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Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000

Have you ever felt that your mouse doesn’t give you all the precision and control you need to navigate sensitive programs? Or do you wish that you could get more movement out of your mouse on small surfaces, like airplane trays? Microsoft has the answer with its latest high-resolution model. Tracking at 1,000 dots per inch and capturing 6,000 frames per second, the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 gives unprecedented control. $64.95 www.microsoft.com

Sure thing

Lexar JumpDrive Secure II USB Flash Drive

Every week there seems to be some updated flash drive coming out on the market. The good news is that with each new product, these unbelievably handy storage units are becoming cheaper, smaller, bigger (in terms of memory) and more secure. This memory stick from Lexar places a high premium on security and provides plenty of digital protection designed for your most sensitive data. It also includes a “digital shredder,” which guarantees that no information is left on an unfamiliar computer. 256MB, $29.99; 512MB, $49.99; 1GB, $89.99; 2GB, $149.99 www.lexar.com

Watchful eye

Swann Communications PC DVR4-Net

Turn your computer into a security hub with this amazing PCI card.

The PC DVR4-Net allows you to connect up to four security cameras to your computer. You can record the footage, watch remotely via the Internet or even use motion detecting cameras, which will email you with any disturbances. If only such a device had been around to keep your little brother from rifling through your baseball cards… $99 www.swannusa.com

the word

Just keeping them satisfied…

Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action by Jeanne Bliss (Jossey-Bass), $27.95 www.josseybass.com

The most desirable customer is the one who tells all their friends about your company, writes letters of thanks and always comes back for more.

Creating such brand loyalty takes work, and this book from Jeanne Bliss—former “chief customer zealot” for five market leaders, including Land’s End—gives the inside scoop on how to woo the ideal customer. According to Bliss, organizations need to work in unity to meet all the customers’ needs. This includes breaking down the barriers between different divisions, avoiding the habit of passing customers onto other departments, and giving customers what they really want: some old-fashioned respect.

CEO soundbyte

Bill Gates

This spring, Microsoft hosted MIX06 in Las Vegas, a conference geared toward web developers, designers and business leaders. It focused on some soon-to-be-ubiquitous Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Center and the new Windows Vista operating system.

In his keynote address, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates highlighted how the most effective companies are utilizing new internet technologies to boost the growth of their businesses.

“Websites and applications, which we’ve often thought of as two different things, are actually adopting each others’ best practices and [are] being able to move to whole new levels— the responsiveness of the experience, the ability to connect to the rich graphical capabilities of the device, connecting up to the information that the users care about. We’ve got quite a variety of people here, which reflects the skill sets that need to be brought to bear to make these customer experiences as great as they can be.

“[Today’s] theme is about using software to reach out and create a new customer experience, one that is valuable for the organization. Attracting customers from the very beginning, retaining them and making it easy for them to buy, making it easy to upsell them, [and] building the community around them that draws in other customers—this is a very hot area. There’s best practices all over the web. I wouldn’t say any one single website has all of these things.

“People who have always thought of their websites as their key way to reach out to customers have been building that database.”

The Closing Bell