Take what you want, but leave Soft Reviews alone!

Benefits Of Norton Antivirus 2009 and Panda OEM

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:36:00 +0000

The internet plays a major role in the spreading of computer viruses, spyware and malware. ‘Malware’ stands for ‘malicious software’ which includes viruses, worms, adware, spyware and of course, the notorious Trojan horses. Spyware functions as a changer of the internet browser settings. Spyware misleads the internet browser to fraudulent sites, wherein huge number of frauds are accommodated and encouraged, which is called ‘phishing’. As a result, the computer starts functioning poorly and slowly.

Viruses damage the computer by deleting files, corrupting programs and applications, or sometimes reformatting the hard drive. Some viruses are self-copied to other drives or accessible disks, affecting the entire system and leading to a crash.

Panda Antivirus is designed to evict any kind of malicious item. It is easy to install, easy to operate and the biggest benefit is that it provides daily web updates. With Panda Antivirus installed in your computer, you can be sure of the fact that the shield is always on. Panda antivirus runs on both ‘windows XP’ and ‘windows Vista’. Added to this, the different virus attempts that hide from the operating system are also got rid of by the Panda OEM.

Even the most sophisticated virus attempts, better known as ‘rootkits’ cannot dodge the Panda OEM. It has a high-end protection system called ‘Mega detection’ which prevents even the slightest hint of any suspicious activity coming from E-mail attachments, or any incoming file.

Norton Internet security 2009 is one of the best antivirus programs of the world. It automatically detects and removes viruses, worms and Trojans from your system.

Norton Antivirus 2009 detects and eradicates malicious softwares of all kinds. It protects your system from unscrupulous files and threats. Unlike other versions of Norton Antivirus.

Norton Antivirus 2009 does not slow down your computer.

Norton Internet security 2009 is a full-proof protection system. It offers a protection suite for your computer that even the most dangerous viruses, malware, spyware, or adware cannot damage.

There’s one thing you should know about antiviruses that all of them are not capable of removing malicious items from your computer. When it comes to antiviruses, all of them don’t work in the same way to ward-off threats. Some of them even increase the risk of getting threats in your computer. So you need to be very careful when choosing an antivirus for your computer. There are quite a number of factors that you need to take into account before buying an anti-virus software.

The number one factor is that the anti-virus system should have a feature to scan the computer every time you turn it on.

Secondly, think about the usage of your computer. How you use the computer and internet is a major important thing to consider because the antivirus should be bought depending on the usage.

Third, do a survey. Go through the reviews of different antivirus programs, especially newly launched ones.

Melissa Smith is the contributing writer of http://www.bluesolutions.co.uk/. She is specialized in writing articles about Panda OEM, Panda Antivirus, Norton Antivirus 2009 etc.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Top Anti Virus Software- Useful Guidepost About Top Anti Virus Software

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:34:00 +0000

As you search for top anti virus software related information or other information about the best antivirus software or antivirus comparison, take your time to view the below article. It will provide you with a really refreshing insight into the top anti virus software information that you need. After going through it, you will also be better informed about information in some way related to top anti virus software, such as computer spyware removal or even trial anti virus software.

You can also use the anti-virus software to specifically scan any downloads, or files, that have been sent to you via e-mail. If you are alerted that you have a virus your software will guide you with the right steps to removing it. Make sure that you don't continue to use your computer until the virus, or worm that you have, is removed. You don't want to send e-mail to friends and help in the spreading of the virus.

However, in order to take advantage of these rapid movements you must update your computer consistently. If you don't, you'll still be vulnerable to the new viruses.

A computer virus is distributed in many different ways. One of the most common methods of distribution is via email. Some of the most widespread and destructive viruses are distributed via email.

I know that as informative as this article is, it might not adequately cover your top anti virus software quest. If this is so, don't forget that the search engines like Dogpile.com exist for looking up more information about top anti virus software.

Computer viruses come in different forms. This makes it difficult to find out which virus is causing the problem to our system. However, if a good anti virus software is installed you will be informed when a computer virus attacked your system. You should always scan your computer system with the scanning tools that comes with the software in order to clean and eliminate the virus before it causes any major problem.

Therefore, the output of the story is, and to remember, would be to never have two anti-virus programs installed on PC, or will need some serious home computer repair.

A computer virus can be obtained from the Internet; sometimes it's not even intentional. Other ways viruses can be acquired is through removable storage devices such as a CD, USB drive, or a floppy disk. One way viruses can spread to other computers is by infecting files on a system connected to other network files that can be accessed by another computer. Nowadays, with the Internet spreading, viruses are much easier to catch. Other common places for a computer virus are e-mails, and instant messaging.

For your knowledge, we found that lots of people that were searching for top anti virus software also searched online for antivirus software for windows server, free online antivirus, and even 2003 wares.

So here is chance to get your free tips on anti virus and in addition to that get basic information on saving money visit http://advice4unow.com/antivirusnews

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Google's Chrome 2.0: First Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Google Chrome is a browser whose only claim to fame (aside from being a Google product) is its speed and simplicity. In fact, some would claim that Chrome is simple to a fault, with version 1 of the browser lacking features that seem almost fundamental for a Web browser in 2009, such as form auto-fill, a full-screen mode, and extensions. With Chrome 2.0, Google has closed the gap a little bit, adding a full-screen mode, form auto-fill, and the ability to remove thumbnails from the “New Tab” page, along with a whole host of bug fixes and overall performance improvements.

Chrome 2's full-screen mode; click for full-size image.

Chrome 2.0 looks and acts exactly like the previous version; the new features are so subtle that without Google’s announcement, it’s likely they would have gone unnoticed by many of its users. Full-screen mode is easy enough to find; press F11 to invoke it, or select it from the wrench icon menu in the toolbar. But it’s also nearly useless--when in Full-screen mode, all of the browser controls disappear: no tabs, no toolbar, nothing. You can’t enter new addresses to visit. You can’t access your bookmarks, except from the Chrome start page. Everything must be done via keyboard shortcuts or the anemic right-click menu. Google says this mode is designed for viewing videos and presentations in full-screen, but any competent video or presentation player already provides full-screen support, so I have to wonder why this feature even exists in this state.

Chrome 2's thumbnails feature; click for full-size image.The other new features aren’t much better. Form auto-fill is a feature that other browsers have had for years. As you fill out a form field, Chrome will display possible choices below the field, and you can click to select one. It’s not pretty, it just works. The ability to delete thumbnails from the “New Tab” page is utilitarian at best. Click Remove Thumbnails, click the thumbnails you want to remove, and click Done. Oddly, if you have fewer than four thumbnails and you delete one, it will remove all of your thumbnails (this is presumably a bug). Also, you can't rearrange the thumbnails on the page. Both of these features seem so basic that it’s a wonder they weren’t there all along.

Where Chrome 2.0 shines is in its performance. It zips through the most complex Web applications with ease, and never seems to get bogged down. The browser is lightning fast, but then so was version 1.0, and while Google asserts that 2.0 is even faster and more stable, no one is going to notice the small increments in speed and stability.

Chrome is the Lamborghini of Web browsers. It’s built to be the fastest browser out there, and--like a Lamborghini--it does so by putting powerful technology under the hood and adding just enough on top to make it street-legal, but not much more. The regrettable car analogy aside, Chrome 2.0 maintains that reputation. It isn’t going to win any functionality awards or come out on top in feature comparisons, and the new stuff is completely unremarkable. But it will still get you to your favorite sites faster than anything else, and for existing Chrome users it’s worth downloading, if only to stay current. Newcomers to Chrome, however, will find it extremely lacking.

Windows Security

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:11:00 +0000

A list of essential steps to protect your computer.

If you dont have FireFox browser I highly recommend it.

Follow the next few steps in this Knowledge Base Article to see
STEP by STEP on how to protect yourself from having your
identity stolen, credit card thieves and cyber punks.

Step 1
Make windows ask you for a password EVERY time you logon.

Start > Settings > Control Panel
User Accounts
Select your user account
Create a password

make it 8 characters long using Letters, Numbers, and Symbols
$%&#
make the password hint something ONLY YOU WOULD KNOW
dont share your password

Firefox Tips and Tricks (taken from version 1.5)

(If you want INTERNET EXPLORER, thats next)

-Open Firefox
-Tools > Internet Options

General Section

You can change your homepage in this section

Privacy Section
-CLEAR BROWSING HISTORY NOW erases your tracks for hackers
-SETTINGS allows you to set a HOTKEY to auto-erase your tracks
-In the PASSWORDS tab, un-check "Remember Passwords" its the
most common way for hackers to get your bank account access or
steal your identity UNKNOWN to you
-In the cookies tab "for the originating site only" to stop
some popups

Internet Explorer Tips and Tricks (taken from version 6)
-Open Internet Explorer
-Tools > Internet Options

These tips show you how to change your IE settings to protect
yourself and your computer.
If you want to update IE now (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) follow this
link.
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

General tab

DELETE FILES to delete your IE cache memory that holds your
private info sometimes
CLEAR HISTORY in this page to erase your tracks
Enter a new homepage here in case of it being stolen

Privacy tab

BLOCK POPUPS make sure you click this...
You can set your privacy to MEDIUM-HIGH at maximum, any more is
too high

Content tab

DISABLE your auto-save passwords, as this is most common way
hackers gain access to your banks or personal computer
information.

Click Auto Complete button, and un-check "user names and
passwords on forms" then ok

Under Content Advisor click ENABLE to block bad websites for
kids

Setup the following window, along with its tabs. Create a
password there, and do NOT give it to the child. Press OK

Change the Windows Services that start with your computer

Start > Run > Services.msc
This opens a window listing all windows SERVICES that start up
with your computer.
A service is like a program, but instead of a file, its part of
windows.
Services allow functions on your computer, while others allow
security holes.
To change a services properties, double click.
Automatic = Starts up everytime with your computer
Manual = Starts up as needed
Disabled = Will not be started up

Find this service on your list and make sure they are DISABLED.

Messenger
Netmeeting Remote Desktop
Remote Registry

If something doesnt work now, simply undo this manually.

These are for more advanced levels of privacy, and for more
advanced users.
Use these at your own risk!
Enable ADVANCED Security Features
Click Start > Run
%SystemRoot%system32secpol.msc /s
Enter the above line in the window and run
Local Policies > Security Options
Change the following settings by double clicking:

Accounts: Administrator account status *DISABLE* (as long as
your username is NOT adminsitrator)
Accounts: Guest account status *DISABLE*

These disable two accounts that allow access to your computer.
If you dont have an administrator password, you are in BIG
trouble with this enabled.

About the Author: Computer Shack - Tech Support, Web Design,
and Computer How-To Articles. Step-by-step guides to repairing,
optimizing, and using your computer.
http://www.ComputerShack.net

Source: http://www.isnare.com

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A Review of the Best Forex Autopilot Software Available

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:31:00 +0000

People looking to Buy Forex Trading Software are increasing and
levels interest in the lucrative forex market are also on the
increase as the changing economy encourages more people to try
and find a way to guarantee their income. It is very often seen
as a chance to make good money quickly and easily online. So
before you go and buy forex trading software I have taken a look
at the very best forex autopilot software available and got to
grips with how they are designed to make you money.

Previously successful forex currency trading required a huge
amount of time and a vast market knowledge. But now thanks to
modern technology there are groups of software that allow anyone
to get involved and make money on the Forex (foreign exchange
market).

The Forex Autopilot has been created for use by beginners as
well as the more experienced traders. This type of Forex Trading
software will help a beginner who doesn't really have much know
how of the Forex make good trades. It is important to remember
that the Forex market is a very risky market and only the best
forex autopilot software should be considered to get you
returns.

So exactly how does forex Autopilot Work? Well, this automated
robot simply mirrors the actions of a trader, and it will work
totally automatically in order to identify the optimal entry and
exit points on the market. It will do all this without any
actions from the user.

Now, don't get me wrong, this type of software isn't perfect.
There are other styles available but they will cost you tens of
thousands of dollars. But if your looking to buy forex trading
software with a normal persons budget then the Autopilot style
software is more for you. Although in Stock market terms it is
not a large earner, for the likes of you and me it will give you
a 6 figure income.

Some have become millionaires with this type of software
although it will take time to get to that level. For the rest of
us I think we would settle for the best lifestyle, better cars
etc etc.

If you were looking to buy forex trading software then have a
look at the review site listed below that will show you the big
rollers and the best forex autopilot software available on the
market.

There are obviously many options that are available to you but
my years of working in the financial markets have made me notice
the finer points when it comes to currency trading and the
review site covers what I believe to be the top two software
packages available and there benefits are compared for you
before you make your decision.

This article should at least inspire you to look at the world
of Forex trading and the potential goldmines that rest within
it. The best Forex Autopilot Software is the easiest safest and
most profitable way for any newcomer to the financial markets to
earn a very substancial living from it.

About the Author: Mark is a retired stock broker who has spent
time on the London and New York stock exchanges and now reviews
and uses home business financial packages Like forex Autopilots.
See his in depth review at
http://www.squidoo.com/best-forex-autopilot-software

Source: http://www.isnare.com

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Antivirus Software Reviews: What Exactly is a Good Antivirus Software Review?

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:30:00 +0000

It is good to listen to expert’s advice when faced with
difficulty in selecting a product from among many choices. But
are these experts really telling the truth? I have read many
product reviews and I sometimes doubt the accuracy of some of
them because they tend to promote a product rather than tell the
truth about it.

There are a lot of antivirus software reviews in the internet
these days. It has become difficult to tell which of these
reviews are legitimate and which are ponies. Pony antivirus
software reviews are intended to deceive people and lure them to
buy substandard products. They are written to promote products
that will fail to meet the good qualities written about them in
the review. Their goal is not to guide buyers but to fool them.

Here are some guidelines in telling which Antivirus software
reviews are telling the truth:

Intention: Good or Bad?

Some antivirus software reviews may not have a bad intention.
The reviews may be based on facts and are properly tested. They
might even come from reliable sources but with the intention of
promoting a product. These antivirus software reviews tells the
truth about a certain antivirus program. But they focus on the
good side and intentionally leave out the bad. This is
understandable if they were clearly intended to promote a
product and not for comparison. No one will promote a product
and focus on the negative side. The problem is when the product
is reviewed along with other products of the same kind then
focus on the advantages of one product and the disadvantages of
the other.

Purpose: Lead or Mislead?

There are many aspects of an antivirus program that antivirus
software reviews can base upon. When the review focuses on some
excellent features and leaves out the not-so-good features, then
the review is questionable. There has to be a complete
disclosure of facts so the buyer can base their choices on the
feature they need. The problem with some antivirus software
reviews is that they tend to lead not guide. They lead people to
believe that the product they are endorsing is the best product
available in the market. That could be true in one aspect but
there are other aspects to consider that are not even mentioned.
There should have been no problem if the review leads people to
the best antivirus. But there are antivirus software reviews
that are misleading people in thinking that one is the best
though it is far from it.

Content: Truth or Lies?

Good antivirus software reviews are those that tell the truth.
They do not fabricate lies to make their review look believable.
There has to be concrete support to the claims written in a
review to make it more believable. This support comes in the
form of actual tests and certification from experts. A good
review will not hesitate to mention names of people or
organization that specializes in the product they are reviewing.

In the end the buyer has the final decision. Reviews are only
there to guide them come up with the best choice. If you want to
know more about how to know what constitute a good antivirus
review, you can go to the website:
http://www.antivirusreviews.ws

About the Author: What to know what's the best Antivirus
Software for your PC? Read the latest Antivirus Software Reviews
and get your PC protected by visiting
http://www.AntiVirusReviews.ws

Source: http://www.isnare.com

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Forex Trend Direction Charting Software Product Review - Does it Bring Profits?

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:09:00 +0000

This is product review of three forex charting Software programs. This product is designed to help struggling Forex traders to be profitable in the Forex Currency market. The Forex market is a currency trading market where there is a great opportunity to make large profits but it is a challenging market and the reality is that most traders lose money. So that is where this software comes in, the software is designed to help traders in the challenging Forex market.

In this article I will first explain what the charting software does than I will write the review for the software.

Review of ProAct Traders Charting Software

The Forex market behaves in three different modes: Ranges, Reverses or Trends and the software helps traders to identify what is happening in the market and how to trade at that time. The software gives the trader rules and a system to follow for entering trades. The software also has visual indicators that allows the trader to easily follow the rules. The software has 3 different sets of rule for each mode that the market is operating in. In addition to having charting software the charts come with live instructors that teach subscribers how to trader everyday that the market is open. The goal is to teach traders to learn to trade the Forex market.

Review

I would rate this product as excellent because the software delivers what it promises. That means that the software gives traders the help they need to learn the Forex market. The first thing that must be mentioned is the integrity of the people of the company, their motto is "no trader left behind" and they live that motto. They put the time in to teach traders how to trade and not just how to follow their signal. I highly recommend this product because the people are what make the software work.

I rate the functionality of the software as excellent because the trading rules work and keep traders in trades longer. The rules find harmony in the market and the rules take advantage of the harmony. The software also notes when large amounts of money come into or out of a currency which enables traders to know when the large investors enter trades which enables traders to trade along side professional traders.

There is one negative point which I will mention and that is that the charts crash quite often. When that happens the program automatically closes and I have to open the software again. It is a pain to deal with but with all the benefits and the fact that the traders teach me to trade over rides that software glitch.

Overall, I rate this product a 9 out of 10 because the charts deliver on the promise of helping Forex traders. The charts are easy to use and understand and the rules to the trades are clearly stated. I recommend this product to anyone that has had difficulty in achieving profitability in their Forex trading. This product is worth every minute of time and money invested to those who have a willingness to be Forex traders.

Jigaro Fibonacci Market Timer

Pros of Jigaro:
This application is easy to use and possesses some features such as Fibonacci charting, retracement calculations and projection calculations. It is free.

Jigaro Fibonacci Market Timer Cons:
Since the application is based on a few theories, the analysis of the application will recover may be not as detailed or accurate as other tools.

Overview of Jigaro Market Timer:

The Jigaro Fibonacci Market Timer can be downloaded for free on the applications website. Also if you would like to know more information about this tool and how to use it on the Jigaro site. As Jigaro uses limited technical analysis it is best used to supplement an existing trading strategy. Rating 6 out of ten stars

FX Money Map Signal Review

Overall, FX Money Map is easy to use and bases analysis on Fibonacci levels. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of variety in analysis or confirmation in trading signals. To rent the trading system, it is $1995 for 3 months. To purchase FX Money Map, it is $4995 for a lifetime subscription. I rate this 5 out of ten stars.

FXMoney Map Pros
Uses Fibonacci levels
Uses multiple time frames
Easy to use
Free trading webinars with purchase

FX Money Map Cons
Very little trade confirmation
Trading details not provided
Grids can be confusing
EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE
Results not proven

Casey Stubbs is a Forex Trader that publishes a web site dedicated to educating traders for success. He has a daily trading blog, an interactive trading school, trading tutorials, articles and more. [http://www.winnersedgetrading.com]Forex Trading School To learn more about the charts [http://www.winnersedgetrading.com]Chart Software

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

XSitePro Review - Web Site Design Software You Need to Succeed

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:08:00 +0000

XSitePro is in a class of its own in terms of web site creation software designed purely with internet marketers in mind. In this XSitePro review I will show you how it can benefit your online business and take your search engine presence and on-page conversions and sales to levels you thought were impossible. There are also some lesser known powerful features which I am going to show you how to get the most out of, and some limitations you should be aware of.

The Problem With Website Design Software?

Xsite pro is user-friendly web site design software which was made exclusively for internet marketers. Its creator Paul Smithson realised there was seriously limited options for internet marketers looking to create SEO and conversion friendly websites on the fly. I mean seriously - would you be happy spending 30 hours to learn dreamweaver and then another 10 hours just to create the most basic home page? It was insane, and the latest version of XSitePro is the culmination of over 5 years of testing and experimenting to give you the most powerful web site building software available.

Key Features Of XSitePro 2

Here are some of the key features of XSitePro version 2:

Completely Automated Site Creation

XSitePro is 100% user friendly and completely automates the process of creating quality websites. You don't need any knowledge of html to use XSitePro - however it will not hurt if you do understand some basic coding

Hundreds Of Built In Web Site Templates

Web site templates are worth their weight in gold, and XSitePro version 2 comes with hundreds built into the software. Further to this there is an additional piece of software called XHeader which allows you to quickly create professional headers (something which is not easy and costly to do) and eliminates the need to source a graphic designer.

Automated Navigation & Internal Linking

As you create your web pages XSitePro automatically creates your navigation menus and links all pages in the most SEO friendly fashion possible. Of course you have complete control over this as well, and can fully customise this to the needs of your site.

SEO Analysis Tool

This is one of those lesser known features of Xsite pro - and its something that people charge hundreds of dollars for. The software comes complete with its on inbuilt SEO tool which will tell you the exact on-page changes you need to make to ensure your site ranks as well as possible for your targeted keywords.

Content Publisher Scheduler

The key to ensuring your website continually ranks well in the search engines is the ability to create and publish content gradually over time. This powerful feature allows you to create all your content upfront - then select the exact dates you want the software to publish the pages. The end result is your site grows steadily and gets maximum reward from Google. Again there are some products out there which charge $50 - $100 for this feature alone.

Limitations Of XSitePro

This would not be a fair XSitePro review without mentioning the limitations - and yeah there are a few. Firstly if you do have HTML coding experience then you might find the coding a little clumsy - there is a source tab which you can edit the HTML in but it is somewhat limited. This is the flipside of having automated website software- for the majority this will not be an issue however. Another drawback is that the software does not interface with any blog or CMS systems such as WordPress. Again this is not major as the software really does everything a decent CMS or blog software could do.

Conclusion

XSitePro was designed specifically for internet marketers and for people looking to make money from their online businesses. I don't think its going to be the ideal solution if you are a serious web designer looking to create complex flash sites for example. What it will do is take the pain and time out of creating SEO and conversion friendly websites designed to make you money.

Sick and tired of wasting your time trying to create second rate websites which never make any money?

Click BELOW and join the thousands of happy users and skyrocket your online earnings today. http://www.imakemoneyonline.com.au/product_reviews/xsitepro_review.html

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

Electronic Medical Billing Software, HIPAA Compliance, and Role Based Access Control

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:00:00 +0000

HIPAA compliance requires special focus and effort as failure to comply carries significant risk of damage and penalties. A practice with multiple separate systems for patient scheduling, electronic medical records, and billing, requires multiple separate HIPAA management efforts. This article presents an integrated approach to HIPAA compliance and outlines key HIPAA terminology, principles, and requirements to help the practice owner to ensure HIPAA compliance by medical billing service and software vendors.

The last decade of the previous century witnessed accelerating proliferation of digital technology in health care, which, along with reduced costs and greater service quality, introduced new and greater risks for accidental disclosure of personal health information.

The Health insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 by Congress to establish national standards for privacy and security of personal health data. The Privacy Rule, written by the US Department of Health and Human Services took effect on April 14, 2003.

Failure to comply with HIPAA risks accreditation and reputation damage, lawsuits by federal government, financial penalties, ranging from $100 to $250,000, and imprisonment, ranging from one year to ten years.

Protected Health Information (PHI)

The key term of HIPAA is Protected Health Information (PHI), which includes anything that can be used to identify an individual and any information shared with other health care providers or clearinghouses in any media (digital, verbal, recorded voice, faxed, printed, or written). Information that can be used to identify an individual includes:

Name
Dates (except year)
Zip code of more than 3 digits, telephone and fax numbers, email
Social security numbers
Medical record numbers
Health plan numbers
License numbers
Photographs

Information shared with other healthcare providers or clearinghouses
Nursing and physician notes
Billing and other treatment records

Principles of HIPAA

HIPAA intends to allow smooth flow of PHI for healthcare operations subject to patient's consent but prohibit any flow of unauthorized PHI for any other purposes. Healthcare operations include treatment, payment, care quality assessment, competence review training, accreditation, insurance rating, auditing, and legal procedures.

HIPAA promotes fair information practices and requires those with access to PHI to safeguard it. Fair information practices means that a subject must be allowed
Access to PHI,
Correction for errors and completeness, and
Knowledge of others who use PHI

Safeguarding of PHI means that the persons that hold PHI must
Be accountable for own use and disclosure
Have a legal recourse to combat violations

HIPAA Implementation Process

HIPAA implementation begins upon making assumptions about PHI disclosure threat model. The implementation includes both pre-emptive and retroactive controls and involves process, technology, and personnel aspects.

A threat model helps understanding the purpose of HIPAA implementation process. It includes assumptions about
Threat nature (Accidental disclosure by insiders? Access for profit? ),
Source of threat (outsider or insider?),
Means of potential threat (break in, physical intrusion, computer hack, virus?),
Specific kind of data at risk (patient identification, financials, medical?), and
Scale (how many patient records threatened?).

HIPAA process must include clearly stated policy, educational materials and events, clear enforcement means, a schedule for testing of HIPAA compliance, and means for continued transparency about HIPAA compliance. Stated policy typically includes a statement of least privilege data access to complete the job, definition of PHI and incident monitoring and reporting procedures. Educational materials may include case studies, control questions, and a schedule of review seminars for personnel.

Technology Requirements for HIPAA Compliance

Technology implementation of HIPAA proceeds in stages from logical data definition to physical data center to network.

To assure physical data center security, the manager must
Lock data center
Manage access list
Track data center access with closed circuit TV cameras to monitor both internal and external building activities
Protect access to data center with 24 x 7 onsite security
Protect backup data
Test recovery procedure

For network security, the data center must have special facilities for
Secure networking - firewall protection, encrypted data transfer only
Network access monitoring and report auditing

For data security, the manager must have
Individual authentication - individual logins and passwords
Role Based Access Control (see below)
Audit trails - all access to all data fields tracked and recorded
Data discipline - Limited ability to download data

Role Based Access Control (RBAC)

RBAC improves convenience and flexibility of systems management. Greater convenience helps reducing the errors of commission and omission in granting access privileges to users. Greater flexibility helps implement the policy of least privilege, where the users are granted only as much privileges as required for completing their job.

RBAC promotes economies of scale, because the frequency of changes of role definition for a single user is higher than the frequency of changes of role definitions across entire organization. Thus, to make a massive change of privileges for a large number of users with same set of privileges, the administrator only makes changes to the role definition.

Hierarchical RBAC further promotes economies of scale and reduces the likelihood of errors. It allows redefining roles by inheriting privileges assigned to roles in the higher hierarchical level.

RBAC is based on establishing a set of user profiles or roles according to responsibilities. Each role has a predefined set of privileges. The user acquires privileges by receiving membership in the role or assignment of a profile by the administrator.

Every time when the definition of the role changes along with the set of privileges that is required to complete the job associated with the role, the administrator needs only to redefine the privileges of the role. The privileges of all of the users that have this role get redefined automatically.

Similarly, if the role of a single user is changed, the only operation that needs to be performed is the reassignment of the user profile, which will redefine user's access privileges automatically according to the new profile.

Summary

HIPAA compliance requires special practice management attention. A practice with multiple separate systems for scheduling, electronic medical records, and billing, requires multiple separate HIPAA management efforts. An integrated system reduces the complexity of HIPAA implementation. By outsourcing technology to a HIPAA-compliant vendor of vericle-like technology solution on an ASP or SaaS basis, HIPAA management overhead can be eliminated (see companion papers on ASP and SaaS for medical billing).

Know any health care providers who complain about shrinking insurance payments and increasing audit risk? Help them learn winning Internet strategies for the modern payer-provider conflict by steering them to Vericle - Medical Billing Network and Practice Management Software, which powers such leading-edge billing services as Billing Precision ( http://www.chiro-billing.com), Billing Dynamix ( http://www.pt-billing.com), and Affinity Billing, and is home for "Medical Billing Networks and Processes" book by Yuval Lirov, PhD and inventor of patents in artificial intelligence and computer security.

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

The Evolution Of The Microsoft Project 2007 User

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:14:00 +0000

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Accounting Software

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:47:00 +0000

The sign outside of the office where I work welcoming all.

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Video from our FREE Online Business Coursehttp://www.myownbusiness.orgSession 3 - Computer & Communication ToolsQuestion:"Do you recommend business owners use accounting software and why?"Ken BlakeCertified Public Accountant (C.P.A.)Topics covered in this video:Small business accounting, accounting software, accountantsTranscript:Most business owners will realize some definite advantages if they get a software program to handle their accounting. The main purpose with accounting software is that it allows the easy production of reports verses having to sit down with manual records and trying to put together your reports. So there is not a lot of time saving when you use the accounting programs except when you get to the report level and that's where the value comes in. As far as the type of program, what I always recommend is that people talk to their accountant before they jump into a program.It's so easy to buy something off the shelf and then realize after getting back to the place of business that it might not be for the company. If you have an accountant that's familiar with your business, there is a lot of software out there that especially designed for certain industries. So if your accountant deals in your industry, he can put you in touch with the software that would be specific for your company. This will allow you to bypass a lot of the set-up time and go right into some relevant accounting helped by the accountant who is familiar with the software. Even if your accountant is not industry specific, often they have expertise in some of the more popular packages like QuickBooks or Peachtree and if they are comfortable with one or the other packages you would tend to want to go with them so they can look at your data and be able to work with you on a more one on one basis.

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Software Antivirus

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:04:00 +0000

I got the 2007 edition of PC-Cillin from TrendMicro installed on my computer, and it makes it crash. There is an incompatibility with the VPN (Virtual Private Network) that I use to access my email. The TrendMicro technical support informs me that they have to do a "rebuild" of their software and they will let me know in a couple months when it is done. So, I don't recommend buying TrendMicro products.

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http://live.pirillo.com/ - Turtleneck37 writes: "I was just wondering what, in your opinion is the best Anti-Virus program and the best Anti-Spyware program. Ive had quite a few problems with my computer and have had to format a few times and i believe it is a direct result of some kind of virus." http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/05/24/c...

McAfee-Antivirus Software and Intrusion Prevention Solutions  McAfee offers antivirus and computer security software for home PCs or corporate computer networks. Find out about current products, learn about web and e-mail protection for home or business users, or get technical support.

Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Software - Webroot.com  Software developer offering personal, small business, and enterprise software to detect and safely remove spyware and block unwanted programs before they can infect a computer.

Norton 360 v2

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:15:00 +0000

When we last saw Norton 360, we were very impressed, mostly because it was such a radical departure from the other offerings by Symantec's consumer division. However, in the year since that review, our impression changed. Readers without the latest hardware reported serious installation and backup problems, some of which we were able to reproduce. While we were generally happy with Norton 360 v2, we were very disappointed in Symantec's technical support maze, which now requires a name, an e-mail address, and a phone number just to access. Once there, we spent about an hour trying to resolve a simple firewall question for free. However, we could at any point pay to talk to someone at Symantec. Unless you have the latest and greatest PC available today, preferably, one with no previous antivirus or security software installed, you'll be scratching your head why anyone ever liked these all-in-one security applications.

Installation
If you have any of a number of security or utility applications on your current desktop, Symantec will ask that you remove them. Oddly, the most difficult to remove are Symantec's own applications. While there is an uninstall option on the All Programs listing, we found the Symantec uninstall tools weren't perfect. According to Symantec, the Symantec uninstall option is no more effective than the Windows Add/Remove option. In other words, it won't necessarily remove all traces of a Norton product from your PC. To do so, according to Symantec, you will need to use the Norton Removal Tool. This Norton Removal Tool, according to Symantec, "uninstalls all Norton 2008/2007/2006/2005/2004/2003 products and Norton 360 from your computer." The difference, according to Symantec, is that "the removal tool will remove shared components, such as LiveUpdate, even if other Norton products that depend on the shared component are installed." We did not have a working copy of Norton 360 in which to test the upgrade path for existing users.

Our installation of Norton 360 v2 on a very clean Windows Vista system occurred without fail, and without a reboot. We did find that if you don't want to create a Norton user account, you can hit Next two times and continue to the next screen (previously you needed to hit Next three times). However, even if you fill out the account information, Symantec will ask you for personal information when you request technical support.

If you want to add the Norton 360 v2 Add On pack, you will have to reboot. We did not like the automatic addition of the Norton 360 gadget to our Windows Vista sidebar. Instead of seeing our familiar slide show of library photos, we now have Norton staring us in the face. It would be nicer if this were a user-controlled option.

The Interface of Norton 360 v2 has not changed much from last year. There are still four panels, one each for PC Security, Identity Protection, Backup, and PC Tuneup, with drop-down menus for specific tasks. A system status bar--green for good, yellow or red for service--rides across the top under the toolbar for more advance settings.

Should you want to remove Norton 360 v2, Symantec recommends using the above the tool for complete removal of this all-in-one suite.

Features
Norton 360 v2 is designed to cover all the bases--antivirus, firewall, antiphishing, antispyware, backup, performance issues, and online transaction security--and therefore doesn't require the maintenance of separate security and utility products. This may sound good, if you want one company handling all your PC needs. However, advanced users will notice a lack of richly detailed setting options found in the standalone products from competing vendors. The features Symantec includes are for general audiences not necessarily versed in security.

Similar to Microsoft Windows Live OneCare, Symantec Norton 360 v2 has added a network map, allowing you, as home network administrator, to see the security status of other computers on your home network.

Norton 360 v2 extends antisphishing protection to Firefox. However, you will need to reboot the computer to install the Norton toolbar to Firefox. In addition, we found that the technical support section always opens up Internet Explorer even when the default Web browser is Firefox.

Enhanced Backup features tighter integration with Blu-ray, iPods, and other shared devices. Within Windows Explorer, right-click and select the method you wish to back up a file or directory.

Enhancements to PC Tuneup include the capability to remove unneeded registry files, automatic shutdown after a task (say a thorough scan or backup of your machine), new diagnostic reports for easy problem solving, and browser cleanup tools for Firefox.

Additional features are contained within the Norton 360 v2 add-on pack. The pack includes Parental Controls, antispam tools, and confidential information blocking tools. Norton makes the download an option for people who do not want or need these services, and it requires a reboot of your system.

Missing is Norton Anti-Bot, a standalone application that helps protect PCs from Trojans associated with botnets. Symantec still does not include this product within any of its security suites and sells Norton Anti-bot separately for $29.99.

Performance
In terms of protecting your PC, we cite results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, for on-demand scans the previous version Norton AntiVirus 2007 earned an Advanced + (the highest) rating, catching 98 percent of all malicious software tested; and for the Retrospective/Proactive test, the previous version of Norton AntiVirus 2007 earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating, detecting almost half the back doors, Trojans, and other malicious software sampled. Norton AntiVirus 2007 received a Standard rating from CheckVir.com, meaning only the virus searching capability was examined.

For antispyware protection, Norton fell from last year's heights but remained solidly in the middle of the pack in our CNET antispyware tests. CNET labs conducts three separate tests using spyware found to be bundled within free applications rejected by CNET Download.com (as a policy, Download.com does not host any applications containing known spyware). In the first test, active detection, Norton discovered about 60 percent of the spyware; in the second, on-demand test, Norton detected about 55 percent of the spyware; and in the final, removal test , Norton removed all traces of about half the spyware placed on our infected machine.

Technical Support
While Symantec continues to improve its technical support experience, they've also taken a few steps back by making access difficult. In Windows Vista, we found we needed administrator's privileges to access technical support. We then needed to install the latest version of Adobe Flash. Worse, to proceed even to look up a help file online, we needed to provide our name, our e-mail address, and phone number. We think that's extreme, given that we filled out that when we wanted to tweak a firewall setting. There are a series of canned FAQs, but none of these addressed our question. Back at the home page, we found a section for user manuals. Here, again, we were prompted to download and install the latest version of Adobe Reader. Time lapsed: 10 minutes.

Once downloaded, the 44-page PDF user's manual addresses how to install the product, not necessarily how to use it such as in tweaking our firewall setting.

If the automated assistance hasn't helped, nor the documents, there's one final option: talk to Symantec directly.

By clicking Contact Us you must provide your name, e-mail and phone number (unless you did so before). Then you must state what your problem is by using a drop-down menu. Then, you will be given three options--live chat, e-mail, or telephone support. Choosing telephone support, you will be presented with a list of geographic locations, and then, finally, a toll-free number for support. At no point were we informed of any potential charges, unless we read the 44-page PDF manual carefully. Nonpremium telephone support from Symantec costs $9.95 per call.

There, Symantec writes that if step-by-step assistance, online chat, or e-mail doesn't resolve your issue, you can always call their telephone technical support using the Contract Us link. The manual goes on to state that Symantec will "pay for complimentary support and will pay for support in accordance with the most current customer support policy of (sic) Symantec." At that site, however, Symantec writes that for Norton 360: "Complimentary online documentation and live support through chat, email or phone for installation and known issues. Other phone support issues are charged a fee." In other words, for a question about a firewall setting you have to pay for the telephone support.

Symantec offers a more direct route through the "Norton Premium Services" section where expert technical support can cost up to $99.95 (that's a flat fee) per call, although we could find no mention of that anywhere on the Symantec Web site. Under Premium Services are three options: Spyware and Virus Removal ($99.95), Expert Installation ($39.95), and PC Tune Up. In the PC Tune Up ($69.95) scenario, you call up, are charged, and a Symantec technician remotely accesses your PC to resolve any problems you might be having at that time. Symantec claims that 40 percent of its customers expressed interest in premium services in a recent survey, but we think you can probably find free help by doing a Google search for your specific error message or problem. Unlike Microsoft, Symantec doesn't yet maintain its own free users forum.

Conclusion
Our installation on a very clean Windows Vista system occurred without fail and performed as advertised. However, installing Norton 360 v2 on older systems may incite trouble. We're not happy with the technical support offered for Norton 360 v2, especially the paid services that appear to be superior to the free services offered.

CNET

Norton Internet Security 2008

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:11:00 +0000

We were definitely not wowed this year by Symantec's Internet security offering; in fact, it feels a like a step backward to products the company offered years ago. Norton Internet Security 2008 offers top-notch security tools for today's threats, but its tools do not always integrate well, nor are they adequately explained. In at least one scenario, we were able to turn off one security feature only to have another security feature prompt us to provide personal information to a fraudulent Web site--while Symantec declined to call it a flaw, we differ. Also, with Norton Internet Security 2008, we experienced more than one system slowdown associated with the Symantec LiveUpdate process, further dampening our enthusiasm for the product. And we were very disappointed to see paid services once again promoted within the technical support section. Norton Internet Security 2008 falls well short of our high expectations for a market leader and only manages a "good" recommendation from CNET.

Setup
Norton Internet Security 2008 currently costs $69.95 for a three-user license. By comparison, McAfee Internet Security 2008 currently protects three users for $69.95 and includes protection for mobile devices (something Norton does not). Kaspersky Internet Security offers its three-user license for $79.95.

Norton Internet Security 2008 only on Windows XP and Windows Vista. McAfee and Kaspersky both run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. Norton Internet Security 2008 requires at least 256MB of RAM and a whopping 350MB hard drive. Symantec does offer a full function 15-day trail of Norton Internet Security 2008.

LiveUpdate, which used to be a separate process, is now integrated into Norton Internet Security 2008--and about time. Once the product is installed and you're asked to update, everything--program files and signature files--arrive on your desktop together, making the experience smoother and easier. Symantec says this year's LiveUpdate packets are more compressed. Unfortunately, you'll be asked to reboot our machine with each new update but we experienced other problems with the new LiveUpdate process.

Over the years we'd heard from people who'd had performance issues with Norton products but we hadn't recently experienced any performance issues ourselves--until now. More than once while reviewing Norton Internet Security 2008, our Dell XPS machine running Windows XP froze. During the freeze events, our Windows Task Manager revealed that aupdate.exe (Symantec's LiveUpdate service) was stuck, consuming more than 50 percent of our system resources. After waiting a few minutes--assuming the update would complete on its own--we were still unable to use the desktop and, worse, were unable to shut down the system without a hard reboot. Symantec says they haven't heard any consumer complaints like ours.

Should you decide to uninstall Norton Internet Security 2008, there is an uninstall option on the All Programs listing, but we found it wasn't perfect. The uninstall option, according to Symantec, is no more effect ive than the Windows Add/Remove option. In other words, it won't necessarily remove all traces of Norton Internet Security 2008 from your PC. To do so, says Symantec, you will need to use the Norton Removal Tool. According to Symantec, this Norton Removal Tool "uninstalls all Norton 2008/2007/2006/2005/2004/2003 products and Norton 360 from your computer." The difference, we were told, is that "the removal tool will remove shared components, like LiveUpdate, even if other Norton products that depend on the shared component are installed." Symantec does not recommend this removal tool if you have other Symantec products installed. In the end, however, ever after using both the uninstall application and the Norton Removal Tool, we still found registry keys and program file folders on our test machine. These we had to remove manually before installing our next text Internet Security package.

Interface
If first impressions are everything, Norton Internet Security 2008 loses us at "Hello." The new interface, shared among all 2008 Norton security products except Norton 360, is dark and garish, almost a perverse joke on those seeking reassuring security for their desktop. The use of ominous thick black borders and bright yellow/orange graphics suggests Halloween, a look that could get old by March. Unlike with Kaspersky, you can't change the look and feel of Norton Internet Security 2008. Unlike McAfee Internet Security 2008, Norton's interface isn't very intuitive or pleasing to the eye.

Heavy black borders with orange/yellow graphics with blue text on white background is a mess to look at, let alone use.

Our central problem is that while Norton Internet Security 2008 offers some useful features, we had no way of tweaking or learning more about any of the features. Drilling down into the configuration settings, we see "Turn on Suspicious Activity Monitoring" or "Turn on Bloodhound heuristics"--but do we really need these features? Symantec provides us with very little additional information (for example, the built-in Help file says only "Turn on Bloodhound heuristics," not what it does), continuing with a practice adopted long ago by Symantec of making decisions for the user rather than presenting the user with options. Then there's my favorite "Turn on Advanced Mode" under the Suspicious Activity Monitor--it's not on by default, so should we turn it on? (Apparently the only difference between regular and Advance Mode is that the Suspicious Activity Monitor will log it in regular and alert you in Advanced mode.) Again, you have to accept that Norton has your best interests in mind.

Kaspersky Internet Security also uses similar enable/disable options--that's really not at issue here. The difference between these products is that Kaspersky offers a thorough PDF user's manual explaining your choices. Norton does not. Unless you are fluent in Symantec speak, configuration options such as Bloodhound, Browser Defender, and SONAR are meaningless. Nor can you truly customize these in any meaningful way, with few options to provide unique rules. Symantec limits (if not removes) a user's ability to customize and tweak individual settings throughout Norton Internet Security 2008; for example, there's no quick way to set Norton to only scan new or recently modified files. Head-to-head, Kaspersky and McAfee both give users more enable/disable options.

We're also not keen on Symantec's use of a large yellow block in the task tray that says Norton all the time. While other vendors have discrete icons, even icons that rotate or blink, we found the constant advertisement in the lower-right-hand corner visually distracting and unnecessary. Norton Internet Security 2008's pop-up alerts were no bigger or smaller than its competitors.

Features
Norton Internet Security 2008 includes all the basic features within Norton Antivirus 2008. Additional features include wireless protection and transaction security. What Norton Internet Security doesn't include is backup and restore protection or PC maintenance--both of which are provided in McAfee Internet Security 2008. For the Norton version of these, you'll have to purchase additional Symantec products.

Within Norton Internet Security, we really didn't like the antiphishing feature. It's not that it doesn't work--the antiphishing feature within Norton Internet Security 2008 works very well. It's when you turn it off (as we did from time to time during our testing), that we found it's harder to turn back on than other antiphishing tools on the market today. And, more ominously, without Norton antiphishing turned on, Norton Transaction Security features remain active, allowing us to provide personal information to various phishing sites.

When we turned off antiphishing protection within the Norton Internet Security 2008, a dialog box stated that the feature will be enabled again after 15 minutes. Fine. However, the fine print is that while Norton Internet Security re-enables the antiphishing feature 15 minutes later, your browser does not. You have to restart the browser. Had we forgotten that 15 minutes was up, we might have merrily continued to surf the Web without any antiphishing protection. McAfee's SiteAdvisor allows you to enable and disable the feature within the browser, avoiding this problem entirely.

While Norton Phishing Protection was turned off, we further discovered another, more serious scenario. When Norton Phishing Protection is turned off, the Identity Safe feature remains enabled--in fact, we couldn't figure out how to disable Identity Safe (apparently there's no configuration option for it). Shortly after disabling Norton Phishing Protection, we accessed a fraudulent banking site. Norton, perhaps seeing that it was a banking site, asked if we wanted to use the ID card's personal information to populate the Web form on the page. Suppose we were sleepy; supplying the password would be a mindless click. Suddenly our phishing site is filled in with our personal information.

With Norton Phishing Protection turned off, we were still able to surf to a fraudulent site. We were even prompted to use Norton Identity Safe to fill in the Web form on the fraudulent page with personal information (in green).

When we contacted Symantec about this issue, we received the e-mail response: "Although we strongly recommend that our customers use the Phishing Protection and Identity Safe features together, we don't penalize users who prefer not to use our toolbar by preventing them from using Identity Safe. Again, we recommend that our customers use the features together, but we won't limit their choice of toolbars by penalizing customers if they don't use ours." Yes, that's great that I can use the native antiphishing tools within Firefox or Internet Explorer, but Norton Identity Safe will still ask me if I want to use stored personal information on a fraudulent site. Apparently, that's not a problem for Symantec.

Another feature that's important today keeps malware sent via IM from infecting your PC. Norton Internet Security 2008 does that, but only if you have Microsoft (6.0 or higher) or Trillian (3.1 or higher). If you use older versions of the most popular IMs, AOL (4.7 to 5.9), Yahoo (5.x and 6.x), you're golden, but both of these products have updated significantly in recent months, and Norton just hasn't kept up. To test this, we installed Yahoo Instant Messenger 8.1 and sure enough, Norton Internet Security 2008 reported that we did not have any instant messengers installed. Given that both AOL and Yahoo have suffered large-scale attacks in recent months, it's odd that Norton doesn't yet support the latest versions of these.

What Norton Internet Security doesn't include is backup and restore protection or PC maintenance--both of which are provided in the less expensive McAfee Internet Security 2008. For the Norton version of these, you'll have to purchase additional Symantec products. Symantec did beta test another product this summer, however, Norton Anti-Bot is not available in any of the traditional 2008 Norton security products. For Norton Anti-Bot, which simply provides signature and heuristic protection against botnets taking residence on your desktop computer, you'll also have to pay $29.99, almost the same price as the standalone Norton AntiVirus 2008. As such, Anti-bot is simply not worth it a standalone product. We look forward to Symantec adding PC utilities (such as backup) and including its antibot technology to next year's release of Norton Internet Security.

Performance
For antivirus protection, Norton Internet Security 2008 scored well in both our CNET Labs' Windows XP performance tests and in third-party, independent antivirus tests using live viruses. On our iTunes test, Norton AntiVirus 2008 was in the middle of the pack, just 3 seconds above our test system. On our Microsoft Office test, Norton AntiVirus 2008 came in near the middle at 1,459 seconds. For scanning a single folder with files, Norton AntiVirus 2008 came in near the middle with 173 seconds. And in boot speed, Norton AntiVirus 2008 came in last place, with a sluggish 40 seconds. To find out how we test, see CNET Labs' How we test: software: antivirus page.

In terms of protecting your PC, we cite results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, for on-demand scans the previous version Norton AntiVirus 2007 earned an Advanced + (the highest) rating, catching 98 percent of all malware tested; and for the Retrospective/Proactive test, the previous version of Norton AntiVirus 2007 earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating, detecting almost half the backdoors, Trojans, and other malware sampled. Norton AntiVirus 2007 received a Standard rating from CheckVir.com, meaning only the virus searching capability was examined.

For antispyware protection, Norton fell from last year's heights but remained solidly in the middle of the pack in our CNET antispyware tests. CNET labs conducts three separate tests using spyware found to be bundled within free applications rejected by CNET Download.com (as a policy, Download.com does not host any applications containing known spyware). In the first test, active detection, Norton discovered about 60 percent of the spyware; in the second, on demand test, Norton detected about 55 percent of the spyware; and in the final, removal test, Norton removed all traces of about half the spyware placed on our infected machine.

Support
While Symantec continues to improve its technical support experience, Norton Internet Security 2008 also reverts to its old ways. Symantec provides a fairly light 13-page user's manual that mostly addresses how to install the product, not use it. Like last year, Symantec's support options include an automatic diagnostic tool for the program. It's worth noting that one of the comments it made is: "Your computer runs slowly after installing Norton Internet Security 2008," which leads us to believe that many people have like us experienced this condition. There's also free chat, free e-mail, and telephone service.

But after an absence of one or two years, advertising once again creeps back into the Symantec's technical support section in the guise of "Expert Services" and "PC Tune Up." Both are paid consulting services that, if you're not careful, could cost you up to $69.95 (that's a flat fee) per call. In the PC Tune Up scenario, you call up, are charged, and a Symantec technician remotely accesses your PC to resolve any problems you might be having at that time. Some might find that comforting, but at $70 you can probably find free help by doing a Google search for your specific error message or problem. Unlike Kaspersky, Symantec doesn't yet maintain its own users forum.

Conclusion
Because of its dominant place in the market, we hold Symantec to higher standards. We were disappointed this year. Norton Internet Security 2008, despite Symantec's efforts, still feels heavy, largely burdened by its own corporate legacy and dependency on other Symantec products. The return of paid services under technical support seems unfair, given the lack of a free users forum. In a strictly Norton versus McAfee universe, we give the nod to McAfee this year; beyond these two products, however, we feel there are other suites that provide equivalent security protection and integrate their tools much better for much less money than Norton Internet Security 2008.
CNET

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:31:00 +0000

Type your summary here
A photo organizer and an impressive photo editor in one, Adobe's $299 Photoshop Lightroom 2 ($99 as an upgrade) adds new editing tools that extend the scope of Lightroom's familiar environment while keeping things simple, further reducing the need to jump over to Photoshop (now required only for truly nitty-gritty edits). Though the interface looks much the same as before, Adobe has made numerous workflow improvements that should delight professionals and enthusiasts alike; for example, searching is now quicker and more customizable.

Lightroom's strength lies as much in its ability to process images as in its ability to help users organize and keep track of their ever-growing collection of photos. The Library Filter gets a makeover in Lightroom 2, moving to the top of the screen and allowing searches not just by keyword, but also by metadata such as captions, date shot, location, and lens or camera used.

Adobe throws in a handy keyword suggester that offers keywords based on when you imported a batch of photos and their subject matter. You can add any of these suggested words to your keyword field by clicking them. Another convenience: You can now rate and sort images regardless of whether you're in Library, Print, or Slideshow mode; this speeds up the sorting process as you view and share images.

If you have dual displays, Lightroom 2 will support them, enabling you to divide your work across monitors as you would in Photoshop. And in Lightroom 2, you can also choose to show or hide on the second screen what you're doing on your primary screen-a feature that is especially handy for reviewing shots with clients.

Printing, the Slideshow, and Web output are all improved in Lightroom 2. In the Print module, you can drag and drop images onto a grid, tell Lightroom whether and by how much you want it to sharpen them, and print your customized sheets. Web output offers similar sharpening choices. Meanwhile, the Slideshow has added color chips that you can use to create a custom-tinted background.

The nondestructive editing feature from version 1 returns, as does Lightroom's easy relationship with Adobe Photoshop. When using Photoshop CS3, however, you don't have to export your images as TIFFs or PSDs anymore; Photoshop will open them regardless of their format, so you can edit shots or create a panorama, and then send your photo back to Lightroom without altering the original file.

Lightroom's new editing features permit photographers to make quick touch-ups and exposure adjustments and apply them to a single image or across multiple pictures. As a result, you can now make certain fixes that you want to apply prior to presentation-such as cropping, graduated filtration, and adjustments to selected parts of an image-part of your initial workflow before doing the final retouching in Photoshop.

Here's an especially cool example: Because so many photographers enjoyed using the lens correction feature to create vignettes, Lightroom now includes a setting designed specifically for that purpose. The program's new Post-Crop lens correction will work on a picture that you've already cropped, using its new dimensions and ignoring the edges of the original image. This way, you get an authentic, symmetrical vignetting effect. Lens correction settings can be manipulated to lighten or darken the edges of your photo, fading to white or black at its most dramatic extremes, to produce interesting effects.

An excellent graduated filter tool lets you compensate for an overexposed sky or a dim foreground in landscape photos. All you have to do is select the horizon line and manipulate sliders for exposure--even saturation if you like. Lightroom 2 adds masking to its array of editing tools as well. In much the same way as in Photoshop, you can change the size, flow, and feathering of your brush to apply a mask, and then edit only the parts of the photo that need targeting.

With its subtle and overt tweaks to version 2, Lightroom remains the program to beat for image processing and organization. The new creative editing tools included with Lightroom 2 would alone make it a must-have upgrade.

RiverGate Rss Reader

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:29:00 +0000

RiverGate Rss Reader 2.3.0.0 is a RSS Reader product from bestsecuritytips.com, get 5 Stars SoftSea Rating, RiverGate Rss Reader is a FREE news aggregator or feed reader that uses web feed to retrieve syndicated web content such as weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream media websites , or in the case of a search aggregator, a customized set of search results.
RiverGate Rss Reader reduces the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper". RiverGate Rss Reader provides consolidated view of the content in a built-in browser. User interface is very simple to use.
It is a must-have FREE tool to handle all your Windows experience. The license of this internet software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this Internet software.

Software Development

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Software development is the process of creating a bespoke software application to meet the requirements as set out by the domain expert in a requirements document. A bespoke software development project is tested against requirements analysis documentation and must therefore be detailed and measurable so that the software can be tested against it. Requirements documentation will typically contain a list of requirements that can then be measured and ticked when completed. This is particularly important for contract based IT outsourcing. The formal standard for writing a software development requirements document is set out in IEEE-830-1998.

A requirements analyst will obtain information from interviews, "prototyping" and "use cases". A 'use case' deals with functional requirements which describes the interaction between an actor (end user, hardware device) and the system to achieve a task but from the perspective of the actor so that the system itself remains a black box. This means that the end user of domain expert will not have to deal with technical terms and jargon. Use case diagrams are drawn using UML notation and several use cases are required to describe the entire scope of an ecommerce website. It will detail each part of the process of achieving a task without getting into the black box details of the system. Use cases are also ideal for ecommerce websites where the actor (customer) is well defined.

Non functional requirements are not easily measured and describe quality of systems such as the ease of use of the user interface. Such a requirement may be determined by presenting the end user with prototype software so that the actor can get an idea of the look and feel of the system and provide the necessary feedback.

It is also important when designing software to identify all the stakeholders of the system, because a new software system can have a knock on effect on other systems used in the company. http://www.b-1st.com
By Timothy Evan

Trojan Virus Fix In Three Quick Steps

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Trojan virus fix can be difficult at times because of the sneaky way that Trojan horse viruses attach themselves to your computer. They usually mask themselves as either adware or spyware files, and are difficult for most general virus scan and repair products to locate and remove.

The key is to locate a quality anti-spyware software product that can do the job for you. Many people choose to attempt Trojan virus fix by themselves to save a couple of dollars, which is admirable, but a headache if you do not have working experience with executable files. Larger problems could be created.

The other popular route is for people to find a free spyware program, which has a backside as well for the majority of the products. In many of the free software programs, EULAs (End User License Agreements) gets your confirmed permission to inject adware onto your PC, which can cause system instabilities. There are some good free products but the choices are few without a catch.

If you are not sure if Trojans are on your PC, the following list contains some common symptoms that can demonstrate the need for Trojan Virus Fix:

1. Random files open

2. You are experiencing slow computer problems

3. You are being sent to websites you did not want to visit

4. Your current homepage was just changed to an adult site (or an unwanted one)

5. Annoying pop ups and toolbars are all appearing

6. Mouse cursor has a trail or has the right and left button functions reversed

7. Navigation buttons disappear on your PC

8. Computer reboots or shuts down on its own

9. Alt + Control + Delete is not responding

10. Your internet is moving extremely slowly

Three Steps to Trojan Virus Fix:

Step One: Enter All of Your Current Computer Issues onto a List

Though you may think that this step has nothing to do with having your problems fixed, a starting measurement of issues can be useful when assessing the effectiveness at the completion of the steps in this article. Keep in mind that spyware software will not alone fix every problem that your computer has, but it can make a difference in a large portion of the issues.

Notice details like when the problems occur the most (during start up or while on the internet) and if the issues occur during use with a particular program. The list above can guide your initial thoughts, but obviously expand your list.

Step Two: Select a Free Scan Option for the Trojan Virus Fix

Deciding on a Trojan removal product can seem intimidating because of all of the choices on the internet. The fact remains that there are several great products that can complete the scan and repair for you with fantastic results.

When deciding on software for this step, look for one that is not complex, one that offers extensive assistance files (local or online), a software that contains a large solutions (definitions) database, and a product that has received good online reviews with very little negative mentions online. Obviously, you will see some negative since the internet allows anyone to post anything, but look to see how many complaints exist.

Once you decide on a scanning tool, choose the scanning start option and allow the software to turn up a list of detailed threats to your computer. Check the severity level of the threats. Trojan virus fix starts with understanding what problems and threat levels already exist.

Step Three: If Threats are Found, Invest in the Repair Function of the Software

If you have already downloaded and scanned, you are 99 percent done with the time investment necessary. The repair itself only takes seconds. The removal of Trojans is confirmed by rerunning the scan immediately after repair. The higher the threat levels, the more vital it is to get the problem fixed.

Keep in mind that it is always good to have a computer protection plan in place throughout the year, not just when symptoms have impacted your computer in a negative way. Trojan virus fix is only a small portion of the concern. A quality spyware removal product will handle Trojans, adware, malware, keyloggers, browser hijackers, worms, and pop-up generators. You will also want to consider a registry repair software since your Windows registry is the brain center of your file organization and user preferences in the computer. Finally, if you have it in the budget, look at getting a general virus protection program. You will have a triple protection through these three directions.

If you just want the current challenges fixed, the most important feature to look for is a good sized definitions database of 250,000 items that can detect and remove threats. The definitions database is basically the items that can recognize problems so that they can be removed. It is a lot like if you had to look up a certain medical condition to get it cured and a large medical dictionary will exceed the information found in a small one.

Once you complete the repair on your PC, restart your system to allow the changes to take effect. Refer back to your list from step one and see how many of the problems were eliminated completely. If some of the issues still exist, rerun the scan and repair, and again, it might be a wise move to add some general virus protection to the mix. Still, there should be a noticeable difference in the performance of the computer just from the steps mentioned here. Trojan virus fix is that simple.

Daryl Moore specializes in reviews on anti spyware and adware software and writes straight forward reviews of top products at www.trojan-remover-tips.com. Complete details on the top product reviewed, Xoftspyse, can be found at www.xoftspyse-facts.com.
By Daryl Moore

Install Spyware Removal Software to Remove Harmful Spyware

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:26:00 +0000

Spyware - what it is and what it does?

Gregor Freund popularized the term spyware during 2000 to refer a type of malware that is created to spy on the infected computer. Spyware is a malicious program that is used for collecting information about the online activities and other personal information about the user of the infected computer. These data are then transferred to the creator or distributer of such program. In most cases the information is used for running online advertisement and targeted marketing. For these activities spy-wares use the resources of your computer and the bandwidth of your internet connection. So, if there is a spy infection to your computer it is not only invading your privacy but also eating up the computing capacity Therefore, to ensure your privacy and get optimum system performance you need to remove the spy-wares and spyware removal software is the best method to do that.

Spyware can be expose you to internet frauds

Apart from using the spy-ware for targeted marketing they are also used by hackers to steal sensitive and confidential information from your computer. Spy-wares are developed to collect your bank account numbers, credit card numbers and passwords. This is done by logging the keystrokes. Therefore, even if enter this information into the encrypted online forms you are not safe from hacking. With these data it is easy to do financial frauds and other criminal activities. So, if you do online banking and online shopping it is always wise to have spyware removal software installed in your computer for complete online security.

If you are thinking that anti virus software will give you protection from spy-wares then you are completely wrong. As the spy programs are distributed by hiding them in the freeware and shareware programs they are not recognized by the typical anti virus software. To detect and remove the spy-ware you need to install anti spyware software. This program will find the trace of spy-ware whenever you try to install an infected program and block the process.

To get complete protection against spy-ware you can download a free spyware removal tool from the internet. The spyware removal software will scan your computer for traces of spy-ware and remove the malware to ensure safety of your system. Free Spyware Removal Resource is an online resource, providing in-depth information about Anti Spyware software, which is an essential tool to keep your system free of dangerous spywares. Here you will get vast technical information about Spyware Removal Software.
By Arvind Singh

Payroll Software India for Small and Medium Businesses Enterprises

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:58:00 +0000

HR2Payroll helps automate Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) their Employee’s HR, Payroll Benefits and Statutory Compliances functions, easily without any IT overheads. Then begin using it 24x7x365 days basis, from office, home or any place in the world that has Internet connectivity

It is latest technology and one of the very first in India based on the fact that Application Development and IT Infrastructure is owned and managed by the same company. This rare combination ensures best possible Application Uptime and Data Security.

Key Technology Features of HR2Payroll Application are:

* Automatic Application updates
* Data Security and Backup on regular interval.
* No IT expert needed for running the application
* 24x7x365 Support for Application uptime and Sales.

Key HR and Payroll Features:

* Setup Company and Branches
* Department, Designation, Grades, Category and Sections
* Maintain complete Staff Details from Date of Joining to Reliving
* Employees State Insurance Corporate (ESIC)
* Provident Fund (PF)
* Tax Deduction at Source (TDS)
* Company Documents (Appointment Letter, Compensation Letter etc.)
* Payslip and Cost to Company (CTC) Calculation

Starts using HR2Payroll with a monthly fee as low as Rs 350 per month

Please visit http://www.hr2payroll.com/

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by hr2payroll

Registry Fix - For Faster Computers

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:56:00 +0000

A Software upgradation is not a good solution because the files or viruses remain dormant in the registry files and continue to affect the performance. Upgradation of hardware improves the speed and performance of system, but with passage of time results in slowdown.

Coz Good Deserves The Best

There are lots of good computer systems with high configuration available. Many companies are coming up with higher configuration everyday. The users always want their systems to work faster with good speed. Despite higher configuration, users have to consistently clean the system of viruses and other cookies. It is essential to clean and fix registry errors so the computer system works in a perfect way. The cleaning of the registry is what we term as registry fix. If registry files are affected, a lot many problems can be seen.

Maintain Your System's Speed

A corrupt file not only slows down the performance of the system, it even displays error messages and corrupts other files of the system. Therefore, it is important to registry fix the system and regularly check the corrupt files present in the system. A user often tries to upgrade softwares, but that does not help much as the corrupt files remain in the system and does not get deleted. Formatting of hard disk is an option, but a tedious task to do frequently. So it is advisable to opt for best registry fixes to get the desired computer performance.

The bad registry files result in Win32, DLL and even EXE errors and halts the system. There are number of online scanner available which try to fix these error messages either by putting the patch file or by removing the corrupt files from the registry. But if one leaves these files in the registry, it slows down all the programs and the computer takes much more time in startup and execution of programs. Registry fix thus is extremely important is not a tough task too. With easy availability of softwares, it has become very convenient and necessary for users to win xp registry fix.

Registry Fix Mantra is a complete defense and repair system against existing and potential problems of windows system. Learn how registry fix enhances the performance of your computer. To know more about the system visit Registry Fix features.

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
by A Singh

Internet Explorer Locking Up? Believe It Or Not - It May Not Be A Virus

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:43:00 +0000

Problem: Typing a URL into the address bar of Internet Explorer causes the browser to freeze up. If you open task manager, you see that the process 'IEXPLORE.exe' causes CPU usage to spike to 100% .

I've seen a lot of discussion on this one and I've dealt with it a couple of times. Keep in mind that this is just one solution to a problem that can have many causes, but if you've been struggling with this problem, then you'll know it's worth a look. First of all you should try to eliminate any malware that may be lurking in your PC. Make sure your virus protection is up to date. Run scans for spyware/adware with 'Spybot Search and Destroy' or 'Ad-aware' (or BOTH!) It's probably also a good idea to scan for any rootkits to make sure that your AV software is picking everything up. If, after that, you're satisfied that your PC is clean, then you may be dealing with some incompatible IE Add-ons.

It's a reasonable assumption that when your computer suddenly starts acting strangely that you are under attack by some rogue malware. Believe me, as a PC repair tech, that's always the first thing that comes to my mind. However, sometimes the problem is not malicious at all. Many times, it's just bad coding by an otherwise well-intentioned software developer. The problem of virus's and Spyware, though has become so pervasive that we tend to get caught up in that mentality that it just has to be a virus, so we wind up chasing shadows and never really entertain the idea of a less sinister cause.

Anyway, if you're sure that all of your bases have been covered with Spyware and viruses, then try this:

Solution: In Internet Explorer, click on "Tools" > "Internet Options". Select the "Programs" tab. Click "Manage Add-Ons". Make sure you have selected 'Add-ons that have been used by internet explorer' in the drop-down box. Now, go down the entire list selecting each entry and checking the 'Disable' radio button. You will get a message for each one telling you that you have to restart Internet Explorer. Just click 'OK' and keep moving down the list until all entries are disabled. Then you can restart Internet explorer, type a URL in the address bar and see if the freeze-up problem has disappeared.

If IE doesn't freeze then you've just discovered the source of the problem! Now go back to the 'Manage Add-ons' dialog box and start re-enabling the BHO's. Don't enable all of them at once. We need to find the "guilty party". Enable two or three at a time, restarting IE after each time and try typing in an address. When your browser freezes, you've found the culprit. Leave any entries that are having a problem set to 'Disabled'

Other than a few minor cosmetic differences in the interface, this procedure is pretty much the same for all versions of Internet Explorer.

If you're dealing with this problem I know how frustrating it can be. I hope this article has been helpful.

Scott Drinkard (The Computer Guy) is a self -employed computer service tech living and working in Odessa, Texas. The owner of Odessa based "The Computer Guy" has been helping the good people of West Texas with their computer problems for about 10 years. Please visit http://www.odessacomputerguy.com for more information.
By Scott Drinkard

.NET Application Development

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:40:00 +0000

.NET application development has simplified development and customisation of various enterprise level applications. Usually referred to as .NET framework, this product comes as a part of Microsoft's Windows Operating System. The .NET framework comes bundled with a lot of advantages, which makes it widely used tool for .NET application development.

.NET was rolled out in around 2002 and since then number of versions were developed each time added with several features and capabilities. Currently .NET version 3.5 is being used. Further development is still being continued and is believed to have advanced support facilities for Parallel Programs, Distributed Systems, LINQ Engine Parallel Implementation, and Task Parallel Library. .NET application development involves using chunks of functionalities from the pre-coded libraries. The .NET framework is a set of huge library that encompass various programming needs like user interface design, web development, data access, database connections, networking among many other algorithms. Thus the advent of .NET programming has simplified and made .NET application development very extensive. Let's look at some important features of .NET framework:

Easy deployment - .NET framework facilitates easy installation of the .NET application taking care that no performance issues arise due to any of the earlier installed software and that it fits in with the new requirements without any much hindrances.

No language dependency - .NET application development in any .NET language is supported by each other's instances, as .NET framework is built on a Common Type System.

Enhanced Security - .NET applications has a common security prototype for all the applications and effectively handles exposure to destructive software tools or utilities.

Portability -.NET application development became popular as it made using the same application on different platforms easy. Thus it can be easily implemented with third party tools running on different platforms.

Interoperability - .NET applications can work together with older versions of the application. .NET application development provides the feature of developing and executing programs out of .NET structure.

Base Class Library & Common Runtime Engine - these are the two most important aspects in .NET application development. The engine favors runtime interpretation and compilation. The library consists of classes that collectively bring together many common functions required in .NET application development.

Though it may seem the .NET application development got simplified with the easy to use features of the .NET framework, there are some drawbacks that one must considered. The shortcomings will help in understanding the scalability of the .NET framework. A significant drawback is the over utilization of system resources. Also the lapse time in .NET applications is slightly greater than in the applications developed in other environments because of the garbage collection, which result in temporary suspension of memory. Other drawback is that .NET framework is not pre-installed in earlier versions of Windows, thus a fresh requirement may be required in some cases.

Jeff Smith is the managing director of Karma Technologies and feels strongly about implementing ways to be green into their business practices, to a point they are almost a paper-free company.
By Jeff R Smith

Google Makes it Easier to Share Documents with Co-Workers

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:15:00 +0000

Google Apps is a cool way to collaborate on documents with co-workers and share calendars online. But up to now, you've had to go through the hassle of associating Google Apps with your domain if you wanted to have a set of documents and calendars just for you and others at your company. Today Google's launching a free service, Google Apps Team Edition, which lets you set up your company's Google Apps universe just by entering an e-mail address.

Here's how it works, according to the Google reps I talked to (the service wasn't live yet, which is why the art here is from Google's presentation). You go to google.com/apps and sign up with your work e-mail address.

You can create documents and calendars and invite other people in your company to join Team Edition. As long as their e-mail address is in the same domain, i.e. pcworld.com, they're added to your Google Apps Team. In fact, anyone who signs up for Team Edition from your domain is automatically added to the group, even if you didn't invite them.

When you decide to share a document, you'll be able to choose from a list of all the people from your domain who have signed up. Or you can publish the document for anyone on your domain to see.

Team Edition includes Google Docs (for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations), Google Calendar, the Google Talk instant messaging service and Start Pages, which are a bit like iGoogle personal pages with widgets you can choose and arrange on your page. It doesn't include Gmail, unfortunately, though it sounded like that was in the works.

Google's strategy here seems to me a version of the drug dealer's trick of giving away free samples to get new clients hooked. Google knows that while average workers out there may see the value of using Google Apps, IT departments are sometimes wary, either because they don't have time to set the service up or because they're nervous about having important files outside of their direct control. By making it possible for an ordinary cubicle dweller to set up Team Edition and invite co-workers, Google seems to be betting that Google Apps will become so entrenched in a company that the IT department will eventually have to acquiesce. They mentioned a few times that a Team Edition account can be upgraded to one that is fully tied to your domain, either a free Google Apps Standard account or Google Apps Premier, which costs $50 per user per year.
PC World

The software awards scam

noreply@blogger.com (DuckPro) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:11:00 +0000

I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as "Great job, we're really impressed!". I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the 'software' doesn't even run. This is hardly surprising when you consider that it is just a text file with the words "this program does nothing at all" repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. The PAD file that described the software contains the description "This program does nothing at all".
Even the name of the software, "awardmestars", was a bit of a giveaway. And yet it still won 16 'awards'.

Some of them look quite impressive, but none of them are worth the electrons it takes to display them.
The obvious explanation is that some download sites give an award to every piece of software submitted to them. In return they hope that the author will display the award with a link back to them. The back link then potentially increases traffic to their site directly (through clicks on the award link) and indirectly (through improved page rank from the incoming links). The author gets some awards to impress their potential clients and the download site gets additional traffic.
This practise is blatantly misleading and dishonest. It makes no distinction between high quality software and any old rubbish that someone was prepared to submit to a download site. The download sites that practise this deceit should be ashamed of themselves. Similarly, any author or company, that displays one of these 'awards' is either being naive (at best) or knowingly colluding in the scam (at worst).

My suspicions were first aroused by the number of five star awards I received for my PerfectTablePlan software. When I went to these sites all the other programs on them seemed to have five star awards as well. I also noticed that some of my weaker competitors were proudly displaying pages full of five star awards. I saw very few three or four star awards. Something smelled fishy. Being a scientist by original training, I decided to run a little experiment to see if a completely worthless piece of software would win any awards.
Having seen various recommendations for the rundenko.com submit-everywhere.com submission service on the ASP forums I emailed the owner, Mykola Rudenko, to ask if he could help with my little experiment. To my surprise, he generously agreed to help by submitting "awardmestars" to all 1033 sites on their database, free of charge.
According to the report I received 2 weeks after submissions began "awardmestars" is now listed on 218 sites, pending on 394 sites and has been rejected by 421 sites. Approximately 7% of the sites that listed the software emailed me that it had won an award (I don't know how many have displayed it with an award, without informing me). With 394 pending sites it might win quite a few more awards yet. Many of the rejections were on the grounds of "The site does not accept products of this genre" (it was listed as a utility) rather than quality grounds.

The truth is that many download sites are just electronic dung heaps, using fake awards, dubious SEO and content misappropriated from PAD files in a pathetic attempt to make a few dollars from Google Adwords. Hopefully these bottom-feeders will be put out of business by the continually improving search engines, leaving only the better sites. I think there is still a role for good quality download sites. But there needs to be more emphasis on quality, classification, and additional content (e.g. reviews). Whether it is possible for such a business to be profitable, I don't know. However, it seems to work in the MacOSX world where the download sites are much fewer in number, but with much higher quality and more user interaction.
Some download site owners did email me to say either "very funny" or "stop wasting my time". Kudos to them for taking the time to check every submission. I recommend you put their sites high on your list next time you are looking for software:
www.filecart.com
www.freshmeat.net
www.download-tipp.de (German)

This is the response I got from Lothar Jung of download-tipp.de when I showed him a draft of this article:
"The other side for me as a website publisher is that if you do not give each software 5 stars, you don't get so many back links and some authors are not very pleased with this and your website. When I started download-tipp.de, I wanted to create a site where users can find good software. So I decided the visitor is important, and not the number of backlinks. Only 10% of all programs submitted get the 5 Suns Award."
Another important issue for download sites is trust. I want to know that the software I am downloading doesn't contain spyware, trojans or other malware. Some of the download sites have cunningly exploited this by awarding "100% clean" logos. I currently use the Softpedia one on the PerfectTablePlan download page. It shouldn't be too difficult in principal to scan software for known malware. But now I am beginning to wonder if these 100% clean logos have any more substance than the "five star"awards. The only way to find out for sure would be to submit a download with malware, which would be unethical. If anyone has any information about whether these sites really check for malware, I would be interested to know.

My thanks to submit-everywhere.com for making this experiment possible. I was favourably impressed by the thoroughness of their service. At only $70 I think it is excellent value compared to the time and hassle of trying to do it yourself. I expect to be a paying customer in future.

** Addendum **

This little experiment has been featured on reddit.com, digg.com, slashdot.com, stumbleupon.com and a number of other popular sites and blogs. Consequently there have been hundreds of comments on this blog and on other sites. I am very flattered by the interest. But I also feel like Dr Frankenstein, looking on as my experiment gains a life of its own. If I had known the article was going to be read by so many people I would have taken a bit more time to clarify the following points:

I have no commercial interest in, or prior relationship with, the three download sites mentioned. I singled them out because I infer from emails received that they have a human-in-the-loop, checking all submissions (or a script that passes the Turing test, which is even more praiseworthy). I offered all three a chance to be quoted in the article. Today I received a similar email from tucows.com, but they were too late to make the article. I don't know if they read the article before they emailed me.

I have no commercial interest in, or prior relationship with, the automatic submission service mentioned. I approached them for help, which they generously provided, free of charge.
The only business mentioned in which I have a commercial interest is my own table planning software, PerfectTablePlan.

Andy Brice is a UK-based software developer with over twenty years of professional experience. His company, Oryx Digital, sells the market leading table planning software, PerfectTablePlan (www.perfecttableplan.com).
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