How PayPal really works for Israelis and Shekels

[If you’re looking for PayPal customer support, the number is 073-713-7777 and is open 9am to 6pm  Sunday through Thursday.] There always seems to be confusion regarding how Israelis can use PayPal – can they use it in their currency, i.e. Shekels? Can they withdraw funds? Are there limits they should know about? Almost a year […]

Free tools for marketing and managing your biz in tough economic times

Yesterday I was privileged to give a presentation at the first Marcshoret conference in Jerusalem for marketing professionals. I wasn’t able to attend the whole event, but from what I could see Paula Stern and her crew at Writepoint did an excellent job putting a high-level, professional event together. You can see the program here […]

Free VAT Calculator for calculating net profit

If you are running a business in a country where you must charge your clients VAT, like Israel or the UK, you may often find yourself trying to figure out how much money is left once VAT is deducted from client payments. I’ve found a number of online VAT calculators, but they are either unreliable, […]

8 Bootstrapping Tips That Will Cut Costs Today

The following is a guest post by Heather Johnson. Her details are at the end of the article. —————————– In order to maximize sales and improve marketing tactics, each small business must learn the fine art of bootstrapping. There are many ways to cut costs in order to leverage your assets. Some of these methods […]

Spam-fighting Israeli company Commtouch launches new corporate blog

Commtouch, one of the world’s leading email spam fighters, has now officially launched their new corporate blog, Commtouch Cafe, which was built by none other than…illuminea (i.e. us)! Founded in 1991 in Israel and publicly traded on the NASDAQ (CTCH), Commtouch’s technologies help companies avoid the rising costs of email spam by constantly monitoring, identifying […]

Middle East Entrepreneur Training program discrimination: update

A little over a week ago, I discovered “The Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET),” a US State Dept.-backed program geared towards strengthening leadership and entrepreneurial skills among residents of the Middle East…except Israeli Jews! I quickly contacted as many people as I could about this blatant discrimination, including reporting this on a mailing list for […]

6 tips for cleaning up your computer (for Pessach)

With Pessach around the corner, many people are busy scrubbing their homes to rid them of all signs of chametz. In honor of this season of cleaning, here are 6 (mostly) free tips on housekeeping for your computer that anyone can do to keep it optimized and in good health: Antivirus program – make sure […]

Cool Tool: Use LogMeIn to Access Any PC Over the Internet

Like many people, I use more than one computer for my work. Some people use their computer in their home plus an office computer, and some like myself, have a desktop and a laptop. My laptop allows me to be mobile and work wherever I like and take my material to meetings with clients, but […]

Cool Tool: Zoho Planner – Every to do has its place

One of the challenges of running your small business is the number of tasks for which you are responsible. Your tasks range from the exciting to the mundane, the very short-term to the very long-term, and are related to clients, service providers, and even your family. While we all want our businesses to grow, this […]

Cool Tool: Weebly – Website Creation Made Easy

Part of the Web 2.0 movement is the increasing ease of creating a web presence. Thanks to Blogs, Wikis, and other similar platforms, pretty much anyone can post content on the web. Weebly is a free service that allows users to create a pretty decent looking site quickly and easily. The site can either be […]