Well, not here. . .as in this blog. But, "here" as in a website called GMailSwap.com.

For those of us pitiful souls who long for, yearn for, even "lust" after a Google GMail account, but have yet to receive an invitation, this site is a godsend!

According to an article in iMedia.com, "GmailSwap is a Web site that has made it fun -- and amusing –- to obtain or dump a Gmail account. Sean Michaels, the 22-year-old brainchild behind it, launched the site a week ago, and has seen 4,975 swaps and 46,000 unique visitors so far."

The same day Yahoo added extra storage to its mail accounts (100 MB per account now), an early morning Internet attack took it down along with the Microsoft, Google, and Apple Computer websites.

Oh well, you know what they say: What goes up must come down!

I made my weekly trek to Wal-Mart the other day. It's not something I enjoy, just have to endure. However, I have learned a few tricks to expedite the shopping process and reduce the unpleasantness. (I guess I'll never be in a Wal-Mart commercial!) Oddly enough, these same tips apply to establishing a presence on the web.

Click to read more ...

I've decided to set up a website for my company, www.radiantmarketinggroup.com. At the moment, things are not completely configured, so you may get a page not found error. If the domain is set up, then you will only see a placeholder page with the logo on it. But, I'm working on it.

I don't how badly you are affected by spam, but I used to get dozens of message per day at work. We tried a server-side spam filtering solution on our mail server, and it worked ok. However, things drastically changed around our place when we set up an account with a spam blocking service. . .

Click to read more ...

So, you want to take your business online, do you? Yet, you are, as we say in the south, standing there "like a calf looking at a new gate." You know you probably ought to go through it, but you're not sure what you'll find when you get on the other side.

Here, let me help you across. . .

Click to read more ...

I downloaded Macromedia's new content management tool, Contribute, and am really liking it. I need to offer prospective clients a way to update and maintain their website without having to wait on me to do it. Since I am not a database developer - and most small businesses don't have the kind of budget required to contract that level of development anyway - Contribute can be a welcome tool.

Here is a review of the product from Network World's James Gaskin, Web Pages Made Simple.

Click to read more ...

I'm in the hunt for an ISP that would be perfectly suited to the needs of small business people. The ideal candidate will offer website hosting of course, an easy-to-use (but robust) shopping cart solution, plenty of storage capacity for HTML files, e-mail, and maybe even web design templates with built-in content management.

I'm researching web tools that I can use to offer prospectives clients. Things like website content management tools the site owner can use to update new content, various shopping cart solutions, e-mail list management tools, and, of course, blogging software applications.

I've done some preliminary research on Microsoft's bCentral, Bravenet, GoDaddy.com, and Macromedia's Content Contributor 2, as well as a few others. Of course, I can design a custom website, but I want to give the business owner an affordable, easy-to-use, hassle-free system. After all, chances are, most of the businesses I deal with won't have a ton of cash to throw at developing a web presence. It is my belief they don't have to.

As always, feedback is welcome. I would love to get your recommendations.