Disasters Come In All Shapes

If you are targeting business owners with your inventory services, keep in mind that helping them with disaster planning can be an important part of the process. Just read about this Houston-area retailer whose business suffered a huge fire -- but his planning for hurricane preparedness helped minimize the downtime. Hope he had a business inventory besides his furniture inventory!

Wildfires Threaten Los Angeles

Those in areas prone to wildfires may find this useful information in marketing their services. No one -- even Christopher Lloyd -- is immune to threats from Mother Nature.

About 2,600 acres were burned so far and gusts in the area exceed 75 mph. A map of the fire is at tinyurl.com/sayrefire.

Firefighters, two of whom have suffered minor injuries, are trying to stop the blaze before it reaches Santa Clarita, a bedroom community about 40 miles from the center of Los Angeles with a population of 180,000.

A second fire ravaged hills above Southern California's Santa Barbara coast for a second night after roaring through the exclusive Montecito enclave leveling 111 homes.

Those reported to have lost houses in the community dubbed "America's Riviera" included actor Christopher Lloyd, best known as the zany scientist in the "Back to the Future" movies.

New Tool for Inventorying DVD, Books, CDs

There's a new tool you can use to quickly inventory client books, CDs, and DVDs. The tool, a handheld scanner, reads bar codes.

The Groqit scanner is portable, allowing users to take it with them while shopping to check titles against home inventory or create wishlists for friends to view. Scanned information can be uploaded to Groqit.com and translated into detailed listings that include titles, authors, and more.