A good backup system can help you recover from a lot of different kinds of situations: a botched upgrade (requiring re-installation), a hard drive crash, or even thumb-fingered users deleting the wrong file. In practice, though I've experienced all of these, it's the last sort of problem that causes me the most pain. Sometimes you just wish you could go back a few days in time and grab that file.

Partitioning your hard drives is rarely a fun business and oftentimes can be a real pain to do. Thankfully, it’s a lot easier than it used to be to slice up and mess around with your drive, which is only helped by the fact that nowadays we have graphical applications for this sort of task.

Businesses of all sizes are more interested in open source software than ever, but smaller businesses may not have the legal staff or procurement departments to sort through what's useful and what's not. Happily, crafting a proper policy to acquire and deploy open source software is no great mystery, and something any business can do.

Hard economic times have just about everyone looking for ways to save. Belts are tightening around software budgets -- from ordinary personal computer users to enterprise decision makers, everyone's trying to figure out how they can get what they need for less money. Is this an opportunity for open source software and the firms that support it?

There are far too many small to mid-sized businesses still relying exclusively on proprietary software and costly hardware solutions to drive antiquated technology.

In my experience, deploying Linux servers in mid-to-large business and government contexts offers numerous ways to reduce costs and improve performance.

How many are self-employed in the United States? No one knows for sure, but estimates range around 20 million. Add to this millions of small businesses, and you have a huge pool of workers who run their businesses on personal computers. Dentists, handymen, shop owners, yoga instructors, lawyers ... all require reliable, easy-to-use computers for their work...Should they use Linux?

Some small businesses and start-ups are standardizing on Ubuntu Server Edition because it’s a low-cost alternative to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 and 2008. The VAR Guy wonders: Could a bigger trend be coming? Will hundreds — or thousands — of small businesses make the move to Ubuntu Server Edition?

Software developer's Provo operations to shed 200 jobs, offshoring positions to India
Novell is laying off 250 software development positions in the United States and offshoring the majority of these to its operations in Bangalore, India. The company announced the layoffs to its workers today.

The real innovation comes from small businesses and projects trying to meet a need and make a name for themselves.