Three New Tech Tools for Small Business

2. Sideline Inc. CINQ (about $250), companion monitor. Due out in the third quarter: We business road warriors know the truth: Laptops stink. Cramped keyboards. Bulk. Absurdly small screens. Come on.

Enter Tempe, Ariz.-based Sideline and its CINQ companion monitor for notebook computers. The 10-inch screen connects to the side of most any portable PC and gives even the smallest laptop a hefty real estate boost. Track your e-mail on the small screen, for example, and do your work on the larger screen. Now, the CINQ will probably hammer your battery life. But still, holed up here in my hotel room with my cramped Sony(SNE), I sure wish I had one of these suckers right about now.

3. Volition Thought House's iMusic (packages starting at $90): Want to start off 2010 with a truly wild business idea? Check out what Ontario-based Volition Thought House is up to. The firm bills itself as a human performance and neuro-research boutique. It sells a line of sound-based concentration aids -- essentially tracks of music with subsonic frequency pulses mixed in.

The mixture of the music and pulses, company executives claim, essentially reprogram your brain to significantly boost concentration and performance. Bizarre, right? But get this: In 2010, the company is rolling out a business-services unit. Volition has developed an interactive module that it claims will allow managers to target wasted mental effort in their businesses and turn a deeper profit. That's right, these guys are thinking consultants. I'm laughing. You're laughing. But you know what? I'm going to try it. These days, my business needs all the help it can get.

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