lower operational costs is driving IT organizations to quickly adopt new approaches such as composite application architectures and cloud services. As the quest for quickly delivering high-quality business services continues, IT management – from automation and security to governance and service assurance – becomes the most critical factor for success.

CA Technologies acquisition of ITKO will add a new and critical dimension to modern IT management and extend it to encompass the entire service delivery lifecycle. In

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Maintaining our security online is of the utmost importance these days. With a recent wave of cyber attacks that have targeted larger networks (and succeeded), people are reevaluating their online habits and the information they release.

In an effort to beef up your online security, these are a few simple tips.

File sharing between networks makes it easy for users to pass along information instantaneously. However, without a secure network connection, file sharing can open your system up to hackers, spammers and viruses. Therefore, when accessing the Internet through a public wifi connection, file sharing should never be on.

Consult your operating system’s manual for the necessary steps to disable this function. <

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EVANSVILLE — Tri-Staters who had visited Banana Republic stores in other U.S. cities and abroad, and had long wished a store in the popular chain would locate here, will soon see that wish come true.

Bruce Goodman, owner of Evansville’s Pavilion, confirmed Tuesday that the giant retailer of men’s and women’s clothes, accessories and gifts will open in the shopping center off Burkhardt Road and East Lloyd Expressway before Thanksgiving.

By phone from his Jenkintown, Pa., office, Goodman said Goodman Properties officials and the Banana Republic had been negotiating the past six months about bringing the new store to the city.

A division of Gap Inc., Banana Republic is based in San Francisco, Calif. It began in 1978 as mainly a retailer of safari and travel-themed clothing. T

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Americans make tens of billions of keyword searches each year. It seems to have become one of America’s favorite pastimes – baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Google search. Savvy small business owners know how to harness and leverage the power of search engines to their keyword advantage.

Determining the right keywords to help your website SEO is a fine art. Assigning the proper keywords to your web pages can have tremendous implications on the success of your SEO or PPC campaign. The first keyword you may normally think of is usually not the one you should use. In fact, “keyword” in terms of SEO is a misleading misnomer. While in a very few and rare cases a single keyword may be effective, 99% of the time a “keyword” actually consists of a key phrase.

The keywords and phrases you utilize on your small business website can make or break the success of your SEO marketing campaign. They are th

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EVANSVILLE — Quietly and slowly, Eldorado, Ill.-based Banterra Bank began making inroads into the Evansville market in 2006 by opening a small commercial lending office in Lakeside Commons off Lynch and North Green River roads and ATMs at several area Casey’s general stores.

Its customer base began growing, and Banterra had two full-service banks built: One in Cross Pointe Commerce Center, where the banking center opened in July 2009, and across from the Apple Center in Newburgh, which opened in 2007.

Now, Banterra reveals plans to open a third full-service bank in the area, this one on Evansville’s West Side at St. Joseph Avenue and Delaware Street.

The location presently is a Don’s Claytons DCI Fine Drycleaning outlet, which expects to close Saturday.

The company operates another West Side store at 518 N. B

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Posted by: DotLoop, Whrere Deals Get Done™

Facebook is the king of social media. As one of the first websites to thrive on user generated content, it continues to grow in popularity. With more than 600 million users worldwide, it ranks among the top three most popular sites – surpassing Google™ in traffic at one point in time.

Facebook has inspired an unprecedented number of people to willingly share personal and professional information with others. It sounds like a marketer’s dream –and it can be—although one must know how to use the site correctly.

The best way to use Facebook for marketing is widely debated due to its constant evolution. For many REALTORS, using Facebook is absolutely necessary to staying relevant in the industry. Reason bein

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