BlogFM

e-commerce - the basic

2009-06-09T06:43:00.001-07:00

Electronic commerce or e-commerce means buying products or services via the Internet. One way to do that is by using a credit card and the manner in which this process is shown in the diagram below.
Consumers visiting the online shop to purchase your merchandise. The transaction data via a secure connection, or SSL, the web host server.
The encrypted credit card data are handled by the Payment Processing Gateway, which is responsible for the transaction.
The movement of funds is handled by the merchant account.
The funds are then charged to the credit card buyers.
Followed by the funds being deposited in the seller bank.
Managing E-commerce
There are several ways to manage e-commerce transactions on your website. Perhaps the simplest method by which third party such as Paypal, to handle all your e-commerce process or any other method is by including all your website pages.
For all through your website, your site will be designed for your merchandise.
You can use the shopping cart system.
Alternatively you can use one of your own system with a customized website and a database.
If you accept credit card transactions through your website, it is important you Secure Socket Layer, or SSL, encryption in place. This ensures all transaction data is encrypted as they travel between the buyers and the PC server. When using an SSL secure system, a small padlock symbol is shown on your web browser at the bottom right of the screen.
There are two ways to integrate SSL into your website.
You can set the SSL field to the hosts.
You can create your own SSL certificate. This costs about $ 100 per year and requires a Hosingen account and a unique IP address. This method is certainly more professional than using third party such as Paypal.
If you decide to handle e-commerce transactions through your website, instead of third party to manage them, you should also set up a Merchant Account and a processor account.

tags: E-commerce ,Make Money On Line,credit card

Sophos concludes fiscal year 2008/2009, with 27 percent revenue growth

2009-06-07T22:36:00.001-07:00

Sophos, a leading provider of IT solutions for Security and Data Protection ', was completed in fiscal year 2008/2009, at 31 March 2009 ended, its strong growth to continue: The revenue from product licenses and services increased over the previous year by 27 percent to 270.9 million U.S. Dollar. In fiscal year 2007/2008 were those at 213.9 million U.S. Dollar. Sophos simultaneously achieved in fiscal year 2008/2009 had a turnover of 215.2 million U.S. Dollar and thereby also an increase of 27 percent over the previous year. The Unlevered free cash flow in fiscal year 2008/2009 amounted to a total of 39.8 million U.S. Dollar.
Steve Munford, CEO at Sophos: 'Despite the difficult economic situation in the last fiscal year, Sophos's revenue and sales by 27 percent. This growth reflects the increasing customer demand for integrated and easy to manage IT security solutions again, as it offers Sophos. The takeover of Utimaco was an important milestone in the past fiscal year and for Sophos in the rapidly growing market for Data Protection further impetus. "
In the past fiscal year, Sophos at 21 Time in a row, its sales increase. Contributed to the positive development especially the expansion of its product portfolio and the expansion of the company and the expansion of business activities in the North American market. Sophos has in the past fiscal year a total of 19,000 new customers win, 3,800 of them in North America. More than half of all new customers switched from competitors Symantec and McAfee to Sophos. Recent studies have revealed that almost one third of all new customers of Sophos with the support of its former suppliers were unhappy, and this is a crucial criterion for this was to work for Sophos to decide.

Tags: News,Anti Virus,Free,Free Download,Virus,Computer Virus

Investment Forge

2009-05-31T07:35:00.001-07:00

Investment Forge is a registered and certified name for "Investment Forge Gmbh" and we are an investing control management team. Being registered in offshore jurisdiction on Cyprus, we manage to provide stable interest-earning potential to all of our participants. Earn money with Investment Forge is a simple and modern way to earn money online.
Our numerous team consists of professional analysts, currency traders, stocks exchange brokers and support staff. That will help you to earn profit online with Investment Forge.
Investment Forge provides investing management services to institutions and individuals through the Investment Forge Gmbh funds.
Our primary aim is to make as much earn money for our clients and ourselves as possible. Obviously the more money we have to trade with, the more positions our traders can take, and the more money they can generate for us. Earn money is our prime aim and even if you are not experienced in earning money online we will teach you how to become successful doing your home business.
We trade with the Scottrade Accounts and TeleTrader Software.
Several investment plans are offered for you:

PLAN A:
$50 - $500
Daily rate UP TO 2.0%
Program term - 40 business days

PLAN B:
$500 - $5,000
Daily rate UP TO 2.4%
Program term - 80 business days

PLAN C:
$5,000 - $100,000
Daily rate UP TO 2.8%
Program term - 120 business days

Tags: HYIP, MONEY, INVESMENT, FINANCE, MONEY MARKET, RATE, INVESTING, IMVEST, ON LINE INVESTMENT, INTERNET MONEY

Portable FastStone Image Viewer 3.8

2009-05-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Portable FastStone Image Viewer is the portable version of the famous FastStone Image Viewer.
FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments.
Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touch the four edges of the screen.
Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. Portable FastStone Image Viewer supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

Download

Microsoft Plays Hardball With Windows 7 Versions

2009-05-24T07:51:00.001-07:00

When Windows Vista proved too big to fit early netbooks, Microsoft resurrected XP at a lower price to satisfy that market. Microsoft would only sell XP to an OEM if the system was sufficiently underpowered that it couldn't run Vista. Microsoft has already said that all versions of the slimmer Windows 7 should run on netbooks, so what will happen with Windows 7?

Microsoft has been mum on details, but there have been some worrisome rumors that the company might come out with a "Windows 7 Starter for Small Notebook PC" and limit its use to netbooks. (Given that they did it with XP, it's not a stretch to think they'll try it with Windows 7.) Let's go back to the charges leveled against Microsoft by the Department of Justice in the 1990s. In that document, you'll see this claim:

66. Furthermore, Microsoft expends a significant portion of its monopoly power, which could otherwise be spent maximizing price, on imposing burdensome restrictions on its customers [OEMs] — and in inducing them to behave in ways — that augment and prolong that monopoly power.

One of the outcomes of Microsoft's consent decree was that OEM pricing was based on volume; OEMs that have the same sales volumes pay the same price. It was intended to prevent Microsoft from playing favorites -- rewarding or punishing OEMs for other related actions that pleased Microsoft. In this case, Microsoft would be pleased if competing operating systems didn't take over on netbooks. Before Microsoft brought back XP, Linux had a huge market share on netbooks. If Windows 7 is to maintain a hold on the netbook market, Microsoft has to offer OEMs a price that won't kill their budgets.

Microsoft has every right to do crazy things with feature sets in order to segment the market and produce a Windows 7 version they can sell at a low cost. The three-running-application limit in Windows 7 Starter is one such crazy thing. Microsoft crosses the line by attempting to contractually limit OEMs on the hardware that Starter can use. That shouldn't be Microsoft's decision. If Starter is good enough for netbooks then it should be available to OEMs for whatever hardware that can run Windows 7. If Microsoft fears Starter will hurt the reputation of Windows 7, they shouldn't offer it.

Naturally it would be good for Microsoft if they could charge different prices depending on the final cost of the product. That would be too obviously predatory, though, so a hardware-limited Starter is a "subtle" solution they hope will pass anti-monopolistic muster. The use of netbook hardware requirements to set prices and limit the use of Starter sure looks like it's just a diversion for the real issue, which is the threat of other operating systems gaining a foothold on netbooks. Besides all the Linux competitors, arch-enemy Google may be getting Dell to deliver an Android-based netbook, which must have Microsoft concerned.

Microsoft wants to maintain its market-share lead on netbooks without sacrificing profit margins on full-sized PCs. But OEMs should be able to buy any Windows 7 OS for the same volume-defined price and use it on any hardware with no restrictions. Allowing Microsoft to adjust pricing and limit distribution based on target hardware is a page from their old mid-1990s monopoly playbook, this time intended to muscle out OS competitors. If Microsoft does try such a ploy, it should be stopped.

Computer Virus Strikes FBI, U.S. Marshals: Report

2009-05-24T03:03:00.001-07:00

In one of his many memorable skits, my favorite comedian, the late George Carlin, lists “Things you don’t want to hear,” and this gem is among them:

“Well, Jim, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t live another 50 to 60 years. However, you will be bleeding constantly from both eyes.”

If you’re a federal law enforcement officials who is charged with protecting the kind of ultra-confidential information that increasingly travels through computer networks, I imagine the equivalent of that bad news for Jim goes something like this:

“A mysterious computer virus has infected your networks and forced both the FBI and U.S. Marshals to shut down.”

Yet that’s pretty much what happened this week, according to Devlin Barrett of the Associated Press.

Officials at the U.S. Marshals reportedly confirmed that they disconnected from Justice Department computers after the virus hit, and the FBI conceded that the agency also was having a problem.

Here’s what FBI spokesman Mike Kortan told Barrett: “We too are evaluating a network issue on our external, unclassified network that’s affecting several government agencies.”

What those agencies are he would not say, according to Barrett.

Yet the incident points to a disturbing phenomenon that deserves some thought. It is the business world, not the U.S. government, that leads the industry when it comes to developing new technology to cut costs, boost communications and increase efficiency, and it’s the private sector that often is ahead of the curve when it comes to detecting cybercriminals’ activity.

Consider: At about 76 percent of all phishing attacks, software represents the largest doorway that cybercriminals such as hackers use to enter computer users’ systems and steal confidential information. And one Cupertino, California-based security, storage and systems management solutions provider – Symantec Corp. – recently reported that it’s seeing malicious code grow at a record pace.

In recent weeks, more and more home and small office computers have seen their networks compromised by Internet security attacks that gain traction through the devices that many of us use to make our home-surfing lives more portable: routers. (To try and preempt the attacks, one Fountain Valley, California-based company recently launched a new system that prevents malicious software by detecting whether responses are generated by humans or computers.)

According to Stephen Trilling, vice president of Symantec’s (News - Alert) security technology and response group, the company is seeing attackers shift away from mass distribution of a few threats to micro-distribution of millions of distinct threats.

“Cybercriminals are profiting from creating and distributing customized threats that steal confidential information, particularly bank account credentials and credit card data,” Trilling said. “While the above ground economy suffers, the underground economy has remained consistently steady.”

That recalls some of what TMCnet heard recently from the world’s largest maker of computer networking gear. Officials at Cisco Systems Inc. say that cyber-criminals’ attacks are becoming more targeted and sophisticated.

This latest problem apparently started yesterday morning, for both the Marshals and the FBI. No data was compromised, officials said.

The type of virus that caused the shut-down and its origin are not clear, they said.

“In Thursday’s incident, the Marshals Service shut down its Internet access and some e-mail while staff worked on the problem,” Barrett reports. “The FBI made similar moves to protect its system.”

McAfee Internet Security 2009

2009-05-21T06:00:00.001-07:00

At first glance, McAfee Internet Security 2009 appears not much different from last year's offering, a truth that masks some improvements in programming under the hood. In our tests, we found McAfee Internet Security 2009 to be as fast as the much improved Norton Internet Security 2009. What McAfee adds to the competitive landscape is faster malicious software detection. With Active Protection, they're neither talking about hourly signature file updates nor five minute updates like rival Symantec; at McAfee they're talking about instant updates. In terms of features, we found that McAfee has the most tools of any suite we reviewed. In addition to antivirus, antiphishing, antispyware, and a personal firewall, McAfee provides a backup-and-restore feature and several handy utilities. We still have minor issues with McAfee's technical support, although it has improved over last year. For a full protection suite, we were impressed with McAfee Internet Security 2009.

Intel Announces Streamlined Linux for Netbooks

2009-05-20T08:54:00.001-07:00

n an effort to counter the growing dominance of Microsoft's Windows OS in netbooks, Intel on Tuesday announced a beta version of a Linux OS it has developed for low-cost laptops and mobile devices.

The chip company on Tuesday announced a beta of Moblin 2.0, a stripped-down distribution of Linux optimized for smaller screens on netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Intel has fine-tuned Moblin for netbooks based on Atom chips with a simple user interface and improved power-saving features.

Most netbooks today ship with Intel's Atom chip but run the Windows XP operating system, which Microsoft ships for low-cost laptops. But Intel wants to ensure that every "ounce" of technology -- including Moblin -- put into Atom is optimized for size and power consumption, said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of the software and services group at Intel, during a conference call on Tuesday.

Klingon Anti-virus Available for Download

2009-05-20T08:46:00.001-07:00

They walk the warrior's path and they devour horrible-looking bowlfuls of red worms, but hey, Klingons need malware protection too.

To help Worf and his compatriots in their trek for PC security, anti-virus maker Sophos has translated one of their tools into Klingon. Yes, really. It's now available as a free download from http://www.sophos.com/klingon-anti-virus/.

Sophos' Graham Cluely says the app is a working, translated version of Sophos' Threat Detection Test, which is not the full Sophos antivirus product, but can run an on-demand virus scan alongside your existing antivirus protection. The app (both the translated and English versions) isn't meant to replace AV, but to instead provide an additional scan to see if your current program has missed anything.

In an explanatory post, the company says it was actually asked by a (hot-blooded and prone to violence?) potential customer whether the software could be translated, and that it got help from a member of the Klingon Language Institute named naHQun in creating the translation.

List of Anti-Virus Software Compatible with Windows 7

2009-05-18T08:18:00.001-07:00

Within a few hours of Windows 7 being released my inbox started filling up with readers asking what Anti-Virus software they should install in Windows 7. Since this seems like such an important topic, I decided to make a list of packages that work.

If this is your first time here, you should check out our review of the Windows 7 Beta.

Note: as a general rule, software that works on Windows Vista should work just fine on Windows 7, with the exception of software that installs low-level system components like an Anti-Virus, firewalls, or similar. These packages often are designed to only run on specific versions of Windows.

Windows AntiVirus Detection

When you first install Windows 7, you'll get a popup balloon message telling you that you need to find an antivirus program online… notice the wrench on the balloons that will let you turn them off easily.

Free C# eBook from Programmer's Heaven

2009-05-08T02:53:00.001-07:00

Original Post

The Programmer's Heaven C# School book covers the .NET framework and the C# language. Starting with the basics of the language, it goes on to cover object oriented programming techniques and a wide range of C# languages features including interfaces, exceptions and delegates. Later chapters cover practical topics including database access with ADO.NET, building Windows forms applications, multi-threading and asynchronous I/O. The final chapter covers new features in C# 2.0, including generics.

Download C# ebook (.pdf 3.6Mb)
Download C# ebook (Mirror 1) (.pdf 3.6Mb)

Relevant Tags : Free,Free Ebook,Free C# Ebook,Dot Net, C#,Free Download,Download,Programming, C# Programming

BlackBerry App World: One month later

2009-05-07T00:34:00.001-07:00

It has now been just over one month since RIM launched its answer to Apple’s App Store, BlackBerry App World, and we thought it would be a good time to check back in with our thoughts on the offering. Of course it’s way too early to reach any real conclusions as App World is obviously in its infancy, but we can still offer our first impressions of the portal, ping a few developers to see how they’re getting along and most importantly, see what you guys think about App World so far. So hit the jump for our thoughts on RIM’s on-device application portal.

Read the Source

Conficker worm strikes ANZ Bank

2009-05-05T00:31:00.001-07:00

"We have detected a known virus affecting some internal desktop services on the ANZ network," a spokesperson for the bank told ZDNet.com.au today, saying that the virus had been contained and there hadn't been any disruption to its business or implications for information security.

The spokesperson did not specify which virus had infected the bank's desktops, but ZDNet.com.au believes it is a variation of the Conficker worm.

Microsoft and Symantec are understood to have been asked to advise on the situation, which was said to have affected no customer facing machines, but Symantec declined to comment and Microsoft had not responded at the time of publication.

Sun deal poses challenges for Oracle

2009-05-04T12:15:00.001-07:00

Oracle Corp., which announced plans last month to acquire Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, should benefit from the merger but will face significant marketing challenges in communicating the combined brand, industry analysts say.
In announcing the deal April 20, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasized the strength of the end-to-end solution that Oracle will now be able to offer its customers as a result of the acquisition.
“Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system—applications to disk—where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves,” he said. “Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”
Under the terms of the deal, software company Oracle is acquiring the entire Sun portfolio, which includes hardware, software and services.
Most notably in the software category, Oracle will pick up Sun's Java open source software development platform, its Solaris operating system and MySQL, its open source database software. It will also own Sun's hardware business, which comprises servers, storage devices, desktop workstations and peripherals.
“The first big thing is the cachet, or lack of cachet, that Oracle has had in open source,” said Ray Wong, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research. “They now have the crown jewels of open source with Java and MySQL.”
Another big advantage of the merger, Wong said, is the end-to-end solution Oracle will be able to deliver. “It used to be just application and database software,” he said. “Now they are trying to make the case that they can deliver hardware, software, middleware and database software all in one-stop shopping, which will help their customers reduce costs.”
Wong added: “The challenge is to figure out the perception of Oracle being in the hardware business. What does it mean, and can they successfully convince people to buy the whole stack from them?”
He noted that Oracle has already been successful in managing and marketing other acquisitions. For example, in 2005 it acquired CRM software company Siebel Systems, and last year it bought enterprise software company BEA Systems.
Jean Bozman, VP-research for IDC's enterprise platforms group, said one of the greatest assets Oracle will get is Sun's installed base of customers and the service contracts and upsell opportunities that go along with that.
“They have at least 1.6 million servers [installed worldwide] and also storage and service contracts,” she said, noting that about 40% of Sun's revenue now comes from services. “From a holistic view, they have a large installed base, the opportunity for new offerings and things like upselling.”
For example, Bozman said that although MySQL is a database product, it does not necessarily compete with Oracle database products. “Oracle has always been about cross platforms and running on as many platforms as possible,” she said. “It may be that the MySQL offering, which is widely used, could bring additional business for other Oracle products.”
Bozman said one of the biggest challenges for Oracle will be integrating Sun into its operations and ensuring that it runs a profitable business.
Bozman also noted that because of the downturn, spending on big IT projects is being cut or deferred but, as conditions improve, IT investment should pick up. That will benefit Oracle in the long run.
Other industry experts, however, were not as bullish on the deal.
Jim Gregory, CEO of brand strategy firm CoreBrand, noted that Sun had a brand score of only 16 on a scale from 1 to 100 in CoreBrand's 2008 Brand Power report, while Oracle had a brand score of 30. “In terms of what they are buying, it is not a heavyweight brand,” Gregory said.
“It seems like it made a lot more sense for IBM [Corp.] to make the acquisition. That seemed like a much better fit,” he said, noting that IBM had a brand score of 76.
In April, IBM made a bid to buy Sun for an estimated $7 billion but was outbid by Oracle, according to people familiar with the talks.
Gregory said one of the immediate challenges for Oracle is to communicate its strategy for the acquisition and what it means to its customers.
“What they will need to do is tell a story very quickly,” he said. “Otherwise, Oracle's image might be hurt. They have to communicate clearly why they made this acquisition, why it fits as a company and what they intend to do with it. They have a short window of opportunity.”

Broadband Britain: who'll pay?

2009-04-24T00:59:00.001-07:00

For American readers this is probably a bit of an ordinary day - you go about your business and there's every chance that when you wake up tomorrow things will be much the same as they were when you woke up today. In the UK that's not the case. In the UK the chancellor of the exchequer (the head of our Treasury department, or its equivalent) has been delivering his annual budget speech.
Not all of the changes are IT-specific of course, but one caught my eye. He's promised that by 2012 there will be ubiquitous fast broadband in the UK.
OK, we can take it as read that what counted for fast broadband ten years ago pretty much already is in the UK, and what counts as fast by 2012 won't count as any great shakes a decade later. This sort of pickiness aside, I do wonder who's going to pay for all this.

It's worth noting that many of our phone lines over here are years old. Granted they're not quite Victorian but neither are they as shiny or adaptable as many of their counterparts in America. And yet apparently we're going to upgrade the lot over the next three years.
This is of course going to cost money. Although our higher taxes are going up, I can't see how they're going to end up paying for even half of this. Contrary to what several wise voices in the press will tell you, nobody's certain exactly how long this recession is going to last. We've been overinflating the world economy for quite some time and are now paying the price. America and the UK are among those countries which have put a lot of resource into addressing the shortfall, propping banks and industries up. It's not been pretty and it'll need paying back.
And here we are talking about spending more on an infrastructure which, although not the whizziest or shiniest in the world, actually does the job for which it was designed pretty well.

I can't see how this is going to be affordable. I'll look forward to being proven wrong. I hope.

Original Page

10 Tips for a Greener Office

2009-04-23T12:06:00.001-07:00

BIXBY, OK -- Standley Systems is offering a list of ways to keep your office green. On Wednesday the company brought lists of these tips to area businesses hoping they may go green as well.

"We're basically just giving them ten green tips they can do in their current enviornment that doesn't cost hem any money but has a pretty signifigant return" said Director of Sales Greg Coscia.

10 Timely Tips for Going Green

Print double-sided. If you must print and copy, make documents double-sided. Set this as a default on your printer and computer.
Minimize printer emissions. Reduce the number of personal desktop printers to minimize printer emissions in the work area.
Maximize computer efficiency. Make it a habit to turn off your computer, and the power strip it's plugged into, when you leave for the day.
Use electronic cocument management techniques. Avoid or reduce making copies by using electronic distributions, and retain documents on your computer or server. Make good use of scanning technology and e-mail attachments instead of faxing. Don't print draft materials, proofread off of computer or video displays instead. Encourage the use of online forms rather than paper forms.
Be bright about light. Make it a habit to turn off lights when you're leaving any room for 15 minutes or more and utilize natural light when you can.
Purchase environmentally preferred products. Purchase items that are recyclable, made of recycled goods and use less packaging.
Reuse office materials. Recycle folders, paper clips, envelopes, post-its, hanging folders, batteries, rubber bands, etc. Reuse packaging materials and Styrofoam.
Recycle everything. Almost all paper types: cardboard, glass, aluminum, plastic, steel, tin, milk boxes, and juice containers are recyclable. Toner cartridges, batteries, CDs, and floppy disks are also recyclable through recycling centers and manufacturers.
Give preference to locally, regionally or nationally made products. Buying locally helps conserve fuel, oil, emissions, electricity and other energy sources as well as boosts the local economy.
Develop & publicize written sustainability policies and procedures; mandate employees uphold them. Executive sponsorship and communication is key!

Original Page

IBM: Who Cares About Sun/Oracle, Anyway?

2009-04-21T07:17:00.001-07:00

Talk about IBM buying the company spanned weeks. Despite initial talks falling through, Sun had allegedly told IBM they would agree to breathe new life into old discussions as long as Big Blue made a solid commitment to buy. Two days later, it was all over and apparently, IBM couldn’t care less.
IBM was going to get a ton of press either way. If it had purchased the struggling Sun, we’d want to know why and what the company had planned for its newest acquisition. If someone else purchased Sun, we’d want to know why IBM let the company get away and what the company thought Sun’s chances were under its new parent company. CFO at IBM Mark Loughridge did what ZDNet describes as, “the conference call equivalent of a shoulder shrug,” yesterday.
“What’s really changed? I think nothing,” Loughridge stated boldly.
We don’t even know where to start with that one, except to say Sun and Oracle, along with nearly everyone else in the industry, disagree.
Yesterday Oracle described Java as the most important piece of software the company had ever acquired. President Safra Catz also detailed just how lucrative the Sun purchase would be for Oracle. Sure, that might mean squat to IBM, but try this: Recent rumors say Oracle may hold on to Sun’s software and shed or sell its hardware divisions to the likes of HP. However, until that day comes, Oracle has entered the hardware market and over night has become a huge player in the game. To say that kind of acquisition changes nothing is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting, “Lalalalalalala.”

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Computer virus strikes U

2009-04-16T04:18:00.001-07:00

A computer virus is the cause of headaches and heartburn at the University of Utah.

The Conficker virus, which can slow down your computer and steal personal information, click on the U. the network later this week. So far the virus has primarily health care, including the university, three hospitals, the schools of Medicine, the College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and the College of Health, said Chris Nelson, spokeswoman for Health Sciences at the U.

Nelson said patient data and medical records have not been compromised.

"That's secured in a much deeper way because of the implications," he said.

Nelson said the problem is mainly confined to personal computers. The virus does not affect Macs.

He said university staff first noticed the virus was in the system Thursday after Internet access and e-mail slowed. In response, the university shut down Internet access within the health sciences units at 10 a.m. on Friday. Internet access continued for the rest of campus, said Mindy Tueller, of the U.'s Office of Information Technology.

Nelson said the virus has been contained but is not yet out of the system. He said Friday that he expected university staff to work through the weekend to fix it.

He also said patient care will not be affected as doctors will be able to access the Internet when needed. Mainly, he said, it has just been an inconvenience, especially for faculty members trying to meet grant deadlines.

Though the virus has mainly stayed within health sciences, Tueller said all faculty and students should take steps to make sure they're protected.

"It can do a lot of bad things," Tueller said. "Every university member should be concerned about this if they're using Windows-based devices."

Brigham Young University has had only isolated incidents of the virus, said Brent Harker. BYU director of Web communications. Utah State University and Salt Lake Community College have also been largely unaffected, officials at those schools said.

Virus hits DPS computer system

2009-04-16T04:13:00.001-07:00

AUSTIN, Texas — A virus has hit the Texas Department of Public Safety computer system but a spokeswoman said at no time was citizen safety compromised.

DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said in a statement that the virus that hit Wednesday affected internal communications and some external services such as the issuance of Texas drivers' licenses.

The DPS police enforcement communications network was not affected.

Mange said officials were working to restore services.

Improving Site's Google Page Ranking

2009-04-16T03:52:00.001-07:00

The content is king. Search engines love quality of content, because what the users want - more new stuff to read every day and every hour. If your site changes often - search engine crawler back more often so. Of course, by adding new content that you raise the possibility that multiple pages will be found

Once you have the content generated, here is what you can do to have your site found more often by new visitors:

   1. Use Google Sitemaps to see how Google sees your site, when it was last updated, whether you have any problems on your site, etc. I've written an article on this topic: How to Improve Site's Ranking with Google Sitemaps. You also want to provide a sitemap for your visitors.

   2. Get involved in communities relevant to the content of your site. Visit their forums and mailing lists, and help other people by answering their questions, posting links to your site if they contain information relevant to your replies. Usually you are allowed to have a signature, where you can link to your site. However be aware that more and more sites implement a new link attribute rel="nofollow", which tells Google (MSN, Yahoo and other sites) to not count those links to your site's ranking credit. This is to avoid comment spam. You can find the details here: Official Google Blog: Preventing comment spam.

   3. The head section of the document should include meta entries for keywords and description. Though it's been said that the keywords meta entry has little or no weight with Google, but is still useful with other search engines. Also make sure that the title of the document includes the most important keywords and phrases, as Google gives a heavy weight to those. The keywords need to be included in the H1 and H2 header entries, and also once in bold, once in italic and if possible in the URL.

   4. Spell check your content. Google doesn't like when misspelled words are used, as it tries to auto-correct search words. Some sites use misspelled words to get more traffic to their site. e.g., "hign paying keywords" instead of "high paying keywords"

   5. It's been said that sites containing valid XHTML are favored by the search engines. But it should at least use valid HTML. One other thing to make sure is that your site is readable by non-graphical browsers, such as Links and Lynx. Blind users use those to browse the Internet and search engines favor sites that are useful to more people. In fact search engines see your site as text, so things like javascript, DHTML and Flash may make it hard for the search engine to crawl your site.

   6. Publish articles on other sites relevant to your expertise. Make sure that those articles link back to your site. I'm somewhat weary about submitting my articles to other sites, since then I end up with a duplication problem and a chance that a search engine would penalise duplicated content sites. Hopefully it somehow knows where the content has appeared in first place. But I don't want to take chances. So may be submitting unique articles which don't appear on my site is a much safer strategy.

   7. Sometimes your site competes with many other sites for the same keywords. Rather than optimising all of your site for the same keywords, try to find less competitive keywords and optimise some of your pages for those keywords. There are both commercial and free programs to help you do that.

   8. Learn from your competitors. Go to Google and search for the competing keywords, go to the first few sites with high page rank and analyse those sites, see what they have done differently than your site. Granted the site might be just very popular and linked from many other sites, but more often than not reading through the source code of the site can tip you off how to do better. You can find out which sites link to that site by searching Google for link:yoursite.com and you may want to try to get your site listed on those sites.

   9. Since it's not enough to have a high ranking for your front page (Google gives different page ranks to different pages), once your site is established you should try to get other sites to link to other sections of your site as well. For example if you have a big site and you can identify segments which are different from each, try to raise a page rank for the sub-directories corresponding to those sections.

10. Have each page linking to several other pages on your site (crosslinking). That should be especially helpful for balancing the page ranking across different pages of your site, and of course it should help your visitors to find related content on your site.

11. Try to include a few outbound links to high quality sites in every document. That indicates a quality connection between your document and others sites that Google already considers to be quality sites. When linking to those sites, try to include the important keywords in those links.

12. Analyse your log files and see who refers to you the most. Try to find more similar sites. The referral information also reveals the keywords used to find your site. Often you find new keywords that you haven't thought of when targeting your site. By using those newly discovered keywords you can create more content that targets the unexpected traffic even better.

Google Referrals updated News

2009-04-16T03:39:00.001-07:00

After the last messsage from google adsense this is what they are saying to all PUBLISHERS

you have the option to add a referral unit for AdSense within your account when you target any referral unit to Japan and/or any countries in North America and Latin America. To ensure payment for valid conversions, we recommend that you check the targeting settings on your current AdSense referral units.

We'd also like to let you know about upcoming changes to the referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox:

Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.

Firefox: We will also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. As with referrals to AdSense, this is independent of your location as a publisher.

PC Troubleshooting Services and Microsoft Help

2009-04-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Help is a literal term provider of IT support to envelop a wide range of support options for products, including operating systems and Office suites, from Microsoft. These companies offer technical support to the PC via the phone or online.
Companies in the computer technical support have highly trained technicians who are at the root of the consumer, technical issues and fix them quickly. They hold the know-how to troubleshoot your computer or network errors range from simple to complex.

Network Setup and Troubleshooting: You may contact computer support providers to establish your home networking system which can certainly be a time-consuming task for any non technical person. However, the experts at computer support companies can set up secure connections to your PC just like magic. Also, their troubleshooting services ensure efficient working of your connections.

PC Optimization: pc optimization services with companies dealing in computer support let you to increase your productivity by tuning your PC to work smarter. The array of services generally include performing a system clean up, cleaning temporary files, start up files, up gradation of existing antivirus and antispyware software programs, browser configuration etc.

Virus and Spyware Removal: Technicians offering computer support treat virus menace in the best possible way by scanning your PC, identifying and eliminating viruses.

Data Backup Services: Prevent the incidents of data loss due to hard disk crash or virus attack by availing the data backup services. Some companies like http://www.iyogi.co.uk are planning to provide data backup facilities for servers in near future.

Software Support: Software errors are highly frustrating and can occur at any time while you are working on your computer. You may consider speaking to computer experts to get powerful solutions for all your issues with software applications. Most computer support vendors offer software support services as a part of their service package.

Green PC Support: Many computer support companies that are working to reduce PC energy consumption and CO2 emissions as part of its commitment to energize the environment and save energy. They help you operate your computer in a more environmentally friendly manner.

What To Do When You Don't Get Paid for a Freelance Job 2

2009-03-24T17:27:00.002-07:00

Pick Up the Phone
While it's better to have correspondence in writing, you may get antsy wanting to make a simple phone call to clear the matter up. Most of us give people the benefit of the doubt. Even after being ignored, we still want to believe it's just a miscommunication somewhere in the company and that their true intentions are to pay you.

If you're ready to make a call, don't go nuts with the speed dial. Just contact the business manager. Remember, this is the person who writes the checks and is the last person you sent a letter to.

When you get in touch with this person, you can ask if they received your letter. This will open the door for them to discuss your situation. They'll say they have no idea what you're talking about, tell you the check's in the mail or they'll start telling you why they're not planning on paying you.

If they say they don't have any idea what you're talking about, offer to fax everything you sent to them via mail. If the check is on the way, tell them you're glad to hear it and look forward to receiving it. If they say they're not planning on paying you, find out their reasoning and then move to the next step if it seems as though the conversation isn't going to get you anywhere.

Certified Letter
You can send a certified letter to a particular person to make sure you're invoice and letter is received or even to let them know you're planning on taking this to the next logical step. What you'll often find with certified letters is that they're usually ignored or not signed for.

Certified letters are more beneficial to you when you're prepared to take the battle to court. Your certified letter can let the client know you're about to file a lawsuit to get the money you're owed.

Tell them if you don't hear from them by a certain date, you're headed down to court to file the papers. Just be sure you give them another reasonable amount of time and don't send your certified letter on a Monday with the demands that you receive your check by Friday.

When to Get Down and Dirty
Your politeness has gone unnoticed. It's clear this client is going to avoid you at all costs and, unfortunately, that cost is to you.

This is the time when you take your battle to court if you're interested in pursuing this further. Many lawyers will give you advice for free on the phone on how to handle your case. Many TV stations also offer legal shows or have legal segments, on occasion, where you can get free answers to your legal questions.

Unfortunately, if you're at this stage, you're standing at a road most freelancers don't have to deal with. You should get paid for the work you've done, though, so your only options are to sue or write this whole experience off and move on without taking any action.

The Client Relationship
Most freelancers find their payment issues resolved with the business manager and they don't have to deal with phone calls, certified letters and/or lawsuits. If you've followed the politeness rules, the client shouldn't have any problems dealing with you in the future. However, the big question is -- do you want to do business with them?

If you are going to have to fight for your money every single time you complete a project, you may find it's better to let that client deal with some other freelancer. Sometimes it's best to be the one to walk away from a troubled client or you may find yourself at some point having to deal with phone calls, certified letters and/or lawsuits with this very client.

What To Do When You Don't Get Paid for a Freelance Job 1

2009-03-24T17:27:00.001-07:00

By Apryl Duncan

It's bound to happen to a freelancer at some point. The client who won't pay.

Whether you're a freelance graphic designer or copywriter, you're probably reading this because you've got a client who doesn't want to pony up for that project you worked so hard on. You have several options and there's a fine balance between getting your money and not damaging the relationship with the client.

Your Contract
Hopefully, you took the time to you both signed. In that contract, you stated the payment terms such as how much you were to get paid and when. You also stated the late fees that would be charged if the client failed to pay within your time frame.

If you did all of this and you sent your invoice only to find your mailbox still feeling lonely, go ahead and send the invoice a second or even a third time within a reasonable time. In other words, don't start sending your invoice on a daily basis. Send an invoice and wait a couple of weeks before moving on to the next step.

You can even send a polite note with your mailing to let them know you're re-sending the invoice. A simple note could say that you're re-sending in case the client didn't receive your first invoice.

Things do get lost in the mail so even if the client is avoiding you, this gives you that niceness that Mom always tried to teach us. You might just find a check in your mailbox by the end of the week. Or you may see that the client's true intentions are to avoid you, also proving they didn't pick up that niceness lesson from Mom.

If you're dealing with a client who won't pay and you don't have anything in writing, send them a letter along the same lines as you would if you had a contract. You can tell the client you two agreed on a payment amount and the terms and you're just writing to follow up to see when the check would be sent.

Write the Business Manager
When you're hired for a project, most freelancers aren't dealing with the person who actually pays the bills for the . They are dealing with a contact person in the creative department because that person knows what's going on with the project, not the person sitting in the office writing checks to various businesses and balancing the books.

A letter to the company's business manager with a copy of your invoice and signed contract (showing both your signature and the one of the agency's employee) will generally do the trick. That check will usually find its way to your house within a week or two after this move.

You can find out who the business manager is by calling the company and asking that person's name. Don't go into detail about who you are or that you want to talk to that person. Just find out the business manager's name and write your letter.

Business managers have a different take on the situation. First of all, the creative person you deal with may not like that word choice or design you chose when creating that or print ad and doesn't feel like they want to pay you because they had to change two words or move one of the images around.

Business managers, on the other hand, hate the thought of outstanding bills on the desk. They're all about the numbers and are "just the facts ma'am" types of people.

Most of the time, their opinion of the situation is that you did the work, you've got the contract and that's that. You should get paid.

The letter you send to a business manager is also simple. Use the "just the facts ma'am" philosophy stated above.

Tell the business manager the date you completed the project, that you have included a copy of the contract both you and their employee signed agreeing upon the conditions as well as the invoice. Also state that it's been X amount of days since the project has been completed and you still haven't been paid. This is another one of those polite letters because, at this point, you're dealing with a new person and irritating them by being rude won't get you your money any faster.

If you've added late charges to the bill because the initial contact person didn't respond with your payment, consider dropping those late charges and letting the business manager know that as well. Even though collecting the late fees is something you've stated right there in your contract, wouldn't you rather have the hundreds or thousands of dollars they owe you for the project instead of tying everything up over your late fees?

Let the business manager know you're sure you not getting paid was simply an oversight so as a measure of good faith you'll drop those late charges if the bill is paid. You can even set a date that they can get the payment back to you to keep those late charges from being added to the bill. But, again, don't demand your money by being rude because you're dealing with a new person and this is the one who does write the checks.

Google AdSense Top Paying Keywords - How to Make Money With AdSense

2009-03-24T00:34:00.001-07:00

By Ricky Lim

One of the best ways to make passive income when you are first starting out is with Google AdSense. AdSense pays you by the click and if you have doing this for a while, you will realize not all topics pay the same.

There are certain niches or topics that pay out much better. Different AdSense publishers are always on the lookout for keywords that can provide easy money. This only means that the higher the advertiser pays for a certain keyword, the more they will receive when they click the link.

So if you own a site or blog and would want to make money though Google AdSense, the first thing you need to do is choose the right keywords and phrases to be put in your site's content.

It is important that before you achieve greater traffic and greater income, choose the right keywords because this will determine how much money you will earn. Once you've discovered the top-paying keywords in Google AdSense, you can earn in as much as $3 per click while the lowest earning could be $0.01 per click.

From my experience, the top paying AdSense keywords are mostly related to financial services and insurance such as mortgage, life insurance, car insurance and student loans etc.

Of course, there are other topics that do pay out quite well such as in education, some medical terms. Below are 10 keywords that have always pay out more than others.

1. mesothelioma

2 cheap auto insurance

3 consolidate student loan

4 life insurance quote

5 cheap car insurance

6 refinance home

7 car insurance quote

8 refinancing

9 online car insurance

10 online insurance quotes

Google does not tell AdSense publishers how much each click you will get for each topic. In the past, it was more or less a trial and error thing. However, Google has a keyword tool that does provide the cost per click for AdWords advertisers.

From there, you can gauge the average payout per click based on the highest CPC shown. Do note, you are almost unlikely to get that amount but it will still provide you with a rough indication of how much you should get on average per click.

Discover how to find Google AdSense top paying keywords. Learn which are the high paying AdSense keywords online