Waterford Technology has produced a survey that suggests 35% of corporate email is unrelated to work. It has used the information to promote the launch of its new product MailMeter. It aims to overcome not only the casual, inoffensive abuse of email but the more systematic overuses as well - people who hide inappropriate content in spreadsheet attachments, for example, will be caught out by the software. It works with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino, sits on the server only and starts at £899 for 50 mailboxes. Fully functioning seven-day demos are at www.mailmeter.co.uk.

· Next week sees the launch of National Computing Day. Held in conjunction with ComputerActive magazine, the event aims to promote computing for all but will also focus on recycling of old computers - people will be encouraged to find second users for the things, including schools and charities. The event coincides with the news that just over half of the UK population has now had a look at the net - 53% of us can say that we are in some way "wired". For more information see www.nationalcomputingday.co.uk.

· Government-backed advice scheme Technology Means Business has received a fillip as 17 new accredited centres opened last week. The new centres are backed by Hewlett-Packard, UK online for business and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). They aim to provide accredited advisers offering advice for smaller businesses on e-commerce, online marketing, data management and web development. They can be searched for by location or by specialism on the website at http://www.ukonlineforbusiness.gov.uk.

· Access Accounts has become the first company to achieve full accreditation from the Inland Revenue for its payroll software. The government has set targets obliging companies with 250 or more employees to submit their payroll electronically. Access is claiming its position as the only company that could help people to do this. The forms with which the software can help include P11D (b), P14, P35, P45 (parts 1 & 3) and P46. Further information on software and the Inland Revenue is at http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/efiling/paye/paye_software_forms.htm.

· Clearlybusiness has published a free guide to small businesses wanting to survive, following figures from Barclays Bank suggesting that 8% more companies failed in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year. The five-step guide covers finding the right markets, the elements that make a business unique, understanding and beating the competition, working out how many customers a company needs to stay in profit and promoting an organisation or product. This follows the suggestion based on Clearlybusiness's experience that only about one in three companies does any market research before launching into business.

· It's official - it pays to be on the internet. So says a new survey by IDC, commissioned by Cisco, which finds that awareness of the net is increasing among small businesses, and those taking full advantage of it are increasing their profitability by some 22%. The survey, Fastrackers 02, found that the biggest increases in profitability were among those using mobile technology such as phones and laptops to stay in touch with their company while out of the office. IDC spoke to some 1,236 companies from 20 employees up to 499, so the "small to medium" tag is somewhat liberal. However, take-up of technology was as notable at the smaller end of that selection.

· Software pirates will need to beware - the Federation Against Software Theft is targeting small businesses in particular as illegally copied software is believed to be rife in the market. It will look mostly at the "medium" side of small/medium and focus on organisations with between 50 and 100 employees. FAST research has suggested that one-third of companies believe there is a lot of illegally copied software in the UK, with 70% of companies suspecting that they might have some somewhere. Essentially, boxed software comes with licences to use it and only the number of people specified in that licence should have a copy of the software on their computers. Passing a useful disk to your colleagues so that they can use it as well is a breach of copyright.

· Useful websites Small traders who need to get at the internet while travelling internationally will welcome the launch of Net2Roam, a pay-as-you-go internet service that has agreements lined up with 150 ISPs worldwide. The idea is that you can dial up at local call rates no matter where you are. This should get around the problems faced by people previously dependent on costly calls to a home ISP or who use a webmail service. For more information go to http://www.net2roam.com and select the price plan, which starts at £55 for a year for light users. Meanwhile, any more locally based small traders considering spending on content management for their websites could do worse than to give the free tool at roi.tridion.com a go.