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Terms such as surveillance, undercover and covert conjure up images typically seen in a James Bond or Mission Impossible movie. These days, however, there are practical yet affordable surveillance applications and equipment businesses can use to creatively save time and money.

Practical Application #1: “Eyes” for Blind Areas in a Business or for Off-hours.

Picture the typical car dealership with vehicles spanning several rows and often around corners. If some cars are located out of the front desk’s view, a monitoring system can allow employees to multitask more effectively between office paperwork and customer visits. This same dealer could also utilize a camera system to record customers visiting the dealership when closed. If employees recognize a shopper, they can possibly turn missed opportunities into sales.

In addition, businesses selling easy-to-grab and easy-to-hide items, can utilize video surveillance to help alert them when customers enter blind spots. Employees are then able to assist customers while possibly reducing shoplifting concerns.

Practical Application #2: Cameras with Audio Triggers

Consider again the car dealership above – it is possible to have a camera directed on a particular model that is being sold. Whenever someone walks into the camera’s scope, it triggers an audio announcing all of the vehicle’s attributes. This audio feature can be utilized during closed hours, or signage can welcome customers to hear the pitch without talking to a sales person.

Similar technology is often used in museums where an audio announcement helps provide more detail or “brings to life” the scene being displayed. Mixing both aural and visual stimulation increases the overall customer experience, whether in a museum, business or other environment.

Practical Application #3: Security and Safety

Many people have heard of “nanny-cams” where covert cameras are hidden so that parents can discreetly oversee the safety of their children while in another’s care. However, with the web-access ability of today’s cameras, daycares wanting to reassure existing or recruit new parents are able to provide virtual visits. By utilizing the Internet, facilities can offer this visual access without disturbing the children or the environment. A similar application for hospitals provides visual access to high-risk patients who cannot be exposed to outside germs or who have limited visitation.

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This isn't another lecture about minding your e-mail manners. This is a story about a new subset of e-mail etiquette. Call it wireless politeness.

An increasing number of e-mail messages are being received on small, wireless devices with limited screen space — devices such as Windows Mobile-based Smartphones. Being polite is still important. But so are a number of other considerations, including brevity, diction and consideration for bandwidth.

Reader Terri Thornton aptly sums up the frustration with today's wireless transmissions. "I hate checking my e-mail and having the subject line be so long that it scrolls forever until I can figure out what the topic is, or whether it's important," says Thornton, a Cincinnati marketing executive. "Worse is the one-word subject line that says nothing and you have to open it to find out what it is and discover it's 30 lines of nothing."

So what is the etiquette for sending e-mail messages to and from wireless devices? Here are seven tips.