Small business news was dominated by doom and gloom headlines this week, but every story has a silver lining.

Disaster recovery continues: Thousands of small businesses in New York and New Jersey continue to struggle through superstorm Sandy recovery efforts. Newsday reported that local officials believe that unless many businesses get help, they will close their doors.

The good news? Newsday reports that New York FEMA coordinator Michael Byrne said the agency is open to extending the deadline for disaster loan applications past December 31. Byrne told Newsday that FEMA and SBA want to hear from business owners in need of the deadline extension.

Fiscal cliff fears: The biggest fiscal cliff threat to small businesses is the little-talked-about end of the payroll tax holiday, which would raise the current 4.2 percent payroll tax to 6.2 percent--effectively a 2 percent paycut on a $113,000 salary, reports CNN Money:

"Ending the payroll tax holiday would take away $80 a month from someone

Here at Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we started a new series this week - Startup Diaries. This series is going to follow between four and eight small businesses as they go through the ups and downs of establishing and running their businesses. Some are already established, some in the middle of starting up and some still in planning. But we are committed to bringing their stories and lessons learned regularly and in the authentic voices of the owners themselves. First up was a customer service insight from Art Cardenas and next a quick look at the kind of side task small business owners have to undertake in order to get from point A to point B. In this case some remodeling by P. Quick.

We also took a look at how technology is driving entrepreneurship and job creation, a really great article with seven reasons why a strong budget is a good idea and seven different viewpoints on what our politicians can do to help small business.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of

New York Democratic Senator Kirstin Gillibrand is grabbing headlines in her state this week for pushing her colleagues to vote on the Small Business Lending Enhancement Act. The legislation, introduced by Colorado Senator Mark Udall in 2011, would address ongoing complaints about limited access to business loans by raising a cap on commercial loans that credit unions are permitted to make, based on a percentage of their assets.

Senate Bill 509, as it is known, "would amend the Federal Credit Union Act to advance the ability of credit unions to promote small business growth and economic development opportunities, and for other purposes." It has been sitting in the Banking Committee since March 2011.

According to a report published by public media aggregator Innovation Trail,

Passing the act would mean that credit unions could gradually increase their lending capability through a tiered system, with a new upper cap of 27.5 percent. Senator Gillibrand says passing this act would increase

TechJobVisualization

There's an economic renaissance happening in America. The 21st Century jobs that are leading the American economy are powered by technologies created every day in labs and garages by students, innovators and entrepreneurs. It's a story many of us have become familiar with -- or so we thought. The truth is, the story of the technology-powered economic revival goes beyond the traditional tech centers of Silicon Valley and New York; it's a story that's being played out in communities all across the country.

More and more new data points and stories are highlighting that tech is leading the job revival in America. And this rebirth, though led by the traditional centers of innovation like San Francisco and Silicon Valley, is also taking root in every corner of this country, from Detroit to Kansas City, Los Angeles to Austin, Boise to Boulder.

I helped found Engine Advocacy last year to assist the startup and small business communities in the U.S. thrive via changes in policy, and we are

businessbudgeting

Small business owners have experienced the same financial tensions with increased competition and unstable revenues. This has created the need for companies to tighten their spending and recognize the importance of creating an annual budget.

Interestingly, many business owners don't create a budget because they either don't know how, or don't think it is a good use of their time. This is unfortunate because a formal budgeting process helps to ensure that resources are available for those things that support business growth and development.

7 Reasons to Create a Budget

1. Budgets Set Targets
Budgets are used to project revenues and spending to help

Internet shopping continues to grow at record levels and smartphones are ubiquitous. Whether your business is in retail or the service industry, a merchant account and website are important tools to help grow the business.

ComScore estimated that online holiday shopping in November rose 28% this year over last, and purchases on mobile devices were up 10%. Cash is out. Plastic is in. According to the Small Business Administration, credit cards are the most common method of customer payment. So if you don't have a merchant account, you could be losing revenue.

A merchant account is a special bank account that allows business owners to process e-commerce transactions. Merchant accounts are available to everyone these days, regardless of the size or type of business. Companies like Square and Intuit offer devices that are compact and that easily attach to your mobile phone. This allows you to accept credit cards on the move, anywhere there is an internet connection and a smartphone.

Image: www.sizeup.com

The Small Business Administration's new Online Learning Center offers a cool—and potentially very useful—tool for owners of existing small businesses as well as entrepreneurs investigating startup ideas. It's a widget from SizeUp, a company that was featured in a TechCrunch Disrupt event last year for its mission to deliver big-business-level intelligence to small businesses.

SizeUp's tool is designed to provide a small business owner with what a high paid consultant might provide for a large business: data that show how your business stacks up against the competition in your geographic area, insight into your customers, and clues about the best places to advertise.

I gave SizeUp a test drive to see what it could tell me about how my own small side-business—a one-woman wedding decorating operation based in Fairfield County, Conn.—compared to others.

I didn't get far: entering my industry and geographic location into the widget prompted the message: "There is not enough data for your

holidaycrowdsWe are in full flow for the holiday season now and retailers are hoping that consumers are going to be cracking open their wallets and pocketbooks. We just finished the biggest shopping weekend of the year and reports are mixed. It was clearly a huge success for online retailers with more sales than ever before. For example, here at Yahoo! Small Business we say an overall 8% increase in dollar sales volume from last year. But traditional retailers are reporting mixed results. Analysts suggest that we need the rest of the holiday shopping season to remain strong. With that in mind, here are four tips for upselling and cross-selling that hopefully will be helpful over the next month. We continue to hear that business credit is a serious issue for small businesses of all kinds (not just retail) and that access to credit is still very tough. So it's a good idea to maximize your opportunities by building good business credit. Finally - as a great example to us all, here's an interview with