RSS Feed (xml)
By Lanard Perry
Is your computer running slower than ever? Does it crash a
lot?
If so it might be because advertisers have loaded it up with
Spy and Adaware without your knowledge.
"Spyware" is a common term for files that are installed on
your system that allow companies to monitor your Internet
activity.
"Adaware" is software that will show you pop up ads over and
over. These files can be extremely dangerous to your PC and
could cause major problems.
They track the websites you visit, items that you buy
online, the emails you send and your Instant Message
dialogues. In a worst case scenario they can even record
your credit card number, personal identification numbers,
and all of your passwords.
I know all of this because I learned the hard way.
Fortunately, I never had any personal data stolen, at least
that I’m aware of. But every now and then, when least
expected, my computer would crash, sometimes resulting in
days of lost activity and income.
It seems like I spent a small fortune fixing one problem
after another. I bought expensive software programs that
actually made my problems worse, then another hard drive
that I really didn't need.
Ultimately I had to take my computer to 2 different techs to
work out all the bugs. If only I knew then what I know now.
After months of frustration and too many hundreds of dollars
I care to admit to I finally learned what it takes to keep
my computer healthy and functioning properly.
Below is what I learned and a recommendation that can help
you avoid what I went through.
1. Get a spyware removal program. You've heard it before,
but have you done it? This helps as your 1st line of defense
against hackers and viruses.
2. Avoid opening email attachments from people you don't
know. When in doubt, don't do it. Granted, this isn't so
easy to do when you're in the people business, but I still
encourage you to manage it as best you can. This alone
eliminated a lot of my problems.
3. Scan for viruses and clean your registry at every
opportunity. I spend a lot of time on the Internet working
on my website marketing products, sending and receiving
email and the like.
Consequently, my computer is vulnerable to attack from a lot
of different ways. So, I scan it for viruses and clean my
registry daily; sometimes several times a day depending on
how long I've been on it.
If you don't have a good spyware program you should get one.
It'll help you optimize your computer's performance, and get
it in tip top condition in no time.
Here are the benefits.
They'll let you:
know if you have any files that are infecting your PC
help protect your computer and eliminate trojans, worms,
dialers, browser hijackers, etc., and
help you avoid serious problems before they happen
You'll be amazed at how much speed and problem free use you
can regain from the use of your computer after you install a
good spyware program.
If you don't have one I strongly recommend Spyware Nuker.
It's relatively inexpensive and is money well spent to
safeguard your computer and personal and professional
information stored on it.
You even get to try if for free before you buy it and I
believe it comes with a 90 day satisfaction or money back
guarantee.
About the author:
Lanard Perry is the author of "Farming Expired Listings", a real
estate listing system that shows how to list 1-2 listings a week.
Visit http://www.farmingexpiredlistings.comto get a FREE Sample Chapter.
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www.cyrosella.com
Selasa, 05 Mei 2009
Optimize Your Computer For Peak Performance
Benefits of Integrating Online Chat Software with CRM
By Bruce Zhang
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy and processes used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. CRM applications are traditionally developed as client-server software. The proliferation of the Internet and the Web has fueled the rapid growth of Web-based CRM or online CRM applications. Web CRM systems are widely deployed for Web based call center, contact management, trouble ticket, personal information manager and scheduling. As more and more corporations use chat software to provide quality customer support, many CRM vendors have built chat functionality into new generation of Web-based CRM systems.
The first generation of text-based online chat software was developed years before the World Wide Web (WWW) gained its popularity. The new generation of Web-based chat software is much more user-friendly and is powered with audio and video chat.
There're many benefits to integrate chat software into CRM systems.
1. Many customers have experience in using chat software
New technology is often challenged by user acceptance. Fortunately, online chat has been widely accepted by average Internet users. It is estimated that tens of million of Internet users login to online chat rooms regularly. In free adult chat rooms or free teen chat rooms people talk about anything under the sun - love, pets, music and games.
2. One customer service representative is able to support multiple customers at the same time.
It is common to wait 30 minutes or even more before a customer can talk to a support representative. With chat software, customers have a better chance of instant access to a service representative. One support team member may be able to chat with a few customers at the same time.
3. Chat software can automatically log a support chat session
Call center software is capable of recording support conversations. However, it requires extra cost to convert audio recordings to digital information that a computer can understand and extract valuable information from. Chat software, on the other hand, can be easily configured to automatically log a support chat session.
About the author:
Bruce Zhang writes about Internet technology and online culture. chatjungle.com is a good place to experience free adult chat rooms http://www.chatjungle.com/adult-chat.htmlor free teen chat rooms http://www.chatjungle.com/teen-chat.html
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Getting started with RSS
By Jorge Gonzalez
RSS is probably the biggest and latest buzzword among the techies, just after blogs. But what is RSS anyway and how can you start taking advantage of it?
RSS is a format to provide headlines and summaries of information in a simple and standardized way.
Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for websites.
RSS is great for users because it saves users from having to repeatedly visit favorite websites to check for new content or be notified of updates via email.
It can give a glimpse of a site's latest concrete contents (no design) in a second.
RSS is also great for site owners because:
- The summaries of their content can be republished all over the web, which gets new links and visits to the site.
- They get more returning visitors, since users can suscribe to the feed to keep up with the site's updates.
- More profits: RSS feeds can contain ads, such as Google Adsense.
RSS feeds can be used for:
- Blogs entries
- Forum entries
- Articles
- News
- Events
- Latest products / discounts / specials
- Music (podcasting)
There are several ways to read an RSS feed:
- Using your browser or even notepad --since it's just an XML file (formatted flat text).
- Using a standalone desktop aggregator --such as FeedDemon, SharpReader, RssReader, and others.
- Using your e-mail client --NewsGator Email Edition plugs into Outlook Express, Eudora, Entourage, Apple Mail, or other POP3 e-mail clients and lets you receive RSS feeds right in your e-mail window. The same company's Outlook Edition integrates RSS with Microsoft Outlook. And Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client comes with RSS-reading capabilities built in.
- Using your mobile device --using a service such as FeedBeep, NewsGator Mobile Edition, Yahoo Mobile, or Elfinland.
To create an RSS for your own site, there is the option to create it by hand, or using a software like FeedForAll, or an online service like RSS creator (http://www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/perl/makerss.pl).
Finally, to search for established RSS feeds you can use our very own RSS search engine (http://www.yourfeeds.com), and to quickly submit your RSS feed to several directories, you can use our RSS submit tool (http://www.yourfeeds.com/Submit-RSS.aspx).
About the author:
Jorge Gonzalez is one of the creators of the YourFeeds.com RSS search engine: http://www.yourfeeds.com
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The Quickest Way I Know To Secure Your PC-Safety In 7 Easy Steps
By rogel dias
The Quickest Way I Know To Secure Your PC-Safety In 7
Easy Steps And Only Using Free Software While Not Missing The
One Critical Piece Of Free Software That's Been Overlooked By
Many.
Can You Prevent Spyware, Worms, Trojans, Viruses,
... To Work When You Switch Your Pc On ?
I Can And I Do It On A Pro-active Basis.
Surfing Means More And More To Stay Invisible, To Be Clean From
The Inside And To Prevent Installment Of Malicious Software
(So Preventing Unwanted Communication From Inside To Outside
And From Outside To Inside).
How do you stay invisible while surfing? Of course
by installing a firewall. How do I get one free?
That's the easy point.
You like to stay invisible. But are you? And how do you know?
You could do a test from someone out there trying to get in.
But who can you trust?
Suppose you are doing a test. Do you obtain objective and
reliable information about your PC-vulnerability (for free)?
Now even if you stay invisible, you will visit websites
leaving cookies in your PC and you will download software.
By doing so you will get spyware, viruses, ...
How can you detect them and delete them? That's also
the easy point: you have to install an anti-virus program
and anti-spyware programs. Research on the internet makes
it clear that you need 2 anti-spyware programs. Why 2?
Because a great fish may be caught by the net but a small fish
can swim through the holes. Using 2 makes the holes smaller.
What are those 2 free programs you have to download?
Can you prevent spyware to install on your PC? Maybe,
maybe not. There is one free software that might prevent it
(but not with 100% guarantee).
And even then you need an additional freeware program to
prevent a piranha to install itself on your PC (just enabling
itself to start up whenever you switch your PC on).
This freeware program is overlooked by many and gives you
an additional feeling of relief and security. It gives you
also a hint whether some new downloaded software is good or bad
(and thus giving you the chance to delete it anyway before it
becomes too malicious).
Now you owe it to yourself to maximize the safety of your PC
for surfing. You need a firewall,an anti-virus software,
2 anti-spyware programs, one spyware preventing program,
a trusty guard preventing installment in your startup files
and even 3 musketeers. And last but not least do a safe test
to get an objective idea about the vulnerability of your PC.
Everything is free. It only needs your attention.
So look after the fully simple and logical steps in:
http://startwithoutadime.blogspot.com/2005/02/first-things-first-pc-safety_13.html
http://startwithoutadime.blogspot.com/2005/02/first-things-first-pc-safety-ii.html
After all, preventing a disease is better than curing it !!
About the author:
Finally. Discover A Lifetime Of Amazing Simple And
Free Web Marketing Strategies, Tips And Resources.
Subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter.
Reply To My Survey And Receive A Free Software And Ebook! Go to
http://startwithoutadime.blogspot.com
CopyRight 2005 Rogel Dias, Antwerpen,Belgium
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Crash Course In Getting A #1 Google Ranking
By Jason DeVelvis
First, here’s the rundown of some of the terminology I’m going to use in this article –
Inbound Links – Links coming into your site
Outbound Links – Links leaving your site
Cross Links – Links that you have “traded” with another site (ie, they’ve got a link from their site to your and you’ve got a link from your site to theirs)
PR (Page Ranking) – Google’s measure of how “important” your site is
SEO Is Not Dead
Ok, now lets talk about what you really want to hear – how to get those coveted 1-10 ranks for your keywords. Remember this - SEO is not dead. In fact, it is very much alive and important. The first thing to do in order to raise your site rank is target specific keywords. I say specific, because you need to target “keyphrases,” meaning more than one word keywords. Some people use the words interchangeably (me included) so just ignore one-word keywords altogether. You will waste your money if you shoot for these, because chances are, there are other, MUCH larger companies who already have you beat, and will continue to have you beat unless you’ve got a bottomless wallet.
Check Out Your Competition
Take this example, for instance, if you sell computers, you should not try to optimize your site for the keyword “computer” or “computers.” First, think about all of the businesses that do ANYTHING with computers. Yeah, that’s a lot. They’ll all show up if you search for “computer.” Now try to think of who would show up at the top of that list. I’ll make it easy, it’s Apple, Dell, Computer World, Computer Associates, IEEE, Computer History Museum, Webopedia, ASUSTeK, WhatIs.com, and HP. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I 99.9
About the author:
Jason a long time web developer and the owner of Premier MicroSolutions, LLC. If you’re looking for more articles about getting higher Search Engine rankings, go to http://www.Content-Articles.comand check out their great directory of articles.
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Not Ranking High Enough On Search Engines? Here’s Some Help!
By Jason DeVelvis
Search engines are frugal things. (Froogle, too, haha! Sorry, lame joke) They take many, many things into consideration when ranking your pages. Below are some things you should do to be sure you’re ranked as high as possible.
Keywords
Go for keyphrases, not single keywords. Unless you want to spend the next 3 months trying to break into the first page for a single keyword, focus on keyphrases. Besides, most searchers search for two or more words. Single keywords just don’t provide the targeted results searchers are looking for.
Focus on the keyphrases that you can take over. Keyphrases like “Exit now” or “Exit Here” or even a keyword like “Exit” will be next to impossible for you to get a top 3 ranking, because of the overwhelming popularity for porn site landing pages to put a link to Yahoo, Google, or Disney with the anchor text of one of those keyphrases mentioned above. Go ahead, try it out – type one of them into Google and see what you get. Funny enough, Disney recently took the lead over Yahoo for the keyword “Exit.” Go Disney go!
Site Focus
Don't allow your site to focus on more than 1-2 different things. Create separate sites for each product or service, and if you’d like, a main site to describe your company, and have it link to all of your products. This will allow you to better target your pages, because a user looking for widgets isn’t going to stick around long on a page for a company that sells widgets and woozles, when they don’t see information about widgets (even if it’s blatantly obvious) Think about it this way: You’re always one click away from losing a customer on the internet. Do everything you can to eliminate that one click.
Content: More is better
The more content you have, the better. Wait, let me rephrase that – the more RELEVANT content you have, the better. Plain old content, or keyword-stuffed will only get you so far. Remember, you’ve got to keep your visitors in mind primarily, because it doesn’t matter how high your SE ranking is if your visitors don’t convert to customers.
How do I get new, relevant, free content?
Start posting articles on your site; you’re the expert here, so utilize that information. But keep your articles from sounding like you’re only writing it to advertise your product (advertorials). If it sounds too much like an ad, your visitors won’t read it.
Also, try to mention your chosen keyphrases as much as you can without making the article sound “stuffed.” What’s “stuffed” mean? Here’s an example: You’re writing about widgets, you wrote the widgets article about widgets so you could say widgets as much as you possible while talking about widgets. Would you want to sit and read that? No. Neither would anyone else.
There are also quite a few places on the net where you can find articles that are free to reprint on your site. A few of them are http://www.EzineArticles.com, http://www.Content-Articles.com, and http://www.ArticlesFactory.com. As I said, there are many sites like these, but these are the 3 best, in my opinion. Some article directories are focused on a single set of topics (like Business Marketing) and others, including the three mentioned above, contain articles from many, many categories.
If you write your own articles, submitting them to as many article sites as possible, again including the three I listed before. The more places you submit your article, the more sites will pick it up – either through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or by cutting and pasting your article to their site. The latter option is preferable to you, because your article will stay on their site longer. This will work hard to generate you more traffic from visitors to those sites who read your article and increase your SE rankings through backlinks. (For more information, check out an article I wrote about backlinks at http://www.Content-Articles.com/article.aspx?i=24)
How often should I add new content?
Add new content at least weekly, and absolutely no less than monthly to give your customers reason to come back, and Search Engines will also increase your ranking because your site is active and you’ve got good content.
What about forums?
Forums can be great tools for site promotion, if you do it right. Do NOT post ads to a forum that isn’t for posting ads. You will do more to destroy your credibility than generate traffic. Put a link to your site in your signature, and post questions and answers to the site, just like everyone else. If a topic that your site contains information about comes up, feel free to post the URL in the body of the topic (make sure this is allowed by the forum rules first) but always mention that it’s your site, so nobody is mislead and thinks the post is a referral, which it’s not (because it’s your site).
These tips are just a few of the things that you can do to increase your search engine rankings. Take your time and develop a good site, write quality articles, submit them to as many places as possible, and watch your ranking go up while the visitors come in.
About the author:
Jason is an Internet marketer and owner of Premier MicroSolutions, LLC. Submit your articles to http://www.Content-Articles.com- The Free Web Site Content Article Directory
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SEO One-way Web Links: 5 Strategies
By Joel Walsh
With so much talk about search engines putting a damper on direct reciprocal links, the hunt for the elusive one-way inbound link is on.
As someone who works with small business website owners, I've heard just about every inbound-linking scheme there is. In the end, I've only seen five strategies that really work consistently for getting hundreds of links.
Less Effective One-Way Link Strategies
Yet there's perennial interest in alternative linking strategies. They range from bad to OK, but none offer as much potential as the five major ways of getting links.
* Link farms never seem to die. The latest variations try to pass themselves off as viral marketing, but are really a sort of endless pyramid scheme: you link to me, so I link to someone else, who links to someone else, and on and on down the line. Link farms can get you delisted from search engine indexes, so don't even try them.
* Affiliates can provide you with one-way inbound links if you use affiliate software that links directly to your site rather than through a redirect. But many, many affiliates are now placing all their affiliate links in redirects of their own invention, to help protect their commissions from pirates who will simply apply to the program themselves to get a discount.
* Posting to web forums and blogs regularly will get you one-way inbound links, but they'll only have search-engine value a small percentage of the time. Many blogs and bulletin boards use search-engine-unfriendly dynamic file formats, automatically encase links in script, or use robot instructions to prevent spiders from following links.
* Many one-way inbound linking strategies fall into the great-if-you-are-lucky-enough-to-get-it category, such as winning a web award or being featured on a high-PageRank website just for being so great.
* Other one-way incoming link strategies are in the this-will-take-forever-to-get-anywhere category, such as offering to provide testimonials to all your vendors in exchange for a link to your site. (Hint: If you can get more than twenty links that way, you probably need to simplify your supply chain.)
Now, on to the five major ways of getting large numbers of one-way inbound links. Some are better than others, but they all have more potential than some of the more madcapped strategies. Of course, none is a good strategy all on its own. You have to understand all five strategies in order to really gain a distinct advantage in the one-way link hunt.
1. Waiting for Inbound Links
If you have good content you will eventually get one-way inbound links naturally, without asking. Organic, freely given links are an essential part of any SEO strategy. But you cannot rely on them, for two reasons:
* Unfortunately, "eventually" can be a very long time.
* Worse, there is a vicious cycle: you can't get search engine traffic, or other non-paid traffic, without inbound links; yet without inbound links or search engine traffic, how is anyone going to find you to give you inbound links?
2. Triangulating for Inbound Links
Search engines will have a tough time dampening reciprocal links if the reciprocation is not direct. To get links to one website you offer in exchange a link from another website you also control. This would seem to be a mostly foolproof way of defeating the link-dampening ambitions of Google and the rest. If you have more than one website, you probably are already employing this linking method. There are only a few drawbacks:
* You need to have more than one website in the same general category of interest or the links won't be relevant.
* The work required to set up this kind of arrangement and verify compliance is not insignificant. The process cannot be automated to the same extent as direct one-to-one reciprocal linking.
* As with traditional reciprocal links, a very big drawback is that the links are mostly on "Resources" pages that are just lists of links. There's only a small chance of getting significant traffic from these links. Plus, any "Resource" page may well eventually become an easy target for link dampening, if that hasn't happened already.
3. Submitting to Directories
They are the legendary fairy lands of SEO: PageRank-passing, no-fee-charging, and actually well-run directories of relevant links. Yes, they really do exist. An SEO acquaintance tells me he knows 200 good ones just off the top of his head. Plus, there are other kinds of directories: directories of affiliate programs, of websites using a certain content management system, of websites whose owners are members of this or that group, of websites accepting PayPal, etc. etc.
Ah, a link in a PageRank-passing link directory: it's a good deal if you can get it. But let's say you do get links from all 200 such directories and a hundred more from the little niche directories--now what?
4. Paying for Inbound Links
Buying and selling text links on high-PageRank web pages has become big business. Buying good traffic-generating "clean" links is a great alternative to pay-per-click advertising, which confers no SEO benefit. But, there are a number of pitfalls of relying primarily on paid links for SEO:
* The cost of the hundreds of links required for substantial search engine traffic can become prohibitive.
* As soon as you stop paying, you lose your link--you are essentially renting rather than owning, with no "link equity" building up.
* Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of paid links on rankings, as revealed in various patent filings. A website can try to mask the fact that the links are paid, but how well it does that is out of your control.
* Given Google's mission to dampen paid links' effectiveness, paid link buyers have an interest in verifying that a potential paid link partner is "passing PageRank." But identifying appropriate PageRank-passing paid link partners is quite a task in itself.
* Google also has a stated mission of dampening the value of any "artificial" links. Having most of your links on PageRank 3 or higher web pages would seem to be a dead give-away that your links are "artificial," since the vast majority of web pages (note: not necessarily websites, but their pages) are PageRank 1 or lower. Meanwhile, buying PageRank 0 or 1 links would have so little impact on a site's PageRank that it would not be worth the expense.
5. Distributing Content
All of the above four inbound-link-generating methods really do work. But it is the fifth method of getting one-way inbound links that is the most promising: distributing content
The idea is simple: you give other websites content to put on their sites in exchange for a link to your site, usually in an "author's resource box," an "about the author" paragraph at the end of the article.
The beauty of distributing content for links is that the links generally generate more traffic than links on a "resources" page. Plus, your article will pre-sell readers on the value of your site.
The downside, of course, is that it's no small amount of work to create original content and then distribute it to hundreds of website owners. But nothing good ever came easy. And on the internet, one-way inbound links are a very good thing.
About the author:
[Formatting: for web, please use "website content promotion" as the link's anchor text (visible link text)] Joel Walsh is the head content writer for UpMarket Content. Get more information on website content promotion: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm
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Be Prepared Before Buying Software
By Christopher Curtis
Before you go to the store to buy software write down your
computers specifications. You'll need the type and speed
of the processor. How much ram your computer has. What
kind of video card? How much disk space is available?
Usually, these things are easy to find on your computer.
On Windows you can navigate to "Programs >Accessories >System Tools." Then click on "System Information" and you should see a summary containing your computers operating system, processor, and memory information. Next click on the plus sign to expand the "Components" category. There under "Display" you will find your computers video card specifications. You may also need to know what kind of sound card is installed. Select "Sound Device" to see the name and manufacturer of this device. Under "Storage" you can select Drives to check how much available disk space you have. This will be labeled "free Space." Other information you may need, depending on the type of program, are network
and modem specs.
Once You have selected a piece of software make sure that it
is compatible with your computer. Most software programs
come on CDs now and will include their minimum requirements
somewhere on the packaging. They may require that you
have a special video card or adapter. It may require that you have a particular type of processor, so make sure that your computers processor is equal or better. Make sure you have enough ram to run the program. Usually, they will give a minimum and a recommended amount, but I have always
found that it is best to go with the recommended amount.
Another thing to take into account is pricing. Sometimes you can save a lot of money by purchasing an earlier version
of a particular piece of software. Just make sure that it has all the features that you want and that it is compatible
with your computer. The best place to look is on the Internet. You can compare pricing without having to run all over town. Go to your favorite search site, and search for the software that you are looking for. Sometimes you can buy online for less, but make sure you check the shipping costs.
About the author:
Chris Curtis is the owner of C-Double Web Development and
has been doing web design and development since 1997.
He began offering affordable web hosting and design in 1999
when he started his own business.
http://www.c-double.com
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10 Reasons to Adopt Data Visualization
By Joe Miller
1. Bar Charts
There is more to bar charts than meets the eye with data visualization. Bar charts is just one example of many visual tools which can be used to convey information in the most effective way. Bar charts, bar graphs, pie charts, or other charts and graphs are one of the most common methods of displaying information of various kinds. Everyone from children to adults use them in school, study, and business. Data visualization works with bar charts to create informational displays to reach virtually any kind of audience.
2. Interactive Map
In addition to bar charts, other informational tools become interactive with data visualization. An interactive map allows information to be displayed on various levels by clicking on the part of the map about which one may want more information. This is called “drilling down.” The interactive map is a method of data visualization used by many business, government, and community programs. Many airlines proved an interactive map of the plane interior so that travelers can choose their own seating. Many governments or communities create interactive maps of their countries, states, and cities. To learn more about a specific area, all on has to do is click on it. Information interacts with a user’s needs.
3. Reporting Tool
This article has already covered examples of how data visualization conveys information to various types of users for travel or education, but data visualization can also be used as a reporting tool. Imagine making a presentation for school or business come alive with an interactive map or bar charts. Information is presented in a helpful and meaningful way, often simplifying complex levels of information to become digestible to those to whom the presentation is given.
4. Convert HTML to PDF
A presentation is one thing, a handout or file copy is another. By far, one of the biggest challenges with data visualization in the past has been printing HTML information without getting it cut off on one of the margins. In the past HTML format did not automatically format itself for computer printout. Data visualization software can create PDF images of HTML displays for others to follow during the presentation or to file after.
5. Data Mapping
Research, geographical data, and other information can be effectively conveyed using data mapping. Data visualization provides a method for mapping data in a simple display, assisting the presenter in his or her ability to make important data understandable.
6. Business Mapping
Sometimes data mapping involves visual diagrams of business departments. Data visualization helps with business mapping. One example of business mapping is the creation of a department map for the shipping department of a business. Real-time information is available for inventory management and location, including inbound and outbound shipping information. Everything going on in the warehouse is visualized on a computer screen.
7. Executive Dashboard
Though information can be compiled into state of the art data visualization, the information still needs to be managed somehow. Data visualization would be incomplete without an executive dashboard with which executives can customize and manage all data visualization displays and reports.
8. Flash Graphs
Using flash technology, information can also be displayed in a state of the art format. Dashboards and data visualization displays are unencumbered by too much information all smattered on the charts and graphs. Flash chart, flash graphs, and flash maps display only what one needs when one needs it by responding to a mouse or cursor moving over it. As the mouse finds its target, information and options are immediately displayed. Web site are presented in a tidy and manageable way.
9..Net Technology
.Net technology, including .net graphs, .net charts, and .net maps is internet technology interfacing other pages on the internet with anchored text on a report or other data visualization display. In addition to .net, perl graphs, perl charts, and perl maps, as well as coldfusion charts, coldfusion graphs, and coldfusion maps, are useful tools employed as part of data visualization. These technologies can also be used in .net PDF attachments.
10. 508 Compliance
Data visualization has also made itself accessible to those with disabilities complying with section 508 which requires government and public information to be viewable by those with disabilities. Data visualization is still capable of catering to the needs of its users.
Business, communities, and educational programs throughout the country are adopting data visualization to serve the need of the Information Age. Information is now available at a new level of simplicity, even at the most detailed and complex levels.
About the author:
Joe Miller is an author of informational articles and online advertisements on business software. More Data Visualization information is available at Corda.com.
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Your Hard Drive is Going to Explode – Why a UPS is Essential
By Kevin Souter
It's most peoples worst computing nightmare. You wake up in the morning, flip on the computer, and it doesn't boot. Sometimes the problem rears its ugly head as a horrific clacking noise. Other times it simply gives a read error.
At this point, most people panic. The first thing you wonder is whether or not the data is recoverable. There is no universal answer to this. In some cases, a simple scan with some data recovery software is all that it takes to retrieve the contents of the drive. In other cases, if you want it badly enough, it will take thousands of dollars and a shipment of the drive to a clean lab where they will pull the platters inside of the drive and access them that way.
Now you're probably wondering if there's a way to prevent this from happening. Well, you're in luck. Getting a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is the very best and most effective way to prevent your data from pulling a disappearing act.
While it is not fool-proof, having something that regulates the electricity flowing into your computer can reduce the risk of a drive failure by up to 70%. This figure goes up to around 90% if the computer is being used while in an electrical storm. (My computer repair business always gets a little boost after a thunderstorm, courtesy of the lightning wreaking havoc on people's hard drives.)
Don't just run out and get any UPS. You want to get an intelligent one. The "intelligent" UPS will regulate the power without having to hit the battery every time the voltage takes a dip which greatly improves battery longevity. They also include options to hook the power supply up to your computer via a serial or USB port so you can monitor what the power is doing. This also gives the option to allow for a soft shut-down if the power goes out and you are away from your desk.
You can get an Uninterruptible Power Supply at most computer stores. Best Buy carries a fairly wide selection of them.
As for brands, I've personally used APC with much success. Opti-UPS is another excellent brand. In fact, I have an Opti that is 6 years old and still works fine, although the batteries now have no life to them. (That's to be expected. Rechargeable batteries only last so long)
Now that you know of the importance of a UPS I would strongly encourage you to invest in one. It is far better to spend $100 now on some preventative maintenance than having to spend much more later on data recovery.
About the author:
Kevin Souter is a full time computer technician and operates a computer repair site, as well as a free spyware removal site. http://TweaksForGeeks.comhas articles and tutorials on all sorts of computer problems from internet issues to hardware defects, for the novice and the expert. http://EradicateSpyware.nethas been set up to teach you how to remove annoying Spyware / Adware / Malware from your computer.
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What exactly are screensavers? - part II
By David Schomberg
Here are some tips on how to use screensavers:
First of all you should be careful when you use a screensaver on a LCD. A pixel it's on when it's dark on a LCD. So if a screen gets black on a LCD like some screensavers do it can be damaged.
After all this problems there were invented CTR's more resistant to burn-in or with sleep mode. Sleep mode means that the monitor comes in to a state like "turned off". But also there were invented many other solutions like games that when not being played change the screen time to time or screensavers.
When screensavrs were invented they were very simple. They just blanked you screen setting it to full black. After that there where inserted many effects including sound and animations to make the screensavers more entertainment.
And now we live in an Internet world full of screensavers of all types. You can find screensavers on any theme. If you like it you can just download it.
One of the best things at screensavers it's that you can usually find screensavers for free and you just need to install them. Then they will be launched automatically.
You should be very careful when you are using any burning devices. The problem is that screensavers are launching by their selves and can create great things on your display but they also use a lot of your CPU. So if the CD is burning an the screensaver is launched meanwhile, you risk to have an improperly burned CD.
When you install a screensaver it will be copied in the system directory. So it's easy to use them because once there are installed windows will fin them and it will add them to a list of available scrensavers. You can see this list on the display properties dialog.
Every screensaver has a lot of settings that allow you to change it. You can change this settings only trough windows.
So the inventing of the screensavers it's a very good thing for our "baby-computers". They can't harm it and all they do is keeping you monitor safe, so you shouldn't hesitate to use them.
About the author:
For free smileys, free cursors, emoticons, free eCards, free screensavers please visit us at http://www.free-smileys.net
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The Tools and Features of Adobe Photoshop
By Jeff Oreilly
Adobe Photoshop is one of the world's leading graphics editing programs, developed by Adobe Systems. Available on Mac OS or PC, Photoshop is used as one of the leading image design programs for the World Wide Web. The most recent version of Photoshop, or Photoshop CS2, "bridges" between other Adobe products such as Image Ready, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, and Encore DVD to produce professional videos and DVDs. Photoshop uses a file format called a .PSD or .PDD to store multiple layers of an image. Recently Adobe released a program called Photoshop Elements in order to give a less expensive version of Photoshop with many of the same features. Although Adobe Photoshop is used primarily in doing touch-up for digital photos, it is also used for creating designs for web pages and professional companies.
Adobe Photoshop was originally created as a convenient and powerful way to retouch photos. Its most basic features include easily cropping and straightening photos that were either scanned ore taken with a digital camera. Under- or overexposed photos can be easily rescued with the retouch power of the Camera RAW and other plug-ins. Photos taken in difficult lighting situations can be perfected by a few clicks of a mouse. Filters and plug-ins can be used to make the picture seem old or change to black and white.
Many web and graphics designers use Photoshop to create and design company logos and advertisements. Built in Photoshop effects and filters can make designing professional logos or advertisements a quick and simple process. With the power of layers and opacity, pictures can be blended together and effects such as shadows, blurs, etc. are made possible. And, for those who desire to return to the finger painting days of their youth, Photoshop has a paintbrush tool with countless brush shapes and textures for anyone who just needs to let out their creativity.
Text editing has also become easily accessible because of Photoshop. Perspectives, shapes, and type on a path are just a few examples of the tons of amazing text effects that are available. Slimy, dripping letters or cloud-writing in the sky are made easy from filters and text effects built into Photoshop.
Web designers thrive on Photoshop for making animations using Photoshop with other Adobe products. The things that can be done with Photoshop are literally endless. This is truly and amazing program.
About the author:
Jeff OReilly is an author of several books on many topics and a leader in seo and website production. Web Design
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Five Ways To Win The Favor Of Search Engines
By Stephen Richards
You’ve got a cool new website with all the works: cool Flash presentations, eye-catching colors, informative text, easy-to-use layout, and an interesting topic. You think your site is amazing, and you know that others will agree with you. If only they know it exists.
How do you make your website known? How do you make yours stand out among millions of others? You can spend lots of money on advertisement, but that will not work if you don’t have the money to spare on advertising. So what do you do? Make search engines work for you, that’s what!
Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, Altavista - you want to be at the top of their results list. The higher your site is in a search results page, the better chances that it will be visited. The science behind making your site a popular search result is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t worry, though - even if SEO is referred to as a science, it is not all that complicated. You just need to take note of a few things, and before you know it, your site will have more visitors than you could ever dream of.
Here are five tips to ensure that your site would be a favorite of search engines all around the cyber world.
1. Give importance to substance over appearance.
Do you want to share your knowledge on a subject that you have authority on? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to build an online shrine for your favorite actress? Whatever topic you have chosen for your website, make sure that you are able to give useful information on it. Search engines work by scanning sites for keywords. They search text and completely ignore everything else. So if you have made your site rich in colors, don’t forget to make it rich in content as well. After all, a beautiful layout can make people look, but relevant content is what will make them stay. Remember, in this day and age: content is king!
2. Know your topic well
If you know much about your topic, you will know what people usually ask about it, and what they ask about it is what they will type in the search bar. When writing the content for your website, put yourself in your other people’s shoes, people who will be your target audience or market. Know the possible questions they might have about your topic, and give answers in your site.
3. Learn from the best
Take time to browse and read sites that get lots of visitors and have the same topic as yours. Take note of any recurring phrases in these sites’ text. These phrases are most likely keywords. Incorporate them in your own site’s content. Don’t saturate your site with keywords, though. You don’t want to sound redundant to your site visitor. A 3 ensity level would be enough.
In searching for the right keywords, use Overture’s services. It may take quite some time, as it is more of a trial-and-error method, but the results are conclusive, and a pattern can easily be observed.
4. Submit…and re-submit
You will never get a certain job if you don’t send in your application for it. The same thing applies to SEO. If you want your site to be recognized by search engines, then go out of your way to register your site with them. After a couple of weeks, search for your site by putting in the keywords you used in your content. If your site is still not coming up in the search results, do not give up, and just re-register and resubmit your site. It’s possible that your initial registration was discarded without being processed. This usually happens because a lot of submissions are being done everyday.
5. Constantly update your site
This can’t be stressed enough: search engine spiders love sites which constantly change their content. You can’t build your site and expect it to last forever without any updates. There will come a time when those search engine spiders would stop fetching your site for query requests. Here’s a tip: integrate a blog program in your site. Blogs have a user-friendly interface that allows easy updates.
About the author:
Steve trained in the RAF as an Electronics Engineer working on Radar and Communications systems, then in his 5 years he gained extensive experience in Information Technology as a System Manager.
After leaving the RAF he successfully helped job seekers find employment before returning to I.T. Steve now runs http://www.e-readit.co.ukand http://www.911resume.com
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How to Never Pay a Hotel Phone Bill Again
By Jim Sherman
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol for establishing sessions in an IP network. But if you are like most of us, that means nothing to you. In layman's terms, SIP is a method by which various computers can talk to one another so that they can complete voice calls. The protocol is increasingly being adopted as the standard means by which computers communicate to facilitate VoIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol. So you can imagine SIP as a common language for new generation operators to speak to connect calls. However, there are no operators there is only your computer (or other hardware) and that of the person you are speaking with. That brings this introduction to some of the many benefits of SIP communication.
The goal of SIP was to provide users with many of the functions and features they typically expect with making phone calls, such as familiar rings, hearing the ring back tone when a call is placed, and the process of dialing a number. SIP goes beyond this however, also implementing a number of advanced features. Despite its’ convenient interface that mirrors that of a typical telephone call, SIP is based on an internet protocol rather than that of the telephone industry. Because of this, SIP is able to work seamlessly alongside other internet based protocols. This has allowed the technology to uniquely establish a user location, meaning that you can tell the IP address or "location" from which a person is making a call, something vital for offering emergency services. It also allows for coordination amongst the various participants in deciding upon what call features will be supported, as well as providing the protocol for call management which allows for adding, dropping, or transferring call participants.
One of the most exceptional benefits of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is its application with Private Branch Exchange (PBX). A private branch exchange is a private telephone network used within an enterprise in which users share a certain number of outside lines for external telephone calls. This provides a significant cost savings to the company because it allows companies to quickly and easily make calls within their institution, as well as save by limiting the number of external phone lines that must be maintained. SIP can extend these cost savings dramatically by offering users free long distance calls worldwide. Once again, because SIP is internet based rather than running over traditional telephone lines, the cost of call transmission are as cheap as say sending an e-mail, that is to say, Free! While PBX is already an efficient use of office resources incorporating SIP into a PBX means taking such savings and capabilities to a new level. Incorporating SIP gives users’ access to free interoffice communications, long distance calls, as well as huge savings in setup and transaction costs. These transaction cost savings are due to the fact that SIP is based on internet protocol allowing for the ability to physically move phones without any need for rewiring or new setup costs. Because that the system is peer-to-peer rather than cog and wheel like hardwired telephony means that there is no complicated setup necessary, but rather users can simply plug the phone into any available broadband connection and without the need for any complicated hardware or software, calls are ready to be made and received.
This brings us to what is potentially the greatest savings that SIP provides. We all hate to have to pay $2.00 for making a simple local call from a hotel room. But for those of us that have had to pay exorbitant long-distance charges from hotels, the level of angst felt reaches new heights. Add to this the fact that often companies require conference calling for their employees, a service that hotels are all too happy to charge a high premium to provide. For companies that have a lot of their employees traveling or practicing in various locales, the overhead costs of making such calls can really put a damper on year end profits. SIP offers a solution to hotel bills, and for that matter all telephone bills whatsoever. Just as sending an e-mail is free whether you are sending that e-mail to a person across the street or around the world, so making a call using SIP from any locale to any other locale in the world is free. All that is needed is a broadband connection. And just as one can send an email from wherever the internet can be accessed, SIP users can make their free calls from the office, the home, or even (gasp) the hotel room. Not to mention the huge savings in regular long-distance charges, the simple fact that long distance and local calls can be made for free from hotel rooms (most of which offer complimentary broadband service) is an enormous long-term cost savings. But add to this the fact that conference calls are available at no additional cost, which can be explained by following the principle that sending an e-mail to many individuals at the same time is just as cheap as one to one communication. Altogether these savings mean that companies who have in the past been laden with high local and long distance phone bills will be able to have their employees keep in close communication no matter their location for free.
SIP goes beyond this, however. Because SIP uses peer-to-peer connections there are no extra costs for having hundreds or even thousands of employees making SIP calls whereas the management costs for such a system under traditional telephony would be astronomical. This is never the case with PBXs that utilize SIP in a peer to peer connection format, however, where structural costs do not increase as your business grows and your usage of the PBX increases.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) offers customers of traditional telephony fantastic cost savings, the flexibility to make free calls from anywhere in the world at any time, and the ability to expand a PBX system with no setup costs. Because there is no complicated hardware or software necessary to setup SIP in a PBX, implementing the technology is as simple as having access via broadband to the internet. Due to these benefits as well as innumerable others, expanded use of SIP in PBX and in a variety of other settings is simply a matter of expanded customer exposure to the possibilities of SIP.
About the author:
Jim Sherman writes about interesting topics such as Mobalex technology. See http://www.mobalex.comfor more information.
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Understanding XML Server
By Balaji B
XML Server can be a Web Server that stores the XML files in it and serves them on demand. The XML Server would have processing capabilities with an XML engine and to transform the XML document to other forms. Basically a server which hosts and serves the XML documents is called a XML Server.
There are many commercially available XML Servers in the market. The popular among them are the Tamino Server, the Sonic Server and the FDX XML Server. Though the basic functions of these servers are same the way they are implemented and the features that they support varies.
The Tamino XML Server is from Software AG and is used to publish and exchange all kinds of data especially the XML documents in the native format. It handles open standards. Leveraging on the XML technologies will improve an organizations data access.
Exchange of data between different applications on different platforms is possible using XML technologies. Hence organizations are moving on to store their data in XML format to take advantage of the XML technologies. Storing the data in XML format improves the performance of delivery and scalability of your applications with low operational and administrative costs.
In traditional relational databases, data is stored in rows and columns which can be too complex. But in the case of an XML Server such complexity is avoided and any data can be stored which includes even multimedia files and even relational data. These data can be easily retrieved at lightning speed using a Tamino XML Server.
To retrieve data that is requested by any application, XQuery is used in Tamino XML Server. This server implements the XQuery specification draft. Hence queries on the server can be issued using the internet and data can be returned in any format by using XSL style sheets. Thus the customers can manipulate the format of presentation of the data that is presented using style sheets. High speed retrieval of data is possible in XML Server.
The Tamino XML Server is robust, reliable, and scalable. It is used in mission critical environments and there is almost no failure and loss of data. It is reliable in the sense it supports backup of data that can be stored in external devices or remote devices and used in clustered environments. The number of users can be increased and the load on the server can also be increased.
The document structure can take additional elements without changing the entire structure of the data store. These characteristics of the XML Server help it to be used in mission critical environments. Developers can develop XML applications very faster by using Tamino XML Server. It can be easily integrated with application servers.
FDX XML Server is another XML Server available in the market. This product is created by Snapbridge. This server is also used to create and deploy sophisticated XML applications. XSL, XSLT and scripts are supported in this server so that data can be transformed to any format requested by the user or any other application.
Sonic XML Server is another product from Sonic software which is built upon the native XML processing engine. This helps in pipelined processing of XML documents which eliminates the need for generating intermediate xml text file for processing. This improves the speed of the transaction dramatically.
This pipelined processing of the document helps in very large and complex processing tasks to improve the speed of those tasks. The in-built engine in the Sonic XML Server enables a user to store any size of XML document in it and to query, retrieve and update that data.
We have seen that an XML Server is any server that gives an XML document as an output so that the other applications can use it for processing. The document can be delivered in any format using XSL and XSLT engines. It is possible for us to write some code in ASP which will serve an XML document to the user when they view that ASP page. We can store this code in a web server and this code can be said to be a very simple XML Server since it serves the user with an XML document.
About the author:
Want to stay current with the latest technology developments realted to XML. Visit http://www.xml-training-guide.comto get your FREE subscription now!
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Shopping Search Engines, The Benefits and Explanations
By Ispas Marin
The Shopping Search Engines are a new breed on the Internet market, they are a research tool for both consumers and retailers. Using a shopping search engine the consumer can search at once more than one merchants, products and look at the prices in only one place. The shopping search engine is a software that puts together a number of online stores. They sell the products from thousands of merchants through their interface. To get their products listed in the shopping search engines the retailers usually pay a per click fee and startup fee. In some cases the shopping search engines rate the quality of the merchants and promote them if the their ratings are high.
If you would want to buy something you no longer need to go to regular search engine, search through the results and find the product on the retailers website. The shopping search engine will show you directly the merchant checkout page saving you money.
Here are some of the benefits, listed:
Consumer Benefits:
Minimal click online shopping
Multiple merchants in one place
Multiple products in one place
Merchant ratings
Product ratings
Prices include shipping and tax, if you fill in zip code box on screen
Smart Buy is highlighted for you at Shopping.com - shows best rated merchant with cheapest price
Saves consumer time and money, avoid long shopping lines and traffic during Christmas shopping season.
Retailer Benefits:
Retailers have a new online marketing and sales channel for their products
If retailers have a good site conversion rate, likely to have good shopping search conversion rate
Instead of delivering the consumer to the merchant's door, like regular search engines do, the shopping search engines deliver the consumer directly to the product, giving information about whatever price the product may have and if it's in stock or sold out. The consumer also provides information about which merchant offers the best deal and if the merchant is highly rated.
Some of the online shopping search engines are: Shopping.com, Bizrate.com or Shopzilla.com,http://www.getinstant.info, Google's Froogle, Yahoo Shopping, Nextag.com and Pricegrabber.com.
About the author:
http://www.getinstant.infois a shopping search engine that provides just about anything you would need. The value is in our content.
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Business Website Content: How Much?
By Joel Walsh
How much should you pay for web content? It depends on what you can expect to get back on your investment. A web content writer can increase your site's revenue 20r more.
Web Content Cost Considerations
When web content gets discussed on webmaster bulletin boards, the most common question is, "how much should I pay?" That question is both perfectly logical, and perfectly misguided:
* Logical, because the biggest expense of any website, with the possible exceptions of advertising and promotion, is the content. You only have to get web development and design once, but content needs to be added regularly for your site to be successful.
* Misguided, because the real question isn't how much you are going to pay, but how much you are going to invest. Your content, if it's done right, will make you money. In fact, it can easily make back its cost within a month. So the real question you should ask a web content provider is: how much will it make me?
Calculating Your Web Content's Value
Ultimately, your web content is the one part of your site that makes you money. The code, design, and even traffic, while important, are not what ultimately get a visitor to take action. You have to tell or ask visitors to take action. Telling and asking take words.
Small changes in your web content can make big differences in the bottom line. Take a look:
Advertising/affiliate revenue:
Let's say you have a web page that averages $25/day in revenue from advertising and/or affiliate links. You have a professional writer optimize the content on the page to get more clicks. Watch what happens:
1. If just 20ore visitors click on affiliate or advertising links, your revenue will increase $5/day, $150/month, and $1825/year. If your page maintains its current level of traffic for three more years, that's a $5475 increase, just for that one page.
2. But it gets better: the improvements to the page will easily increase traffic by 20Àas more visitors return, more visitors refer your site to friends, and more webmasters, bloggers and others link to your site. That brings a total of $6570 more revenue from that page over three years.
3. If you get the same results with 50 pages with similar traffic levels, that's an increase of $328500. Now multiply that by however many sites you or your company owns. Can you say, "early retirement"?
Keep in mind, that's only the additional revenue you get from the improved content compared with what you were getting already from your work. No extra work needed.
Sales/leads model:
If your website is a promotional vehicle for a business, the results can be even more spectacular. If a page nets you $500/day in sales or leads, website content improvements that increase your sales or leads by 20
About the author:
[Formatting: for web, please use "website content" as the link's anchor text (visible link text)]
Joel Walsh is the head content writer for UpMarket Content. Get more information on improving your site's website content: http://upmarketcontent.com
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To Buy? Or To Build? … That Is The Question!
By Michael DeVries
So, you have identified a need in your business for which you believe would be a great candidate for a software solution.
Now the question is …
Do you “run off” and engage (one or more) developers to build this software system(s) for you?
And/or …
Do you “run off” to the “nearest” and/or your favorite on-/off-line software store and buy a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) package solution, and if so which one?, to meet these business needs?
Which one of these alternatives is the most efficient and (overall) cost effective solution to satisfy your business needs as soon as possible?
That is “The Question”!, To Buy? or To Build?, isn’t it?
Getting the answer to this question is actually not nearly as difficult as you might imagine! ;)
All you need to do is execute a “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or a Software Selection process for the type(s) of software that meet these of your business needs and chose the best, most efficient and (overall) cost effective solution, right?
The “Big Boys”, larger companies and corporations, often perform, and/or engage consultants to perform, a formal “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or a Software Selection process on many to all of their significant software purchases.
You should execute a “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or a Software Selection process, for any significant software purchase, before you decide whether it would be most efficient and cost effective, in the long run, to build an application “from scratch” vs. buy a COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) package, and if so which one will best fit your current and future needs!
This may save you a significant amount of money, time, effort and *headaches* in both the short term and in the long run!
As otherwise, you may end up paying to “recreate the wheel(s)”, which really doesn’t make sense, does it?, and therefore none of us wants to do, do we?
Or …
Purchasing a package only to find that it doesn’t (and possibly can’t) meet your needs and/or the cost of modifying such a package to meet your needs is prohibitive, in which either case you will most likely “scrap” this package (now a.k.a. “shelfware”), you just bought and paid for, and pick or build another one and possibly repeat this whole (costly) cycle again, you know?
We will not have the luxury of going into detail on either how to perform a formal “Buy vs. Build” analysis, as this would require extensive discussions of how to define, analyze and estimate software development projects for which there are many books on these subjects, and/or how to execute a formal Software Selection process, as this is a topic for which whole Methodologies have been developed and are used (I know, as I assisted in the initial development and used just such a Software Selection Methodology for one of the largest global software and services corporations ;)).
We will, however, in this article, attempt to outline some of the factors that you should consider when performing your own “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or Software Selection process(es) for yourself.
Firstly, in either case you will need to define (and prioritize) your requirements / selection criteria such that you may evaluate how each of these “Buy vs. Build” alternatives will meet your immediate and long-term business needs, right?
Further, throughout these processes, you will want to insure that you compare these options in terms of “apples to apples”, you know?
Therefore, I would recommend that you compare both(/all) of these options in terms (of the “Total cost of ownership”) including the total time and cost to get the application into production and/or market and the total cost of supporting and maintaining the application for its expected lifespan.
The “formality” with which you execute these processes should be proportionate to your investment (in terms of the long-term / “Total cost of ownership”) in the application and its criticality in your business.
First, let us consider the “Build” option.
Some of the advantages of the “Build” option include:
1) You get an application specifically developed to satisfy your business requirements/needs and designed to fit your specific business processes.
2) It is more likely that you will be able to adapt your software system(s) to changes in your business needs and/or processes, as you would either presumably have the application source code and/or access to the original developers of it, right?
3) You may develop your new application(s) to interface and “play nicely” with the other software in your overall application architecture.
Some of the disadvantages of the “Build” option include:
1) The typical project duration from conception to production(/market), through the complete software development life cycle, for a custom developed application may be significantly longer than that for implementing a package solution.
2) The initial development costs of producing the first release(s) of your application(s), including the associated documentation and training materials, are typically higher than those for purchasing a package solution.
Briefly here are just a few of the additional factors that, IMHO (in my humble opinion), you may wish to consider in determining whether or not it is best to “Build” an application “from scratch”, including:
1) In addition to the estimated “coding” time and cost, make sure you also consider all of the time and possible costs to complete the definition, analysis and design phases, prior to “coding”, and the subsequent testing and implementation phases required to complete the overall software development life cycle for you application.
2) Are you planning to manage the project, and project team(s), yourself? And/or are you planning to “outsource” part to all of the management of your project? What are the costs in terms of time, effort and money for each of these alternatives? Which of these alternatives has the minimum risks to the successful completion of your application development project?, These are *important* considerations as failing to complete the development of your application(s) may make pursuing this option very costly!
3) What are the costs – time, effort and/or money – to also develop the documentation and training (if applicable) for your application(s)?
4) How do you plan to support the developed application(s)? By training “in house” staff to support it? And/or engaging external developers and/or support staff?
5) How do you plan to handle maintenance on this new application(s)? Do you have the source code? Do you plan to handle future maintenance yourself / “in house”? and/or Are you going to engage the original development team (assuming they are willing and available) to make any future additions and/or changes to your system(s)? If so have you negotiated / “locked in” a rate for these future maintenance efforts?
Etc. Etc.
Now, let us look at the “Buy” option.
Some of the advantages of the “Buy” option include:
1) The time to get a package solution implemented such that you may start using it and reaping the corresponding benefits for your business is typically quicker than that for building the application “from scratch”.
2) The initial purchase price of a software package, although it may be considerable, is often less than the (initial) custom development costs.
3) The software vendor may deliver regular maintenance upgrades to the software package, including a number of “bug fixes” and/or enhancements, which you may receive for a “fixed maintenance fee” such that you do not have to bear the costs of all these “bug fixes” and enhancements alone.
Some of the disadvantages of the “Buy” option include:
1) A COTS package may not satisfy all your business requirements/needs and may not fit your specific business processes well “out of the box”. The software vendor may or may not be willing and able to modify the package to better fit your business requirements and/or processes and even if so, this may be costly.
2) A software package may be less able to quickly adapt to changes in your business needs and/or processes. You may have to wait for the vendor’s next maintenance release to get the changes you want, or you may have to pay the vendor to make these changes specifically just for you and wait for them, or they may not be willing (and/or able) to make these changes to their software package for you at all.
Briefly here are also just a few of the additional factors that, IMHO, you may want to consider in evaluating / selecting a package solution(s), as part of your “Buy options”, including:
1) What is the additional time and cost, if it is even possible / an option, to modify the package to satisfy your current requirements/needs? A “general rule of thumb” I have used over the years is that … If you have to modify 50r more of the “code” to make it meet your needs, then you are probably better off re-writing it “from scratch”, you know?
2) Is it maintainable?
Meaning, will you, the vendor, and/or developers you engage be able to modify the package to meet any changes in your current and/or future requirements/needs? If not, then this package may become “shelfware” should your needs change at some point, you know?
3) How well does it integrate and/or “play well” with the other applications in your overall application architecture?
If it does not “interface nicely” with other applications in your overall application architecture and it will need to, then you may find that you will need to have these interfaces custom developed. Therefore, you should also consider the development of these interfaces in the “Total cost of ownership” of this package, right?
4) What kinds of documentation, training and support are available? And how good are they? Bottom line … a package you and/or your staff can’t use isn’t worth much now is it?
Etc. Etc.
Granted, again, there is a lot more to both a good formal “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or Software Selection process, as discussed above, but …
Once you have narrowed it down to the top “scoring” candidate COTS software packages from your Software Selection process, this along with your assessment of the advantages, disadvantages and costs of the “Buy” vs. the “Build” alternative, as discussed above, will allow you to make a good informed decision about which solution is better for you and your business, namely to “Build” or “Buy”, in this case, right?
I hope that the discussions herein will at least help everyone see the value (and potential time, effort and money savings) of performing a “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or a Software Selection process “up front” vs. ending up with something that either doesn’t meet your (short- and/or long-term) needs and/or is too costly to maintain.
If you have any further questions regarding and/or would like further assistance with any of this, please feel free to contact us via the contact information available below.
I hope this all helps you all and Have a Great Day! :)
- Michael S. DeVries
About the author:
Michael S. DeVries is the Moderator of The Virtual Consulting Discussion List (http://www.TheVCF.com/vcdl.phtml) and Principal of The Virtual Consulting Firm (http://www.TheVCF.com). Learn how to work from Wherever, Whenever by subscribing to The Virtual Consulting Discussion List and receive several FREE Gifts! at: http://www.TheVCF.com/vcdl.phtml
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What Is A Server
By Richard Amburn
For those of you who don’t really understand where or how your web page is sitting on your hosting sever, this is a basic over view of how it works.
A server is basically hardware and software and protocol. We will go over these three basics of your hosting server.
• Server hardware.
Server hardware is so similar to your old PC hardware that the price of server hardware has come down considerably. Down enough that it’s tempting for a lot of us to host our own server. But that’s a whole different article. All a server is:
• Very fast processor.
• A large amount of RAM.
• A vast amount of Disk Space.
• Connection to a T1 line (access to the outside world).
The hardware is housed in very large office buildings. There are many racks of servers filling these climate controlled rooms. Most of the server host brag of their 99r better uptime. This is very impressive and another reason to use a server host. How often have you re-booted your PC in the past?
• Software. (Operating system)
There different operating systems on the market. Most likely the software on your server is running Apache on Linux, an open source product. Servers need to be secured and an open source application is more likely to be less buggy and more secure then their larger competitor Microsoft.
These servers use an interface for you to access and configure them, a control panel. Some control panels are more complicated then others. Depending how technical you are, this is a point of concern when picking a server host.
• Protocol. (FTP)
To get your page on the server you need to FTP (file transfer protocol). FTP is a client (you) server application. If you created your page on your desk top, obviously to share it you would need to get it on your server. It’s also used to transfer files between your own pc to someone else’s computer.
This is a very simplistic overview of what a server host is, but I hope it will give you a basic idea how it works.
About the author:
Richard Amburn http://www.myspace-host-online.com
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SEO Content Distribution Linking For Newbies
By Joel Walsh
The new buzz on the internet is all about getting one-way links by distributing content to other sites in exchange for backlinks. As with every other SEO or website promotion technique ever devised, there are plenty of newbie myths about it that can ruin your chance for success before you even start.
Newbie Myth 1: The "Duplicate content penalty."
Some webmasters worry that if the content on their sites is suddenly on hundreds of other sites, search engines will inflict a "duplicate content penalty." Why is this concern unjustified?
* If this were true, every major newspaper and news portal website would now be de-indexed from the search engines, since they all carry "duplicate content" from the news wires such as
Reuters and the Associated Press.
* Thousands of self-promoting internet gurus have proven that distributing content is an effective method of improving search engine rank.
* Even more thousands of content websites have proven that republishing this content does not carry any search engine penalty.
True, the first website to publish an article often seems to be favored by search engines, ranking higher for the same content in searches than higher-PageRank pages with the same content. But the "duplicate" pages do show up in the search engine results, even if lower than the original site. Meanwhile, the reprint content has no effect on the ranking of a site's other pages.
The only duplicate content penalty is for duplication of content across pages of a single website. Meanwhile, there is a sort of "copyright theft" penalty, whereby someone who copies content without permission can be manually removed from search engine indexes out of respect for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But that penalty is only for flagrant theft, not minor mistakes in attributing reprint content.
Newbie Myth 2: The goal is to get in article clearinghouse websites.
There are over 100 popular, high-traffic websites that act as clearinghouses for content made available for redistribution. These websites include isnare.com, amazines.com, and goarticles.com.
Many novice content-distributors are upset when the article clearinghouse websites, with tens of thousands of articles each with a backlink, pass negligible PageRank. But the point of distributing content to those websites is for other website owners to find your content and put it on their websites--not to get a backlink directly from the clearinghouse website (though this is sometimes an unexpected bonus).
Plus, to maximize PageRank-passing links, you also have to submit articles to website owners individually. It's not a small amount of work. But there's no substitute for a polite, individually crafted email recommending a website owner complement his or her existing articles with one you've written.
Myth 3: Any content will do.
Reality: It should be obvious that many website owners, jealous of their link popularity, will only republish exceptionally high - quality content. For articles, this means a unique point of view and solid information that cannot be found just anywhere, ideally presented in compelling language in a web-optimized format by a professional published writer. You can conduct a content distribution campaign with bad content, but you'll be handicapping yourself from the start.
Myth 4: Distributing content is easy. Just hit "send."
Reality: Content distribution campaign requires skillful planning to target publisher websites effectively.
This is essentially a four-step process.
1. You must identify the categories of websites most likely to republish your articles. These categories range from the very broad, such as internet, business, and family, and can go as narrow as family-friendly internet businesses.
It's a careful balance: you need to make your target category narrowly relevant to maximize the value of the link and your chances of getting your article accepted for publication. But if you target too narrow a category, you'll lower the maximum number of links you can hope to get.
For instance, a website on web content writing has to target its content distribution to more than just sites focusing on web content. There are only so many websites devoted to web content as a topic of interest, and besides, many such websites would be competitors. Distribution should target broadly relevant categories, such as web design, webmaster issues, writing, marketing, business, website promotion, and SEO. Yet some broadly related categories, such as internet or publishing, are not relevant enough to yield good results.
2. To maximize success, you must have articles custom-created for each major category you want to submit to. "Incorporating Content in Web Design" and "Marketing with Content" would be possible titles for a web content-writing website owner targeting web design and marketing websites, respectively. An article about web design won't appeal as strongly to marketers, or vice versa, so simply submitting to websites having to do with "the web" would not be as effective.
3. For maximum success, articles custom-written for a category then often have to be refined for sub-categories. For instance, "Incorporating Content in Web Design" becomes "Incorporating Content into Flash Web Design," or "Incorporating Content into Accessible Web Design." Sometimes the refinement is just a "find and replace" of one keyword for another, sometimes just in the title. Sometimes, entire paragraphs have to reworded or removed.
4. Once you've identified sub-categories of websites, you still have to be able to meet the requirements of individual websites. Some sites only publish articles up to 500 words, some only do how-to articles. Owners of high-ranking websites can afford to be choosey. To really maximize results within a sub-category, you need at least three different articles of varying lengths and focus specifically geared toward that sub-category.
In the end, distributing content for website promotion and inbound links is a marvelously effective way of promoting a website. But it's not magic beans. Like anything else having to do with achieving success on the web, it takes hard work and knowledge to be successful.
About the author:
Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, offering a fully managed content distribution campaign guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three pages of content: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm[requested HTML anchor/link text: website promotion content distribution]
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