Of course, one is cost. Many employers are putting the brakes on paying for CCNA and CCNP boot camps, and most candidates can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for such a class. Then you’ve got travel costs, meals, and having to possibly burn your own vacation time to take the class. Add in time away from your family and boot camps become impractical for many CCNA / CCNP candidates.

Another issue is fatigue. I enjoy teaching week-long classes, but let’s face facts – whether you’re training for the CCNA or CCNP exams, you’re going to get a lot of information thrown at you in just a few days. You’re going to be mentally and physically exhausted at the end of the week, and that’s when some boot camps actually have you take the exam! You’ve got to be refreshed and rested when you take the exam to have your best chance of success.

How can you get the benefit of an experienced instructor without paying thousands of dollars? By taking a Video Boot Camp! There are some high-quality computer-based training (CBT) courses out there, and these courses offer quite a few advantages for the CCNA and CCNP candidate. These courses run hundreds instead of thousands of dollars, and you can train on your own schedule. It is important for you to make and keep that schedule, but instead of spending thousands of dollars and having to travel, you can get world-class CCNA and CCNP training in the comfort of your own home.

By combining a high-quality CCNA or CCNP CBT or video boot camp with a strong work ethic, you’re on your way to passing the exam and accelerating your career. Now get to work!

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Attending A Video Boot Camp is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

The computer age has followed suit. There was a time that an individual had to dial up just to get an internet connection. With the development of wireless routers that come with a WiFi antenna, work using the computer can be done without the need to connect any wires.

Another term that is used for Wifi antennas are omnidirectional antennas. Some users who have this at home have said that it is better to have this replaced with a different kind. This is because the current antenna has difficulty reaching long distances since the signaling power needs to extend in many directions.

One solution to address this problem is getting an external omnidicrectional antenna that is much more powerful than the old one. This gives internet access to people who have more than one computer located in different areas of the house.

Universities and other offices use stronger devices allowing its workers to work via the web. This can be done to send emails or other important files that are essential for the entire business operation.

A strong antenna may pose a problem for the person at home. This is because the signal could reach people who live near the house and use it to gain internet access without the knowledge of the individuals who purchased the unit. In order to solve this, one should check if the external antenna is really needed. Also, aiming it a place where people in the house can only use it.

Another way of letting people have internet access at home or in the office is by adding another access point. The person would need to connect the wireless router to one that has an Ethernet cable. This is because a wireless version and the kind that needs wires are not able to work with each other directly.

The use of a repeater and an amplifier can also strengthen the signal in ones home or in the office. This can be done by attaching it to the access point and in no time, the individual and others may enjoy doing some surfing in the net.

These devices can be bought at the nearby cyber shop or one can surf the net and buy it online. Before getting it, the individual should canvass around to get the best price available. The person should also think if it is really needed for ones home.

Antennas come in different sizes and shapes. These are used for a variety of things such as listening to a program on the radio or for people to communicate in places that do not have telephones or cellular phones.

Various instruments have also been used to amplify the signal. The person should just choose the kind that is really needed depending on the purpose then making use of it. The potential of it is endless and its use in giving people wireless internet access is another marvel that people will benefit from.

Antennas Of The New Age is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

THE BENCHMARK – FACE-TO-FACE

There’s no doubt that face-to-face communication is the most effective method for most people. Why? Because of its two-way nature. It’s about dialogue. Listeners are not passive participants. When someone talks to us, we send a continuous stream of responses back to them. Some are verbal, but many/most are not. These responses have the power to actually change the message being disseminated by the talker. What’s more, they have the power to change how other listeners’ interpret that message. (Similarly, other listeners have the power to change your interpretation.)

Unfortunately, however, the global nature of business makes it impossible to conduct face-to-face meetings for every communication. So what are the alternatives? Specifically, what are the alternatives offered by technology?

EMAIL – THE STARTING POINT

The benefits of email are numerous and well known, and include (but are not limited to):

Email is an excellent mechanism for distributing information to people. It is fast and cost effective.

It is incredibly convenient – you can readily communicate across time zones.

It provides a useful electronic paper trail.

It can save a great deal of time because most of the fluff surrounding a phone call (the social niceties) are seen as unnecessary in email.

It allows recipients to read and respond to messages in their own time.

The wording, grammar and punctuation in an email can be considered and edited before finally sending.

But email does have its limitations:

Its lack of social niceties is a double-edged sword. Without the benefit of other communication cues, it’s sometimes hard to interpret the tone of an email, and this can make some messages ambiguous.

It isn’t ideal for critical communication. For many people, emails are not ‘real-time’ communication. We all have that unaddressed email sitting at the bottom of the list. Because emails are so easy to ignore, they’re also easy to forget.

Ironically, email’s dissemination effectiveness has been one of the major impediments to its communication effectiveness. It’s so easy to send emails – and they’re so anonymous – that our inboxes are now flooded with SPAM. Consequently, emails are viewed with some suspicion. It’s sometimes hard to identify legitimate emails, but it’s very easy to just hit Delete.

Because email senders are typically geographically (and often culturally) distant from their recipients, they have no immediate visual and aural cues to help them tailor the message as they type.

But there’s no need to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’. Email is an excellent solution to many communication needs. And for those it is ill-equipped to handle, there are newer, more appropriate technologies that are built for the job…

WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES – THE PERFECT SUPPLEMENT

Web 2.0, a term coined by O’Reilly Media (an American media company) in 2004 refers, to a second-generation of internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in new ways.

Web 2.0 technologies are well defined in www.wikipaedia.org, which suggests that these sites allow the users of the sites (members) to create and share content, including exploring and discussing ideas, opinions, initiatives and issues. Web 2.0 is all about communication. It is the evolution of the internet from an endless library of static pages to an endless world of conversations. These pages can be restricted to particular individuals (eg the executive), or open to all members. The only difference is that the interaction takes place in cyberspace, and those taking part can be sitting behind a keyboard just about anywhere on the planet.

Importantly, a reader’s understanding of the message in a Web 2.0 communication is determined, not just by the publisher, but also by the responses (e.g. comments) of the audience. What’s more, the publisher’s actual message tends to be far more fluid as it, too, is informed by the responses of the audience. In other words, Web 2.0 services are far more like face-to-face conversations than any communication technology before them.

So what are these emerging technologies that we should be keeping an eye on? The two most notable are ‘Wikis’ and ‘Blogs’. The following definitions are from http://www.wikipedia.org, an online encyclopaedia developed as a wiki.

Wikis – A wiki is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove or otherwise edit and change content. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. Examples include Wikipedia (wikipedia.com) and wikiwikiweb (http://www.wikiwikiweb.com).

Blogs – A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of online diary or journal which allows one to voice their opinion on something. Blogs often provide commentary or news and information on a particular subject. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media. Blogs are usually text based, but they can include photographs, videos or audio (podcasting). Blogs can be presented in a way that creates a conversation between users. As an example, see the Sydney Morning Herald travel blog (http://blogs.smh.com.au/lostintransit/).

THE USES OF WEB 2.0

As with face-to-face social gatherings and forums, online get togethers attract a broad spectrum of participants eager to engage, entertain, befriend, advise and lecture.

It was reported in The Australian (Tuesday 8 August 2006) that the social computing element of Web 2.0 has recently been embraced by the US Government. The US State Department has started including blogs and other Web 2.0 concepts to deliver public information to citizens. It is also using wiki style services to improve information by permitting small expert communities to improve advisory services.

The same article advised that Australias leading information advisory body, the Australian Government Information Management Office, had begun experimenting with the use of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies.

As new online social networks mushroom, they are becoming increasingly focused on niches, ideally suited to membership based organizations and the NFP sector. Examples of general public social networks include My Space (http://www.myspace.com), Classmates (http://www.classmates.com) and Bikely (bikely.com).

OTHER USEFUL TECHNOLOGIES

SMS – Short Message Service (SMS) is a service available on most digital mobile phones (and other mobile devices, e.g. a Pocket PC, or occasionally even desktop computers) that permits the sending of short messages between mobile phones, other handheld devices and even landline telephones.

Podcast – Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.

Webinars – Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the internet. In the early years of the internet, the terms “web conferencing” and “computer conferencing” were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to refer specifically to “live” or “synchronous” meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a “forum”, “message board”, or “bulletin board”. A webinar is a seminar which is conducted over the World Wide Web. It is a type of web conferencing. In contrast to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is ‘live’ in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with a starting and ending time. In most cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speakerphone. Whilst not necessarily considered Web 2.0, Webinars can also be a useful mechanism for information distribution and discussion amongst membership based organizations and SMS can provide important or urgent confirmations.

CONCLUSION

Email is – and will continue to be – an incredibly useful and convenient communication tool. In fact, with the emergence of new technologies that are either more direct, more immediate, or more like face-to-face communication, email is improved. As businesses supplement their email usage with other communication technologies, email will be increasingly reserved for those communications to which it is ideally suited.

5 New Communication Technologies To Supplement Email is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

One software package that regularly garners superlative reviews is Lytec medical billing software. Computer experts and users alike agree that Lytec software has many positives, including a clear interface and a simple approach to the medical billing process. The Lytec software suite tracks claims management, patient billing, insurance, and scheduling in a single package. The result is a workspace with a seamless quality in which a group of diverse functions, from electronic medical records to healthcare forms, behave in an integrated and coherent way.

A busy medical practice of any size can be a volatile environment, and a system that breaks down under heavy use is a real liability in this business. Lytec medical software is secure, auditable and completely expandable to your specific needs. More importantly it’s simple enough to configure yourself.

NueMD is a medical practice management software created specifically for medical offices that also has received positive reviews. Comments have ranged from NueMD is a functional and no-nonsense practice management solution transported over the Internet, to NueMD allows online eligibility verification done by the client, claims submission, reporting, and analysis. This software is first-rate and is priced less than most systems of its kind. Other reviews have indicated that the software is a success in small solo medical practices as well as large-scale operations, owing to its reasonable price and ease of use. The ease of use came up often, especially in terms of even a novice being able to pick it up quickly.

eClinicalWorks, another popular medical billing software provider, also earns a mention. It is considered one of the leading providers of integrated uninterrupted ambulatory EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and PM (Practice Management) systems for multiple-local medical practices that include diverse specialties. eClinicalWorks is an award-winning company focused on customer care and satisfaction. KLAS a research and consulting firm dedicated to improving the performance of healthcare information technology providers recognized eClinicalWorks, with its distinguished Best in Klas Award 2004. This accolade is considered one of the most important honors in the field.

Any of these three types of software are likely to provide the clarity, ease of use, and technological sophistication you require.

A Review of Medical Billing Software Products is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

Unfortunately, many, or even most, wireless units don’t come with security features already functioning. This may not seem like a big issue to someone who is simply setting up a home network, but there are a number of potential problems you should consider.

The most serious problem is the increase in identity theft. If your network is unsecured, the personal data on your wireless electronic equipment is also unsecured. The order you just placed for a book at Amazon may have given your contact and payment information to an unscrupulous hacker!

Nearly every town in which “WiFi” is common will have “War Drivers” and “War Chalkers” at work. These are people who walk or drive around town with wireless equipment, searching for unsecured networks. The “Chalkers” then live up their name, marking curbs and other public items with chalk so that others can more easily find and exploit your network.

Not all “War Drivers” are hackers, of course. Many just want to use your network for free, but the risk is high if you don’t learn how to protect yourself. You can usually find quite a bit of free information as to how to secure your network at the website of your router’s manufacturer, or by doing a search in a search engine for a phrase like “secure home wireless.”

Beyond the truly malicious, there are also your neighbors who may find your network by accident and enjoy nosing into your activities and using your Internet access at will, slowing down your network speed in the process.

Even many businesses use cheap, home-use quality equipment for their company networks. With the poor security often found on small business networks, anyone with a basic knowledge of wireless can access sensitive company and customer data.

If you are unable to secure your network yourself, there are many service companies who will do it for you. A search of your local yellow pages or an inquiry at your neighborhood computer store should yield professional help and get your private data private again

It’s 12 Noon, Do You Know Who’s Using Your Network? is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

Barcode ribbon and fax ink film are just some of the office supplies that make it possible for you to do your work properly. It is of high importance, when you work in an office to be able to transmit information in different ways. When information has to be sent from one place to another, under a form that has to be put on paper, fax ink film and barcode ribbon are essential to you. Contacts, pictures, deeds or many other valuable papers are now sent by fax in just a few seconds time. But to be able to do this properly, fax ink film must not be missing from your desk. And not only that, but these supplies also have to be the best.

Modern man has come a long way since the times of ancient papyrus and mural paintings. In today’s time and world, we tend to have lot facilities that we have made for our selves to better cope with all the standards that we have put up. Modern technology and ingenuity has helped us develop a lot of useful things to help us with the modern day life and problems that we encounter in our lives. Having to sustain the society that we have created one must develop certain ways to do that: this days we benefit from a lot of things like modern manufacturing. To further increase the productivity and the results of office work people have developed a way to speed things up. Besides the normal very used computers, a lot of expendables have to be used for a proper work to be done. One of the most expendables is barcode ribbon (or better known as bar code ribbon). Some of the branded names available in the supermarket stores are Prinzet, Sonoroll, Sono-roll, Sonofilm and Sono.

Some of the best on the market today are wax and resin ribbons. It has been proven that they are the most reliable and practical on the market. Wax ribbon has been made in such a way that they contain a lot of wax based materials in their colorant substance. It has been made this way because the wax has a lower melting point thus the energy required to print the ink being lower. Waxes have been showed to be more efficient than resins in the usage of bar code. On the other hand the down side would be the fact that the durability of wax is smaller than in the case of resins. This is because wax is softer than resin and the fact that it is made with only one layer of colorant. Testing and a lot of using of wax ribbons has shown that they are best used at general purpose labeling, and other general activities that do not require coated substrates, matte coated substrates and other film based tagging. The best usage for this kind would be in the situations where the time needed to print the image on the label is very small and also if the life of the label is of short term.

Barcode ribbon employs a newly system designated RibbonRation. is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

Picture yourself sending your super web powers into the air to disarm one of Spidey’s extraordinary nemeses like Doc Ock, Mysterio, Shocker or Rhino, then with a quick flick of the wrist, wrapping them up rodeo style – all without breaking a sweat.

While you may never get to live out these fantasies in the real world, Activision’s video game allows you to experience the next best thing.

Based on Columbia Pictures’ motion picture release of “Spider-Man 2,” the Spider-Man 2 video game takes ordinary gaming to a whole new level. Spider-Man 2 is the first game that puts players in the role of Marvel’s legendary web slinger, Spider-Man, and drops them into the heart of a living, breathing cityscape teeming with common criminals, super-villains, pesky pedestrians, trains and even helicopters.

While players can recapture the movie experience by following the gaming plotline, they can also deter from the story to chase down a stolen purse for a helpless older woman or simply take in the sights of New York City by swinging from building to building.

The only free-roaming game of its kind, Spider-Man 2 offers some of the most realistic depictions of the Big Apple – featuring key landmarks such as Queensboro Bridge, Central Park and the Statue of Liberty.

Aficionados of the film will immediately recognize the voices of its blockbuster stars: Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane), Bruce Campbell, (Snooty Usher), Alfred Molina (Doc Ock), and of course, everyone’s favorite photographer turned superhero – Tobey McGuire.

Key movie locations, storylines and hi-res, lifelike cinematics combined with unique swinging mechanics that allow players to soar through the air as Spider-Man, make this one gaming experience you can relive over and over again from the comfort – and safety – of your own home.

When you pop in this game, you truly go where no Spider-Man game has gone before, complete of course, with all of the necessary Spidey senses to guide you along.

Spider-Man 2 is available for the PlayStation 2, XBOX and Nintendo Game Cube for $49.99. – NU

Activision Weaves Its Web Into New Spider-Man 2 Video Game is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

There are literally hundreds of thousands of iPhone applications available, and only a tiny percentage ever makes it to the App Store’s Top 25 lists. Some developers get around this by attempting to occupy a very niche market where there are few competitors, and getting their purchases through search functionality. Sometimes this works but the market is necessarily small.

The hardest part of social marketing is to provide a product, or even just a page that people will actually want to share. That much is fairly obvious, but very few successful campaigns thrive on an outstanding product alone. Developers and marketers need to provide incentives for users to spread the word on their behalf. Sure, some might do the company a favour because they like the app, but the majority will need a little extra push.

That might mean handing extra game points to a user that likes a game app on Facebook, or it might mean giving them an easy way of challenging friends through social media. If the app isn’t a game, it’s still possible to start a competition where social sharing is an entry requirement, or allow users to vote on a development question through social hubs. Being proactive is crucial.

Marketing mobile apps through social networks is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

Physical damage to storage media can occur in many ways. Magnetic tapes can break, get crumpled or dirt may settle on the tapes. CDs and DVDs can have scratches or the metallic layer may get damaged. Magnetic heads in hard disks can crash or motors may fail. The floppy is notorious for failing frequently due to bending, overheating, cold, dust etc.

There are other reasons like fires, electrical surges etc that can cause data to become inaccessible or lost. There are many methods by which data can be recovered from magnetic media or optical media. The methods most commonly used are Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM), Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM), Magnetic Force Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) etc.

In these methods a sharp magnetic tip is placed closed to the surface to be analyzed. It interacts with the stray magnetic field. An image of the data is generated and then repairs are carried out on logical damage and thus the data is recovered. Many companies carry out data recovery.

Logical damage is the damage to the file system. It is not physical but a software problem and also tells us that we need to be cautious and have a quality system for data recovery, datenrettung. It generally occurs due to power cuts, system crashes etc preventing file system structures from being written resulting in file system being left in an inconsistent state.

Logical damage is more common than physical damage. This may cause strange behavior like infinitely recurring file directories, loss of data, system crashes, hard disks reporting negative space etc. The end result is that the operating system cannot mount the file system.

Most operating systems come with repair facilities like, Linux has fcsk utility, Mac has disk utility and Windows has chkdisk facility. There are other specialized programs available which have better repair facilities than the operating systems.

There are also other systems called journaling file systems like NTFS, EFS (used in Windows XP), ext3 and xfs which can be reverted back to their earlier consistent state. These file systems reduce the amount of data loss.

Data back up is the best way to prevent loss of data and its the most common system for data recovery, datenrettung. The simplest method is to keep data on drives on which the operating system is not loaded. The other method is to write data on magnetic tapes, CDs or DVDs or have online backup.

Backups are very important for databases. Data backup is of 3 types. Full backup means backing up all data. Incremental backup means backing up of only the files that have changed. Differential backup is a mixture of these two. There is another method called continuous data protection in which when data is written to a disk, it is also written to another computer in a network.

Most private persons with a computer do nothing in advance, they just use their computers. Too late, when an incident has happened they learn about data recovery or datenrettung.

Data Recovery/Datenrettung & Securing Data On Computers is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News

You would think that if you have two separate physical connections between two switches, twice as much data could be sent from one switch to the other than if there was only one connection. STP doesn’t allow this by default, however in an effort to prevent switching loops from forming, one of the paths will be blocked.

SW1 and SW2 are connected via two separate physical connections, on ports fast0/11 and fast 0/12. As we can see here on SW1, only port 0/11 is actually forwarding traffic. STP has put the other port into blocking mode (BLK).

SW1#show spanning vlan 10

(some output removed for clarity)

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type

Fa0/11 Root FWD 19 128.11 P2p

Fa0/12 Altn BLK 19 128.12 P2p

While STP is helping us by preventing switching loops, STP is also hurting us by preventing us from using a perfectly valid path between SW1 and SW2. We could literally double the bandwidth available between the two switches if we could use that path that is currently being blocked.

The secret to using the currently blocked path is configuring an Etherchannel. An Etherchannel is simply a logical bundling of 2 – 8 physical connections between two Cisco switches.

Configuring an Etherchannel is actually quite simple. Use the command “channel-group 1 mode on” on every port you want to be placed into the Etherchannel. Of course, this must be done on both switches if you configure an Etherchannel on one switch and don’t do so on the correct ports on the other switch, the line protocol will go down and stay there.

The beauty of an Etherchannel is that STP sees the Etherchannel as one connection. If any of the physical connections inside the Etherchannel go down, STP does not see this, and STP will not recalculate. While traffic flow between the two switches will obviously be slowed, the delay in transmission caused by an STP recalculation is avoided. An Etherchannel also allows us to use multiple physical connections at one time.

Here’s how to put these ports into an Etherchannel:

SW1#conf t

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.

SW1(config)#interface fast 0/11

SW1(config-if)#channel-group 1 mode on

Creating a port-channel interface Port-channel 1

SW1(config-if)#interface fast 0/12

SW1(config-if)#channel-group 1 mode on

SW2#conf t

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.

SW2(config)#int fast 0/11

SW2(config-if)#channel-group 1 mode on

SW2(config-if)#int fast 0/12

SW2(config-if)#channel-group 1 mode on

The command “show interface trunk” and “show spanning-tree vlan 10″ will be used to verify the Etherchannel configuration.

SW2#show interface trunk (some output removed for clarity)

Port Mode Encapsulation Status Native vlan

Po1 desirable 802.1q trunking 1

SW2#show spanning vlan 10 (some output removed for clarity)

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type

Po1 Desg FWD 12 128.65 P2p

Before configuring the Etherchannel, we saw individual ports here. Now we see “Po1″, which stands for the interface “port-channel1″. This is the logical interface created when an Etherchannel is built. We are now using both physical paths between the two switches at one time!

That’s one major benefit in action let’s see another. Ordinarily, if the single open path between two trunking switches goes down, there is a significant delay while another valid path is opened – close to a minute in some situations. We will now shut down port 0/11 on SW2 and see the effect on the etherchannel.

SW2#conf t

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.

SW2(config)#int fast 0/11

SW2(config-if)#shutdown

3w0d: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/11, changed
state to administratively down

SW2#show spanning vlan 10

VLAN0010

Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type

Po1 Desg FWD 19 128.65 P2p

SW2#show interface trunk

Port Mode Encapsulation Status Native vlan

Po1 desirable 802.1q trunking 1

The Etherchannel did not go down! STP sees the Etherchannel as a single link therefore, as far as STP is concerned, nothing happened.

Building an Etherchannel and knowing how it can benefit your network is an essential skill for CCNA and CCNP success, and it comes in very handy on the job as well. Make sure you are comfortable with building one before taking Cisco’s exams!

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification: How And Why To Build An Etherchannel is a post from: 912 Conyers Technology News