Don't ask me to explain it, but airfare keeps getting more and more expensive.   As I shopped for holiday gifts and travel recently, I noticed the price of many products have been reduced, but a one-way trip to Toledo can cost 500 bucks.  Unfortunately, air travel and business can often go hand in hand.

If I told you about a giant room filled with people wearing jeans and t-shirts, bean bag chairs, pool tables, foosball tables, and WiFi connectivity all around, you would probably guess I was in a student union. Actually, I just described the scene of a Google conference I recently attended. The focus for the 3,000 developers present was advancements in people’s interaction with the web.

It's 2009, but it seems conference calling is as mysterious and convoluted as ever.  It's been over 130 years since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but many people still find it befuddling to get a third person on the line, let alone a dozen (and rightly so).   You may have heard of some services that ease the process at the cost of a monthly fee or a 10+ cent per minute charge.  As you probably have figured out, if there is ever a free alternative, I try to find it and share it with you. 

I’ve never been a big fan of voicemail, especially on a cell phone.  When I’m on the go and listening to a message, often over the background noises of my surroundings, I can never retrieve any of the information given.  I usually can’t write down any of these details, such as phone numbers or appointment times and dates.  So, I end up listening to the message a few times trying to commit everything to memory so that I could call back a particular number or confirm an appointment.  I thought there should be an easier way.

What would you do if, while traveling, you had left an important and confidential file on your computer back home? 

When there’s something I need to look up on the internet, most of the time (I’d say 90%, in fact) Google will suffice.  For business means though, Google tends to be quite broad, and sometimes I find myself scanning the pages for entirely too long.  To store owners and executives, time is of the essence and wasting it is not an option.  There is a website that really narrows it down for you, though.  It’s called CEO Express (http://

When was the last time you backed up your computer?   If your hard drive were to fail right now (as 100 million do every year), I bet your inability to read the rest of this blog would be the least of your worries.  Along with all your software, every photo from your family vacation to the Grand Canyon and all your favorite Beatles MP3s will have suddenly vanished.  I know from experience last Christmas Eve that this is not how you want to celebrate the holidays.