It has been quite a while since this site received the attention it deserves. Today, that changes.

As we look toward the future, we’ve been thinking about what our experience can truly offer you. We aren’t here to give you advice on how to manufacture your products or how to drive sales; instead, our expertise lies in the Internet technologies and services that power your business behind the scenes—the tools that control and support the activities your customers actually pay you for.

The Value of Choice: FOSS vs. Commercial

Our journey has been shaped by the incredible value of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement. We have found immense utility in the free tiers of various providers. However, we’ve also learned that it is often a smarter strategic decision to subscribe to a commercial product—provided you understand the potential for vendor lock-in and the long-term pricing risks.

Why Google Workspace Remains a Top Contender

Currently, Gmail stands out as a premier service that extends far beyond simple, reliable email. A free account serves as a gateway to a full suite of productivity tools:

• Google Docs & Sheets: Seamless collaboration and document management.
• Google Calendar: Integrated scheduling.
• Google Photos: Secure cloud storage for your visual assets.

Our Advice: Embrace the Ecosystem

To get the most out of Google’s offerings, we recommend staying flexible. Try running with their native workflows and recommendations first, rather than trying to force the tools into your existing habits.

Specifically, we’ve seen that attempting to emulate the Microsoft Outlook experience within Google products often leads to a steeper, less productive learning curve. If you embrace the Google “way” of working, the transition is much smoother.

Gmail is available on every platform and consistently ranks in our Top 5 Essential Tools for Small Business.

This post is 10 years old and a lot has changed – we will be updating with a new password manager post shortly – Bitwarden is our current preferred password manager. Managing passwords can make your life easier and greatly reduce your risks online.

 

Amid constant reports of security breaches exposing millions of usernames and passwords (https://haveibeenpwned.com/) are you changing your behaviour to make your online information safer?

The common wisdom today says you should have a different non trivial password for everywhere you log in. Strong Password Generator can help you there. But where do you store all these passwords, as you certainly can’t remember them all?

If you store them in a file, that file should be encrypted and exist somewhere that can be easily accessed or synced from all your devices. The options suggested in a recent Twitter exchange included: use a Dropbox file, on Macs use Keychain, or specialist software 1Password, Keepass and Msecure.

How about treating some passwords as disposable?

@gordon_j I’m on Mac OX, so I’ve got keychain. For sites with a fast new-password turnaround I often treat the password as disposable.

— Richard Chirgwin (@R_Chirgwin) February 23, 2015

Whatever you do, the days of remembering trivial passwords are long gone and you should perhaps adopt one of the strategies mentioned.

@gordon_j both 1Password and KeyPass have good inbuilt password generators. I use and recommend both.

— Iain Chalmers (@iain_chalmers) February 23, 2015

@iain_chalmers @gordon_j as does Msecure!

— Baroness von Snoof (@evilsnoofy) February 23, 2015

@R_Chirgwin @gordon_j encrypted data store on Dropbox. Which means I’m good across OSX, iOS (iPad) and Android (phone.)

— Matthew Smith (@smiffy) February 23, 2015