Tech

Archive for July, 2008

Cell Phone Abuse - Tips to Curb Employee Abuse

Looking for a way to save your enterprise or government organization tens of thousands of dollars a month or more on wireless mobile communication use? First off, it’s going to take some discipline and innovative management for your cellular communication services to become more cost efficient and less prone to abuse. Cell phone and handheld usage can bleed a corporation’s IT communications funding dry without so much as a turn of the head, or at least until it’s too late.

They’re Everywhere …

It’s more common than not for a large organization to have employees carrying company owned devices such as cellular phones, pagers, PDAs, and Blackberry devices. All these wireless devices meant to increase employee productivity are more than likely draining funds and ultimately decreasing actual corporate productivity. It’s an ever increasing telecommunications expense on a road to disaster.

One is Better …

One way to better manage corporate employee mobile communication cost is to buy ALL cellular services through ONE provider. Buying through one provider gives your organization the chance to receive volume discounts. If you are giving your employees the opportunity to purchase their company wireless device themselves on the corporate account, you are opening the door to higher rates and actually taking away control from the company as a whole.

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DVD Recorders: Getting Started

IMO, these sd work ‘like a VCR’ as far as recording and playback. There are models w/ harddrives, VHS players, etc. built in, but to me that’s overboard.

Bells and Whistles

The VHS option is not bad, but you most likely already have one you can plug into the inputs of the DVD recorder.

I have a DVD recorder for archiving TiVo shows as opposed to accessing my TiVo from my PC. This is nice because it means I can also archive VHS tapes, camcorder tapes, etc. w/no extra work.

I do have a TV card in my PC so I can do this, but using the DVD recorder is easier.

My motto is: buy what you WILL use and not what you CAN use.

I’ve bought lots of things that CAN do a lot, but in reality I don’t use all the extra features. Not in all cases, but in this case, I say pass on the bells and whistles.

Again, there are models w/ all types of features, but if you buy one that is a DVR, DVD recorder, VCR, TV tuner all in one and one part breaks, it’s all broke.

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How VoIP Works — Busting Out of Long Distance Rates

VoIP is the newest advancement in audio communications technology, and has a variety of different applications that make it useful. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and how VoIP works is actually quite revolutionary because it streamlines the process of sending analog audio signals by converting them to a much easier to send digital form for transmission.

To understand how VoIP works, you’ll need to understand the basic concept behind regular analog audio communication as well, since this is the precursor for VoIP. Analog phone calls are actually made via fiber optic networks by digitizing your voice communications for sending the signal across thousands of miles, but once it gets to the final destination (a home or office phone, for instance), the signal is once again converted to analog.

During these calls, the switches remain open even while there is dead air and no conversation is taking place; the circuit is also open in both directions even when only one party is talking and the other is listening. This isn’t terribly efficient, and slows down the communication of information considerably.

Packet switching streamlines VoIP

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Password Nightmares

Good Morning Mr. Sampson. Please type in you Personal Identification Number

XXXXXX

Sorry, Mr. Forgetful Idiot! That is not the correct password. Please slap yourself three times around your head and then apply for a new card and number ? we are keeping this one.

Don’t you just hate them? Passwords give you access to almost every walk of life. They are now the keys to doors that would otherwise violently slam in your face and tell you to XXXXXX, which they often do if you key the wrong password in anyway.

The first passwords to really come on the scene (apart from those required to gain entry into the back room of the Mafia club) where those at the ATM machines. A four-digit PIN number has to be entered before money can be withdrawn and for those with one account and a pass number drawn from an important date, no problem existed.

Then your one account became two as the building societies introduced ATM machines, then your savings account at the post office and then to beat it all Internet Banking came on the scene. Passwords are now required for Banking, shopping on the web, switch cards, visa cards, store cards, petrol cards and any other card that you may have.

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Expert Guide to DVD Camcorders

Thinking about a mini DVD camcorder? You’re not alone, it’s a rapidly growing sector of the camcorder market, with Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic all making more than one mini dvd camcorder.

These camcorders differ from regular digital video cameras in one important way - they record video onto mini DVD discs, rather than DV tape. This has a number of advantages. DVD discs are more robust than tape and won’t get chewed up in the camera. Although this is thankfully a rare occurance, it scares me every time I here a strange noise coming from my camcorder, so it’s with bearing in mind.

The second advantage is that DVD discs are random access, compared to tape on which everything is recorded sequentially. This means that there’s no need to rewind and fast forward to find the clip you’re after, just select it from the menu. Some cameras even allow you to perform basic editing functions on-camera. An additional side-benefit is that a mini DVD camcorder doesn’t have tape heads to get worn or dirty as happens in regular mini DVD cameras.

And thirdly, you can easily watch your home movies by removing the DVD from the camera and playing it in practically any DVD player.

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Ka Band -Affordable Satellite Internet On The Way!

Ka Band VSAT* satellite internet technology has enormous possibilities for telecommuters, rural locations and eventually for Motor Home users around the U.S. - if it works! Ka Band satellite internet is an all new approach to sending and receiving internet traffic from space (satellites used for internet are at least 23,000 miles from Earth). *Very small aperture terminal.

The key improvements in Ka band technology from the "blanket" approach used up to now are:

1. Ka Band employs "spot beams" rather than broadcasting over an entire Continent?.a far more efficient use of the available bandwidth resulting in lower monthly service cost to end users (as low as $49 per mo.).

2. Ka Band doesn’t require a very large dish (the dish is about the size of a trash can lid) to produce high speed internet in either direction (downloads & uploads are very fast), resulting in a lower equipment cost to consumers.

3. Ka Band uses technology that drastically lowers latency (the "lag" created by data traveling all the way to space and back).

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Mobile Phone Accessories

Discounted Mobile Phone Accessories

Mobile Phones have become a part of everyday life with more and more people enjoying the service and extra freedom they provide. Their popularity has prompted BB Shopping ? a leading UK online store to offer mobile phone accessories as gift items at discounted rates to our customers.

These mobile phone accessories add-value to mobile phone sets ? making them a lifestyle item. Some of the accessories that are immensely popular, amongst shoppers of Christmas gift items all over the UK, are:

Hard-Plastic Holster: This stylish swivel holster enables the mobile phone user to attach the phone on his/her belt. This holster enables the mobile phone to turn round instead of jabbing at the waist. Plastic prongs secure the phone to the belt clip and ensures safety and convenience. This holster comes with a swivel belt clip.

Mobile Phone Leather Case: A genuine leather case encloses the mobile phone and protects it against scratches and normal wear and tear. This case can be attached to a belt clip and easily carried around.

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How To Safeguard Your Computer?

The following practice, if done regularly, may help you to safeguard your computer to some extent.

1. Run disc clean up, scan disk and defragmentor.

2. Keep your recycle bin emptied.

3. Clean your cache of browsers.

4. Download only the very essential programs that are required to run your business and avoid the habit of downloading whatever you get for free.

5. Update your programs to keep up the latest technology and also for a faster load time.

6. Never open suspicious emails from unknown people, especially the attachments however tempting it may be. It will be hazardous to your computer. Sometimes you may even get emails with attachments with subject saying your “Thank you for your order and the credit card details”. Most of them will be sending malicious viruses through those attachments.

7. Above all remember to protect your computer with antivirus soft ware and update it regularly.

8. Backing up of all your important files and store them in two sets of floppies. In case one floppy fails to open the other one would be of help.

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Online Data Backups for Newbies

How long have you been doing business online? Whether you are new or an old timer you need to understand the one important truth of the e-world. That being that the largest threat to business survival is data loss.

Online data backup is not just for huge multinational corporations and computer geeks anymore. More and more everyday computer users are saving important data to their hard drives. From schoolwork to financial documents, digital media files to journal entries, our computers are storing more and more digital data that holds personal, and in some cases monetary, value to us. It is because of this that online data storage and other backup solutions are becoming more and more critical to our everyday lives.

If the statements above describe you, you should consider utilizing an offsite data backup solution. These online-based backup providers come in many forms but can be very easy to use and convenient for end users to implement no matter what the platform or how large the network. Whether you need to back up a single laptop, or an entire network of machines, there is an online data backup solution that will meet your needs.

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Recordable DVD Formats Explained

Picking your way through the ton of information available on recordable DVD formats can be a nightmare. To help you out, we’ve done our best to distill it into this summary.

There are five recordable versions of DVD; DVD-R for General, DVD-R for Authoring, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. None of the formats is fully compatible with the other although there are drives which will read, and in some cases write to more than one format.

DVD-R for General and DVD-R for Authoring are essentially DVD versions of CD-R. And DVD-RW is a DVD version of CD-RW. All three formats can be read in standard DVD-ROM drives and in most DVD video players. The difference between DVD-R for General and DVD-R for Authoring is that DVD-R for General is a format intended for widespread consumer use and doeasn’t support ‘professional’ features such as piracy protection or duplication in mass duplicators. The Pioneer DVD-RW drive which is the most popular PC device for writing to DVD uses the DVD for General format. And as as the case with CD, DVD-RW is essentially the same as DVD-R except that it can be erased and written to again and again.

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