This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• The 10 Natural Marketing Advantages of Small Business — A short and sweet list to help entrepreneurs keep their chins up. Even in a down economy, we have advantages!
• 5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year — Presenting information in a graphically pleasing and easy to understand way is an under-appreciated art; here are five amazing examples of the form (the BBC videos at #1 are especially jaw-dropping).
• MicroMentor — Find a mentor or become a mentor through this non-profit, humanitarian agency.
• The 7 Best States to Start a Business — US News ranks the states based on how friendly they are to entrepreneurs (#1: Washington!).
• Reclinable Gaming Chair w/Monitor Stands — Check otu this “adjustable, semi-automatic table complete with electronic reclining seating area, slide up/down keyboard tray, foot pedals, multiple configurations, and more.” I want!
• The Renegades at the New York ‘Times’ — With newspapers are dying off left and right, the Gray Lady is attempting to reinvent itself by investing heavily in new media.
• Why Text Remains King of the Web — Web video is where a lot of the exciting action is these days, but Micro Persuasion’s Steve Rubel explains why, even in the age of fancy video and Web 2.0 gadgets, text remains king.
• Nine Web sites IT pros should master in 2009 — The New York Times: “This list is not for geeks. It’s for IT professionals of a certain age, who don’t spend every waking hour online but need to keep up with the latest innovations on the Internet.”
• Can Pepsi afford to spend $1 billion on a butt crack? — Have you seen Pepsi’s new logo? Take a look, and try not to laugh…

It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to… calendars!

I still find paper calendars to be immensely useful. It’s far easier to glance at a wall calendar—to figure out which day of the week some future date lands upon, for example—rather than disrupt my current task with several clicks into a software program. I also like to plan my trips and various projects with different scratch calendars that I can easily make a mess of, recycle, and try again.

Most of us use computer-based organizers these days, tracking our meetings and tasks in programs like MS Outlook, Apple iCal, Google Calendar, Lotus Notes (God help you!), and so on. These programs all have “Print” functions, of course, but their output is often cluttered and unhelpful.

If you’re a weirdo like me and like to print out lots of pristine calendars for planning/scratch/whatever purposes, check out these free online PDF calendars:

• Monthly Calendars
• Annual Calendars

You can get PDFs for up 8 predefined sizes—or enter a HUGE custom size—and there’s an option to start each week on either Sunday or Monday.

The same site also has some other neat freebies, including a wide variety of different graph and grid paper as printable PDFs:

The phone in my office, just
above my paper calendars

• Engineer’s Paper
• Accounting Ledger Paper
• Storyboards
• Music notation staves

I know, I know: Get with the program, Chris! We live in a paperless world! Well, until I’m sitting at a workstation with two 50″ monitors mounted above a 120″ touchscreen desk surface, I’m going to keep using paper to help me harness my thoughts and improve my productivity.

This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• Ten Tiny Things Every Small Business Owner Should Do in 2009 — Some great advice from Guy Kawasaki to get the ball rolling in a positive direction this year.
• Top Google Products in 2008 — The popular Google OS lists the highlights, including Android and Google Chrome.
• Fraud at Satyam, Indian Outsourcing Company — “The company has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers since its listing on the New York Stock exchange.” I’ve been banging this drum for years, but it bears repeating: the Big Four accounting firms are worse than worthless, since they actually lend a dangerous illusion of security in cases where it’s not warranted.
• Why I Blog — A thoughtful, free-from-politics exploration of the blogging medium by one of The Atlantic’s most popular bloggers (inspired by George Orwell’s essay Why I Write).
• Printing in 3D Gets Practical — Just like laser printers back in the 80’s, 3D printers are beginning to plummet in price. Check out this awesome video to learn about 3D printers.
• New Yorker Profiles: The Bright Side — An in-depth profile of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, author of several important books including the new Hot, Flat, and Crowded.
• HousingMaps — This Web 2.0 mashup of Craigslist and Google Maps lets you browse sale and rental properties (including rooms and sublets) in cities all over the country. Much more usable at-a-glance than CL’s text listings.
• Let me Google that for you — Hilarious! Use this tool the next time someone lazy asks you something that they should’ve just Googled for themselves.