Depending upon who you believe, Wednesday, April 1, 2009 will either be a dark day for Windows computer users everywhere, or else we'll all be quoting Marvin the Martian, saying, "Where's the kaboom?" Well, hardly anything computer security related is that black-and-white, but make no mistake, this is a real virus. Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those that created the malicious program.

It depends. SEO is used by companies that want to get prospects through their Web site and convert them into new clients. If you have a full practice and don't want new clients, SEO is not necessary!However, if you are looking to build your practice, SEO is a great resource that will only become more and more relevant in the future.

By David H. Ringstrom, CPAAs the economy continues to contract, more and more accountants are considering striking out on their own. A benefit to providing accounting services is that you can often ease your way into your own business, as long as you don't run afoul of any non-compete agreements with your primary employer. I'm sure you've read a million articles about how to establish a separate workspace that's all your own and how to organize your files, so instead I'm going to focus on elements of my own home office that I've found particularly effective.

AccountingWEB Managing Editor Gail Perry recently took a tour of CPA Island, the community in Second Life founded by the Maryland Association of CPAs. Tom Hood, executive director of the MACPA, founder of CPA Island, and recent recipient of the AccountingWEB CPA Association Employee of the Year, was her tour guide.Take a step into the virtual world of Second Life and plan on losing all sense of time. I went "in world" recently with Tom Hood as my guide.

A round-up of stories about web-based applications from our new sister site, BusinessCloud9.com.Coghead passes onCritics of Software as a Service (SaaS) sometimes play the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) card of asking what happens if your SaaS provider goes bust? Do you lose your applications, your service, your data?

AdvertorialEvery CPA has had to deal with these or similar situations at some point in his career:You're in your office, working on a client file. You need a report that is at the client's office, on his computer. You're away from your office when you receive a call from a client who needs an immediate response. The information you need to address the situation is on your office computer.

Product review by David H. Ringstrom, CPAAccountants of a certain age may remember a television show in which contestants would bid on how few notes they'd need to hear to identify an unidentified song. However, instead of saying, "Tom, I can name that tune in 5 notes," you may find yourself thinking, "I can add a new contact to Outlook with just two keystrokes!" The key is a clever program called Anagam that enables you to quickly add onscreen information — without manual transcription — into your contact manager or CRM.

Today's CPA firm depends on reliable backup and recovery systems. Online backup eliminates the expense and maintenance costs of tape drives, the need to purchase backup servers, and tape storage solutions. The inherent risk of tapes being corrupted, misplaced, damaged, stolen, or not stored offsite is significant. Using online backup eliminates these risks by automating the offsite storage solution with state of the art backup, security, and datacenter technologies.

BusinessWeek recently ranked the world's 10 most influential firms. Each continues to thrive in the midst of the current global recession. As you'll see, tech firms are well represented on this list:Apple – Known as Apple Computer for much of its 33 years, the word Computer was dropped in 2007 to better reflect the company's dominance over how we purchase and listen to music.