Toronto Small Business Deals

Treat yourself to a luxury getaway at select Fairmont properties in Eastern Canada from just $149 per weekend night with Fairmont.com's latest Spotlight Offer.

These discounted rates are available at Fairmont's The Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, and Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. Eligible stays must be booked by February 27 and completed by April 30, 2012. To secure your stay with the Fairmont Spotlight Offer rate, you will be required to pre-pay for your non-refundable room at time of purchase.

For more information or to book your stay, visit Fairmont.com by February 27.

We've got a good laptop deal here if you're shopping for a 15" laptop at around the $500 mark. We're talking about a Dell Vostro 3555 15" Laptop w/AMD A8-3520M and Radeon 6620G Graphics for $499.00. This notebook can handle games decently and has more than enough power for everyday productivity tasks. Here's a closer look:

• AMD Quad-Core A8-3520M Processor 1.6GHz to 2.5Ghz, with Radeon HD 6620G Graphics
• Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64bit
• 15.6 inch High Definition LED Display (1366 x 768) with anti-glare
• 6GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHZ, 2 DIMM
• 500GB SATA Hard Drive
• 8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability
• Fingerprint Reader with DigitalPersona software
• Integrated 2.0 MP FHD Webcam and Digital Array Mic
• Dell Wireless 1701 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 3.0 HS
• 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Notebookcheck can provide more information about Radeon 6620 capabilities. If you keep settings low or modest, many modern games should be playable. We'd say it's pretty tough to find many gaming capable laptops ability at this price point.

Shipping is free.

In celebration of Victoria's 150th birthday, the Fairmont Empress will be offering special room rates and bonuses for select dates in 2012.

Book and complete your Fairmont Empress hotel stay by April 30 to receive rates as low as $150 per night, free parking, and an express continental breakfast for up to two guests. Parking rates at The Fairmont Empress are normally $30 per night and their continental Breakfast to Go is normally $10, so this birthday offer represents a nice bonus if you're planning a trip to Victoria this spring.

Victoria 150 Offer rooms must be prepaid fully at time of booking and are non-refundable. For more information, or to book your stay, visit Fairmont.com by April 30 (rooms at this rate are subject to availability).

December 14 update: Good news! Google has extended their free calling to US and Canadian phone numbers through 2012. This feature is now in its third year and is a great way to save on long-distance bills.

Originally posted January 10, 2011:Here's some good news from Google! In August we reported that Google had rolled out free calling to US and Canadian phone numbers. The only catch was that it would only be available through the end of 2010. Happily, Google announced that they're continuing to offer the service for free through 2011. This is a huge boon for anyone looking to save on long-distance bills or cellphone plans.

If you haven't yet used this feature, when you're within Gmail, click "Call Phone", select the country you wish to call and then enter the phone number. Make sure that you have speakers and a microphone hooked up to your computer. As we said above, you'll be able to call any Canadian or US number for free. You can call other countries for about 2¢ a minute.

Whether you're new to the business world or just keeping yourself sharp, you can find some interesting business resources at RedFlagDeals.TradePub.com. TradePub provides free access to trade and industry magazines, white papers, business book summaries and more. You do have to provide some basic personal information, but the materials are free to those who qualify. Here are some current selections that might be of interest:

• Oracle Magazine
• Create Better Slides and More Effective Presentations
• Gear Up for Success: 8 Steps to Get Sales & Marketing Cranking in Unison -- Free 27 Page eBook
• Social Media Tools: A Cheat Sheet for Technology SMBs
• These Are The Droids You're Looking For: An Android Guide
• 30 Marketing Ideas in 30 Days – Entrepreneurs DIY Marketing Guide
• Bloomberg Businessweek (4-issue trial that you can cancel before the 5th issue)

Check out other Canadian-eligible publications and resources here.

Forum user afireinside27 gave us a heads up that Chapters/Indigo are now offering free unlimited Wi-Fi in stores! In order to access the Wi-Fi, you will need to be a Plum Rewards or IRewards member. You can register for Plum Rewards for free here.

The free Wi-Fi is available through Bell, so Bell Mobility customers can also take advantage. You'll be presented with a sign-in page when you load your browser. Once you've signed in, you'll have unlimited use while you are within the store. To find your nearest Chapters/Indigo location, click here.

If you're looking for some interesting reading to increase your knowledge of business, TradePub has some free business eBooks and summaries that you should take a look at.

• Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success with Less Stress – Free Book Summary
• Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis -- Free Book Summary
• Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us – Free Book Summary
• Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently – Free Book Summary

TradePub is a free magazine and information service that offers subscriptions and documents to industry-specific publications. You can find more publications available to Canadians here.

Here's a great deal if you're looking to get some nice business cards done for yourself or your business. VistaPrint.com typically offers free business cards where you only pay the shipping costs, but the cards are imprinted with the VistaPrint logo, which isn't quite desirable for most people. Fortunately, they've now also included their business cards into this freebie promotion as well. These Premium cards have nice designs and, most importantly, they do not have the VistaPrint logo on them. This freebie offer gives you 250 Premium business cards for $0.00 -- all you need to pay is the shipping! Whether you wish to use these business cards for career networking at conferences, playdate-setting with other mothers at the park, a freelancer who's looking for work, or simply as a nice accessory to place on your desk, there are many reasons to make use of business cards especially in these modern times. Of course, the deal may even trump all other reasons because of the offer itself! Vistaprint.com bills in US dollars but ships from Canada. For a sample order of 250 Premium business cards that we created, shipping cost about $8.00 to Toronto, which is a fair price for 250 business cards.

If you dabble in 3D modeling, here's some good news -- the Autodesk 123D beta has been released for free. 123D is a stripped down version of Autodesk Inventor (software that can cost you a big chunk of change!).

It's similar to Google's free 3D modeling software SketchUp, but it has some advanced features like assemblies and constraints. Take a look here if you are interested.

It's pretty hard to escape from Facebook these days. As a small or medium business, you might be on the fence when it comes to using Facebook as a marketing or growth tool. With that being said, TradePub, a free business publication service, is offering a short eBook that might lend you some insight. It's called the The Facebook Marketing Guide it covers some basic principles on competently using Facebook for your business.

You do have to provide some personal information to access TradePub's free offers, but in testing, we received a link to this eBook right away via email very quickly after submitting.

GYBO.ca is a free offering from Google, Yola and a handful of other sponsors designed to help Canadian small business owners get their businesses online. It looks pretty straightforward, and when you sign up you'll get:

• A free .ca web address for 12 months
• A free website with templates and other resources from Yola
• A listing on Google Maps
• $75 credit for Google AdWords

If you already have your own domain, you can still take part in this offer.

While this offer is free, a credit card is required to register a .ca domain. This is simply to insure that the owner of the site lives in Canada and has a Canadian billing address. According to the site FAQ, you won't be automatically renewed at twelve months. It seems like an easy, low-risk way to make the jump if your business currently lacks an online presence.

TradePub is a magazine service that offers subscriptions to industry specific publications as well as complimentary eBooks and technical document downloads. Generally, subscriptions are free as long as you work in the relevant industry. Here are some of the goodies available at RedFlagDeals.TradePub.com:

• Oracle Magazine - Oracle Magazine contains technology strategy articles, sample code, tips, Oracle and partner news, how to articles for developers and DBAs, and more. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company.
• Bloomberg Businessweek - this offer includes four free issues and the digital playbook Power Plays.
• EDN - EDN magazine provides how-to solutions for design engineers in the electronics industry.
• Twitter Means Business - this eBook excerpt details how your company can benefit from Twitter.
• Bank Systems & Technology - Bank Systems & Technology delivers information on the strategic use of technology for increased productivity and profitability.
• Profit Magazine - this magazine reports on technology investments.

Not too comfortable with Windows 7? If so, you can request a 365 page PDF eBook called Windows 7 - The Pocket Guide at RedFlagDeals.TradePub.com. The ebook covers fundamentals like installation, backing up your data, and security along with explaining a lot about customization, working efficiently, and getting the most out of Windows 7 features. This same eBook is sold for $9.99 US for the Amazon Kindle.

If you've never used it before, RedFlagDeals.TradePub.com is a magazine service that offers free access to business and productivity materials. Industry specific publications provided you work in a qualifying field while materials like the eBook above should generally be available to anyone who fills out the registration form.

Wave Accounting Inc. is a Toronto-based company that provides web-based accounting software designed specifically for small businesses and it's all free, online, at WaveAccounting.com. The idea is to take those paper documents and Excel documents and get them into an accounting system with as little pain as possible. You can import transactions from your bank accounts, have Wave Accounting categorize expenses for you, and let the system do some of that manual accounting work. What's the catch? How can it be free? Here's how they explain it:

In Wave, you’ll soon see special savings opportunities for things that matter to your business. Mobile phone services, for instance, or office products, or business banking — all at a lower cost than you may be paying now. If you choose to take advantage of any of them, Wave gets paid by the supplier. So you save money and Wave makes money.

When it's free it's hard to beat and it's easy to sign up to give it a spin. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Toronto-based Payment Evolution has been getting some press recently with articles in the Financial Post and on StartupNorth.ca highlighting their free online payroll solution. It's tailored to small businesses looking to spend more time working on their business and less time dealing with the administration of payroll. Free is of course a very small-business friendly price, and it'll remain free for those businesses that have 5 employees or less. If you have 6 or more employees, it's still a very affordable $18 per month.

As far as we're aware, this is the only free payroll solution available in Canada; if you find more or other useful small business tools, please share them in them comments!