14 Ago 07 Choosing your Hosting Platform - Linux or Windows?

As more and more people fire up web pages for their businesses or their personal enjoyment, there are continuous questions about which hosting platform is the best choice. Most experts agree that when it comes to choosing between Linux and Windows for your web server software, the final decision really depends on the preferences of the individual. Here are some of the main differences between the two, and what that might mean for your web pages.

Windows

Familiarity. Windows is the product of Microsoft, and Microsoft has proven that it is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to common usage. This has come about largely due to ingenious marketing strategies, but the end result is that the Windows operating system is the most used in the world. It stands to reason, then, that the Windows server software would have a certain amount of appeal as the functions are familiar to any computer user. Usability. Aside from marketing, the straightforward approach of the Windows system has also contributed to its popularity. “Wizards” await to help at any turn, tool bars are click-accessible, and you can have several programs running at once and easy to recall. Because of the ease of use, Windows software is usually a better option for those new to programming. Built in software. Windows platforms come with everything you need to fire up a web site, including email applications. Again, this software platform is much easier for the newer programmer than setting up one’s own applications.

Linux

Price. The most commonly cited pro about Linux platforms is their price. Linux is open source software, meaning that it has no intellectual property restrictions and thus skips the expense of copyright. Many would say that the Linux platform is the perfect complement to the idea of the Internet. Reliability. Linux has proven to be reliable in almost all areas a web master might be concerned about, from security against hackers to guards against memory leaks over time. Support options. As Linux itself is essentially free as far as intellectual property, it should come as no surprise that the platform supports some of the most popular free systems out there, including PHP and MySQL.

Most of the weaker areas in either of the web hosting platforms can be mitigated according to the hosting company a web master chooses for a site. Price, your level of expertise in computer programming, and which features you want supported on your site will ultimately be the criteria upon which your choice is made.

Any colocation hosting Toronto service provider must be flexible, friendly, and approachable, yet large enough to offer staggering capacity, reliability, and technical knowledge.

13 Ago 07 Protect Your Work – Lock Your Computer

Anyone who has put in many hours, or at times even weeks of effort into work, may know what its like to lose a part of that work, but the worst thing you can do is to be the cause of your own loss. When you leave your computer, lets say for a bathroom break, an emergency meeting, or even to discuss something away from your machine, it may be natural to just walk away and do what you have to do, but I know from experience that this is a habit you should engrave into your computer work ethic just the same as being polite to the CEO of your organization. Allow me to go deeper, it will make more sense by example:

A while back, I took a basic CAD (Computer-Aided-Design) class where we learned how to use the software and along the way, the concepts of good CAD-work, understanding of views, and being able to draw anything we saw in any variation. One of the first things my instructor told the class was to lock our computers.

"Hold down the ’windows’ button, and push ’L’. This will lock your computer and protect your work."

Now why would you want protection? Look at condoms and you’ll see why…Okay, so you won’t get AID’s if you don’t lock your computer, but those of us who didn’t heed the advice of my instructor learned the hard way to lock it up. By good nature, lots of us used to love to walk over to each other’s workstations and talk, hang out, and mess around. By the time we came back, one of several things generally happened to our computers:

1. Our directories were cleared out of any and all work we had in them (hours, or rather weeks of hours, of racking your head over something has just gone down the drain), or

2. Our current drawing file was modified (i.e. a few lines being offset, stretched and skewed) thereby throwing off all dimensions, which is especially bad when being graded on dimensions. Even worse is when somebody scales your entire project, so when you actually build a model, instead of a 1/8 scale between the model and full-size, you have a 19/128ths scale. Firsthand experience sucks.

3. All of our file names were mixed and mismatched, so when we sat down to work, we faced the unique issue of figuring out each time which of the twenty files is which. Lots of fun when you have an upcoming deadline.

4. Any other creative mischief (i.e. turning the screen by 90 degrees, making windows look retro, or even hiding parts of our drawings so they appear deleted and we appear to be redoing it when we come back)

Besides an annoyance ranging from mild all the way up to a promise of an a$s-kicking after class, locking your computer is important for security. From my experience with multiple private networks, leaving your console unattended while in full access can cause many problems for you and the network. One of your peers with lesser access rights may decide to play a joke on another and it doesn’t turn out funny to the one it was being played on. He reports it to his boss. If the ’joke’ was in any way decided as unacceptable by the boss, guess which two guys lose their jobs? Or even better if there is a visitor from somewhere and suddenly he has access to all of the top-secret files which are sworn by all employees to only stay on facility? Let me express it in one word: espionage. A car just doesn’t sell as well when every other major car-maker sells exact knock-offs of it because someone from your company left the assembly plans in easy access. Windows Button + L

OR

Alt+Ctrl+Delete , then ’k’

For this to work, you must have a password set on your account. If your account doesn’t have a password setup, here’s how to set one up:

(Instructions assume that the user has full admin. access rights)

For Windows XP: 1) Click on the ’Start’ menu 2) Click on ’Control Panel’ 3) Double-Click on ’User Accounts’ 4) Click on your user account name 5) Click on ’Create a Password’ 6) Follow the on-screen instructions

Duke Xenner is the author of "Explode Your Memory - A Total Manual to Memory Mastery", and founder of www.RarelyPublished.com - a quality website with useful information for your personal development & life improvement. If you are interested in improving your memory, visit www.ExplodeYourMemory.com

13 Ago 07 Top Six Printer Jokes

Just when you thought computer literate people could not be more condescending about those less fortunate computer illiterates, and I do mean that with a certain amount of sarcasm, they come out with even more printer, ink and cartridge jokes than one could possibly read in several micro-nano seconds of a life time. Well that took a long time did it not? What you say? You did not read all the jokes about printer, cartridges, ink and cartridge in several micro-nano seconds? Good, because I couldn’t find any. I did, however run across the top five internet jokes about printers. Well, they are sort of funny anyway.

You have just received your new printer and the box looks damaged with a nice expensive printer inside. All looks hopeless throw out the box it will likely not work.

What will my printer warranty cover? Your mouse pad

When the office printer color started to look a little off the manager called the local repair shop. To the manager’s surprise the clerk said that it would cost $50 but that he might try reading the manual and doing it himself. The manager replied in astonishment “does your boss know that you discourage business that way? Yes, replied the clerk. It was his idea. We make more on repairs than cleanings if the owner tries to do it himself first.

A woman called tech support and said her computer couldn’t find the printer. The tech asked, “are you working under windows?” The woman replied “no I’m near the door but the guy in the next cubical is working under a window and his printer works fine.”

The printer is comprised of three main parts; the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.

When the printer still will not work after 20 tries; try sending the print job to all 100 printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.

The fact that these five jokes are about all I found in the reference of printer jokes it is a sad state of affairs. How are cartridge sales people supposed to open a conversation with the local ink sales guy. Generally, there are only so many ways to say; have you heard the one about the cartridge, printer and ink sales guys that walked into a bar? And then come up with a punch line. I know that I sure as heck do not have one. But I’ll tell you that if ink, cartridge and printer sales guys do walk into a bar I would want that punch line.

So, all you tech people with all those tech support questions and jokes, and all you managers that appear to be busy but are only using your drama degree get on the stick. My ink, cartridge and printer guys need a punch line and fast.

That’s right and fast they can see the light coming and it is blue. Some of the tech guys say it fades to black but we all know about the dreaded blue screen don’t we.

This Article is written by James Kara Murat from PrintCountry.com, the contributor of PrintCountry Printer Ink Cartridge Blog. A longer version of this article is located at Top Six Printer Jokes, and some related articles can be found at Get Creative with Old Printer Cartridges

12 Ago 07 PDF Security: What is Digital Rights Management?

Adobe are often keen to suggest that they have been the primary innovator in developing the digital rights management space. Although there is speculation as to extent of which they have contributed, there can be little doubt as to whether or not their file format - PDF - is considered to be the logical common output for documents across many platforms where copy protection is needed.

While many companies have claimed to have had an input into the file security solutions that we find ourselves using today, such as XrML for example, only Adobe have managed to lead with the sheer scale and reach to make their solution resonate and be considered the global standard. With the evolution of on-line retailing environments, the lack of barriers to entry, and other digital communication advancements; it is now more necessary than ever to ensure that digital rights management tackles copyright theft through adding complications and difficulties to the processes used to steal content. Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that DRM software can only stop copyright theft at some levels - for example, DRM cannot stop manual replication (writing your own copy) in the case of ebook copy prevention.

It is said that the primary functions of DRM security software are controlling copying/extraction, printing functionality management and changing after a subsequent save. Such functions are always going to needed where copyright is not surrendered upon receipt of the document. Watermarking - as a copy control and digital rights management solution - is often considered to be surrounded with some uncertainty. In the case of ebook copy prevention, for example, publishers are faced with making a decision where the implementation of watermarking can leave their customers having to sacrifice appearance and usability in return for prevention of black-market distribution. Although the value of this is disputed, we can at least agree that while advancements are under way, such as identifying the purchaser, the video, music and broadcast business do not appear to be moving away from watermarking in a hurry!

As electronic learning methods advance, Adobe have been careful to facilitate comment authoring in tandem with document security, to allow both collaboration and copyright implementation. This is something which is unlikely to have much value in commercial publishing, however Adobe would not want to allow any competitors to eat away at a sub-niche and innovate across the board at the same time.

The middle ground between practicality, reasonableness, and implementation of the rights that come along with copyright assets, can be best depicted by the situation where the 2000 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which did not allow the book to be read aloud - a feature which is widely considered to be an advantage of PDF documents, and an assumed feature when purchasing a digital document. Some claim that such behaviour goes against accessibility initiatives, while others suggest that the necessity for document security, coupled with the associated disadvantages of market forces, mean that the decision is one which should be made at the free will of the copyright holder. Some find that the controls made available by innovators such as LockLizard - www.locklizard.com - suit them better.

Alice Pierce is a president of lock lizard. He writes about copy protection and digital rights management.

12 Ago 07 OsCommerce for High Risk Merchants: The Good, The Bad, and The Possibilities

Just because osCommerce is the most popular merchant account software doesn’t mean it’s the best solution for your online business. Agree or disagree? Do you find osCommerce to be overrated? A lot of high risk merchants adopt osCommerce as their primary merchant account solution because of so many advantages. But, knowing osCommerce is open source (hence the name), there will always be loopholes before merchants can actually find it functional for their specific business needs.

OsCOMMERCE BUGABOOS

So what are the likely monkey wrenches that might pop out once you start using osCommerce? For those having second doubts, you may be justified. Consider:

1. There are way too few templates in the osCommerce solution. If you attempt to tinker with the stylesheets, it would take a lot of time and a developer’s help to be able to accomplish the best template for your needs.

2. Merchants may be vaguely aware of "attributes". In order to take full advantage of the limited attributes system, merchants will need to get a good developer to modify it. Otherwise, osCommerce’s shopping cart may not be the best solution to use.

3. Even osCommerce’s administration area isn’t keen on password protection. However, this is remediable by simple research on the site and discussion with your developer.

4. As osCommerce is heavily dependent on the contribution of programmers worldwide, even product catalog capacity needs to be modified. osCommerce’s solution won’t suffice for big scale catalogs unless it has been altered to adopt new products that the server can handle.

Based from these loopholes, we can tell that a lot of osCommerce’s capabilities are dependent on the software developer who is responsible for the alterations and extensions in the system. osCommerce is so powerful but without the ability to customize it to your merchant account’s needs, it loses its potential to provide a cheap (or free) and efficient credit card processing solution.

THE SWEETER SIDE OF OsCOMMERCE

Now what makes osCommerce absolutely attractive for low risk and high risk merchants alike? Hands down, it beats other solutions simply because it’s free! You can download the software, add-ons, and modifications grais. Also, osCommerce was being utilized by online merchants all over the world since March 2000, so it’s pretty much universally trusted.

Although osCommerce’s main weakness is the great necessity to modify the attributes, it is also its biggest strength. Its flexibility for customization as well as the capacity to support several languages and accept many international currencies make it the best open source merchant account software around. Security, user-friendliness, and a strong developers’ community support also add up to its usability.

osCommerce’s features can easily be checked out on their website. It lists down general functionality, set-up or installation, design, administration, customer, product, payment, shipping, and tax functionalities. Indeed, low risk and high risk merchants may only realize the full potential of osCommerce as shopping cart and card processing tool only when they pick out the features that would seamlessly work with their business — then, enlist the help of developers for further customization and expansion.

Gerri Bryce is a versatile technical writer specializing in general web content copywriting and consultancy for finance and high risk merchant account providers. She has contributed a massive number of articles for today’s most popular technology, gadget, gaming, business, finance, and science news websites. She participates in a number of top webmaster, finance and merchant account forums.

12 Ago 07 10 Steps to Successful Selling on eBay

You want to be a successful seller with your own eBay business, do you not? Here’s a simple, ten-step path to fulfill your eBay dream.
Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn’t out of the items you’re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You will probably see the ’sweet spots’ quite quickly - those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.
Step 2: Work out a business plan. A business plan doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the selling on eBay market opportunity you’ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.
Step 3: Find a product. Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to be selling on eBay, and see what the best rates you can get are - do not be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s, then you are set.
Step 4: Start small. Do not throw thousands at your idea straight away - get started slowly, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn as you go. Remember that it’s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!
Step 5: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money into selling on eBay business, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.
Step 6: Test and repeat. Keep trying different selling strategies on eBay until you find something that works, and then don’t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche.
Step 7: Invest and expand. This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.
Step 8: Automate. You will probably find that you are writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for selling your items on eBay, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.
Step 9: Never give up. Even when it looks like it is all going wrong, do not stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you will almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.
Step 10: Make it official. Once you have made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Do not worry, it is not expensive or hard to do - a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.
Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it is not always as easy as that - there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider.

Max Lloyd is internet entrepreneur and writes about his experiences in making money online. Check Make Money on eBay site, you will certainly find a lot of useful information there on how to start and grow your eBay business.

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

12 Ago 07 The World’s Fastest Way To Make Money