If that headline seems like rather glib advice, it is. Most of our small business clients already have the tools at their disposal to drastically decrease the amount of printing they do, which can save significant time and money. According to Office Depot the average employee of a small business consumes $350 in office supplies per year. If your office makes hard copies of documents for a physical backup then you can almost double that figure. 

In a tough economy the cost of printing everything while faster and less expensive alternatives exist is unnecessary. Here are a few tips your company can implement today. We promise, your bottom line will thank you.

With the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview yesterday Microsoft has shown that they're all-in when it comes to mobile. The Metro interface is a dead ringer for the recent UI re-invention of Windows Phone and the Xbox 360. We're just now putting the new operating system through its paces so we won't speculate on how consumers and businesses will adopt such a drastically different user interface. In the meantime we've got Windows 8 running on our Samsung Series 7 Slate and because of some smart decisions on Microsoft's part we're very confident that users of Google Apps will like what they see.

It might seem counter-productive to some, but the combination of Google Docs and Microsoft Office is a recipe for success. Hear me out. Microsoft Office has been the industry standard for document creation for years due to its powerful features and relative ease of use. Google Docs is making significant headway in enterprise by promoting drop dead simple sharing and collaboration functionality. We use the combination for a few reasons.

 With consumer technology and small business benefitting more from each other every year we're tremendously excited to be in Las Vegas for the iconic Consumer Electronics Show this week.  From Ultrabooks to smartphones we'll be on hand and answering your questions through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

We've seen a lot of confusion among our clients about what 4G means, and if their new smartphones can take advantage of the faster networks. This is compounded by the lies currently airing as advertisements by all four of our major carriers.

 Happy employees are productive employees. That's a mantra most great business owners and managers strive to live by, especially in tough economic times. One easy step you can take as a business decision maker is to employ a BYOD program. That acronym stands for bring your own device, and in short it means letting devices your employees and co-workers own access your company information.

TechMinds is a proud supporter of local small businesses here in Colorado and we'd be honored if you would join us at this years event where our CEO Joe Romeo will be a guest speaker.  For more information click here to download the event flyer, or head to the event website.

A wise man once said that "everything before the but is bull*hit." That said, the new Torch 9810 is the best BlackBerry I have ever used. Unfortunately for our corporate clients - and anyone waiting to upgrade from an older BlackBerry - the new phones just aren't competitive when compared directly to Apple's iPhone, Microsoft's Windows Phone, or even generic Android phones from 2010. That's not so say that RIM has been sitting on their hands for the last four years. The web browser, display, and general usability of the BlackBerry OS7 are markedly improved over OS6. What RIM hasn't been able to understand is that no matter how many incremental changes you make to hardware and software, the platform and ecosystem they rely on is years behind their competitors.

As you can see we've got a new device hanging out with us at the TechMinds headquarters here in Denver, CO. The other notable item you see in that picture is one of our biggest gripes with the new BlackBerry OS 7 so far, after installing some applications you need to completely restart the phone. In 2011 this is tough to justify. iOS, Android, and Windows Phone all let you quickly install applications without a reboot, and when you're initially setting up a new phone the delay caused by turning your phone off and on again in between program installs is just crazy. Keep your eyes peeled here as the week goes on for some in depth comparisons and real-world usage examples from what we're comofrtable calling the best phone to come out of Waterloo.

Here at TechMinds we're big fans of Google Apps. At $50 per person per year the email, contacts, calendar, and document service from Google forms the back-bone of our IT infrastructure. It's quick, easy to use, and works perfectly from the web, in Outlook, or from our iPhones, Android phones, and Windows Phones. But the real power in the Google Apps platform reside in how updates work. On your Mac or PC (or smartphones and tablets for that matter) there is a weekly deluge of updates which you must choose to install or not.