Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network. Hosted by Clark University, this web site provides free and confidential assistance to new, expanding or troubled businesses in the area.

Business Owner's Toolkit. Developed for small business owners, this site's information ranges from start-up to managing finances.

Service Corps of Retired Executives. Find information on this national organization who market themselves as "Counselors to America's Small Businesses."

Financial Information:

FinanceWise. A Search Engine that focuses specifically on financial-only information.

Internet News/Business. Financial information and real-time stock quotes.

Quicken.com personal stock portfolio. Stock prices, news and alerts on investments, side-by-side stock and fund comparison, analysis tools. Requires registration (Free).

Federal Government:

Congress. You can email your representative or senator, ask for information or just generally wander around in the site. Be prepared for political spam if you log onto this site.

Federal Agencies. This site is from Louisiana State University and provides a listing of virtually every federal agency. As a matter of fact, I probably should have just listed this one site on this page.

Department of Health and Human Services. This is the agency that handles things like food stamps.

Housing and Urban Development. Given the condition of many of our cities, maybe they should be Housing and Urban Destruction.

NASA. An interesting site with pictures and stories. I put this site on because I saw a presentation by them, it was a great show. See it if you have a chance.

OSHA. Hopefully you never have any contact with OSHA. If you do, then log onto this site.

Email the President. Why did I put this link on this page? Well, do you really think he will answer the email himself?

Social Security Administration. Get your prior social security earnings records, estimate of future social security benefits (just to depress you) and other important information.

US Treasury. Someone once said that the dollar bill has a homing instinct for the US Treasury. It certainly feels that way on April 15th. Here's your chance to roam around in the Treasury's computer like they would like to roam around in yours. Of course, all the good stuff is behind firewalls.

Taxes:

Internal Revenue Service. This is the big one. Go in anonymously and try to break through their security.

IRS Forms. Want that form 8832 that no one seems to have? They should have it on this site.

Massachusetts Forms. You'll find forms here that can actually be downloaded.

501(c)(3) Charities. Find out if a charity is a qualified 501(c)(3) charity -- which means that contributions are tax deductible. It is the equivalent of Publication 78.

Alaska Tax Information. I saw this on another web site and figured why not.

Massachusetts:

State of Massachusetts. Find out where all those dollars you send to Boston go and get an idea of whats going on around the state. Just remember that Boston thinks the state ends at Route 128.

Boston.Com This is a site established by the Boston Globe with many links to Boston area activities and entertainment. Although the Globe is the main sponsor, this site has good links and information.

Sports:

U.S. National Soccer Players. This U.S. soccer community site provides news, games, tips and more.

Sportingnews.com. This on-line newsletter is rich with sports information and updates with a free membership option for chats rooms, games and other features.

Miscellaneous:

Do you like cheap airfares? Can you make snap decisions on travel? Several airlines offer discounted airfares for travel over the weekend. They email you a list of available fares on Tuesday or Wednesday for travel that weekend. Some of these fares are amazingly cheap. Here's a partial list of airlines:
American, Continental, Southwest, USAir.

Indian Hill Music Center. This is a great organization that provides both music education and performances by top notch regional and national musicians. Stop by for a little culture.

Joke-a-day. Sign up for their email list and they will email you a different joke every business day. Like most everything in the modern world, some of the jokes may be offensive to you. If so, don't go on their mailing list.

News:

Bizarre News. This site emails a list of bizarre but real news each week to subscribers (subscription was free when I signed up). Bizarre is definitely the word for it.

Wall Street Journal. If you want a business newspaper, this is the one.