Wipe Disk

Securely wipe an old hard drive or removable drive with free Windows only Wipe Disk. With disc can wipe disks - both logical drives, as well as physical drives - quickly and safely overwritten.

Wipe disk overwrites the data sector by sector, from the beginning until the end of the selected disk. Wipe disc can overwrite the target drive with over 14 different methods. US Navy-Standards, the Standards of the US Department of defense, the US Air Force and NATO. These include the deletion of two U.S. Navy standards, the standards of the U.S. Department of defense, the U.S. Air Force and NATO.

Wipe disk is a native German language program, but you can select English under the options menu.

Track Down a Stolen Laptop or Desktop

Lifehacker alerts us to a free software package that could save you big bucks if your laptop or even desktop computer is stolen. Locate PC will quietly email you at regular intervals or if your IP address changes. Windows only.

For Dummies

You see their books everywhere. But did you know they have a web site filled with useful information for dummies like us? Here is a link to the office productivity guides.

Quit Your Job

Anna Over at 37 Signals writes about quitting your job to follow your passions. It's not about starting the next Google, it's about finding fulfillment in life, and earning a living while enjoying your life.

Life is too short not to love what you do, and it’s much, much too short to wait around until someone hands you a billion dollars.

Search Engine Optimization

Today it would be hard to find a business that has not venture onto the web. Even companies that have no product to sell will usually have a web site to acquaint visitors with their company and their services. Often the sites are designed and run in house by whoever has some computer experience. Getting your site noticed is always an important consideration. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a confusing topic to many entrepreneurs. True You Marketing has an easy to understand post 'How To Do Basic SEO For Any Website'. It's worth a read.

Small Business Administration Loans

The Del Mar College Small Business Development Center has a good article about SBA Loans. If you need financing to grow your small to medium sized business this is a good resource. Here's the link to Seven SBA Loan Myths.

Economic Stimulus Plan Includes Breaks for Business Owners

The Small Business Review has information on how the recently approved economic stimulus package can help small business reduce their tax burden. The savings include section 179 write off provisions and a bonus depreciation provision.

45 Best Free Design Programs

Snap2objects has a great resource for finding graphic design tools for your small business. If you have an occasional need for in house design this will likely fill your needs nicely.

Posters

If you are like me, you get a lot of direct mail trying to sell you the posters that must be posted by businesses. The pitch usually includes the warnings that you could be subject to fines and penalties if you are not using these products.

The truth is, while you are required to post these notices, the notices are available free for download and local printing. Most can be found at the Department of Labor website, or your state labor department. It is a simple task that you can delegate to one of your staff to check regularly for updates at little to no cost.

Securely Delete Files With Just One Click

Another free tool to help you keep your and your customers information safe. DeleteOnClick completely deletes files in one click and the data becomes unrecoverable, and also has the option to wipe free disk space. For this reason you must use the program carefully. Once a file is 'Securely Deleted' no one can undelete it.

Privacy Protection

We continue to read of security breaches that lead to the loss of personal data ie social security numbers. Government data that is lost on laptops is reported regularly in the news. If you collect sensitive information or have proprietary information you really need to protect, don't count on sign in passwords to protect this data, it is nearly useless.

Fortunately, there is a free solution called TrueCrypt that could solve this problem for you. TrueCrypt allows you to mount an encrypted disc on your computer with multiple encryption schemes including AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). According to Wikipedia in June of 2003 the US government announced that AES may be used for classified information.

"The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths. The implementation of AES in products intended to protect national security systems and/or information must be reviewed and certified by NSA prior to their acquisition and use"

If your business is responsible for a loss of personal information you may be exposed to legal liability for any identity theft that ensues. It is too easy to protect yourself and your customers not to use encryption technology to protect that information.

Free .pdf to .doc converter

Thanks to Lifehacker for pointing to a free software tool for converting pdf (Acrobat) documents to .doc (Microsoft Word) documents.

You can use this software to open and then edit pdf's, and the price is absolutely right. You can grab the software here.

SEP IRA - Simplified Employee Pension

With the beginning of the new year employers who have not established a retirement plan but who wish to make tax deductible contributions for 2009 will want to know about a SEP.

A SEP is a retirement plan that allows the employer to make flexible contributions on behalf of the owner and their employees. You decide each year whether or how large a contribution you wish to make. The IRS allows SEP plans to be established and funded up until the tax filing deadline for the business plus extensions. So if you need to fund a retirement plan for the previous tax year a SEP may be your only choice.

The plan is easy to establish and maintain. You can use the IRS approved plan document form 5305-SEP or the plan document provided by your financial service provider. Generally there is no government reporting to worry about. SEP plans are available to sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations including S corps.

Employee salary reduction contributions are not allowed in a SEP. The sole source of funding must come from company contributions. Contributions to a SEP are limited to the lesser of $45,000 or 25% of eligible compensation ( or 20% of your net earnings from self employment) for 2009. Additionally you must make equitable contributions for all employees who worked during the year any contribution is made, even employees who are no longer employed.

Your choice of financial institution is important. The financial institution you choose becomes the plan trustee and is responsible for receiving and investing contributions to the plan, providing a plain language explanation of the SEP plan, statements that show the value of the employees accounts, and any reporting requirements caused by a distribution from the plan. You are responsible for monitoring the financial institution selected to act as trustee to be sure they are doing everything they are require to do, and to insure that the trustees fees are reasonable for the services they are providing.

You must notify employees of contributions (An eligible employee is anyone who has earned $500 working for you, has reached age 21, and who has worked for 3 of the last 5 years.) to their accounts and provide them with a copy of the plan documents along with a statement that a SEP IRA may provide different rates of return and contain different terms than other IRAs the employee may have. A SEP plan is not deemed to be effective until you have provided these disclosures to you employees.

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