Paul Mah

Here we highlight six ways to use multiple displays with a laptop, including a couple of portable solutions suited to traveling executives and alternatives for employees working from a laptop-based workstation.

1. Android, iPad tablets

Being a gadget blogger means I experiment with a lot of gadgets. After seeing as many gizmos and devices as I have it honestly takes a lot to impress me. But some gadgets are indispensable. Check out the following list of five gadgets I can't live without. (Note: These gizmos aren't large electronics or PCs, etc. Instead, they're the accessories and add-ons that help me get the most out of other large gadgets.)

Ergotron LX Arms

Driven by an insatiable thirst for more storage capacity, the capabilities of network attached storage (NAS) appliances have been improving by leaps and bounds. Their prices have also fallen substantially, with a basic two-bay NAS chassis available for as little as a couple of hundred dollars—a far cry from the thousands they used to cost. Their affordability represents a huge opportunity for small and mid-sized businesses (SMB), which now find it possible to host multiple terabytes of data on their network at a fraction of the cost of a traditional file server or storage area network (SAN).

So what should SMBs be on the lookout for when shopping for a NAS? We've put together a list of the most desirable features below, grouped into several broad categories. You may not need everything mentioned, though it is hoped that this will help you arrive at a decision about the right NAS for your organization.

Server virtualization has been around for more than 10 years and while issues such as storage and I/O bottlenecks can still rear their head, the multi-faceted advantages offered by virtualization are real and attainable even if you run a small business -- and since your competitors may not have discovered the benefits of the technology yet you may gain a significant competitive advantage. To help ensure you understand server virtualization, we drew up a list of the most tangible advantages that virtualization has to offer smaller businesses.

Increase Server Efficiency

As you no doubt already know, the traditional and most compelling reason for implementing server-side virtualization is to make more efficient use of computing resources with regards to processor cycles and RAM. Beyond savings in energy and cooling costs, small and mid-sized businesses can cut their capital expenses as fewer physical servers are purchased to replace a larger number of ageing machines as they are decommissioned.

For small and midsize businesses, 2011 was an eventful year for the owners and managers tasked with technology decisions. The year's highlights range from the arrival of new technologies such as the introduction of Intel's Thunderbolt peripheral interface to the release of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

But it wasn't all highlights. Beyond the promising new products and technologies, you saw many tech titans at their worst: RIM stumbled big-time in October with the most severe service outage in its history while Sony saw its Playstation Network so badly hacked it took more than a month to fix.