New York SBDC Research Network

Alright, this is a little random, but here goes... Ever want to make a booklet from a digital PDF document? Here's a neat tool: " BookletCreator - is a free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document. It reorders pages so that after printing and folding the pages you get a small book." You set up your PDF file in portrait mode, upload it here , and it will do all the tricky formatting . You print (double sided, of course), staple, and voila! Booklet! Have a great weekend!

LooseTooth This is great site for a prolific jewelry (among other things) artist. She uses her blog to describe her artwork and her process. The site is clean but contains a lot of stuff, lots of images and a friendly, casual style. The goods are sold through CafePress.com I think she's found a great work-around the commercial web-site by combining products and not limiting herself by product type. For our artist-clients this ought to be inspirational. It is not a short-cut in the sense that obviously an enormous amount of attention went into this but in terms of using existing tools for good, it's a great example. For artists who may be daunted by the idea of getting started advertising themselves online, getting started as a blog may be a way to go.

Each year, the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration is tasked with documenting the importance of entrepreneurship to the American economy and with highlighting policy issues of relevance to small firms. This report summarizes the publications produced by the Office of Advocacy’s Office of Economic Research in 2007. A copy of this report can be obtained here (PDF) . Should you need further information, please feel free to contact Chad Moutray at (202)205-6533 or advocacy@sba.gov. Yet, this study (PDF) documents the pervasiveness and the magnitude of the tax burden among small business owners in bankruptcy. The data suggest that the tax burden is more pervasive among small business owners in bankruptcy than among consumer petitioners. While less than one-quarter of all consumers in the bankruptcy sample reported tax debts, more than half of individual small business owners reported owing some tax debts. The research summary can be found here (PDF) . Should you ne...

Every so often, we'll get a question on behalf of a client who seeks to know the population concentration in the U.S. for a specific nationality. Until recently, I didn't know that the Migration Policy Institute has on their site a series of maps that can help meet this need. The site is limited, though, in the number of countries that it has tracked. In addition to a map of the U.S. that shows "States with the Largest and Fastest-Growing Populations of Foreign Born (2006)," the site links to county-level maps (in PDF form) for these categories: 1) The foreign born as percentage of total county population, 2000: Foreign-born population (total) Foreign born from Mexico Foreign born from the Philippines Foreign born from India Foreign born from China Foreign born from Vietnam 2) The number of foreign born by county, 2000 Foreign born from South America Foreign born from the Caribbean Foreign born from Africa Foreign born from Iran Foreign born from Pakistan In additi...

Map pinpoints disease 'hotspots' By Mark Kinver Science and nature reporter, BBC News Map of world's Emerging Infectious Diseases hotspots A detailed map highlighting the world's hotspots for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) has been released. Research shows that many of the diseases we contend with have beginnings in the wild kingdom and offers one more reason to be concerned about environmental issues. I am impressed that my native Canada is remarkably clear of disease.

You probably heard that we at the central office lost power yesterday. Apparently it was half the office park and a bit down the road too. Now don’t worry about us - the generators turned on, illuminating staircases and bathrooms and allowing the server equipment to beep incessantly . And since it happened around lunch time, there was still plenty of natural light, especially near Al’s cubical. So we all huddled around, and I got caught up on my newspaper–scanning for mentions of you all (reminder – send me your news items!) Eventually Jim told us we could go home. So that was our afternoon. Do you have a plan for when the power goes out? If you need extra help, the CDC has created a handy web page , “ What You Need to Know When the Power Goes Out Unexpectedly .” Read it now, and be better prepared for your next outage.

I've been enjoying the Modern Mechanix blog . It featured Face Masks for Arctic War (Jun, 1940) on January 28; Death Ray Machine Is Invented by Cleveland Scientist (Sep, 1934), plus FILMING TABLE TOP EARTHQUAKES (Dec, 1935) on January 27; Letter Chopper [think shredder](Aug, 1935) AND Electric Glove for Police Stuns Victims With 1,500 Volts [think taser] (Sep, 1935) on January 26, 2008. The blog started on October 18, 2005 with Mechanical Willie (Aug, 1934), a Westinghouse gadget that combined crooning with housework [think Rosie the Robot on The Jetsons].