COMPUTER ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

Two Simple Ways to Improve Typing Accuracy

2009-01-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

Even seasoned touch typist spend a lot of time correcting typing errors. The backspace key is among the most used keys on the keyboard. When combined with other error correction it becomes obvious that anything that can get rid of errors in the first place is desirable.

The use of AutoHotkey and an overlay keyboard will help eliminate typing errors. Taken together they have have several advantages.

Text is entered correctly the first time.
Less time spent correcting error.
Increased productivity.
Typists are more alert.

This is because typists spend a lot of their time entering the same information over and over. Things like names, addresses, web sit URLs, email address are typed multiple times a day. With AutoHotkey with an overlay keyboard all repeated information is assigned to macros and quickly recalled with one key press.

AutoHotkey is an open source (i.e. free) program. With it users create macros to automate repetitive tasks with Windows software. This can include Ctrl and Alt control key combinations. They then assign the macro to a hotkey. Macros can be of unlimited length. A user can easily create over 100 macros with AutoHotkey.

The problem quickly becomes one of remembering which hotkey activates which macro. This is where an overlay keyboard comes to the rescue.

With an overlay keyboard each key can be configured to reproduce any sequence of characters and commands available on a standard computer keyboard. The user creates a graphic overlay representing what each key does.

At first you might be tempted to configure each key to contain an AutoHotkey macro. However, the limited memory in an overlay keyboard can quickly become full defeating the usefulness of this approach.

Simply configuring each key to reproduce an AutoHotkey hotkey is the quick and obvious solution to remembering the hotkeys. A quality overlay keyboard will have over 100 keys which is more then enough for all but the most macro crazed person.

The main problem with this approach is that the hotkey combinations are still active on the keyboard. The typist can inadvertently activate a macro causing havoc.

A better approach is to create one large macro that is activated pressing on hotkey, say F10. The macro then waits for a three digit code and jumps to the corresponding piece of the macro. Then each key on the overlay keyboard is configured to send F10 followed by its code.

To learn more about overlay keyboards visit http://www.pmkidder.com/enterpad and about using AutoHotkey with an overlay keyboard visit http://www.cedeq.com/enterpad-p120/autohotkey-english.html

Philip Kidder has worked with computers for over 35 years. He worked for the Defense Department as a programmer and system analyst. After leaving the government he has worked in computer sales owning his own store. Upon leaving the retail side he is currently a programmer and consultant to businesses. He also works with individuals helping them solve their computer problems. With his broad experience he truly joys is helping others solve their problems and make the computer less of a demon and more of a friend.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Philip_Kidder

Motherboard Repair

2009-01-29T17:15:00.002-08:00

A question that regularly crops up on the internet is that of how to repair Motherboards. The types of questions generated on the various forums and e-mails indicate that the problems arise in computers of all leading brands and also unbranded ones. There are innumerable methods of repair suggested on the internet. Most of the repairs of bad motherboards follow the method of trial and error and are not very reliable in terms of results. The decision to repair a motherboard is not for the week at heart. It can be time consuming and risky. It can take considerable time and, due to the fragile parts, you could break something. If you bend a motherboard to much it can crack or break making it useless.

Computers show the effects of usage by how slow they work. One cause is the amount of dust that collects on the motherboard. This dust affects the working of the motherboard and can make them overheat and fail. One step to motherboard repair is to remove the dust. This can be done by using a small vacuum cleaner or canned air to remove the dust as much as possible.

With motherboard problems It is very important to know the components that make up the motherboard before ever venturing to repair a bad motherboard. The motherboard is the main board that contains the central circuit board of the computer. All other components and peripherals are plugged in or connected to the motherboard. One of the main functions of the motherboard is to relay information between them. The motherboard houses the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which is simple software run by the computer designed to function when the computer is switched on.

To repair motherboards you should know that Chipsets in the motherboard are those that form an interface between two main parts of the computer, the front side bus and the peripheral buses or the main memory. There are some memory chips that are extremely non volatile and it contains the firmware of the system or what is popularly known as the BIOS. Motherboards also contain a clock generator which is responsible to produce the system clock signal that can help in synchronizing various components. The cause of a bad motherboard could be in any of the components. It is best that the job is assigned to an experienced and technically qualified person or a reputable dealer or the manufacturer of the board.

It is mostly better if you replace the bad motherboard with a new one. It is extremely expensive to repair an old motherboard. You should compare the price of repair to the purchase of a new computer.

Dennis is a Microsoft A+ Certified Technician with over 15 years of experience. He has a very informative computer blog and website that goes into how to solve numerous computer related problems as well as providing general computer tips, reviews and advice. See: http://www.pcinfospace.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dennis_Levenhagen

Computer Service Tips That Build Your Client List the Right Way

2009-01-29T17:15:00.001-08:00

Are you spending most of your time and energy chasing down one-shot deal computer service customers? Do you feel like you are always keeping your fingers crossed, wondering whether or not you'll get called again in a few months or a few years?

If you want to build a real client list, you can't live in uncertainty. Building your computer service business around the needs of one-shot deal customers is a one-way ticket to nowhere. Spending all your time and money acquiring customers for one-shot deal transactions is just not a financially viable way to spend your time.

If you want to build a strong, steady client list, you need to move towards a business model based on annual support contracts. Take into account the following 3 ways to build your computer service business the right way.

Annual Support Contracts Give You Recurring Revenue. An annual support contract package gives you recurring revenue, which gets you the stability and predictability that you need to survive long term. When you have a support contract model in place, you know where you will get your next billable service call. This allows you to make predictable plans to expand, hire new employees, and update your benefits to meet the changing best practices associated with your clients' industries.
Support Contract Clients Are Assets. When you build your client list with steady, high-paying clients that are paying you on a recurring basis, you create a great asset. If you ever want to sell your computer service business - if you move or get burnt out, injured or sick - your long-term clients committed to annual support contracts become one of your greatest assets. A potential buyer of your business would certainly not invest very much in a list of one-shot-deal customers that only call you in the case of an emergency.
Once You Have Clients, You Need to Cultivate Relationships. Beyond just attracting great clients, you have to be willing to work to keep them. You need to cultivate and strengthen important relationships at every stage of the sales cycle. This means you have to keep in mind the end goal of leading every single prospect and customer to towards support contract agreements. You need to know about their biggest business and IT problems. Then actively engage in follow-up activities such as phone calls, e-mails, and proving-ground projects.

In this brief article, we talked about 3 things to think about as you build your client list. Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients now at www.ComputerServiceTips.com.

Learn how your computer consulting business can get more of the best, steady, high-paying clients in your area. Sign-up now for free computer consulting business tips, strategies, and best practices from the field-tested, proven Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Feinberg

Preserving Your Home Videos

2009-01-29T17:15:00.000-08:00

If you're like most people, you've probably got a stack of 8mm or some other type of video tape, all with your family's memories on them. Weddings and births, baby's first steps and graduations, all with no way to really share them with your family or friends.

No one has a slideshow projector anymore, and even if you do, chances are it doesn't work or it can ruin the film and your memories. Its time to finally do something with those old tapes, and turn them into shareable and user friendly DVDs. DVDs can be enjoyed by anyone, and there is no limit to how many times they can be copied, allowing them to be shared over and over again. Using a Boston film transfer service, they can move all of those old home movies onto perfectly viewable DVDs for you to share.

The best part about DVDs is that they won't fade or become ruined. Most tape-based mediums for video break down in as little as five years, meaning you lose that precious footage. Switching to DVD with a Boston film transfer service is the sensible choice if you want to keep your footage safe for years and generations to come. Another thing you can then do is archive your DVD movies on your computer, so that no matter what happens, you've always got a back up copy.

Switching your home movies to DVD is a great idea for those who want a media source that is shareable and permanent.

HDVStudio.com (http://hdvstudio.com/) is a Boston film transfer company. Billings Farnsworth is a freelance writer.

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Networking, Digital Journals and the Dissemination of Human Knowledge

2009-01-29T17:14:00.001-08:00

Computer networking and human knowledge have gone hand in hand during the past decade alone, and the dependence of databases on networks has increased.

The problem of reproduction, tracing and retrieval of scholarly knowledge has been identified half a century ago, according to Brian R. Gaines, a critic from the University of Calgary:

"The problems of information overload from the growth of scholarly literature, and the need to use information technology to manage them, were identified by major writers and scientists over 50 years ago. Yet, the main form of scholarly communication, the journal, is still circulated in paper form as it has been for over 300 years."

"The economic arguments for using computer and communication technology to overcome these problems through a new form of scientific communication, the electronic or digital journal, were vigorously presented in the 1970s."

The gains of the journal-form, which had been the traditional mode of reproduction for human knowledge since the birth of the modern university, is palpable.

Research through the information superhighway

The information superhighway, which is an overarching general term for the networks of computers operating nearly completely year round is necessary for the survival of human knowledge.

The increased proliferation of digital journals today signals the end of the proverbial domination of the paper journal. However, even if the form has changed, the content has not.

If anything, the presence of the Internet and the vast databases of stored knowledge has revitalized scholarly work.

Scholars from around the vast globe can now commune in a singular yet heterogeneous medium where transnational frontiers are broken. With this in mind, the role of the mediating academe is lessened, and the scholarly and critical works themselves are exposed to increased scrutiny.

A look into history:

"Some 325 years ago, the first two scholarly journals came into being: the Journal des Sçavans in January 1665 in France, and the philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in March 1665 in England. Now, as we prepare to enter the next millennium, the two have grown to some 50,000, and what was the blessing of improved scholarly communication has become the curse of information overload." (Gaines, 136)

The veritable information overload is the result of concessionaries into the networking of databases. Large corporations have taken to including scholarly research as part of their efforts to increase profit.

The market is sizeable, which is why there is a move to target multiple cultural markets with one blow. The homogenization of cultural knowledge is part of this market targeting.

How databases are coping

There are certain coping mechanisms, but on the grander scale of things, the coping does not completely address the problem of information overload.

Competition among the commercial knowledge databases is tight, as is manifested by Gaines' analysis:

"Some journal publishers have established text databases as a byproduct of computer typesetting but this is still rare, and trends in this direction are offset by other trends towards authors supplying "camera ready" copy that can be photographed directly to printing plate with no intervening setting."

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

Computer Mediated Communication

2009-01-29T17:14:00.000-08:00

One of the more effective uses of CMC or computer mediated communication is being able to locate personages. The right personages, we might add, who have the necessary skills for collaboration.

Collaboration for a project, may it be in marketing, economic trend prediction or Internet infrastructure creation is a vital yet difficult task. The overarching principle here is that most system architectures have become vital to the very existence of business and economy.

Special system architectures

According to Laurence Press, from the California State University at the Dominguez Hills:

"The architectures considered are special interest groups, centralized servers, and decentralized systems. The organizational implications are the value to organizations of people-finding systems, management incentives for individuals to participate in them, and participation in the absence of apparent incentives."

"The deployment and improvement of people-finding and other CMC systems will bestow a marginal advantage upon cooperative individuals and organizations with cooperative cultures. As a result, CMC may marginally alter organizational and human nature, nudging us in the direction of a time when nice guys finish first."

On data retrieval through systems

Data retrieval is proving to be one of the most vital and core components of computing and business. No other function has proven to be as important as information storage and its systematic retrieval.

Even back in 1989, Cuadra had been able to locate and annotate over two thousand databases that have been online. The geographic spatial coordinates have been found to be both local and international.

Transactions using CMC

There is but one important type of computer mediation mode of communication that has spawned literally a new culture of finding people you need: the electronic mail.

Laurence Press explains in a more detailed manner:

"We can consider two types of CMC transaction: mail messages for a specific person and queries in which you are trying to meet a previously unknown person with skills or knowledge you need. In the former case, you may or may not know the email address of
the person you wish to communicate with."

"If you do not, the Internet has several systems for finding addresses. If the person's name and host are known, the Finger protocol or a message to the system postmaster may be used. If not, "white pages" services such as Whois, Knowbot, and NetFind may help."

Organizational values

The rehashing of organization values is the consequence of newer means of finding the right people for a task at hand. Because of the lessening dependence of business on so-called "people-ware", the autonomy is palpably felt.

On the Internet, the proliferation of vast databases for employment is one key result of this technological advancement in data retrieval and computer mediated communication.

The effect is seen immediately: the act of finding work no longer translates to long physical lines, but to online transactions mediated by large business databases.

Employers and potential employees are now encouraged to post vital information on wide retrievable databases. Upon command, criteria for possible employment are used to track down the personages that would fit the job description.

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

Information Technology and Its Vicissitudes on the Flexibility of Organization

2009-01-29T17:13:00.001-08:00

The basic organizational values and capabilities of any business enterprise are vastly altered with the dawn of progress in information technology. The changes are not detrimental to the progress of enterprises; in fact the changes have been indeed very beneficial.

As stated by Henry C. Lucas, Jr. and Margrethe Olson from NYU and the DMR Group in Australia:

"Information technology (IT) contributes to flexibility by:

1) Changing the nature of organization boundaries and the time when work occurs

2) Altering the nature and pace of work

3) Helping firms respond to changing market conditions

But, there are also aspects of technology which can decrease flexibility, and there may be second-order impacts of flexibility that are not easily predicted."

Expenditures in the United States

In the United States alone, it has been estimated that capital expenditures for communications technology has reached over 1/3 of the total figure. This means that a sizeable chunk is being devoted to improving communication and data retrievable in businesses.

The picture has been optimistic since the dawn of the World Wide Wed, with the birth of decentralized data retrieval and data processing systems.

Uncertainty and flexibility

The issue in businesses is rooted in the uncertainty of doing business alone. The increased amount of expenditures in communications and other related technologies can be seen as one of the ways to safeguard one's business from financial harm.

In a world drawn completely to the centripetal movement of the global financial system, there is no clear indication what type of system would remain robust. In the long run, those who have been continually improving their systems will be the last to fall. This is manifested in the way the newer startups in the DOTCOM boom and bust have been able to roll with the tides.

Working with little capital, these small merchants have been able to brave and survive uncertain times by implementing strategic communication channels between buyer and seller.

Flexibility is the key term here, and is further is explained by Lucas and Olson:

"All of these observations suggest that flexibility is the ability to adapt when confronted with new circumstances; a flexible organization defends quickly against threats and moves rapidly to take advantage of opportunities. Flexibility provides the organization with the ability to adapt to change and respond quickly to market forces and uncertainty in its environment."

The investments take shape

What kinds of investments are we looking at here? The basic premise is that these investments are intrinsically linked with the improvement of production. Production takes a lot of work; and is now being aided by the most powerful computer systems.

As stated by Lucas and Olson, even the mechanization of basic forms of data is part of the progressive turn to information technology:

"Significant IT investment is for basic mechanization of the records of production and distribution of goods and services (e.g., invoices) or for actions like themselves, electronic money transfer. Technology is also used for manufacturing (such as CAD/CAM) and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). A centralized database enables production and dissemination of information for management control as a by-product of mechanization."

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

Information Integration and the Globalized Highways of Information

2009-01-29T17:13:00.000-08:00

The conceptualization of the information superhighway is strongly linked with the now globalize financial system. With the figurative death of the potency of national economies, the global financial system now stands out as one real force to reckon with.

However, this overarching financial system has one clear weakness: its complete dependence on computer networks- as was stated, the information superhighway.

According to Stuart E. Madnick, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

"The notion of an "information superhighway" has attracted considerable attention. It offers the possibility to access information from around the world in support of many important applications in areas such as finance, manufacturing, and transportation (e.g., global risk management, integrated supply chain management, and global in-transit visibility)."

Production and information technology

There should be a bit of historical backtracking here, regarding the role of information technology to the wider scheme of capital-intensive industrial production.

The role of information is a vital one- it has something to do with basically tracking down bits and pieces of the whole process, for holistic examination. Without any form of data retrieval, wide scale industrial production would not be possible.

Context mediation

One of the explicit problems in data transit (in a global setting) is the loss of context, or the loss of the very seedbed of meaning. This is manifest in the way multilingual services are hired to translate vital documents and data, to lessen the blow of context loss.

The conceptualization of context mediation services is put into place to face perceived challenges. Challenges may be met either on a global setting or on a local setting. In any case, attention should still be given to the fact that without the placement of proper context mediation services, no entrepreneurial progress would result.

Benefits of integration

Information integration is also being seen as an important component in facing the challenges of data transfer and context loss. According to Stuart E. Madnick:

"Increased information integration is important to business in order to improve inter-organizational relationships, increase the effectiveness of intra-organization coordination, and provide for much more organizational adaptability. Many organizations are attempting to gain these advantages."

On the importance of context

Context is by far one of the most important parts of any kind of data. Data transmitted via the fiber optic channels to different parts of the globe may or may not have retained its context.

There must be a conscious effort on the part of the one transmitting to communicate the context of the data as well. Madnick continues:

"The context is not explicit for at least two reasons. First, it provides efficiency of communication (e.g., if asked by a fellow student, "What is your grade point average?" you can reply "3.8" without having to explain that it is a 4-point scale, with 4 being the best). Second, the context can be so fundamental in an environment that most are not even aware that there is another possible interpretation (e.g., we all know that "A" is a top grade)."

The sensitivity of context in relation to context loss is manifest in communication failures around the world. Even simple telephone calls may lose their context- what more for muted data?

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

Analyzing Computer-Mediated Environments of Human Learning

2009-01-29T17:12:00.001-08:00

For quite some time now, computer systems have been used to aid the learning process of students in the United States. From primary all the way to the university level, computers have become an integral part of the educational process itself.

In a way, the American educational system has indeed progressed in leaps and bounds. It has moved away significantly from the 18th century model of public education that had begun in Western Europe just a few centuries before the birth of the Internet.

The use of computers has also spawned a collaborative and yet competitive environment for learning. The competitive nature stems for the actual competition among students for higher marks and better learning results.

According to David Williamson Shaffer, a researcher and critic for the Journal of Interactive Learning Research:

"Interviews with students suggest that the processes of collaborative learning in this competitive environment were fundamentally similar to collaborative learning processes observed in more cooperative contexts.

"Individual learners assumed roles that mapped to important elements of the conceptual domain. Learners developed understanding through feedback on their own role from peers, and by observing their peers enact roles that represented alternative facets of the domain under study."

Shared or conflicting goals?

The question on most researchers' minds right now regarding the use of computer mediation in learning is the kind of learning being fostered.

The worrying is due to the fact that in the beginning, the new technologies being employed are relatively alien implements. The educational process in a way has been disrupted, to begin anew.

The disruption is being seen as a nominal and necessary one, owing to the fact that progress has to be made. In fact, the advent of interactive learning has been found to be more effective over a larger educational grouping than other approaches.

Context of mediation and learning through computers

What can clearly be seen is the fact that there is a general scarcity of information when it comes to learning. All traditional approaches have been rendered obsolete with the birth of information technology potent enough to bear the weight of pedagogy.

In any case, the environment fostered remains important. According to Shaffer, there is actually a theoretical disagreement regarding the categories used:

"Cooperative learning, such theorists suggest, implies a shared purpose. Collaborative learning environments reflect the fundamentally social nature of the learning process, and the importance of developing contexts that foster constructive and productive interactions in support of learning--whether or not those interactions arise in the context of working towards a shared goal."

Structure

The basic structuring of computer programs used in this manner is actually quite simple. There is a particular goal, which is marked as the basic end of a task.

A task is a set actually a set of goals to be accomplished over a period of time. Students are divided and teamed up. The navigation team is one responsible for determining the basic direction that all other teams should take.

In this manner, we can already see where the conflicting goals will come from. Indeed, cooperation and competitiveness will go hand in hand in the resolution and completion of the said tasks.

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

The Palpable Paradigm Shift in Networking and Computing

2009-01-29T17:12:00.000-08:00

The last decade has shown the gradual yet speedy decentralization of computing. All around the world, the role of the large mainframe computers, who used to handle nearly all vital functions in computing, are losing power.

This decided loss of power of the traditional mainframes can be attributed to the rise of smaller yet dynamic networks of computers. Sometimes the ones handling these networks aren't even professionals. The keyword here is distribution.

According to John S. Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell of Texas Internet Consulting:

"Timesharing and batch systems still have uses, but the large mainframe is no longer the only way to do computing. Networks have spread computing power, access, and costs beyond centralized computer centers.

"Personal computers have made computing accessible to many new users. Distributed computing attempts to bring the manageability of mainframe computing together with the accessibility of networked computing and the transparency of personal computing."

Perceived effects

The perceived effects of this palpable paradigm or theoretical or conceptual shift from centralized computing to well-distributed computing is what the authors above call "great organization and transparency".

Client and server computing and even peer to peer networks are forming dynamic lives and rules of their own, separate from the large mainframe computers of the yesteryears.

It is important to note these changes because the decentralization is key to the rise of the DOTCOM era in the nineties. To view computing as simply a hindrance to profit is inexcusable. There has to be scientific grounding first.

John S. Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell of Texas Internet Consulting further explain the concept of distributive computing:

"Many open systems are based on or implement interfaces related to the UNIX timesharing system. When open networking also provides transparent user access to resources and other users, it is called distributed computing."

Boom and bust

Similar to the boom and bust cycle of capital-intensive industries, the wild frontier that is the Internet owes its own small Market and Economy to the distributive form of computing.

With the independence of small merchants with relatively small computer systems, the online mercantile system had been made possible. While larger companies are using larger computer systems, it remains a fact that thousands upon thousands of online merchants are using small systems for business.

Historically, we can locate the shift with the appearance of the following:

Four technological factors drove the decentralization of computing:

Portable UNIX operating system
Publicly available networking protocols
Cheap microprocessors
Cheap data communications (fiber optics) (Quarterman & Smoot-Mitchell, 32)

Microprocessors made Google king

With cheaper communications, it follows that many profited from the Internet enterprise. Google is one of the largest profiteers in the online boom and bust. We can make sense of this if we understand just what happened to the most expensive part of the computer a few decades ago:

"These are essential for both personal computers and workstations. Processors have decreased in price steadily over the past decade, but around 1986 processors such as the Intel i386 and the Motorola MC68020 became available that were powerful enough and inexpensive enough to support UNIX-class workstations with reasonable network performance, RISC chips such as the Motorola 88000, those from MIPS, the Sun SPARC chip, and the IBM ROMPchip, are also becoming increasingly popular." (Quarterman & Smoot-Mitchell, 33)

The author of this article is Benedict Yossarian. Benedict recommends Comm Store for all your networking needs including Cat 5e Cable and also Root3 for IP CCTV systems

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benedict_Yossarian

Online Chat - Not As Easy As You Think

2009-01-29T17:09:00.000-08:00

So it's a Wednesday night, you just got off of work or school, ate dinner and changed, did your homework if you have to...now what do you want to do? You don't feel like going out, you just want to kind of be lazy tonight. So you turn to your computer and a brilliant idea pops into your head: find an online chat room and talk about anything you can think of. Sounds easy, right? Not really. There are many things you have to search for when looking for online chat, and they can usually be specified if you type them into a search engine. Here are a few scenarios.

1. You're a 15 year old who wants to talk to new people because your parents won't let you go out. Great, at least you have a computer! Go to a search engine and type in some words that fit the chat you want. If you are interested in football, you could try "chats about football". You can try this with just about any subject. There are things you have to look out for, though. Although a lot of chats have moderators or administrators to watch for rude or inappropriate remarks, some people still slip through them. Be aware of: anyone that wants to immediately talk to you in private online chat (there's usually something they want to say to you that can't be seen by others), someone who tries sending you pictures, someone that wants to set up a meeting with you (especially a red flag warning to walk away when you don't even talk to the person).

2. You're a college student and you have the weekend off to have fun. Well, would have fun if you had gotten the notes for your paper due next week. Great! On almost every college's main website, they have a way to chat with your instructors (sometimes the instructors themselves set these chats up for homework help) or peers. Get your notes and any help you need for your paper within a half hour.

3. You have a product you bought from a store, and it's not working. The instructions say to go to the company's website, and get the toll free number to call. So you can call and be on hold for a half hour, listening to bad elevator music. As you are looking around for the number (since they always make it small so you have to see every other promotional ad on the page first) you see "Chat with an affiliate!" or "Have a personal session with a customer service representative!", something like these. This will save you time and not frustrate you as much as the toll-free numbers will.

There are many scenarios in which online chat can be very exciting to you. But, there is a thing called "chatiquette" or "netiquette" where there's actually guidelines and suggestions to follow when it comes to treating other people. Many people think today that since chat rooms are anonymous, they can do anything they want, regardless of consequences. Sadly, this includes being not so nice and ruining everyone else's experience. Here are some things that are a definite no-no for chatiquette.

Keeping your CAPS lock key on for regular conversation. It's very annoying, shows there's no intelligence behind the words, and it appears to be shouting.
Provoking an argument or saying bad things about people
Talking about something off topic in a certain "topic specific" type of chat
Getting mad at someone because you're in the wrong room, and they don't want to do what you asked or said because it is the wrong room.

Yes, online chat can be serious, but it's also worth the risk - it's very fun! Good luck chatting!

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How to Keep Away Potential Hackers, Attackers, and Crackers

2009-01-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

First how to protect your computer's system. Today, many people use their computers for everything that the commitment of the online banking and investment in stores. Here are a few easy, cost-effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure to begin with:

1. Always back up important information and a safe place away from your computer.

2. Updates and patches for your operating system, Web browser and software frequently.

3. Install a firewall. Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can easily access your computer from the Internet.

4. Check your browser and e-mail for optimal security.

5. Install antivirus software and automatic updates

6. No e-mail is not attached.

7. This is not the programs of unknown origin.

8. Disable file name extensions hidden.

9. Turn off the computer and disconnect the network, if not with the team.

10. See a boot disk to a floppy disk, in case your computer or damaged by a malicious program.

Every day new viruses are created to harass us and wreck havoc on our Systems. The new viruses are created every day. If a Trojan is activated, you can spend a lot of things. Some Trojans are more annoying to harmful. Some Trojans can decide less boring change the desktop settings or add silly desktop icons.

More serious Trojans can erase or modify data in your computer files and other malicious software such as viruses, spies for the user of a computer and data privacy, such as browsing habits of others, log keystrokes to steal information as passwords and credit card numbers, bank data Phish (which can be used for criminal activities), and a backdoor into the system so they can come and go as they please.

It is therefore necessary to determine the contents of your hard disk is essential. Regular backups of your files and stores them in a separate room, you can usually several, if not all their data to organize your computer to crash.

Get tips and tricks computer repair, you can see at http://www.computers-repair.info/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gadis_Rahayu

Why Does My Wordpress Blog Disappear From Google

2009-01-29T17:07:00.000-08:00

Wordpress engine has made it easy for your blog to be appeared on Google Search Engine. The use of meta and descriptions, tags, ping trackback, headers, and other SEO related things, are by default included in every wordpress installation. When you launch a wordpress blog on the internet and updated it regularly, your wordpress blog will be appeared on Google Search in just a few days.

But a wordpress blog also can be disappeared from Google Search after it has made its appearance, even if it has reached a high rank position before. There are internal factors and external factors that could cause this.

External Factors

There are more than 10,000 dedicated servers from which Google Search Engine pulls its search results. With this huge number of servers, it is impossible to update their index at the same time. So Google updates their indexes one by one at a time.

Because of this, some websites could be dropped from Google's rankings temporarily, or even disappear all together. But after a while, the Google's index updating process would be complete and restored the disappeared websites back to the list again. This process often called "Google Dance", and usually happened at the average rate once per month.

This is one of the external factors that could cause your wordpress blog disappear from Google Search. The other factor could be from the presence of Copy Websites. A Copy Website is a website that copy the contents of another website and publish them as its own page. This would make identical pages appear on the web. Google would judge one of them as the original page and deemed the others as copies, and thus banned those websites from its listing. But sometimes, Google fails to identify the real original page, and ban the wrong websites.
Internal Factors

The internal factors could came from the use of uncontrolled SEO techniques on your wordpress blog, like using cloaking or hidden links to redirect Google crawlers, or using too much affiliation links on a page with a relatively short contents, or publishing contents that are irrelevant with your wordpress blog's description. Google said, "Do not make websites that cheated or lied to their visitors, or targeting on web search engines instead of real visitors."

So, your wordpress blog should be designed with real purpose on giving what the visitors' need, and avoid slick web tricks that could be deemed by Google as cheating.

If you want to find various tips and information about wordpress and its implementation as a blog or website, then visit http://www.wpxplorer.com by wpXplorer Team.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rony_Hidayat

How to Position Data Duplication Within Your Business to Ensure Budget Sign Off

2009-01-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately deduplication is also considered by many as 'hype', 'the latest buzz' or 'not a priority', so how do you position this technology internally to ensure that budget is released?

Overview
The average UNIX® or Windows® disk volume contains thousands or even millions of duplicate data objects. As data is created, distributed, backed up, and archived, duplicate data objects are stored un-abated across all storage tiers. The end result is inefficient utilisation of data storage resources where backups now take so long that full copies of data are impractical and recovery times fall well outside expectations of the business.

Eliminating duplicated data gives immediate benefit through storage space efficiencies and shorter backup windows. Put simply, save storage space by reducing duplicated data.

Commercial Benefits
In today's economic climate if the cost/benefits are not clear it is unlike that budget will be signed off. We can all be guilty of getting our heads turned by a shiny new piece of technology without a full appreciation of how our organisation will benefit.

There are four important questions you should ask yourself to determine if the investment is truly justified:
1. Will the solution meet your organisation's Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?
2. Does the proposed solution improve your regulatory compliance?
3. Can the solution be reasonably integrated into your current environment?
4. Does the solution have a clear and measurable ROI, not just future savings?

These are tough requirements, but important to consider as budgets get tighter and you are expected to do more with less. Identify how it specifically benefits your business.

(1) Management Benefits: How does the ability the store "more" data per storage unit, or retain online data for longer periods of time help. For Example, highlight what benefits your business will get by being able to recover a file version from 3 weeks ago without the need to start the process of identifying which tape it's on, where the tape is and how long will it take to source the tape and physically recover the file.
(2) Cost Benefits: How does deduplication reduced your storage acquisition cost and will this provide longer intervals between storage capacity upgrades. What reduction in capital expenditure (Capex) can be achieved?

Questions to answer

Measure & Analyse your Backup and Recovery
The first step is to outline the goals for your deduplication project. Benchmark your current backup environment, and measure those results against your organisation's Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) i.e. how long will it take to get back the way I was?.

What issues do you currently have surrounding your backup window?
o How is this affecting your business?
o Is your backup window increasing due to data growth, and long term how will you meet this requirement?
o How often do you have issues surrounding failed backups? How does the business suffer?
o How many simultaneous backup jobs are being run?

Are you running or planning to run a virtualised environment and if so what issues are you having/anticipating having backing up this environment?
If you have remote sites, Who is responsible for managing their backup?, What issues do you have in relation to backing up remote sites?
What are the costs in relation to tape management? (Purchase, taking off site, storage, recovery charges etc)
What benefits would your business get from having on-site retention times of more than two weeks?
Briefly detail your current disaster recovery solution.
o Are you meeting your backup and recovery objectives/ SLA's?
o Do you have Offsite replication for disaster recovery and longer term retention?
o How do you ensure remote office data protection
o When was the last time you tested your plan?
How would your organisation benefit from?
o Significantly shorter backup windows?
o Extended on-site/on-disk data retention, typically 30-90 days?
o Faster restores from disk?

Value Propositions
Now collate the answers to highlight what value your business would receive i.e.
1. Reduce Costs: Quantify what reductions in backup and recovery costs could be made by eliminating tape based systems. Include Capital (Hardware, Software) and Revenue (maintenance, wages and support) Expenditures. List out the potential savings so that you have figure that you can compare alternative solutions against
2. Simplicity: Document how, for example and Automated/centralised management of remote sites could eliminates complexities and make better use of the 'data centre' talent pool or highlight how on-site data retention of up to 3-months simplifies the restore process and makes nearline data more accessible.
3. Increased Reliability: If existing infrastructure is prone to failure outline at a high level how instantaneous verification of reliability and self-healing capabilities of a solution would benifit.
4. Speed: How does the implementation of deduplication increase the recovery time Objective (RTO) ?
5. Maximise Capacity: By eliminate data redundancy will massively reduce nearline data sets and optimise storage capacity thereby giving a better return on investment (ROI)

Other areas to highlight
1. Lack of Capacity: Managing an ever-increasing amount of backup and archive data and a constant need for extra storage capacity. Deduplication of data reduces the need to keep adding more storage
2. Cost Pressures: Constant pressure to reduce the costs associated with primary and nearline storage.
3. Complexity: Operational errors including human handling errors (e.g. storing/retrieving the wrong tape) and procedural errors (e.g. backing up wrong or empty files).
a. Operating multiple data backup solutions for different operating platforms (i.e. one solution for UNIX and a different solution for Windows).
b. Not able to effectively backup VMware environment
c. Ensuring new applications and storage systems are protected/integrated into the existing backup process
4. Unreliable Backups and Restores: Tape solutions incur high failure rates and have difficulty meeting their backup windows.
a. Length of time taken to backup data
b. 30% of all Data restores fail
c. Ineffective backup for remote sites
d. Existing backup solution does not carry out incremental backups.
5. Disaster Recovery: Many companies do not have a secure, cost-effective or reliable disaster recovery plan.
a. Not having effective backup for DR purposes.
b. Not being able to restore data instantly

Design a Deduplication Plan

Whiteboard and map things out. Planning for deduplication is different than merely adding disk. Why? Different deduplication technologies provide different ways of de-duplicating your data. This also requires a fresh look at the sources of backup streams and backup software licenses. Is your environment media-, drive- or capacity-based? Will your tape rotation plan change when you are able to store much more backup data on disk?. Engaging an independent systems integrator at this stage can pay dividends and cut through the some of the 'marketecture'

Summary

Data Deduplication provides the ability to help reduce overrunning backups as de-duplication at source means lower volume data is backed up helping to alleviating strain on managing backup environment.

It can provide a reduction of the backup window by up to 50 times by not backing up multiple copies of the same file allowing you to gain the ability to effectively manage the backup of all remote offices from one central location. You will also be a position to better manage rapid data growth whilst managing risk, the majority of time spent on data protection is spent dealing with recovery following an event as opposed to proactively managing against such occurrences, proactive.

Conclusion

If you are a medium to large sized multisite organisation and are currently using a tape-based solution or looking at disk-based solutions and storing at least 100 GB of nearline data who is motivated to reduce financial, operational and business costs associated with nearline storage, including backup and disaster recovery you should investigate the data deduplication solutions in the market place today. By preparing some documentation prior to this will not only help you crystallise what problem you are trying to solve, but what potential budget is available and whether you have a convincing commercial argument for implementing this technology.

Upon installation, be sure to adjust your backup software to get the maximum value out of your licensing model. Make sure you validate the deduplication backups, can you meet all SLAs? Did you meet your project goals? Do both local and remote sites have the right data? Did you prove that the data is on disk and not on an offsite tape? Did you get the data reduction ratio you expected?

Management savings are often the most difficult to quantify, but that does not make them any less important. Set up a review process to test RTO and RPO at unexpected points. Finally, validate the cost savings and let your Financial Director know that the ROI is real.

Alpha offers independent advice on Data Deduplication technologies including Data Domain, NetApp, Overland Storage and Quantum. Our solution set can offer significant cost savings to customers who are still using tape, using VTLs to cache backup data before moving them to tape and who are already using disk.
John Malabon manages Alphas website http://www.alphacom.co.uk Alpha, a specialist data management integrator, who work with many of the leading UK organisations to help them address their Data Deduplication, Security, Data Storage, Data Backup and Disaster Recovery processes. Visit http://www.alphacom.co.uk or email info@alphacom.co.uk

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Malabon

Network Support and Maintenance Plan

2009-01-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

New businesses and small teams don't think about support and maintenance plan until something forces them to think about it. It's good practice to have documentation about your computing environment, have procedures in place and thoughts around other areas such as disaster recovery. It's also important to have a backup person to go to if your main IT person is not around. Here's an outline of a plan that covers the major components.

Start with a description of your current infrastructure:

- Inventory all equipment.
- Make a list of vendors contact data and account numbers.
- Create a detail network map.
- Make a list of the tools and applications you currently use and what they do.
- Document any special configuration.

Tip: Consider taking a picture of the setup to help others visually identify the setup... Of course, this really only helps if you're lab isn't row-after-row-after-row of the same rack-mounted guys. :)

Preventive Maintenance:

List activities you can do here. For example, think about expected life of the equipment, budget for new equipment, additional capabilities for the system (planning for expansion), and how to find deficiencies in your system.

Maintenance Procedures:

- Start a log book for keeping records of all activities.
- Set a time (downtime) when you can take down the network. Example: last Friday of the month from 1am - 3am.

Server Maintenance

- Check Hardware - clean when necessary (machines, cables, switches, battery backup).
- Review logs for errors.
- Run MS Baseline Security.
- Make sure Antivirus protection up to date.
- Disk Cleanup & Defrag.

Ask the question: How many of these activities can be automated using Windows Task Scheduler?

Updates

Install only during downtime. Before running updates make sure you backup the machine. Plan ahead what updates you need to run (Microsoft, Firmware and other utilities).

Try out: Windows Server Update Service (WSUS).

Health and Performance Monitoring

- What data do you want to collect?

Current performance, identify incidents, unusual traffic/congestion, etc.

- What are you currently using?
- What are the steps or checks to be done here?

Tip: Run tests on a healthy network and compile data that you can use to compare against results in the future.

Power Failure

In the case of a power failure, what happens to your computing environment. Sure you have a UPS, but if the power fails and you're not around to properly shutdown the system, what then? Consider setting up a program that detects when the UPS battery is on and automatically shutdowns the machine. Finally, test to see if the UPS works.

Backups

- Where are you storing the backups?
- Write instructions for labeling and storing all backup files.
- Test the restore process, make sure the backup works.
- Create a schedule and have it set to automatically run.

Disaster Recovery Plan:

Create scenarios is probably the best to way to understand dependencies, the impact of a failure, and identify critical components. For each scenario think about how you will recover data, if there's a redundant system to switch to, pirorities, etc.

Who's Responsible for What?

Last but not least...assign people to the task that you define.

Nancy Wu, Operations Manager
Tyemill, LLC
http://www.tyemill.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nancy_Wu

Top 5 Gaming Laptops - Quick Roundup

2008-11-29T00:28:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins

For a great gaming laptop you need high performance processors, dedicated graphics cards and a lot of system memory. These days top gaming laptops are using dual or even quad processors and hooking up two or more graphics GPUs thru SLI configurations to get the ultimate gaming performance.

Most gamers look for Nvidia and ATI as their choice of Graphics Cards which uses dedicated memory (RAM) and pulls additional system RAM when needed thru HyperMemory (ATI) or Turbocache (Nvidia). You need at least 2 Gigs of RAM, although most high end laptops now come with 4 or more Gigs of RAM. Note: 32-bit Operating Systems ONLY recognizes up to 3GB of RAM, while you need 64-bit systems to take full advantage of 4GB of RAM.

Sound and visuals are very important to gamers so you have to check for superior display qualities and top sound systems. So look for display technologies like CrystalBrite (Acer) or X-Black (Sony) for better viewing. Also look for high resolution (native 1,920 x 1,200) screens, 64 bit systems, DirectX 10 Graphics, Blu-ray or HD playback...

With all these considerations in mind, here's a short list of a few top gaming laptops you should consider if you're in the market. Keep in mind, although prices are coming down, be prepared to pay top dollar for all that high-end gaming hardware, especially if you're looking at the more popular well-known brands. Also please note stated prices are rough estimates at the time of writing; so check each manufacturer's online site for exact prices and configurations.

1. Alienware Area-51 m17x ($4,749)

Alienware has always been the established leader for superior gaming machines. Unfortunately, while they make some of the best gaming rigs, you will have to pay for all that performance and for all that style. Many believe Alienware is too overpriced for what you get. However, if money is no object, Alienware should be your first consideration for a gaming laptop.

Currently, one of their fastest machines is the Area-51 m17x which sports some impressive specs:

CPU: Intel® Core® 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)

Memory: 4GB+ Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 2048MB

Hard Drive: 250GB (250GB x 2) 7,200RPM (8MB Cache) w/ Free Fall Protection

Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 3600M

OS: Microsoft® Windows® Vista® Ultimate with Service Pack 1

Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technology

Weight: 10.5 lbs

But don't expect long battery life as gaming laptops are usually power-hungry creatures that burn up your power source very quickly. While still mobile, this laptop serves more as a desktop replacement than a portable laptop, same said for most of the gaming laptops here. However, you won't look any cooler than when you're lugging this rig around, not that looks should count but they often do. Shallow world.

2. Rock Xtreme 780 X9100 (£2300 British Pounds or $4,210 USD)

Offering some serious competition to the Area-51 m15x is the Rock Xtreme 780 X9100. This is the follow-up to the very high ranked Xtreme 770 which you may also consider. The 780 sports the new Intel® Core2 Extreme processor and the latest gaming technologies.

CPU: Up to Intel® Core® 2 Extreme processor X9100 (2 x 3.06GHz) 6MB Level 2 Cache

Memory: Up to 4GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM

Hard Drive: Up to 320Gb 7200rpm SATA Graphics: NVIDIA 9800M GTX 1GB GDR3

OS: Microsoft® Windows® Vista® Home Premium

Display: 17" WUXGA+ X-Glass TFT Screen (1920 x 1200)

Weight: 8.4 lbs

You should know Rock (Rockdirect) is a leading UK laptop manufacturer and was recently acquired by the Stone Group. It should be business as usual since the Stone Group is also a leading hardware specialist and laptop manufacturer. Rock has a solid reputation for bringing the latest innovative notebook technology to customers. Perhaps better suited for European buyers with its "3 Year pan-European Collect and Return Warranty" - although gamers this side of the pond shouldn't necessarily rule out getting a rock.

3. Gateway P-7811FX ($1,449)

The Gateway P-7811FX is an inexpensive alternative to all the pricey gaming laptops you might be considering. If you're looking for a good gaming machine, yet want to stay within a limited budget, this laptop may have your name on it.

CPU: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400

Memory: 4GB, 667MHz DDR3

Hard Drive: 200GB 7200rpm

Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS

OS: Microsoft® Windows® Vista® Premium (64-bit)

Display: 17.1 inches HD-friendly 1920x1200.

Weight: 9.0 lbs

This gaming laptop offers great value for your money and well worth your consideration, especially if you're on a tight budget.

4. Sager NP9262 ($5879)

In case you want to go in the other direction and break the bank, the Sager NP9262 maybe calling your name. Built on the Clevo D900C / D901C (Worlds 1st Quad Core Laptop) the NP9262 sports some very impressive gaming specs.

CPU: Intel® Core® 2 Quad Processor Q9650 / 12MB L2 Cache, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB Memory: 8GB memory available on NP9262 with 64bit edition of Windows VISTA

Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive + other HD choices

Graphics: Dual Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTX Graphics with 1GB DDR3 Video Memory in SLI mode

OS: Windows® Vista® ULTIMATE 32/64-Bit Edition

Display: 17" Wide Viewing Angles WUXGA LCD with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1200)

Weight: 11.55 lb

5. Dell XPS M1730 ($4,000)

Some gamers wouldn't be caught dead mentioning Dell and gaming laptops in the same breath. There's no accounting for gaming snobbery or brand name bias. However, Dell which now owns Alienware and some of that style must be rubbing off since the XPS M1730 is one of the most striking gaming laptops you can buy; looks do count and this one leaves all takers in the dust. If you can get over the idea of having a Dell in the first place, the XPS M1730 also sports some very impressive gaming specs.

CPU: 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900

Memory: 2GB of 667MHz

Hard Drive: 400GB (2x200) at 7,200rpm

Graphics: Dual 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT in SLI (scalable link interface)

OS: Windows Vista® Home Premium

Display: 17 inches 1,920x1,200 resolution

Weight: 11.1 lbs

These are just some of the top gaming laptops on the market. Any one of these rigs will give you half decent gaming. There are probably a lot more cheaper gaming laptops out there and it does pay to shop around. And as you probably already noticed these gaming rigs are geared around Intel and Nvidia, but you shouldn't rule out AMD and/or ATI based systems. For Mac lovers, you should look at the Apple MacBook Pro - and remember you can also run Windows to play games!

Furthermore, one of the major drawbacks of going with any gaming laptop (rather than a PC) is that there is very little room for expansion... you need a system that can be easily upgraded mainly because by the time you buy it, your system will probably be out of date. That's a bit exaggerated, but it is always a good idea to go with a gaming system that you can easily upgrade when the need arises or as you can afford it.

Also some gamers dislike Vista as an Operating System for gaming and quickly switch back to Windows XP. This is simply done, however some current laptops/PCs won't accept XP so check this out BEFORE you buy your machine.

In addition, if some of these gaming rigs look very similar, you should know that Clevo is the ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) based in Taiwan that sells barebones and computer components to all these boutique brand OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) like Falcon, Sager, M-TECH, Rock... Clevo is considered by many gamers to produce the top laptops in regards to superior quality and build. A prudent gaming laptop buyer would always cross-reference these Clevo products in order to find the best deal.

About the Author:
The author runs a handy online Laptop Guide featuring the latest top gaming notebooks: Gaming Laptops. To learn how to do your own computer or laptop memory upgrade try here: Computer Memory Upgrade. http://www.bizwaremagic.com Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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5 Steps To Easily Keep Your PC Running Smooth And Fast

2008-11-29T00:20:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2007-2008 Trever Soutter

Most people who use computers today use them for work, games, research or socialization. With more and more people trying to begin home businesses, the computer has become the essential tool for their business startup and operation. People want to optimize their computers so that they will be as efficient as possible; however, there are many factors associated with the performance output of a personal computer.

In order for a computer to reach and maintain maximum performance, many factors must be considered. On the hardware side of the equation, one must consider their processor speed and system memory. With regards to the software side of your computer, you must be aware of your computer's privacy protection, system security, and anti-virus software. Additionally, you should do your best to take care of your Windows operating system - such as Windows XP or Windows Vista including its registry and the files cleanup process.

To keep a PC running smoothly and error-free, there are some basic steps that anyone can follow. Fortunately, none of these steps are really at all difficult. Anyone can do these tasks, with a little bit of basic education. Keep this article around for future reference, just in case you need it again.

Shut-Down Processes

First off, it is important to understand that programs need to be given the proper signals to shut down. It is strongly recommended that you never simply unplug your machine to turn it off. Please go through the normal shut down procedures, no matter how long those processes might take.

If you lose power, it really is an unavoidable event. Microsoft has done a good job at helping Windows know when it was shut down improperly, so the next time you start up your computer, your operating system might repair itself. Typically, when you restart your computer after an improper shut down, it might take a few minutes longer to boot up than usual. Let Windows do its long boot up after it has unexpectedly shut down. The longer boot up process is Windows attempt to repair any corruptions caused by the unexpected shut down of your computer's operating system.

If you need to shut down your system more quickly than usual, we strongly recommend that you utilize the Control-Alt-Delete key combination, and then select Shut Down from your Windows Task Manager window. By utilizing this shut down method, Windows will make appropriate notes to itself that it will need to do some cleanup on its next boot up sequence.

If Windows is not allowed to clean up after itself, you run the risk of corrupting the operating system or different programs you have loaded on your computer. Corruption of programs may force you to reinstall those programs. Corruption of your data files is the worst-case scenario you could lose hours or years of work in a single moment, as a result of your impatience. Don't be impatient; let your computer do what it needs to do to repair and protect your system files.

Unnecessary Applications Running In The Background

The "background" is not the image on your desktop. "Running in the Background" is a reference to programs that are running on your system in invisible mode. In some cases, they are completely invisible, and in other cases, the only indication that they are operating is their icon in your System Tray, next to your clock.

Certain programs think that they need to be operating in your System Tray at all times. QuickTime, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger are three of these types of programs. Microsoft Office even thinks it should be loaded and running in your background. If you use these applications frequently and need access to them almost instantaneously on a frequent basis, then yes, you probably should let them run in the background. But, most of us only use those applications on an infrequent basis.

The theory of having those applications running in the background is that it prevents you needing to wait thirty seconds while the software loads, when you need access to those applications. But, there is a significant amount of trade-off for thirty seconds of reduced wait time. That trade-off is a less-responsive computer. In worst-case scenarios, the thirty seconds saved at program start-up could trim minutes of productivity from your full workday.

While your system is operating, you can right-click on any icon next to your clock and most programs will allow you the option to select Close Application. By closing unnecessary applications, you can literally speed up the Windows operating system.

With most versions of Windows, you can also go to Start Run and then type in "msconfig" and click OK. Once the Windows System Configuration Utility opens, click the tab that reads Startup. You can review the list and deselect items that you will not want to open when your computer boots up. It is important to note here that you should only close applications that you recognize and know that you can live without. Don't turn off an item in the Startup window, unless and until you know what that file really does. A quick search for that file name on the Internet will generally turn up lots of pages explaining what those files do in your Windows operating system environment.

Mean Kids On The Internet

Mean kids, who are also computer nerds, frequently grow up to be computer programmers who create Viruses and Spyware applications.

The mean teenagers of the programming world get their kicks from turning our lives upside-down, with viruses that create a multitude of problems on whatever machines they can get their software installed. Virus writers with a criminal history frequently grow up to be people who write Trojans and Spyware applications that seek to steal our private information

A Trojan is a malicious program that pretends to be a screensaver or some other non-threatening and fun kind of thing. When you execute it on your computer, it installs malicious software and then it does its dastardly deeds.

Trojans and Spyware typically try to harvest private information from your computer for the financial benefit of its creator. Most of these kinds of computer programs only want to shove their advertising in your face (Adware) or track your Internet usage habits, so they can sell that information to other businesses; but the really ugly versions try to steal your credit card data and other financial data from your computer.

For some people, Trojans and Spyware computer programs are responsible for as much as a 60% deterioration of a computer's performance capability.

Forgotten Programs On Your Computer

Do you remember some of those 30-day free trial software applications that you tried once or twice, but never used again? Some of these applications may be running in the background of your computer. All of these programs are also still taking up space on your hard drive.

Never go into your Windows Explorer and simply delete folders that contain the software programs you will never use again.

Instead, every two or three months, you should utilize your Add / Remove Programs procedure, which can be accessed by going to Start Settings Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs, and remove old computer programs that you no longer use. This can frequently free up a lot of extra space on your hard drive. It can also free up some extra memory in your computer, if the program had been running in the background of your operating system at startup.

Final Closing Thoughts

If you still encounter problems after following the above suggestions, you may wish to try out "Advanced Windows Care v2 Personal". It has been designed to help you perform all of these essential protection and maintenance processes for your computer, enabling you to get on with more important tasks like making more money. This software can remove Adware and Spyware programs from your computer system, protect your privacy, prevent security threats, fix registry errors, and much more.

This program is an all-in-one systems utility that only requires a single click each day for proper computer maintenance, optimization and protection. It is free, so try it out. Remember, if you don't like the software, we have already taught you how to remove it, if you ever wanted to do so. If you want to keep the software, that is fine too.

About the Author:
Trever Soutter writes about computer software and system maintenance and optimization. If you find that your personal computer is starting to run slower and slower, then it is time for you to do some serious system maintenance. The "Advanced Windows Care Personal" software will clean and optimize your system for maximum Windows performance, enabling you to speed up Windows by as much as three times. Learn more and get the free download here: http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

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Understanding How An Inkjet Printer Works

2008-11-29T00:01:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Rich Martin

Computer printers are great when they work correctly, but when they do not work as they should, they can become a real source of frustration. If you know how an inkjet printer works, then you are likely to have fewer problems with it and you are more likely to be able to make simple repairs to the printer yourself.

Inkjet printers are the cheapest printers that you can buy, and because of this many people elect to purchase them instead of the more expensive laser printers. An inkjet printer places very small droplets of ink onto a page that it is printing. The droplets are so small that they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. It is by putting a number of these tiny droplets together that you can see an image or print on your printed page.

The inkjet printer, and other printers like it, never actually touches the piece of paper where it is printing. Instead the inkjet printer uses a series of nozzles to spray the ink onto the page, and thus gives you the final image that you see on the paper.

Since inkjet printers never actually touch the paper they are considered to be "non-impact printers". Typewriters on the other hand used a solid impact to place the image on the page. The actual shape of the letter or number from a bar on the typewriter would hit a ribbon and push the ink onto the page.

There are a variety of other types of non-impact printers, but many of them are rarely used or are considered too expensive. Often, you can find an inkjet printer for under $50 and this helps make the inkjet printers more appealing to most consumers.

Inside the printer you will find many different parts. The print head is the main part of the printer; it contains a series of nozzles that spray the ink onto the paper. There is also a print head stopper motor that moves the print head back and forth across the paper while printing. A belt attaches the print head to the print head stopper motor, and a stabilizer bar is used to stabilize the print head.

Inside the printer you will also find the paper feeder and the paper rollers as well as a paper feeder stepper motor. The paper feeder stepper motor synchronizes the movement of the paper with that of the print head so that the images that are printing appear on the correct place of the page. Most of the newer inkjet printers are using a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port to connect to your computer, but there are still quite a few older models that use a parallel port.

When you purchase a new inkjet printer, it will come with a disc that you will need to install the software onto your computer. Once you place the disc into your computer it will activate an installation wizard. Generally the installation wizard provides some very easy-to-follow instructions on how to place the software into your computer.

The only hardware that you will actually need to install in the inkjet printer is a power cord to an electrical socket, a cord from the printer to your computer (either a USB port or parallel port), and then you will need to install the ink cartridges, leaving you with only the paper to load.

For people who have never used a computer printer before, the main things they are interested in when learning is how to load the paper and how to replace the ink cartridges. For the average computer printer owner, these are the only maintenance tasks they will need to carry out during the life of the printer.

The actual ink cartridges will vary according to the particular model and brand of printer that you have. Some brands have one ink cartridge for black and one for all other colors; some printers have only one cartridge that contains all colors, including black. Yet, other models will have a separate ink cartridge for every primary color.

When you buy a new printer, be sure and read the box to see if the printer comes with ink cartridges or not. It would seem apparent that every new printer would come with ink cartridges included, but that is just not the case. When you do have the need to replace the ink cartridges, you want to be absolutely sure that you get the correct replacement cartridges. Different brands and models of printers use different ink cartridges. I have found it best to remove the old ink cartridge and check the part number to be absolutely sure that I get the correct replacement ink cartridges for my printers.

If you are willing to buy your replacement ink cartridges in advance of your current cartridges running out, then you can expect to save some big money by buying your ink jet cartridges from internet retailers. Don't take my word for it, shop around and compare prices. You might be surprised to see how much some of your local stores are marking up these essential computing products.

Knowing how you will use your printer will help you to decide what type of printing paper to purchase. If you intend on printing a large number of photos you may want to get a higher quality photo-paper. If you are a college student using a printer primarily for term papers, then a lower quality paper will usually serve your needs just fine.

You can find inkjet printers made by a variety of manufacturers at a wide variety of prices. You can spend as little or as much as you want on an inkjet printer. Your purchase decision will greatly depend on how you plan to use your printer. Again, if you plan on creating photos or business cards with your printer, you may want to opt for a higher quality model, but if you simply want to print out some papers, then it might make better sense to go with a less expensive printer.

About the Author:
Rich Martin supplies printer toner cartridges and ink refill kits. Tonerr.com provides inkjet and laser printer toner cartridge replacements for hundreds of printer models from 19 manufacturers. When you are ready to purchase replacement cartridges for your inkjet or laser printers, please stop by http://www.tonerr.com. Please feel free to shop around, but save Tonerr.com for last. After shopping around, you will realize as many others before you have, that Tonerr simply has some of the best prices in the industry. http://www.tonerr.com

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Authentication And Microsoft Active Directory - Integrate Your Applications To Join Together

2008-11-29T00:00:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Anne Sych

In a perfect world organizations would have a single application that fulfills all of their business needs, sadly this is not possible. While it is a desirable goal to have as much integrated functionality within a single application as possible, even large, very expensive enterprise systems rarely address every need in the desired way. As a result, organizations must consider supplementary applications to address these specific needs.

A problem that arises when additional applications are added to the network (intranet /extranet or both) is the issue of burdening the users with an added application to have to login to. Administrators and End Users have enough work to do as it is and adding the obstacle of having to sign into multiple applications is a time added nuisance. End Users are forced to keep track of multiple passwords and the hassle of additional steps to do their work. In addition to this, network and application administrators are faced with the challenges of adding users to each system, keeping track of who has access to what and somehow keeping user names updated or synchronized between systems.

Some of the costs to an organization for these inefficiencies are:

Decreased Productivity of high skilled Network and Application Administrators

Reduced Benefits - In some cases users may tend to use the application less than they should because of the hassle of accessing it, forgetting their password, etc.

Exposure to Risk - When application access is difficult to manage, someone could gain access to information they should not have (i.e. when an employee leaves the organization, etc.)

To effectively address these problems it is important that a new application being added to the network be able to tie into the existing authentication system (simply stated, authentication refers to the process of identifying the user). This is not just for the benefit of network and application administrators (i.e. maintaining a central login management system). It also provides a way for end users to be able to login to the network (or extranet web site) once and automatically have access to the applications and resources they need to effectively perform their jobs. Some applications that do provide single sign in modules often stop there - only providing benefits for authentication. An even higher level of benefit is achieved when the application not only provides single sign on capabilities, but also allows administrators to use a centralized system (i.e. Microsoft Active Directory) to control some level of what users have access to in the new application (authorization).

Some of the benefits to an organization of single sign-on access are:

Increased Productivity - Simplicity of user management for administrators and reduced barriers for end users accessing the information and resources they need

Improved Benefit/ROI - When applications are used more often for what they were designed to do, the organization receives the resulting benefit and achieves a quicker return on investment.

Reduced Exposure to Risk - Provided when a greater degree of control of application access is maintained.

This commonly overlooked feature will save your company time and money. When selecting your next software application place a high value on having authentication integration with your current application or Microsoft Active Directory.

About the Author:
Rich Hunter, President of Novo Solutions, Inc.
Novo Solutions, Inc. is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in Virginia Beach, Virginia specializing in Customer Support Software. Free trial versions of the Novo Help Desk Software, Knowledge Base Software and suite of web-based Customer Support Solutions are available. For more information contact: sales@novosolutions.com http://www.novosolutions.com/

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Cheap Laptops For Cash-Strapped College Students

2008-11-28T23:59:00.005-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Titus Hoskins

How to Find Top Quality Student Laptops at Bargain Prices

Finding a cheap laptop for college is an easy task. Laptop prices have fallen steadily over the last couple of years as marketplace competition heats up and production costs come down. You can now get a laptop for under $400.

But you must proceed with caution - as that old expression on ancient maps stated: Here There Be Monsters!

For you just don't want any old cheap laptop; you want a high quality machine that will offer good performance and won't go kapoots half way through the semester. You want a laptop that can accomplish all those student assignments and easily handle all those MP3 and movie downloads. In other words, the laptop you buy must be able to get the job done.

You want a quality laptop that's relatively small and lightweight; yet sturdy and shock proof. You will need a laptop with a good comfortable keyboard for typing up all those assignments. You may have to purchase a tablet notebook if you need a laptop for a lot of note-taking in class.

If you're buying a used or refurbished laptop you should have it checked out by a Laptop Technician or if this is not practical, bring along a friend who knows computers or laptops - there's a computer geek in every crowd.

Finding a top quality laptop at a bargain price may take some work on your part so here are some suggestions to make your job easier:

Try Your Friends and Neighbors

First, check around with your friends, neighbors and colleagues - many may have good quality laptops to sell or even give you! Why? Many people constantly upgrade to the latest laptop technology - Intel and AMD have just introduced laptops with Duo or Dual Core processors and many laptop enthusiasts are dishing their old perfectly good laptops for the newer faster sexier models. (Why does that sound so familiar!)

So check around, you may be able to purchase a good second hand laptop for next to nothing. Or in exchange for work (lawn mowing, yard work...) or services (baby sitting, shopping...) offered over the summer.

Try Ebay

Perhaps, the cheapest high quality laptops can be found on eBay. But again, you must check out carefully both the product and the seller. Make sure you do your homework and thoroughly check out the laptops before you buy. Make sure you don't end up with a useless monster!

Try A Refurbished Laptop

You can save a bundle by buying a refurbished laptop directly from the major Laptop Manufacturers. These laptops offer very good quality at much cheaper prices. So check around for a refurbished laptop.

Try Online Bargain Stores Such as Buy.com

You may want to check out the many bargain online stores or super sites such as BestBuy.com, TigerDirect.com, Buy.com and the countless others. These stores may also offer refurbished laptops, but keep your eyes open for those monsters.

Try Amazon

Don't forget Amazon, they now sell new and used laptops at some very competitive prices. If you have any rich uncles or aunts (relatives) tell them you have an Amazon Wishlist - place a wish for a good laptop at the top. Hey, don't laugh - it happens!

Try Dell Coupons And Rebates

Recently, Dell, HP and a few other laptop makers have come out with $400 laptops after rebates or coupons. These are usually level entry laptops but may be perfectly fine for students.

Don't Forget To Haggle

If you're buying a laptop from a favorite vendor or store - always ask for a discount or bargain. Many times haggling will get you a better price or some nice upgrades with a few extras thrown in. No harm in trying.

And Keep Those Eyes Open

Purchasing a good quality cheap student laptop can be done if you try some of the places listed above. If you're on a very strict budget, most college students are, you can save a lot money by shopping around and using the advice given here. Just keep in mind, as you open your purse or wallet to buy that bargain student laptop, keep your eyes peeled for any monsters that may be lurking around.

About the Author:
For more information on Buying Notebooks and Laptops at Bargain Prices Click Here: Laptops for Students Or here: Cheap Laptops
Copyright (c) 2006 Titus Hoskins, http://www.bizwaremagic.com This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Cisco CCNA Exam Tracks

2008-11-28T23:59:00.003-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Jameson Brown

With the latest version of the CCNA exam, Cisco offers two possible CCNA exam track options of either one or two exams.

1) The Single Exam Approach

Exam Number: 640-801 CCNA

The exam consists of 55-65 questions over 90 minutes and covers all CCNA exam topics

The topics covered on the exam include:

Planning and Designing

Implementation and Operation

Troubleshooting

Technology

2) The Two Exam Approach

Exam Numbers: 640-821 and 640-811

The two exam approach consists of 640-821 exam (Introduction to Cisco Networking Technologies, or CCNA INTRO) and 640-811 (Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices, or CCNA ICND)

640-821 CCNA consists of 45-55 questions over 75 minutes and covers the topics:

Planning and Designing

Implementation and Operation

Troubleshooting

Technology

640-811 CCNA consists of 40-50 questions over 60 minutes and covers the topics:

Design and Support

Implementation and Operation

Technology

Either approach will allow you to successfully become a CCNA after passing the required exams. There are advantages to taking either of the exam tracks and these include:

Single Exam Approach (640-801 CCNA) Advantages:

Only one exam required to become a CCNA and it covers all topics

More time efficient than taking two exams

More cost effective than taking two exams. Exam cost when taking this approach is $125.00 US versus $200.00 US for the Two Exam approach.

Who Should Take The Single Exam Approach?

Take the Single Exam Approach to the CCNA if:

You cannot afford the expenses of the two exam approach

You are looking to reduce the time spent obtaining the CCNA

If you are well prepared for the exam topics on the CCNA exam than the single exam approach is the way to go. This approach is generally recommended for more experienced candidates such as those who have experience with networking technologies.

Two Exam Approach (CCNA ICND and CCNA INTRO) Advantages:

Exam is broken up into 2 smaller sections of CCNA exam topics

Allows more time to learn and understand topics of each exam

Excellent for candidates new to Cisco technology

Who Should Take The Two Exam Approach?

Take the Two Exam Approach to the CCNA if:

You can afford the expenses associated with the cost of the two exams. You are new to Cisco technologies and networking basics.

You will be successful following either approach if:

You have a complete understanding of all CCNA exam topics

Have experience with router configuration/simulation

Have completed numerous configuration examples and questions on CCNA topics

The CCNA exam is the precursor to other higher level Cisco certifications. Successfully completing the CCNA exam will allow a candidate to pursue other Cisco certifications such as:

CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional)

CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional)

CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert)

About the Author:
Jameson Brown writes for SemSim.com.
http://www.SemSim.com provides training resources for Cisco certification exams: CCIE, CCNP, CCNA, CCDP, CCDA. Its FREE CCNA Study center offers resources to students such as study guides and router simulation labs. The online learning center located at: http://www.semsim.com/ccna/learn.html

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Save Time - Boost Productivity with Knowledge Base Software

2008-11-28T23:59:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Anne Sych

Even in an era often referred to as the "Information Age" keeping track of information can be a daunting task. Companies are moving away from traditional paper documentation for internal policies, references and documentation. We are also seeing a growing trend for companies to provide their customers access to information with online self help tools. Organizing your information for easy retrieval is essential to be competitive in this marketplace.

The IDC, a leading global intelligence marketing firm recently studied the issue of knowledge management. They found that knowledge workers, some of the industries highest paid workers, spent about 20% of their day looking for information. In the American workforce, that translates to about 400 hours per year/per worker. The IDC further noted that about half of that time spent searching resulted in the workers (employees) still not being able to find the information they were looking for. Imagine"¦ 200 hours per worker (per year) of wasted time, or put another way, your employees wasting about 10% of their workday.

The blessing and the curse of the "Information Age" is that managers now have at their disposal a wealth of information. Organizing, storing and retrieving this information effectively requires a strong knowledge base system.

Knowledge base systems can typically be used for internal and external support. Internal support systems store company knowledge to be retrieved by management and staff. Administrator settings that are easily configured allow for optimum functionality such as flexible permissions controls, workflow, article review, etc. External support systems for customer self help should integrate with your existing web site and be easy for your customers to navigate. Ease of use, advanced search capabilities and the ability to rate articles are essential system features.

Knowledge base software systems are usually priced based on the number of administrators who will be managing the system. It pays to research the many features that are available to ensure you will not soon outgrow your system. Up front spending for functionality must be weighed against revenue lost for wasted employee time. A robust knowledge management system will save your employees search time and boost their search productivity.

IDC Research; January 2005; www.idc.com

About the Author:
Written by: Anne Sych, Marketing Manager for Novo Solutions, Inc.
Novo Solutions, Inc. is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in Virginia Beach, Virginia specializing in Customer Support Software. Free trial versions of the Novo Help Desk Software, Knowledge Base Software and suite of web-based Customer Support Solutions are available. Contact: sales@novosolutions.com for more information. http://www.novosolutions.com/

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What Every Computer Owner Should Know About Maintenance

2008-11-28T23:54:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2006-2008 Vasrue.com, All Rights Reserved Written by: Peter Welch

Like cars, homes and everything else we purchase, computers require ongoing upkeep and maintenance. Computers are complex machines, and the more we use them, the more critical it is ensure efficient and smooth performance. Follow these six tips to keep your computer running well as long as possible:

1. Back-up Data. Contrary to wishful thinking, your computer will not last forever. It has a terminal lifespan, and crashes are not only inevitable, but common. At any moment without notice, your hard drive could stop running, obliterating all of your important data and files. While the best back-ups are off-site to ensure restoration in the event of theft or natural disaster (think Katrina victims), you should minimally back-up your files to an external hard drive. How often do you require a back-up? Heavy users should conduct daily back-ups, while periodic users can get away with weekly or monthly back-ups. Similarly, heavy users should clone their entire drive, while recreational computer users can get away with saving a second or third copy of their documents, music, photos and other irreplaceable data.

2. Use System Utilities. Whenever you load software or delete files, you change things on your drive. Keep this clean and efficient by running a Disk Doctor, Disk Defrag or System Utility on a routine basis.

3. Shut Down Properly. Never click the power button to turn your computer off without properly shutting down the system first.

4. Uninstall Programs. Avoid dragging unused and unneeded programs into the trash. Instead, use the application's uninstall option to properly erase and clean up affiliated files.

5. Block Viruses. Invest in a reputable virus protection program and set it up to automatically scan your system on a routine basis.

6. Assess Downloads. If you don't know who the sender is or don't know what the file type is, don't download it. This is applicable to all file transfers, including email, instant messaging and web surfing. Keep in mind, viruses can initiate emails to everyone in the victim's address book. So even if you know the sender, don't assume its safe. A quick call to the sender can save thousands of dollars in computer damage.

While we're not all computer technicians, we should have a basic understanding of the system we're using. Once you get the hang of it, system maintenance is as easy as riding a bike.

About the Author:
Copyright (c) 2008 http://www.Vasrue.com, All Rights Reserved.

Peter Welch writes about Computers and the Internet for the Vasrue website. Articles are published weekly on Travel, Personal Finance, Online Business, Credit and a host of other great topics. All Vasrue articles are available to other webmasters through RSS feeds. Visit the Vasrue.com website often, to learn something new.

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The Future Of Inkjet Cartridges - Part II

2008-11-26T01:55:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2007-2008 Rich Martin

Awhile back I wrote an article about the "Future of Ink Cartridges", which stirred up some interest to say the least. The reason for this was that you would no longer need a toner cartridge to print a document or a photo. Enabled printers will change the way the world thinks about printing and image making. They won't require ink cartridges or ribbons, so they are extremely small and are not affected by gravity. They can be pocket-sized or be embedded into almost any electronic device.

But don't throw out your ink cartridges just yet. This may take some time to come to market. In the meantime, we can surely discuss what the impacts are likely to be for us, the consumer, and on big corporations, i.e. Lexmark and HP. For now, you will need your old fashion toner cartridges to print your documents. Not to worry, http://www.Tonerr.com can fulfill your printing equipment needs in the interim with great prices and many high quality brands.

What impact is this new technology going have on the consumer? Well, looking at the pluses, better quality prints and photo's than you get now with the old conventional laser printers. Why? The secret is in the paper. Special photo paper is comprised of dye crystals that are set in the paper. Before the printing process begins, the dye crystals become clear, making the paper look like a regular piece of white photo paper, but when run through a special-enabled printer, heat triggers the dye crystals to add color. The result is a high quality digital print or photo, and the best part, NO INK CARTRIDGES.

Mobility is another new plus. You are going to be able to take a picture with your electronic devise, say an I-phone, and be able to print a copy or photo at that instant. You will be able to send a digital photo from a cell phone using the Bluetooth wireless system. About 30 seconds later, a wallet-size color photo will emerge from a tiny slot on the end.

Cost may be a plus. The cost of a small printer that uses this technology will be around $100 as a ball park number, but that could potentially change. Remember the Polaroid camera. Its cost was high when it first came out, so even though technology has come a long way, it would still be spectacle about its cost. The camera is expected to cost roughly $200.

What is the impact going to be on the major printing supply companies? What would you think? I think initially not much, but as the new technology this company is touting becomes known, the big company margins will start to suffer. Once this becomes widely accepted and sales are at a peak, they will eventually license their technology to all and get an additional revenue source as a result, while the Lexmark's of the world spin their wheels trying to get on board.

I think this new technology will be available sometime in 2008. So, keep checking my blog or web-site for more updates.

About the Author:
Richard J. Martin is the owner of the http://www.tonerr.com/ web-site. His newsletter monitors current trends and analyzes future trends in the ink cartridge industry. Through his newsletter, Richard also offers tips and tricks to get the most use from your cartridges and to share advice on how to get the best prices for replacement ink toner cartridges. Richard may be contacted through his website at http://www.tonerr.com/ or at his blog http://tonerr.blogspot.com/

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My Second Windows Vista Review.

2008-11-26T01:53:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2007-2008 Onuora Amobi

I have been on Windows Vista since it was a Beta and have had a chance to review this operating system at length. I am writing this follow up review because many readers at the site (http://www.Windows-Vista-Update.com) have written to ask me exactly what I feel about this operating system.

Since I run a Windows Vista related site, I often get asked questions about Vista and what I think about the quality of the O.S.

Here's my honest opinion.

It's not perfect but it's very very good and it's a major improvement from XP.

First, let me state that I have a 3.06ghz cpu combined with a 500gig hard drive and 1 gig of RAM. I have a LOT of applications and I drive my PC really hard. Under these circumstances, Vista behaves really well. The graphics are slick and smooth, the operating system generally looks beautiful and applications tend to respond pretty well.

Further more, the combination of Microsoft Office 2007 and Vista is a really potent coupling for the end user. I will write about Office later but I thought I would just throw in a quick mention.

I also use 2 monitors and was very easily able to split my monitor setup in two and get productive within 10 minutes (http://www.windows-vista-update.com/Using-two-monitors-with-Windows-Vista.html).

The graphical user interface makes it easier to find files and generally find your way around the PC. The control panels etc are generally intuitive and it's a pretty good experience in general.

Now, having said that, there are some kinks that still need to be worked out.

The OS tends to slow down mysteriously once in a rare while..It feels like deja vu with XP. Now with 1 gig of RAm and a 3.06ghz cpu, I don't find that in the least bit amusing. Not sure why this happens and whether this is a memory leak or something but I know several readers have written me to tell me that same thing. Maybe SP 1 will fix.

AERO - The new fancy graphical user interface. Umm...useless. I have a 512 meg graphics card and a fast PC and have had no problems with the implementation of AERO. It's just that several months later, I hardly ever turn it on. It's almost like there's really no point to actually having it there. It was a nice idea but this is a great example of having something just to have it.

Installation of some apps is difficult. This is the most understandable "flaw". Not every vendor is on Vista but most of them are getting there and this is not a major problem.

Other than those "flaws" I mentioned, Vista is superb. More stable than XP, better icons and intuitiveness than 2000 and Microsoft's most solid OS to date.

People talk about this not being as good as a Mac and I am a Mac fan as well.

Truth is, after what I went through with XP, I am just fine with Vista thank you very much.

It's stable, beautiful and it works.

About the Author:
Onuora Amobi is the CEO of Nnigma Inc. and editor of http://www.Windows-Vista-Update.com. He writes a monthly article for the website that can be found at http://www.windows-vista-update.com/Windows-Vista-Update-Editorial-Big-Mouth.html. Windows-Vista-Update.com is the premier Microsoft windows Vista information portal. On this site, you can find news, information, tips, new features and updates about Windows Vista.

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How to Download Voicemail Messages and Save to CD or MP3

2008-11-26T01:51:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2007-2008 Howard Richman

Have you ever wanted to permanently backup your answering machine messages or store your voicemail messages to your computer? Have you ever wondered how to save those important cell phone messages before they are auto-erased? These are things that have bugged me for years and I finally set out to find some easy solutions.

This tutorial will help you learn how to save cute messages from your children or important business information, or even messages that you need for legal purposes. Now you can easily archive saved voicemails!

Learn how to:

transfer voicemail to .mp3

transfer voicemail to .wav

transfer voicemail to .aif

transfer voicemail to CD

transfer voicemail to computer

On the old answering machines, you could just put in a new micro cassette and save the old one and that was that! Now, all the new answering machines are digital and it doesn't seem as easy to create backups. Also, with voice mail, if you wait 30 days with most systems, the messages are erased, unless you keep manually saving them. But in this case, you soon exceed your limit and nobody can leave a new message!

Some cell phone services offer a way for you to download voicemail messages via and email and then you can save voice mail messages to your computer. But not all cell phone companies offer this service and then what about your home answering machine or your remote landline voicemail service?

OPTION 1 - VoIP Service + Phone Recording Software.

This is my favorite option because it is the least expensive, the best quality and the easiest for most people to implement and it is the most widely applicable for every situation. This approach will allow you to transfer your voicemail messages or your answering machine messages to your computer for permanent storage. You can save as .wav or .aif or .mp3 file formats and in many cases, even more than that.

It basically involves two elements: 1) VoIP service and 2) phone recording software. You call your voice mail or answering machine from your computer. You press the record button and then you got it. It is really that easy. Then you have permanently saved your voice mail messages or answering machine messages, so you can then free up the needed space for more messages.

VoIP means Voice Over Internet Protocol. This means literally plugging a headset into your computer and using your computer as a phone! Or, now, some VoIP services now give you the option of using your regular phone lines but it routes through their system! Most VoIP services offer calling crystal clear digital phone lines, unlimited calling, low international rates, no annual contracts, and a money back guarantee. Each VoIP service has slightly different terms.

(PLEASE NOTE, that since our goal here is just to transfer your voice mail or answering machine messages to your computer, you don't actually need any headphones that plug into the computer, because you won't be needing to speak! So, when you hear that VoIP services means that you will need to get headphones, that is true, but only if you are going to use the service to hold phone conversations!)

How to Download the Messages to your Computer.

You literally call your voicemail or your answering machine number from your computer using the VoIP service. Find a VoIP service that doesn't obligate you to a monthly membership fee. The best ones for this purpose are the ones where you can just make a "deposit" and use these funds to make your calls. $10 will give you up to 50 hours of calls!

How to Save Your Message as a Sound File, .mp3, .wav, .aif.

You literally can turn your computer into a digital recording device and you don't even need a microphone! There are many freeware and shareware and low-cost software programs that will allow you to do this. Look for "sound recording software."

Procedure:

1) Dial your voice mail or answering machine number from your VoIP service
2) Begin recording using the phone recording software. Use the "Wave Out Mix" recording source setting.
3) Save file as .wav, .mp3, or .aif so you can use as needed.

OPTION 2 - Cable Connection + Phone Recording Software.

Using 1) hardware to physically connect your phone to your computer and 2) recording software. This option is more expensive and more troubling for most people. However, if you are the type of person who cannot deal with signing up for a VoIP service and would rather buy some cables, plugs and adapters, this may be just the perfect thing. One end of the jack plugs into your phone. The other end plugs into the "mic" input on the back of the computer.

Procedure:

1) Plug the phone itself into the back of your computer using a Telephone Recording Jack.
2) Dial your voice mail or answering machine number from your phone.
3) Begin recording using the phone recording software. Use the "Mic" or "Wave Out Mix" recording source setting.
4) Save file as .wav, .mp3, or .aif so you can use as needed.

OPTION 3 - Receive Voicemail as Email Attachment.

This option is also very cool, but does not work in all circumstances. The "convert voicemail to email service" only works with selected voicemail vendors and will not work for answering machines at all. The good thing, however is that it is totally free! Some cell phone vendors actually offer this service. In other cases, you can sign up for an independent service. Do a search for "voicemail to email." This service will grab your voicemail message and attach it to an email and send the email to you. From there, you can file or archive your email messages.

OPTION 4 - Voicemail Transfer Service.

Voicemail to .mp3 SERVICE. This service is perfect if you don't want to deal with any of the technology and would rather pay someone to transfer your valuable voicemail messages to mp3 or transfer voicemails to CD.

About the Author:
Howard Richman, President, Sound Feelings Publishing. Offering free and helpful tips in the areas of health, music instruction and education. Specializing in unconventional products that help people find solutions to their most stubborn problems. http://www.soundfeelings.com/free/download_voicemail_messages.htm 1-818-757-0600

Copyright (c) - 2007 Sound Feelings Publishing.

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What Is Internet Fax?

2008-11-26T01:47:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2007-2008 Titus Hoskins

Internet Fax is simply using the Internet or your email system to send and receive faxes. Since it is web based, you can send your faxes anytime anywhere; as long as you have an Internet connection and these days that's available just about everywhere.

You sign up with an Internet fax service provider to get your own fax number (local or toll free) which you use in the same manner as you would use any fax number. There is a small charge for this service but keep in mind you do not need an extra phone line to do Internet faxing since everything is done online.

Many small and large business owners are switching over to Internet Fax for some obvious advantages: it is very convenient, it is very fast, it offers more privacy, many faxes can be sent/received simultaneously (no busy signals) and it is available wherever you have the Internet. Plus there are no messy fax machines and no need for a second phone line.

One of the most asked questions about Internet Fax relates to the confusion over just how the whole thing works. Many traditional fax users can't quite get their heads around the idea of having faxes without the traditional fax machine.

Basically, you sign up with a fax service provider and get your own fax number and you send/receive your faxes thru your email system - your fax is attached to an email as either a TIFF or PDF format file. You can access your faxes from an online interface (your fax login site) where your faxes are received and sent. You can also store your faxes online there.

What confuses most people who are not familiar with online faxing is the question: can I still send my faxes to the old traditional machines, since many of my business partners may not be using Internet Fax?

The answer is YES!

You can send your faxes to the old traditional fax machine and if they have your fax number, they can still return a fax to you via the old traditional manner or fax machine.

Here's how Internet Fax works:

You use a fax gateway or Internet Fax provider/server to handle your faxes. For example, say if you were sending a fax.

Computer/Internet -> Fax provider/server -> Phone line -> Fax machine

You use your computer and the Internet to log into your online account/page to send your fax to your fax provider/server which then uses the phone line to send your fax to the receiving fax machine.

If you are receiving a Fax

Fax machine -> Phone line -> Fax provider/server -> Email message (thru Internet) -> Your Email account

Someone uses a fax machine to send you a fax which goes thru the phone line to your fax provider/server which converts it into a TIFF or PDF file and sends you an email message with your fax attached in your email.

If both parties are using Internet Fax, then your faxes can be sent/received using your email systems over the Internet.

Computer/email -> Fax provider/server -> Computer/email

What you really have to keep in mind, once you sign up for an Internet fax service you will have an online interface (login site) where you can send and receive your faxes. Then when you send or receive a fax, you get a confirmation in your web interface and/or by email.

This offers some great advantages such as receiving and sending your faxes whenever and wherever you access the Internet. No more busy signals, no more messy fax machines, no more nosy workers seeing the contents of your fax, and no extra phone line. Plus, many faxes can be sent/received simultaneously, even when your computer is turned off. No more missed faxes because your phone line was busy.

However, in order to get all these advantages you have to sign up for an Internet fax service. There are many well known Internet fax providers such as MyFax, eFax, RapidFax, TrustFax, Send2Fax... and some very good lesser known faxing companies such as MetroHiSpeed out of Seattle and Faxage out of Denver.

A word of caution, when signing up for any long term business service it pays to do your homework first. It pays to shop around mainly because even any small savings may prove significant over the long haul. Prices can range from very cheat (under $20 a year) to around $10 - $15 a month depending on the kind of service you need. There are many different plans and services, and keep in mind, you will pay more for International faxing.

Internet Fax seems to be the way of the future as more and more businesses go online. Besides, as we become more and more modernized, computers are offering us simple and convenient solutions to many of our daily traditional business tasks such as faxing. Can your business or any company really afford to be left behind or not take advantage of the benefits of Internet Fax? Can you still remain competitive without Internet Fax? It's your call?

About the Author:
For a handy online comparison chart of all the major Internet Fax Service Providers click here: Online Fax Comparison Chart For more detailed reviews of the different online fax services try here:Internet Fax Copyright (c) 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Extreme Gaming Laptops: When Is A Laptop Not A Laptop?

2008-11-26T01:38:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins

Extreme gaming laptops are reaching new benchmarks to give you the ultimate gaming experience. These ever increasing, powerful machines are offering you better performances from ever decreasing packages. Gaming laptops are now reaching standards usually associated with high end Desktop PCs. But at some point even the most dedicated gamer has to ask: when is a laptop not a laptop?

If you take the literal meaning of the word, you should be able to fit or sit a laptop comfortably on your lap for an extended period of time. Portability should also be another defining feature; you should be able to easily carry your laptop around with you wherever you go. Otherwise, why not just buy a Desktop PC instead of a laptop? The long-standing argument has been power or performance; you can get higher performance out of a Desktop PC than you can get from any laptop. Maybe so, but the gap is narrowing quickly.

Recent extreme gaming laptops are offering some very impressive specs. Just take, for example, the new Xtreme SL8 from Rock (a UK laptop manufacturer), and you will see that stacking has taken on a whole new meaning.

The Xtreme SL8 is one heck of a mean-machine with ultimate raw stacking power with four Intel Core 2 processor cores, two NVIDIA 8800M GTX SLi graphics cards and three 7200rpm SATA hard drives. This gaming machine can crunch numbers and offer top mobile performance benchmarks. It might even give the old PC some serious laptop envy! This machine supports up to 4GB DDR2 RAM (available up to 800MHz) with DX10 graphics. Plus, you have all the high end features such as HD-DVD Writer combo drive, TV Tuner, Hi-res 17" WUXGA X-Glass (1920x1200) Display, Webcam, 7.1 Surround Sound Output with 4 speakers...

However, all this stacking power and fully loaded features takes up a lot of space. The Xtreme SL8 weighs in at a little under 12 pounds (5.3 kg) and around 15.5 inches (394) mm by 12 inches (299 mm). At two and a half inches thick this is not your Apple Air.

Nor is it trying to be, but some comparisons have to be made if we're classifying both of these computing machines as laptops. The Apple Air is 3 pounds (1.36 kg) and under an inch thick (1.94 cm) so it truly is a portable laptop with 5 hours of battery life. This is a long way removed from the XSL8's massive credentials and massive weight, but so too is the distance between the performances offered by the respective laptops.

These two mobile computers were designed for two completely different purposes, one for raw gaming power and the other for the ultimate in portability. Each has their respective customers but can both of them be called a laptop?

Perhaps, but the Xtreme SL8 is more or less a neatly trimmed down packaged desktop. Not that there is anything wrong with that as long as you understand what you're getting when you're buying one; you won't be sitting with this baby on your lap for long periods or lugging it around over long distances.

For those of us studying laptop designs (there are such creatures in the world unfortunately) over a long period of time, you can't help but notice how much power and performance can now be crammed into an ever-shrinking package. Nor can you ignore the trend that Desktop PCs are looking more and more like laptops, especially the monitors. Even the trademark Desktop Tower is getting slimmer and more streamlined. There will probably come a time when all the tower components will evolve into such small compact entities, calling it a tower will be a gross exaggeration.

One can plainly see, the Desktop PC days are numbered, especially when you consider we have an inherent need to make everything smaller and more compact. Besides, why take up all that space when you can get the same performance in a smaller package. This is another example where big may not necessarily be better.

The line between what is a laptop and what is a desktop computer will continue to be blurred as computer makers keep offering up what the consumer wants. At some point in the not too distance future the two products will probably converge into a light, portable package that can be carried anywhere. Why not just call everything a Mobile Computer and be done with it.

But for now, gaming enthusiasts will still have a choice when buying their ultimate gaming machine - a Desktop PC or a laptop such as the Xtreme SL8. However, calling the last one a laptop is still stretching the imagination to its limits, no matter how you define it.

About the Author:
The author runs an online Laptop Guide featuring the latest top gaming laptops: Gaming Laptops For Timely Special Savings/Deals/Coupons on Toshiba, Dell, Apple, Sony, Alienware...click here: Cheap Laptops Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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7 Good Reasons For Buying A Laptop Online

2008-11-26T01:36:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins

Laptops are becoming increasingly popular with consumers mainly because laptops offer excellent portability, convenience and performance in one small package. You can take your handy little laptop anywhere; no matter whether you're just going into the next room or going around the world.

Laptops or notebook computers are the ultimate high tech gadgets of our time. They offer a tremendous amount of technology in a small versatile machine: you can surf the web, you can watch movies or play games, you can create graphics or do a spreadsheet, you can write your next novel or write your latest school report, you can listen to music or connect directly by webcam to all your friends... anywhere, anytime. These are just a few of the things you can do on your laptop.

And those are all good solid reasons why you should be considering buying a laptop if you're in the market for a personal computer. Now here are some reasons why you should make that laptop purchase ONLINE.

1. Convenience

Buying your laptop online is very convenient. You can sit in your living room and order one of these technical marvels within a few minutes. Granted, visiting your local mall or tech shop will give you an opportunity to examine your future purchase first-hand, but for many buyers in distant or remote locations this is not an option.

Online shopping makes it convenient for everyone to buy their laptop, no matter where they live. It gives everyone the same deals and specials that they normally would not get without the Internet. It is a form of 'Shopping Democracy' in action.

Forget long drives to a busy mall, high gas prices, crowded stores... ordering and buying your laptop from the comfort of your living room or your home office offers great convenience and satisfaction.

2. Better Selection

Shopping online for your notebook offers you a greater selection. Actually, these days just about any laptop invented can be bought online. Your selection will be much greater than you can get in a brick and mortar store.

Most major laptop stores and manufacturers have online outlets so finding a merchant to suit your requirements will be very easy to do. Finding and configuring your perfect laptop will be much simpler if you do it online. You can take your time and you won't be rushed by impatient customers waiting in the line behind you or frustrated by a pushy sales clerk in front of you!

3. Laptop Reviews

Perhaps, one of the best aspects of buying your laptop on the web, are all the reviews and customer ratings you can examine before making your final decision. The Internet is a vast warehouse of reviews and customer ratings on the products you want to buy. Third party review sites and online notebook guides are also helpful when you're looking for general information on purchasing a laptop or computer.

Many online stores have customer feedback and reviews which are extremely helpful. Whether positive or negative these reviews will guide you in making a better purchasing decision. So you should take full advantage of these online laptop reviews and sites.

4. Comparison Shopping

Compare before you buy. Another obvious benefit of buying your laptop online, you can compare all the different prices and stores before you buy. The Internet makes this much more convenient than driving around in the real world to four or five stores just to get the best price.

Online shopping offers you a great chance to do some serious comparison shopping before you buy. Surf around and save your money.

5. Best Pricing

Online stores offer very competitive pricing, mainly because there are no overheads or expenses these stores have to keep. Everything is automated and computerized which can mean bigger savings and lower prices for anyone buying online. It is more like buying from a warehouse outlet than a retail store. You will get a lower price.

Keep in mind, any online store will have a huge consumer base (the whole world in most cases) that their volume levels may be extremely high so offering lower prices is within reason and good business.

6. Laptop Coupons

Many major online laptop sellers such as Dell, HP, Toshiba do offer online coupons and special sales which can mean tremendous savings or discounts for the average buyer. In many cases these coupons or deals are only available online so it really pays to buy your laptop from the web.

7. Free Shipping

Free shipping is also offered by many online retailers and notebook manufacturers. This is another reason why buying online can prove beneficial. UPS or next day shipping is often available, although if you're having your laptop configured or created to your own specifications it usually takes longer to receive your purchase.

So the next time you're thinking about buying a laptop, consider buying it online. It will not only be more convenient but you will also have a wider selection, better pricing, and all the reviews and customer feedback you will need to make a wise decision. Moreover, it doesn't matter where you live, you can comparison shop to find the best deal to suit your needs. Plus, if you check around, you can get free shipping thrown in as an extra reason to buy your laptop online.

About the Author:
For more information on Buying Notebooks and Laptops online at Bargain Prices Click Here: Cheap Laptops Or here: Gaming Laptops. Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins. http://www.bizwaremagic.com This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Cutting IT Costs: A Software Change May Be Just The Ticket To Trim Your Bottom Line

2008-11-26T01:34:00.001-08:00

Copyright © 2008 Clark Tanner

Current economic trends are forcing more and more companies to look for creative ways to reduce spending. When Senior Management decides to cut the budget across the board, even IT departments feel the crunch. That is why CTO's and IT Directors now have a new mandate. They must scrutinize every dollar they are spending, and make a decision as to what expenses are tied to "must haves" versus "nice to haves".

Typically, upgrades to IT infrastructure are not likely to end up on the chopping block. Industry leaders like Dell are finding that servers and storage devices are still selling, while PC sales seem to be slowing down. High powered servers with increased data storage capacity seem to be the order of the day. Yet, there is still a directive from the CEO to cut costs. This leads to the dilemma many technology managers are faced with.... "Where do we tighten the belt?"

Cutting Software Expenses:

What about software expenses? Many software packages often have huge costs associated to yearly support and maintenance agreements. These contracts, having long been considered to be "fixed costs," are now subject to closer review as well. Even the IT department's customer support software must be taken into account. Makers of high-end solutions, such as BMC (Remedy) and HP (OpenView) are requiring their customers to pay premium rates (annually) in maintenance fees, resulting in what for many companies is a huge percentage of their IT budget; only to repeat and increase every year.

This brings us back to our earlier mention of "must haves" versus "nice to haves". Oftentimes, companies utilizing these mammoth solutions are not taking advantage of the robust functionality the packages offer, yet they are paying huge amounts of money every single year in order to keep the application maintained (including the components that are not being used). Many companies find that they either do not need all of the functionality of these monstrous programs, or that the software is too complex for their staff to configure and learn. Not only was the initial investment a huge expense, but the ongoing cost of software support could easily top $300,000.00 in just a few years time. The question is, are the software "nice to haves" really worth it? What if these fixed costs could be reduced substantially, while still having the foundational tools needed to perform daily tasks and all those dollars could be reinvested back into new technology, or to replace old outdated PC's? Is there really a way to cut costs and still have a strong and reliable request management (Service Desk) system?

A Wise Alternative in Today's Market:

One possible answer to this current dilemma is to consider replacing a costly, existing Service Desk (ticketing) solution with one that is more affordable over the long term. For instance, compare the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a package such as Novo Solutions' Service Desk software with BMC's Remedy. In five years time, the Remedy customer could spend $750,000.00 to $1,000,000.00 plus, when you add the initial purchase price, cost of implementation, training costs, and 5 years of maintenance charges. A comparable package from Novo Solutions (with a few less bells and whistles) would cost around $75,000.00 to $90,000.00 (including the initial investment, implementation, training and 5 years of maintenance). For many Remedy users, the up front cost of purchasing the Novo Service Desk Software is less than their annual Remedy support renewal, resulting in an immediate savings.

The Bottom Line:

In a climate where tough decisions are being made to cut costs, a closer review of these numbers causes one to rethink whether or not it is wise investment to implement and maintain pricy applications like Remedy or OpenView when such comparable and affordable alternatives exist. Changing to an alternate affordable solution allows daily essential support tasks to continue "business as usual" while the money saved can be substantial.

About the Author:
Clark Tanner, Account Manager for Novo Solutions, Inc. Novo Solutions, Inc. is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in Virginia Beach, Virginia specializing in Customer Support Software Free trial versions of the Novo Help Desk Software, and suite of web-based Customer Support Solutions are available. Contact: sales@novosolutions.com for more information. http://www.novosolutions.com/

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Google Chrome Takes Gold

2008-11-15T00:48:00.000-08:00

There are many web browsers out there e.g. Firefox, IE7 and Safari, just to name a few of the popular ones. So why does Google want to make one of their own when there are enough out there causing way too much confusion for new users on the computer.

Well, I had the same opinion until I visited Youtube where they were advertising it. Even though it was in beta testing I decided to give it a go. It is totally amazing. I have a notebook (MSI Wind) and find that IE7 takes up way too much space at the top of the screen. However I now prefer Google Chrome as it is just 10 times simpler.

I had a friend who criticized Safari, claiming it to be too simple and have not enough features, but it was this particular reason which convinced me to use it. I find IE7 to render pages fine, however Microsoft have designed it so that users can download ad-ons to enrich their browsing experience, e.g. Google or Yahoo toolbar. As I said it has many useless features in it which I find very annoying hanging around my browser. All I need to use is the search bar. Safari however has the bar built in next to the web address which saves a lot of room but clears the interface up. Google is even better than that, taking away the search bar and building it into the web address box. It even takes away the bar at the top of the window and replaces it with the tabs.

The thing I really like about Google Chrome is the way it downloads and indicated things to you. When you load a page it tells you what it is doing at the bottom of the page in the left hand corner. The annoying thing is that it doesn't tell you how much has loaded, but never the less is very useful. Also when I need to download flash player and plug-ins it will display it at the top but emphasize it so you can see and ask you if you want to download it. When it downloads the file, it displays it at the bottom and has a drop down menu which you can use to pick what you want to do with the file.

In general Google Chrome is a great option instead of using IE7 or Firefox. Google has really made Chrome very simple and easy to use. It also is a very useful on a netbook that has limited screen space as the simple interface doesn't clog up the entire screen. I strongly recommend it for anyone looking for a change or even just curious about the hype. You won't regret downloading it!

This is an article written by Francis Young taken from http://www.technific.com

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The History of Solaris

2008-11-15T00:47:00.000-08:00

The history of Solaris, the Unix-based operating system developed by Sun Microsystems, displays that company's ability to be innovative and flexible. Solaris, one could argue, is perpetually ahead of the curve in the computer world. Sun continually adapts to the changing computer environment, trying to anticipate where the computer world is going, and what will be needed next, and develops new versions of Solaris to take that into account.

Solaris was born in 1987 out of an alliance between AT&T and Sun Microsystems to combine the leading Unix versions (BSD, XENIX, and System V) into one operating system. Four years later in 1991, Sun replaced it's existing Unix operating system (SunOS 4) with one based on SVR4. This new OS, Solaris 2, contained many new advances, including use of the OpenWindows graphical user interface, NIS+, Open Network Computing (ONC) functionality, and was specially tuned for symmetric multiprocessing.

This kicked off Solaris' history of constant innovation, with new versions of Solaris being released almost annually over the next fifteen years. Sun was constantly striving to stay ahead of the curve, while at the same time adapting Solaris to the existing, constantly evolving wider computing world. The catalogue of innovations in the Solaris OS are too numerous to list here, but a few milestones are worth mentioning. Solar 2.5.1 in 1996 added CDE, the NFSv3 file system and NFS/TCP, expanded user and group IDs to 32 bits, and included support for the Macintosh PowerPC platform. Solaris 2.6 in 1997 introduced WebNFS file system, Kerberos 5 security encryption, and large file support to increase Solaris' internet performance.

Solaris 2.7 in 1998 (renamed just Solaris 7) included many new advances, such as native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging). It was also the first 64-bit release, which dramatically increased its performance, capacity, and scalability. Solaris 8 in 2000 took it a step further was the first OS to combine datecentre and dot-com requirements, offering support for IPv6 and IPSEC, Multipath I/O, and IPMP. Solaris 9 in 2002 saw the writing on the wall of the server market, dropped OpenWindows in favour of Linux compatibility, and added a Resource Manager, the Solaris Volume Manager, extended file attributes, and the iPlanet Directory Server.

Solaris 10, the current version, was released to the public in 2005 free of charge and with a host of new developments. The latest advances in the computing world are constantly being incorporated in new versions of Solaris 10 released every few months. To mention just a few, Solaris features more and more compatibility with Linux and IBM systems, has introduced the Java Desktop System based on GNOME, added Dynamic Tracing (Dtrace), NFSv4, and later the ZFS file system in 2006.

Also in 2006, Sun set up the OpenSolaris Project. Within the first year, the OpenSolaris community had grown to 14,000 members with 29 user groups globally, working on 31 active projects. Although displaying a deep commitment to open-source ideals, it also provides Sun with thousands of developers essentially working for free.

The development of the Solaris OS demonstrates Sun Microsystems' ability to be on the cutting edge of the computing world without losing touch with the current computing environment. Sun regularly releases new versions of Solaris incorporating the latest development in computer technology, yet also included more cross-platform compatibility and incorporating the advances of other systems. The OpenSolaris project is the ultimate display of these twin strengths-Sun has tapped into the creative energy of developers across the world and receives instant feedback about what their audience wants and needs. If all software companies took a lesson from Sun, imagine how exciting and responsive the industry could be.

Tom Kranz runs a Unix Consulting business, as well as a help site for users of Silicon Graphics computers. He specialise in Solaris consultancy and larger scale infrastructure solutions.

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Project Integration Management - A Key To Overall Project Success

2008-11-15T00:46:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, it is indeed difficult to handle an IT project. So many matters to consider like schedule to meet, budget allocation, constant inquiries from stakeholders, team to manage, constant changes, etc. Due to the complexity of an IT project, many Project Managers (PM) tend to focus on the system to build rather than at the "big picture".

One duty of a project manager is to coordinate all of the knowledge areas throughout a project's life cycle. These knowledge areas are: Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resource, Communications, Risk and Procurement. I shall discuss individual knowledge areas in my succeeding articles. Project Integration Management cements all these knowledge areas in such a way that the project will be a complete success. Note that Project Integration Management is not the same thing as software integration management. The former is integration on the "big picture" (or entirety of the project) while the latter is integration on the software components only.

Project Integration Management includes the processes and methods required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly organized. Example of which is making tradeoffs among competing objectives. Project Integration Management is divides into three parts: Project Plan Development, Project Plan Execution and Integrated Change Control.

Project Plan Development is where developers plan what they will do with their IT project. Apart from planning the entirety of the project, developers also consider other important aspects [of the project], like: Historical information, Organizational policies, and Constraints and Assumptions. The result of excellent planning is the creation of a Project (Development) Plan. This plan is used as a main document that serves as guide and blue print in project execution and project control. This document coordinates all project planning documents and assists the PM in leading the project team and assessing the project's status. See Project Development Plan: the First Guide in Building an IT System.

Project Plan Execution is the primary process for carrying out the project plan and this is the area where the project's budget and time is spent more. The application area or the project affects project execution because the products are produced during execution. The result of excellent planning - Project Plan - serves as input to Project Plan Execution.

That is, Project Plan Execution is dependent on the result of excellent project planning, excellent creation of a project plan. Apart from this document, developers must also consider other important aspects at this stage like: Organized policies, Preventive action and Corrective action. The results of executing the Project Plan are Work Results and Change Requests. By executing the plan, results are recorded; however changes (proposed or brought about by the circumstances) cannot be avoided especially if these changes benefit the project. Here are a few samples of the tools and techniques used during project plan execution: (1) Work Authorization System - a method used to ensure that people do perform their tasks, (2) Status Review Meetings - regular and scheduled meetings where the project team discusses all things related to the project, and (3) Project Management Software - a software used in assisting a team in managing their projects.

Integrated Change Control is concerned with: (1) controlling factors that create changes to ensure that changes are agreed upon by all stakeholders, (2) determining that a change has indeed occurred, and (3) managing the actual changes when they occur. During Project Plan Execution, performance reports and change requests are gathered also. Change Request is a kind of document where all proposed changes affecting the system being built are listed and described. After the changes have been studied, corrective actions will be implemented and lessons are absorbed.

Change Control System is a process that describes how official project documents and work may be changed. The process describes the personnel who can make changes. Also, the process includes a change control board (CCB), configuration management, and a process for relaying the changes. The CCB is a group of people tasked to approve or reject changes on a project. They provide guidelines and documents for change requests, evaluate then and supervise how these changes are to be implemented.

Configuration management makes sure that all products (e.g. required documents) and their descriptions are correct and complete. Configuration management personnel identify and document configuration requirements, control changes, record and manage changes, and check the products to verify conformance to requirements.

P.Lobrin
plobrin@gmail.com
http://bonifaciosd.blogspot.com/
dedicated to IT Project management and Software development. http://bonifaciosd.blogspot.com/

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Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development

2008-11-15T00:44:00.000-08:00

People have different views on the topic "Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development". Some say it to have positive implications whereas others argue that it is not good. But let us be very clear that everything has got pros and cons. It depends on how we perceive various things. It is wiser to have positive outlook to succeed in any business. With the outsourcing catching popularity around the world, the number of Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development too has risen. Especially in the developing countries like India the number of business opportunities has opened the doors for the individual software developers. The companies and individuals in developed countries are now a days looking for people who can develop customized software solutions.

The needs of every business differ and so does the web development cost. If there is complexity in design and the site is a big one, then cost differs. In developed countries like US, UK it can cost you high. Even if one wants to get the work done themselves, the hiring the right candidate and providing them with necessary resources would be really very expensive. But when the business is outsourced the things change. The cost is almost halved. The Offshore Software Development companies have the team of experienced professionals that includes web designers, programmers, software developers and others. They discuss the client's needs and accordingly decide the time frame of the project. In addition to this project cost is also decided. When the XYZ companies ties up with an offshore development company and gives them a business opportunity, the development companies' main aim is to render best services.

If you are looking for a great business opportunity then offshore software development companies are a great option.

Deep Raj is an author of Icreon Communication, one of the India most popular software development company in India. Offers Outsourcing Website Development

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Hospital Information Systems

2008-11-15T00:43:00.000-08:00

Hospital Information systems help you deal with number of diverse types of data concerning the running of a hospital. This is a computerized system that is specifically designed to deal with all the information required to manage a hospital. Such systems not only help you run a hospital smoothly and efficiently but also save you lot of time and money. It helps one get any information required from the hospital within a matter of minutes. It is said that the system helps the hospital authorities save billions of dollars on administrative budget of a hospital annually.

Though the hospital computer systems has its route way back in the 1950 s it is only in recent years the hospital information systems have started to be used widely. One of the reasons for this is that computer hardware has become more affordable in recent years. It has also become more advanced and simple to use. The patient population has also increased so it has almost become impossible to keep track of diverse information of the hospital. This is a highly complex system designed to manage the hospital in a simple way. The system is also capable of great flexibility for various needs you simply have to contact your software associates to get the orientation you require on the system in the running of the hospital.

The basic benefit of this system is that it gives us easy access to information with improved quality of documentation, it also provides improved communication, reduced errors, reduced cost, ability to track the patient records, ability to recruit and schedule staffs etc. This thereby leaves the hospital authorities much time in hand to personally deal with other important issues of the hospital like attending to each patient and thereby improving the quality of patient care. This will in turn build up the Image of the hospital.

Compared to what a hospital can save by using this software system the cost they will have to spend on installing the system is just pittance. One gets to save many folds over within the year of installing the system both financially and otherwise, like less burden on attending to various management issues, staffing issues, scheduling issues etc. You get to run a hospital with fewer work forces and more efficiency by using a hospital information system.

The cost also varies from country to country due to currency variation. But as in any other field the internet has made it possible to get these systems from anywhere internationally and get it installed for within your allotted budget One can obtain hospital information system having same quality and standard at much cheaper rates from countries like India. The systems are just as efficient if not more efficient. One of the reasons a system designed in countries like India can assure quality is because the hospitals using their systems are running very efficiently though they are some of the most crowded hospitals in the world. This alone will vouch for the quality of the system used in the country. So one may save unnecessary expense in the installing of the system and use the money more constructively by getting the system cheaply.

If you want information on quality system designed in India visit Hospital Information System!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sheena_VC

Trojan Vundo Removal - How to Remove Trojan Vundo

2008-11-15T00:41:00.001-08:00

Trojan Vundo is a trojan that is not easily removed by conventional anti virus products. You will experience your anti virus informing you that trojan vundo has been detected but you will be unable to remove it after scanning and rebooting your computer a few times.

Trojan Vundo has many variations. The common one which infects many computers has the following sympton. When you boot up your computer and access the Internet with Internet Explorer, you will see multiple random ads appear. New tabs are opened and this causes your PC to use up resources to cater to these Ads. If you have a slow computer that has installed many programs, this can bring your surfing experience to a crawl, as your PC has to share resources not only displaying the webpage you're trying to visit, but those of the pop up ads as well.

The other Trojan Vundo variations are more dangerous because they can leave your computer open to back door type infections. Back door basically means a hacker can now install a Key Logger Trojan on your computer, which detects password type sites and is able to phish your password and user name, then storing it on their database.

That is why some usernames and passwords are compromised and posted to warez sites. If your credit card and ss number is compromised, this could lead to identity theft where online scammers use it to make purchases over the internet.

Safety rules to avoid Trojan Vundo is not to open file attachments that do not look familiar to you. Even from someone that you know, its better to delete the file if the file does not look safe. Some emails say, "hey check this out". Once you double click on the file, the Trojan Vundo is installed, and your computer has been compromised.

Trojan vundo requires a good updated trojan scanner to remove. Obsolete and free scanners will often inform you that Trojan Vundo was detected and unfortunately not able to remove because of the many heuristic variations of this trojan.

Find the best spyware & trojan remover to permanently protect your PC at http://www.spywaretrojanremover.com/compare

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sherman_M_Choo

Windows XP Registry Tweaks - Want Some Easy Windows Registry Tweaks?

2008-11-15T00:39:00.000-08:00

The Windows registry is the lifeblood of our system. It contains information to run all software and hardware. The registry can be directly correlated with the speed and performance of our computer. This is why it is a good idea to occasionally execute some Windows XP registry tweaks to keep it performing at a high level. There is also registry cleaner software available which can automatically perform the tweaks for you.

Remove startup programs that are not needed or used. When we delete or uninstall programs the registry files for those programs remain. When you start your computer the Windows XP registry will process that information and it will slow the computer down and possibly cause Windows error messages. Go into your registry and remove those useless entries.

Repair corrupt Windows registry files. You would be shocked by how many errors there are in your Windows registry. I always recommend going in there and repairing broken paths, application files, and DLL's. For non computer experts the best method is to use a Windows XP registry cleaner to do this for you.

Clean up registry files that are useless or redundant. There are tons of information in our registries that can be cleared out. These useless files do nothing but cause major congestion in the registry and work to slow your down computer. Again I recommend Windows XP registry cleaners to remove these files for you.

The best way to perform Windows XP registry tweaks is with a registry cleaner. The registry is very sensitive and if you are not an expert you can cause some serious damage. Fortunately I have found what I consider the best Windows XP registry cleaner on the market. You can perform all of these registry tweaks in literally minutes. Not only will your computer run faster, you can also avoid the Windows blue screen and other corrupt Windows error messages. Scan your computer for free below.

Tired of your sluggish computer? Do you wish it ran more like the hare and less like the tortoise? Did you know you can get your computer running like new with a simple free scan? Speed up your computer with the best registry cleaner on the market.

Jim Marshall is a computer technician expert with over 15 years in the industry. He has an intimate knowledge of the windows registry and various register repair software. After testing some of the top registry cleaners on the market, he has created a comprehensive review site that details his findings.

http://www.registry-clean-up.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Marshall

My Computer is Running Slow - Why is My Computer Running Slow?

2008-11-15T00:37:00.000-08:00

I get asked this question all the time. My computer is running slow, help! Why is my computer running slow? How can I fix a slow computer? Well most people will tell you - just buy a new computer! This is bad advice. Before you spend hundreds or thousands on a new system, why not perform some speed tweaks and get your computer running at peak performance. These are some steps you can take right now to speed up your computer. There is also a program available that can perform the steps automatically for you in minutes.

• Remove all temporary and files not being used. When your computer's memory gets overloaded, it can slow down your computer significantly. Eliminating these useless files will clear up some space and should speed up computer access of programs.

• Defrag your computer. Microsoft recommends running a disk defragger once a month. When is the last time you can one. If you haven't and are still wondering "why is my computer running slow", then this may be part of the problem.

• Clean up registry errors and other problems. This is by far the most important step you can take. About 6 months ago I was also wondering why my computer is running slow. After scanning my registry and being shocked at all the errors in my system I began to understand. I was amazed at how much it made my computer run faster.

Before throwing money at upgrades or new equipment, perform these steps here. There area actually quite a few tweaks you can make to speed up computer performance. I could not list them all in the limited space here. But I do use a program that can perform these three tasks and a LOT more. It has an optimization feature that can detect troubled areas and clean them up for you. Give it a shot and scan your computer for free below. You have nothing to lose.

Jim Marshall is a computer technician expert with over 15 years in the industry. He has an intimate knowledge of the windows registry and various register repair software. After testing some of the top registry cleaners on the marker he has created a comprehensive review site that details his findings.

http://www.registry-clean-up.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Marshall

The Fastest-Booting Computer Turns On, Hold For a Moment Only

2008-11-15T00:35:00.001-08:00

Are you tired of waiting to see your PC getting started too slowly and taking an irritating length of two minutes or so? If yes! Then the days of panic may soon be over.

Believe it. Soon the big brands like Lenovo and Dell are going to launch products which are supposed to take not more than 30 seconds to boot up. On its company blog, Microsoft too admits that good computer systems should not test the patience of the user. It says,"a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds."

However, as a matter of content, they have already something in the block which takes not more 30 seconds to boot up. It is Vista, their latest version of Windows.

Apart from these brands some other names like Asus and Hewlett-Packard too have galloped in to join the bandwagon and promise to give a dead-end to this menace of forceful waiting while the computer gets it started slowly shaking your comfort level.

Again, on the part of Microsoft, this software giant is confident enough to come up with a newer and much improved operating system which could help it erase its notoriety as one of the slow starters and time killers.

Hopefully, this race among these brands to provide us with something "operatable" at a lightning speed will give us many sighs of relief. There was a time when we could wait for long to see our PCs getting started spoiling our meaningful moments. However, we did not protest as we had never been hurried users. Surely, we had ample time to gaze at the monitor.

But in these decades, or in the decades to come, which demand every job to be executed at an electric speed has forced the consumers and the suppliers to look for such options which ensure the killing of valuable time at its lowest. More clearly, the dependence of our day-to-day life on the Internet has seemed to play a pivotal role in the emergence of this innovation.

So be patient! The end of your pathetic wait looking at your booting computer helplessly has come up round the corner.

Pattrick is working as an industry analyst in the electronics and electrical industry for last fifteen years. He is working on a blog where you can get a lot of information on electronics industry, news, innovations, tradeshows, etc. http://myelectronicsblog.blogspot.com/. He is associated with one of the best electronics and electrical industry marketplaces http://www.digitivity.com/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pattrick_Savarna

Using Your Registry Cleaning Software Correctly is a Must! Can a Partial Scan Work?

2008-11-15T00:26:00.000-08:00

My computer recently suffered a big blow. I was working on an important file and suddenly the whole system crashed. Just to tell you, it was performing quite slowly earlier and I was going to do some checks, but was shocked by the sudden death of my system. A little investigation lead me to the conclusion that my registry was totally polluted by bugs and Trojans. I knew that I would have to use a registry cleaner, but I made a mistake; I didn't complete the scanning process and this lead to another crash and more frustration!

The point of explaining this personal tragedy is that sometimes we overlook the benefits of a complete scan of our registry because we are in a hurry and don't let the registry cleaning software complete its job in an efficient manner. The benefits of a complete registry scan are simply endless. The scanning process involves a complete check up of your various registry components. As we all know, there are lots of Trojans, malware and corrupted files that lay hidden in the registry. Some of these are so cleverly hidden that an average registry cleaner can't even detect them.

The first step of cleaning your registry is to get good software, which can thoroughly scan your computer for these bugs. The scanning will only last a few minutes, but will ensure that not even a single bug remains hidden from the eye of the software. In this way, you'll give another coat of protection for your computer as otherwise those devious and 'hidden gems' called malware will spoil your cleaning exercise.

There is so much malware on the Internet these days that no one is immune to registry errors. A complete registry cleaner scan is a must for your computer and should be done on a regular basis! After you start a scan do not interrupt it in anyway, including pausing it. Purging your registry of all malware and errors is a must to keeping your computer running quickly! Read a good review of cleaning software, from an end user, and scan your computer. Go for it now, otherwise your computer will be in teeters!

Dominic Phelps has produced some the best and most unbiased reviews of Registry Cleaner products on the net today! Check them out HERE!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dominic_Phelps

Registry Cleaner Review - Do You Need a Registry Cleaner?

2008-11-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

Registry cleaners are something just about every computer could use. Whether to make your computer run faster, fix computer errors and windows blue screens, or perform preventive maintenance, Windows registry cleaners can be a very powerful tool. Yet there are so many options out there it can be very hard to decide on the best registry cleaner. Before making any recommendations, I will tell you the most important features to look for. Then you can check out my comprehensive registry cleaner review site where I tested some of the most popular programs using these benchmarks.

First and foremost you want software that can detect and fix the highest percentage of errors. Every registry cleaner will detect errors at different rates. You also want to be sure the registry repair software has the intuition to only repair corrupted files.

Another very useful feature that is found in only the best registry repair program is a full system optimization scan. What this will do is scan your computer for troubled areas that may be slowing your computer down and causing errors to occur. It will then allow the option to clean them up, speeding up your computer considerably as a result. The optimization option should be included in any registry cleaner review.

Another important feature is the ability for the registry software to create a backup before any repairing is done. Although registry cleaners can be completely trusted nowadays, it is a good idea to create a backup to keep you 100% protected.

When reading a registry cleaner review you want to make sure the software you decide on has these three important features. But there are also lots of others I did not have an opportunity to get into here. Follow the website below and you can read some very in depth registry cleaner reviews. There is also a free scan available with after months of testing, what I consider the best registry cleaner.

Looking for comprehensive reviews of the top registry repair software? See which I consider the best registry cleaner after careful testing and analysis. A free scan and diagnosis of your system is available to fix all errors and get your PC running like new again!

http://www.registry-clean-up.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Marshall

Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development

2008-11-14T02:50:00.001-08:00

If you are looking for a great business opportunity then offshore software development companies are a great option.

Deep Raj is an author of Icreon Communication, one of the India most popular software development company in India. Offers Outsourcing Website Development

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deep_Raj

How to Remove Antivirus 2009 Popups the Easy Way

2008-11-14T02:44:00.000-08:00

If you've tried to remove Antivirus 2009 and haven't had any luck, then I don't have to tell you how persistent this latest spyware threat is. What you do need to now however, is that there is an easy way to get rid of it for good if you choose to.

Antivirus 2009 is the latest threat in a series of cleverly crafted schemes that are designed to get you to pay for rogue antispyware software that is supposed to help keep your computer clean. You likely first received a popup telling you that you had spyware on your computer and that you needed to download and install antivirus software to fix it.

If you actually did click on the popup you were likely then taken to a webpage that showed you how many threats actually existed on your PC, however the reality is that no spyware scan actually took place and instead you were simply shown an elaborate and well crafted picture of what it supposedly found.

All of this is just another part of an elaborate hoax that has taken the Internet by storm. There have been a large number of these types of programs circulating in the past couple of years and because over 80% of Internet users have absolutely no form of spyware protection running on their computers, they fall victim to the hoax rather easily.

That being said, the question now becomes how can you get rid of Antivirus 2009 and keep your computer protected from these scams moving forward, and the answer is that you must invest money in proven and effective antispyware software, otherwise you are fighting a never ending battle.

Typically, a top of the line spyware remover will require an investment of no more than $30-$40 at the most. But most people think that they can get by with using free software when the reality is that the free software is nowhere near as effective as paid software because the vendors of the software do not put many resources into improving the software and keeping it up to date to combat the more complex and dangerous spyware that exists today.

I've worked in the computer industry for over 12 years now and my advice is the same for family as it is for total strangers - if you really want to protect your computer and not worry about spyware, you will get past the notion that free spyware removers will do the job you need them to do because this is one instance where you absolutely get what you pay for.

So if you want to remove Antivirus 2009 for good, take my advice and invest the small amount of money in a top of the line spyware removal tool. You'll be glad you did.

Paul McDonald is a Computer Professional that specializes in teaching people about spyware. Visit his info packed website today at http://www.TheBestSpywareRemovers.com to get a no holds barred review of the absolute best spyware removers available are so that can get rid of Antivirus 2009 for good!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_McDonald

My Computer is Running Slow - Why is My Computer Running Slow?

2008-11-14T02:09:00.001-08:00

Jim Marshall is a computer technician expert with over 15 years in the industry. He has an intimate knowledge of the windows registry and various register repair software. After testing some of the top registry cleaners on the marker he has created a comprehensive review site that details his findings.

http://www.registry-clean-up.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Marshall

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My Second Windows Vista Review.

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The History of Solaris

Project Integration Management - A Key To Overall Project Success

Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development

Hospital Information Systems

Trojan Vundo Removal - How to Remove Trojan Vundo

Windows XP Registry Tweaks - Want Some Easy Windows Registry Tweaks?

My Computer is Running Slow - Why is My Computer Running Slow?

The Fastest-Booting Computer Turns On, Hold For a Moment Only

Using Your Registry Cleaning Software Correctly is a Must! Can a Partial Scan Work?

Registry Cleaner Review - Do You Need a Registry Cleaner?

Business Opportunities in Offshore Software Development

How to Remove Antivirus 2009 Popups the Easy Way

My Computer is Running Slow - Why is My Computer Running Slow?

Cutting IT Costs: A Software Change May Be Just The Ticket To Trim Your Bottom Line