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My company sells employee time-tracking software that automates client billing, project accounting and payroll. We have implemented these systems for customers repeatedly where the employees previously were unaccustomed to accounting for their time Occasionally, this has generated some intense emotions. Some people really don't want to track their ...

Jennifer Goodwin is on a mission -- and a budget that doesn't go beyond five digits. Goodwin is gearing up to expand her company,InternetGirlFriday.com, which provides virtual business administrative support "I have been turning away business for a couple of years now, in some part due to the lack of IT support systems that I need," Goodwin told Li...

Comcast recently surprised users when it cut off Internet access to those it considers "bandwidth hogs." The incident calls for an examination of the link between net neutrality and digital piracy Depending on what side of the net neutrality debate one is on, the Comcast cut-off could be viewed as proof that ISPs have too much power or that ISPs r...

Samsung has bulked up its single-disc line with a new range of 2.5-inch drives with capacities of up to 160 GB. The new SpinPoint M5 drives products are intended for mobile computing devices including notebook and tablet PCs. They are four percent lighter and 15 percent quieter -- both important factors in reducing power consumption. The new drives reduce consumption by five percent compared with other drives of similar capacity, according to the firm...

In response to customer feedback from the original beta version, Nintendo and Opera Software on Thursday beefed up the Internet Channel on Nintendo's Wii game console with a faster and more functional version of the Opera Web browser Designed for browsing the Web via the Wii remote and the user's television, the Opera-powered Internet channel now l...

Sony confirmed Wednesday it has discontinued production of the 20 GB PlayStation 3 in North America. The announcement came after several weeks of speculation stoked by the gaming blog Joystiq, which asserted that electronics retailer Best Buy had classified the 20 GB model as "discontinued." "Due to the overwhelming demand for the 60 GB model from ...

IBM on Thursday announced a method of connecting processors inside of products ranging from cell phones to PCs to supercomputers This breakthrough -- dubbed "through-silicon vias" -- allows for a move away from horizontal 2-D chip layouts to 3-D chip stacking, in which chips and other components that usually sit side-by-side on a silicon wafer are ...

Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device family, saw its stock fall Thursday even after posting a strong fourth quarter that featured a 65 percent jump in revenue The Waterloo, Ontario-based company added more than 1 million new subscribers to its BlackBerry service in the fourth quarter, growth that helped drive revenue...

Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, is acquiring movie ticket sales portal Fandango and launching a new Web site to help people locate online video content The new site, to be called "Fancast," will complement Fandango, which will continue to sell movie tickets, said Comcast. Both will be managed by Comcast Interactive Media (CIM), a divis...

The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Wednesday to ease restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, but the 63-34 vote in favor of the bill fell short of the two-thirds majority necessary to override an expected presidential veto The House passed similar legislation earlier this year and is expected to adopt the Senate's version....

Mortgage lenders have improved their online customers' experience over the last year, but many Web sites still fall far short of meeting their visitors' needs, according to a report released Tuesday by a financial services customer satisfaction research firm In a Web site study of 26 major online mortgage lenders, Change Sciences Group noted that 2...

Investors in Vonage cheered Thursday after the embattled VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) firm's CEO said he would step down and the company pledged a "broad restructuring." Michael Snyder resigned effective immediately late Wednesday, Vonage said, giving up both his CEO role and his seat on the company's board of directors....

It is not unusual for small to medium business managers to emulate Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter, wearing six or eight hats simultaneously in their business efforts. Sometimes, the hat hardest to wear is IT management All businesses, large and small, run on information. When that information is lost or access is interrupted, the impact on a business c...

Iona Technologies' purchase on Tuesday ofLogicBlaze -- while directed at the open source development and business models for SOA (service-oriented architecture) -- also further demonstrates the prevailing diversity of SOA consolidation activities There seem to be as many variations on the SOA consolidation theme nowadays as there are vendors lining...

Personal Data Assistants have become dinosaurs, and after taking the Motorola Q for a test drive, it's easy to understand why. Just about anything you'd want to do with a PDA (personal digital assistant) you can do with a smartphone like the Q -- and a lot more The Q is about the size of a PDA -- 2.5 by 0.5 by 4.6 inches -- and beefy like one, too,...

Facebook.com, which has attracted legions of 20-something and younger users with its interactive tools and general networking concept, is getting ready to unveil a redesign with new features that make the Web site easier to use Many of the modifications respond directly to feedback from more than 100,000 Facebook users. They include changes in the...

The organization responsible for developing security measures for next-generation DVDs has plugged a hole that allowed hackers to locate and unlock encryption keys for movies released on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs The Advanced Access Content System License Administrator (AACS) has responded to recent attacks on its copy protection on Blu-ray and HD D...

A scientist studying a large, gaseous planet located 150 light-years from Earth has found strong evidence that there is water vapor in the planet's atmosphere Previous analyses of the transiting planet, which resembles Jupiter and is known as "HD209458b," had not found evidence of water. However, Travis Barman, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, ...

Microsoft on Tuesday issued fixes for what it called four "critical" security flaws in its software, which it said could let hackers gain remote control of a user's computer The software giant, which defines a critical flaw as one that allows an Internet worm to replicate without user intervention, issued the updates as part of its monthly "Patch T...

Palm, maker of the Treo smartphone, announced Tuesday it is developing a Linux-based operating system for its line of handheld devices The new operating system will lead to greater stability for its smartphones and also provide increased functionality, according to CEO Ed Colligan....