· UK online for business, the government's scheme to promote electronic trading, has launched a series of booklets on technology for smaller businesses. The free publications are entitled "CRM [customer relationship management, see Business Solutions September 2002] and Supplying Electronically", "Extranets and Supplying Electronically" and "Personalisation, Transforming your business".

The organisation is also launching yet another push to get more UK businesses using broadband - director Liz Grant welcomed the recent announcement that there are now one million broadband users in Britain, but that still leaves another 58 million to go.

· Companies concerned about the security of their emails may be interested to hear of iProof, a new company setting up web mail for small and large businesses alike. The service allows you to use your own email address and audits the message so you know exactly where it's been and who's seen it. The company claims that it protects attachments as well as the emails themselves, and insulates clients from a number of business threats. Details at www.iproof.biz/dev

· Big Red Computers has launched a scheme in which employers can get discounts for their employees' personal computers. Essentially the company supplies a computer to an employee below the list price and the employee pays for it on a "salary sacrifice" scheme. The PC isn't taxable from the employer's point of view and the employee is effectively locked into an employer loyalty scheme. The service includes full installation and set-up at the employee's home. Big Red can organise financing, enabling the employer to recover all costs immediately and repay through the employee's continuing contributions. Details at www.redpc.co.uk

· Organisations concerned about their data back-up - which should be everybody - may be interested to note the new offering from Sony, the StorStation back-up appliance. This looks like a computer (and, being Sony, it is very shiny) but has none of the processing power, just storage. The company believes its product is simple to set up and the minimum capacity is 2.8 terrabytes - which in layman's terms is a hell of a lot, although everyone thought that when the first one gigabyte PC came out.

· Orange Internet is ceasing to operate in November - or is it? The company has emailed all of its customers to inform them that Orange Internet is no longer going to function and urging them to join Freeserve or their own choice of alternative instead. What isn't universally clear is that it's only the physical connection to the net that's going; the email addresses and GPRS connection - to which many Orange business customers have signed up - will stay in place. If your internet connection is likely to be affected then the way to retain your existing email address is to go into your email settings and find the section that specifies that your outgoing mail server requires authentication; tick that box, don't attempt to dial the service through Orange and you should find your business uninterrupted. Details at www.orange.co.uk/orangeisp

· Business planning software specialist Palo Alto Software is launching into the UK with products designed specifically for this market. They are called Business Plan Pro 2003 and Business Plan Pro 2003 Premier, the essential difference being that the latter allows for collaboration in a partnership on documents whereas the basic model is a single-user product. They link to spreadsheets and calculate VAT and other business essentials and aim not only to crunch the numbers but to get people thinking methodically about their business plan. Companies interested in business planning software may also be interested to look at IntelligentApps, which is an extension of some of the functions in Microsoft Excel. Check www.clearlybusiness.com for the Palo Alto offering and www.intelligentapps.co.uk for the latter.

· Many small business owners have noticed over time that their cheap printer has turned into a substantial overhead as the cost of toner cartridges is factored into the equation. This is why Strydent Software has announced InkSaver, a utility that should save on the amount of black and coloured stuff coming out of a printer at any given time. The company reckons that cartridges can be made to last up to four times as long as before (though note the "up to" bit there) and it supports most of the major brands of printer. The software costs a princely £29.99 and aims to start repaying the customer for the investment very quickly. Go to www.strydent.com for details.

· People troubled by spam (or "junk emails" in English) will be pleased to see that the new version of SurfControl, which also covers filters for obscenity and hate mails, will attempt to control the flow of unwanted missives. The software is an antivirus package as well and is aimed at the upper end of small to medium enterprise - but a downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.surfcontrol.com/downloads for anyone wanting to investigate.