Bulletin Board

But before taking your IT personnel to task, you might evaluate their work environment. Small companies are particularly difficult places for IT folks, says Brewer. That's because of scenarios like these: The owner hands the IT department a long menu of functions he or she wants performed and then allocates a pathetically inadequate amount of money for the work. Or every person in the company brings in his or her own computer and software and expects the IT person to tie the entire mish-mash together. "MIS people are always on the losing side," says Brewer. Which might explain the higher-than-average recidivism rate among technical people, many of whom prefer to return to their previous jobs than struggle along in management.

Brewer sees thousands of despondent IT workers in the seminars he gives to teach management skills to technical people. In fact, he estimates 40% of them are there of their own volition, trying to find the strength to continue in their upwardly mobile careers. "They miss the good old days," he notes. --S.S.

Fax-Finding Mission
Looking to save money on long-distance faxing? You might want to try the Internet.

The fax-service provider FaxSav (800-828-7115), which is headquartered in Edison, N.J., claims that you can save up to 50% per fax by sending your international missives through its network. (There are also savings on domestic faxes, but they're not as great.) The software is free--you just download it from the company's Web site--and although prices depend on destination, faxes sent to the United States from overseas cost at most 15 cents a page.

FaxSav works from any E-mail program or Windows application (you can also use a regular fax machine if you have a FaxSav connector, which the company provides free with the service). For example, if you're working in Microsoft Word and want to send the document as a fax, you just click on the Print command as though you were printing the document, and then choose the FaxSav option. A little bar at the top of your page shows you the progress of the fax; if there's a connection problem or the number is busy, FaxSav will automatically retry the number.

With the average small company spending $400 a month on faxing, you've got nothing to lose but your long-distance phone bill. --S. S.

Ether O'er
For most of us, wireless computing is still a remote option. But that might not be the case for long.

AirMedia (800-Air-Media), a division of Ex Machina Inc., located in Newport Beach, Calif., recently took the line out of on-line with its latest release, a $99 software program that comes packaged with a wireless device--a small pyramid-shaped antenna that attaches to your computer via the serial port. Once the system is installed, AirMedia intermittently broadcasts to your computer the news and information it's been gathering on its Internet server from sources like Reuters and SportsLine USA.

To get you hooked, the company offers a year of free use. After that, price ranges from $5.95 to $9.95 a month, depending on the services you select. If you happen to use one of the E-mail service providers that AirMedia has partnered with--like Compuserve or EarthLink Network--you can even receive E-mail alerts through the ether. Of course, like any radio, the AirMedia system only receives information. So you probably won't want to cancel your phone service quite yet. --J. M.

Block Buster
Worried about how your employees spend their time on-line? Just make sure you look before you leap onto the blocking-software bandwagon. Some of the packages that restrict access to certain on-line material may censor more than you think.

To find out which products ban what, go to the site of those you're considering (most publish a list of criteria) or call the manufacturer and ask. While most companies won't give out a roster of banned sites, they will tell you how they decide which sites to ax. Stay away from the all-or-nothing products, that is, those that require you to disable the entire program in order to have access to anything on their verboten list. With topics as broad as "computer hacking," these lists can keep your employees from important information. One last tip, from the corporate side: To keep your own site from getting blacklisted, make sure your Internet service provider (ISP) isn't in trouble with any blocking software. In some rare instances, an entire ISP can be banned. --S.S.

Extra! Extra!
In the tumultuous Internet industry, new lingo develops even faster than new software. The latest addition to the evolving lexicon: "extranet"--as in "extraterrestrial." Like its intranet cousin, the extranet can be defined as a Web server for sharing documents and sending E-mail. The big difference: You don't own and maintain the server, and you don't design the Web pages. You leave both to an outside party.

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