Many people use computers in Internet cafes,  airports and libraries to access the Internet while away on business or holiday. But are  they safe? To cut to the chase… No.

Public computers are ideal for web browsing, reading news checking the weather and accessing your favourite websites and that is about it. They are not  meant for anything that is private. So you shouldn’t be using a public Internet computer for:

• Checking your email
• Accessing you bank account
• Accessing membership sites
• Buying
• Transferring money via Paypal

In short if you are required to enter a user name/ password or credit card then it is not to be done on a public computer. Many will be aghast at the first on the list.. checking email, as it is  probably the number one use of public computers.

Logging on to your private email account from a public computer means that you have to enter a username/password combination. This information can easily be obtained using free/inexpensive  software or keyloggers on the computer.

If you are going to access email then access a non sensitive account like Yahoo or MSN and treat the information that you send/receive as if it was being sent on a postcard.

Microsoft offer safety tips on using a public computer. In my opinion they are next to worthless  as you probably won’t be able to change the settings anyway and if you can you may forget, and even if you do it is still not safe.

So don’t be fooled.. public computers aren’t safe, and you can’t make them safe so treat them as such.

Sharing files and data within organisations is common practise, and so is emailing files to colleagues and contacts over the Internet.

Although email has traditionally been used for file and data sharing/transfer across the Internet it is not the ideal mechanism, and is becoming increasing difficult due to message size limitations on email, and the growing size of files that are being shared or transferred.

Online File Sharing and Transfer

One of the new Internet services that is becoming increasingly popular with individuals and businesses is Internet File sharing and file transfer. By placing files on an Internet server, not only can they be accessed by other users, but also by mobile users, and it is an ideal way of transferring large files across the Internet.

This makes it possible to give colleagues, friends, and others access to information without giving them access to your local network, which not only increases the security on your local network, but also makes it much easier to configure.

Regardless of the service provider they all work by simply copying the files onto an Internet server and assigning access permissions to control who can access the files.

Once on the Internet the files can be viewed by anyone with the appropriate permissions using a web browser and can be copied to the users local machine if desired.

Internet File Backup

Not only are Internet servers being used for file sharing and transfer they are also being used as a mechanism for backing up important data.

Today many people have very important documents stored on their home computers in the form of email, pictures, spreadsheets and other files. More worrisome is that many people even those who use their PC for Business don’t have some regular backup schedule.

One of the first rules with backups is to store the backup away from the PC that you are backing up and Internet backups solve this problem ideally. Not only that, they also mean that you no longer need to buy and maintain tapes and tape drives.

Do you want to meet and work with others that are:

• in different counties
• In different parts of the country

And

Just traveling a few hundred miles to a meeting with 10 attendees can cost thousands of pounds but perhaps even more importantly it costs each attendee at least a day of time; most of it spent traveling.

With the rising cost of travel and the need to use everyone’s time more effectively it is likely that Web based Meeting and conferencing and seminar services and software will become far more widely used.

The Good news is that these services were until now the preserve of large companies. However with the spread of broadband and the growth of Internet services, today’s web meeting services are very reasonably priced making them attractive to businesses of any size. Typical services are:

• Meetings and conferencing
• Product Demonstrations
• Online Seminars (webinars)
• Training
• Support
• Sharing desktop and document collaboration

If you are looking for an online meeting solution then take a look GoToMeeting
and MeetMeNow.

Both offer a free trial so you can see how the service works before you buy it.

Email is without a doubt the number one application on the Internet but how many small businesses are using it to talk to their  customers?

Almost every online business has an email contact point but not every one has a method of collecting email addresses from their visitors.

This is bad enough in the online world but it gets even worse in the offline world. I have been an email user now for over 10 years but have yet to receive an email from any of the local  businesses in my area. Even though some are multinationals and I have bought products from them.

I recently bought a DVD from a major supermarket chain but they didn’t collect my email address. Even though they themselves have a growing Internet business.

Email Marketing Is Not For Small Offline Businesses!

This is a common mistake most small business owners make because they don’t really understand what it is, and tend to think it is:

1. Difficult
2. Expensive

Neither of these can be further from the truth. If you can send email and write letters using tools like Word then you can create your own email announcement/promotion.

As for the cost, it is much cheaper than standard mail promotions as there is no printing/postage costs involved.

Requirements

To do email promotions you require a tool for storing and capturing email addresses and for sending emails.

For small lists it is possible to do all this manually using your current email client like Outlook/Outlook Express. For larger lists it is better to use an  autoresponder.