COMPUTERS & TECHNOLOGY

MP3 Players and Accessories

2008-06-01T03:01:00.000-07:00

Digital music and its accessories are quite popular these days. In this edition of Tech Tips you will learn about a few of the items that make MP3 players even more fun and useful.

MP3 Players and Accessories
(You will need Windows Media Player to view this file)

Flat Panel Monitors

2008-06-01T02:58:00.000-07:00

Compared to older computer monitors, flat panel monitors are slimmer, sleeker, and weigh much less. Their display technology reduces eye strain, consumes less energy, and can offer unique features that allow you to customize your viewing experience. Now that they have become more affordable, view this video Quick Tip to help you decide if a flat panel monitor would be right for you.

Ultra-Mobile PC

2008-06-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for yet another cryptic abbreviation to add to your high-tech acronym repertoire? You should be, because the device being called the UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) may be just useful enough to really catch on.

The UMPC began as Project Origami, a joint development exercise between Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung, and is a small lightweight computer (approximately two pounds) that uses the Windows XP Tablet PC operating system. Its seven-inch or smaller diagonal display is equipped with an integrated touch screen. They connect to the Internet through a wireless WiFi connection in your home or via a hotspot, or with a Bluethooth-enabeled wireless phone. These fully-functional PCs will allow you to check news and weather, send and receive email, work in Office and other software programs, and play music and games.

Microsoft has already announced UMPC models by Samsung, Asus, and Founder. Founder is currently shipping their UMPC device in China. Samsung will soon debut their unit in Korea. No formal launch date for the U.S. has been set by any of these companies.

Although many different manufacturers currently produce tablet PCs, they are larger and more cumbersome. The UMPC may be just small and connected enough to create a niche for itself.

Video Games Improve Vision

2008-06-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

A recent study in Nature, the weekly scientific journal, suggests that playing video games can be good for your vision. Researchers at the University of Rochester say that action game players react to fast-moving objects more efficiently and can track 30% more objects than non-gamers.

Video and computer games, it seems, can actually help players train their visual attention. Nature's tests on non-gamers found that playing just ten hours of these fast-paced games improved the non-gamer's vision. This leads to speculation that such games could be beneficial to impaired stroke victims and/or those rehabilitating from cataract surgery.

One German neurobiologist quoted in Nature hints that the nerve cells may shift shape from playing these games and this helps the nerve cells communicate more effectively with each other.

Only the shoot-em up games helped improve vision. The more sedate games like Chess, Scrabble, and Tetris, even when played electronically made no visual improvements.

Identity Theft Tips

2008-06-01T02:51:00.000-07:00

identity theft is a serious concern in today's high-paced technical world. There are many Internet users worried about phishing schemes, bogus Web sites, and online credit card theft. Yet, a recent survey reports that identity theft is more often initiated from paper sources rather than the Internet. The 2005 Identity Fraud Survey sponsored by the Better Business Bureau, VISA, Wells Fargo and CheckFree Corporation, contradicts the common belief that most identity theft is performed online.

Ken Hunter, CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, reiterates the essence of the report. "Most instances of identity fraud occur through traditional channels and are paper-based, such as a lost or stolen wallet, a checkbook, credit card, a piece of mail. By making a few, simple changes, consumers can improve their identity safety and help protect themselves against this type of fraud." Hunter said that Internet users who watch their financial accounts online are often able to detect fraud earlier than those who rely the usual mailed monthly paper statements.

The report also sites that these crimes are more likely to be committed by someone you know rather than a stranger. So while you keep alert to online schemes, don't get complacent about your everyday financial paper trail. Experts advise that you don't carry your social security card or number in your wallet, that you shred any financial documents before trashing them, and that you carefully monitor incoming and outgoing paper mail.

to use smart objects in Adobe Photoshop

2008-05-31T02:31:00.000-07:00

Whether you use Photoshop CS2 or the new CS3, using smart objects in your photoshop files can save you hours by reducing your workflow considerably. Smart Objects are layers in your photoshop file that contain data from raster or vector files. These can be other photoshop files (if it is raster) or Adobe Illustrator files (if it is vector). The benefit to using an outside file as a smart object is that you can save the original source content and it will automatically be updated in the photoshop file.

This works particularly well with vector files. Let's say you have a logo done up in Illustrator and you'd like to see how it looks on a picture of a guy in a t-shirt. So you snap a photo of your pal in a plain white white t-shirt. Well, in the old days you would save your Illustrator logo as an .eps, open it in photoshop as a raster layer and drag that layer on to your t-shirt image. Not bad, but what if you didn't like the color and wanted to change the logo from (for the sake of argument) blue to red? Well, you would have had to open the Illustrator file, change the color, re-save as an .eps and go through the steps of placing it on the t-shirt ... again. But with smart objects, you don't have to go through all those steps. Simply place your Illustrator file (yes, native Illustrator file not just .eps) as a smart object by using the File > Place command in Photoshop. Your Illustrator file will show up as a 'Vector Smart Object' on it's own layer. Now, if you wanted to edit those darn logo colors, you simply right click on the smart object and choose 'edit contents' which opens it in Illustrator. You can now change the blue to red, or green, or even pink, and close and save the smart object file. Go back to your photoshop file of the logo and the t-shirt and viola, the logo layer is updated to reflect the new color.

Now that just saves a lot of steps and a lot of headaches! In time your photoshop files will include many Vector Smart Objects and you'll wonder how your work flowed without them.

Best way to get visitors to your website

2008-05-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

The main objective of having any website on the net is to be found by visitors.
To do this a webmaster must have a well thought out link building and web promotion
campaign.
Firstly most visitors or traffic will come from search engines so if your
website is not known or indexed by search engines for all intent and purpose your
website does not exist. Search engines or spiders follow links, this is how websites
are found and indexed, so start by submitting your website to both free and paid
web directories , directories are spidered by search engines and are great for building your search engine ranking and your backlinks.

Advertising and branding your website, buying text links, banner ads, PPC, adwords, these are sure ways of getting your site in front of visitors and thus driving traffic to your web page/s

Submit your website or blogs to social networking sites such as digg, technorati etc.

Submit your feeds to web feeders so visitor can subscribe to them and since feeds only provide summaries or brief titles visitors or subscribers will have to come to your site to read or find your product, service or information.

Joining webmaster forums or any forum relating to your website and taking an active
part in discussions and topics is another way of building links and bringing visitors in.

Leaving well thought out comments to topics on blogs, will provide enough curiosity to get a click back to your web page.

All of the above should be part of promoting and increasing backlinks. Incoming links is the back bone in any website success, the more quality, high PR websites you have
linking to your site, the better your link popularity and pagerank and thus more visitors.

Link building strategies for your website

2008-05-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Link building is a technique that most webmasters find hard to execute. Years ago it was simple enough, choose your key word for your anchor text and use it for all incoming links. Now, that just doesn't have the importance it once did and most sites are trying to rank well for more than just one keyword.

First, what is an anchor text? Quite simply it is the text used in your incoming links. So if someone linked to your site using "Big Widgets", Big Widgets is the anchor text. Now the keywords you use as anchor text contributes to the importance of the page it links too and the search engines will give that page a small boost in the rankings when someone searches for that term. Hopefully, you can see the extreme importance to picking the right anchor text. This is meant to work in conjunction with all the other optimization you do for your site and is an important cog in the wheel of your SEO strategy but not the whole wheel itself.

Here are a few do's and don'ts on link building especially if you are new to link building and hopefully a few reminders for those that have been doing it a while.

- Do link with sites that may be of interest to your visitors. Often referred to as relevant links, these links are deemed more worthwhile to have than just any link. For example if your site is about cars, a link from a site that sells real estate will do you no good compared to a link from a site that sells car parts.

- Do link with sites that have a clearly labeled link page from their main page. Hidden or hard to find link pages do not help you build traffic. Of course getting a link directly on the home page would be best but if you can not, at least make sure there is a chance someone may find it.

- Do stay organized. Use a spreadsheet, notebook or link exchange software to help you keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters. This will help you save time by not trying to contact someone who just denied you a link and help you do follow up with those that need to be.

- Don't confuse quantity with quality. Trust me; the search engine will never confuse them. Good, relevant quality links will win over time. Don't believe me, check out a popular search term and see how many back links the sites in the top position have. You may be surprised to find that must have less than 500.

- Don't assume everybody will link with you. Sometimes it may be hard to understand but some sites will not be interested no matter how good the offer to trade links with you. Don't get discouraged, move to the next site and then the next until you find a site that will, then do it again.

- Don't use link farms. Link farms are pages we have all seen that have little or no real content and are just covered with link after link. You are unlikely to get extra traffic from them and it may cost you in terms of a search engine penalty.

Link building is imperative to having a good search engine ranking and a good link building strategy is one that is straight forward and never ends. Don't try short cuts and be very particular whom you link too. It could mean lots of money and ranking if you build links the right way.

What type of Internet portal is best for promoting your work: A website or a blog?

2008-05-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Is the money you pour into maintaining a personal website worth it compared to having a blog? Last year I was in a position to answer that question. I had a website and a blog. Now I have blogs, in the plural.

I had fallen for the oft vaunted wisdom that you must have a website to have a professional web presence. Without your own website and domain name, you are a nonentity. It was the old argument over public email addresses and private ones again. How could you be taken seriously as a professional without a personal email and a website.

In a word, nonsense. I've had both and they made no difference whatsoever. In fact I have heard from editors who use public email services like Yahoo. As for the benefits of having a website, with your own exclusive domain name, I found none.

My website was not doing me any favors, and the crunch came when my website host doubled the fees. I debated for a while - after all, the website was under my own name, and that domain may be lost to me if I gave it up. But in the end, I dumped the website. It just wasn't economically viable, and besides, blogs get more attention.

I am not sure why this is so - perhaps it is because people like the more informal style of a blog, and can't be bothered navigating websites. Websites are the very devil to keep consistent. They look different on different browsers, art images can be tricky (and do look its at 72 dpi although it loads faster), and writer's websites, in particular, are difficult to make look sharp and interesting.

On the other hand, a well made blog attracts visitors - actually, even blogs that aren't so well made attract visitors, if they are interested in the theme. For example, Blogger blogs are pretty much of a muchness, but Carol Gillott's Paris Breakfasts is a very popular blog that successfully showcases her work. It's the theme that draws her fans - including me! Her love of all things Parisienne - especially the delicacy known as macarons - makes for a lovely blog that you just have to keep revisiting.

Would Paris Breakfasts work as well if it were a website? Well, the choice is with Carol and she chose a blog.

Websites are often touted over blogs because they can be set up to allow a visotor to navigate around the site, but the latest blogs offer even more user friendly options.

For example, Wordpress, which I now use, can be set up just like a website, with a static welcome page and site navigation. The backgrounds are very cool, and the blogs look good. There is also considerable creative scope, just as there is with a website. The blog can be any style or theme you choose.

Better still, if you are the kind of eclectic pack rat who dabbles in almost everything, blogs can cover all our interests and business ventures. having several websites would be prohibitively costly - but you can create as many free blogs as you have the time. Blogs are also a good free way to experiment with ideas, and then, if you really must, you can create a website knowing it has been tried and tested.

In short, I found no real benefit in having a website, except the domain name. It made no difference when I dumped it - I still sell my work, and don't need a website to do that. But my blogs are a different story - they are giving me a web presence and a place to tell my stories, share my experiences and experiment with my creativity. All that helps promote my work without the unnecessary expense of a website.

What type of Internet portal is best for promoting your work: A website or a blog?

2008-05-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

The pat answer is: It depends on you and your business. No, really. Blogs and websites come with their own pros and cons, and you'll want to weigh them before deciding. For most situations, however, a website is the best bet. Here's why:

1. Websites are more flexible
Blog are easy to update and maintain, which is part of their appeal, but websites can have equally sophisticated and user-friendly content management systems. Blogs give readers a way to leave comments, but there's no reason why a website can't have similar features. Websites can be as simple or complex as you want them to be.

At first glance, blogs can seem just as diverse as websites. But for the most part, they all follow the same format: A blog is a series of posts listed in chronological order. The first thing you see when you visit a blog is the latest post. There are usually sidebars filled with links to older posts. Some blogs have static pages that live outside the chronological format, but blogs are still basically online journals. Regardless of how you dress the blog up, that's the format you're stuck with.

2. Websites are less demanding
Regardless of whether you have a blog or website, you'll want to keep it fresh and give people a reason to come back. Even so, it's less critical to update a website on a regular basis. Blogs by their very nature need fresh content all the time. Without a new post every day, or at least every week, blogs get stale and musty. You'll either have to spend a few hours every day writing articles for your blog, or you'll need to hire someone else to handle that job for you. And frankly, there are some businesses that are very hard to write fascinating news articles about on a continual basis.

3. Websites are more professional
Although blogs are gaining preeminence on the internet, a blog will still have the feel of an online journal. Blogs tend to be more casual and conversational. Depending on your business, a blog could set the perfect tone for your web presence. But in almost all cases, you simply can't go wrong with a basic website.

4. You can always add a blog later
In some cases, businesses have both a website and a blog. The two entities can complement each other nicely. The website usually serves as the official store front for whatever services or products the business offers, while the blog is the place where people go to read up on the latest news about the business. So when in doubt, go with a website first. Once you've had your website for a while, you'll be in a better position to know whether or not a blog will enhance your business.

How to get started reviewing books

2008-05-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

Do you love reading books? Yes? Then you must be having pretty good experience in selecting good books. You will know a brief or overview of the book you read throughly. If you put down this overview of the book then it is nothing but reviewing books.

How do you review books? There is a specific order in which you need to review the book.
To review any book, you need to first read the entire book, once,twice how much ever times you feel comfortable that you have understood and analyzed every hook ad corner of the book. Yes, you need to read the book first to know what review to write.

Next, start with the title of the book. Your review should contain the following basic units :
Title of the book
Publishers
Author of the book
ISBN Number

Next you can write the overview o the purpose the book is written
Then write what each chapter says.
Write the author's view on the particular subject.
Don't forget to write your opinion too. Your opinion is most important here ,because people who read your revie should be able to judge whether to read this book or not depends on how well your review explains them.

Why you shouldn't seek a permanent job

2008-05-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

Seeking or not seeking a permanent job depends on various aspects and situations you come accross.There may be various reasons to substitute your statement.

You may have a job at present which is not well paying and you may have to take up another job to run your family. But you can't afford full-time for both the jobs.Its not only difficult but also impossible. Hence you can take up a temporary job.

Next the other reason can be, if you are a student then you can't dedicate your whole time on job but will have to concentrate on your study and classes as well. How come you think that this study - cum - work will be possible?Yes, it willbe possible only if you work part time or on weekends. And remember this kind of situation will never support you for full time permanent jobs.

Again,if you are a housemaker, then you will have to take care of your family,kids and other chores of the house. But a one man earning in your family will not be enough. Hence, you will need to search for a job yourself. But again there is time constraint. Hence,you may have to take up a part time job and not a permanent one.

What is a web browser?

2008-05-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

A web browser is a software application. It is a Graphical User Interface application that the user uses between the computer and himself. Web browser allows users to interact with the computer through text,images,sound of the website that are located in the central repoisitory called World Wide Web(www),the internet.

You can have the following components on the web browser:
* Text
* Graphics
* Animations
* Sound
* Hyperlinks

Text,graphics ,animations ,sound and hyperlinks assist to improve the user interactivity with the computer (internet) and the user.

We have seen all the other components above except hyperlinks.
What are these hyperlinks? As their name specifies, hyperlinks are used to link between the different web pages on a web site.These hyperlinks provide easy navigation of your web pages. Not all the information and data can be fit in a single page, Hence you need to create separate subsections called web pages.Hyperlink connects the navigations of these pages in the website.
All these components together make the web browser.

These web pages are designed using a scripting language or simple HTML tags.The web browsers format the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) information for display.

Some common browsers are Intenet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Firefox, Mozilla, etc.

Web browsers communicate with the webservers using the signal called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to fetch the web pages when a request is submitted.

What fathers of teenage boys need to know

2008-05-29T04:49:00.000-07:00

It is a tough time to fathers when they realize that their son is no longer a small baby and he is growing up. This fact makes the fathers feel pretty nervous.
The main reason is, it is this time of juvenil period for young boys when they have hot blood that they are more aggressive towards anything and everything.This is the time that a father should understand that his son is no longer a baby but a gorwing up lad. Generally kids do not like themselves to be treated as a small kid or young ones. They think they are grown ups and want everyone especially their father to treat them as their friend. Fathers should also understand this and respect their thoughts.
They should allow their sons to take individual decisions.
Too much of care for everything makes them feel they are still kid and their father doesnt trust them to wok on their own. So, fathers you need to allow your kids to try things on their own, Give them guidence whenever needed.
But dont try to involve too much poking your nose in their matters.
Your son should feel he is free to do on his will, but you stand behind him and correct him i a manner that he understands. Let me do the things on his own.

Should illegal immigrants be entitled to receive benefits?

2008-05-29T04:43:00.000-07:00

I strongly disaggree with this statement that - illegal immigrants be entitled to receive benefits.
When you know they are illegal migrants then it is better you should allow them only limited privileges. Who knows they may not really be good people. We have seen so many cases that being legal people are really dangerous and they may misue the powers. Hence i believe first thing is they should not be allowed to enter the country at all. Even if they migrate through illegal methods then they should not be given all the rights to do anythng. they should be constantly montitored whatever they do.
They should be kept a close watch on these people so that they do not misuse the privileges given to them. They should be constantly monitored. Their relatives and friends should also be watched. These people may not be bad but their company in whch they mix may not be good. So people and the government should be very much cautious about such illegal migrants.They should not be given all benefits what the legal migrants and the native citizens are getting.
Proper protection should be given to people who are living near by to these people's house. There is no guarantee what these people may do. No one can expect people to be good without any reason. People are not always good as we know. Especially the illegal migrants. A proper background checking has to be conducted before letting them inside the country.
Hence they should not be given full privileges.

The pros and cons of corporate blogging

2008-05-29T04:42:00.000-07:00

The first question that comes to our mind is... why does any corporate need a blog ?
Corporate blogging helps the companies to expand their horizon world-wide.It increases the potential of the company by increasing its communication structure.

Now in this computer age where do we keep juggling with the paperwork? These corporate blogs bring a kind of personal touch and also authenticity to the clients who wish to make any business dealings with the company.

It gives a professianl way of presenting your company to the clients or the CEO, investors, or employees. It helps to build and grow your business which in turn
depends on the content.

Corporate blogging adds up to save the cost of the company in publicizing as compared to paperwork publicizing.

While there are many pros likewise any issue has its own cons too.The corporate blogs should be professionally written. Poorly written blogs can be mileading to the publc. They may start doubting on the authenticity of the company.

All the information can't be revealed freely on corporate blogs.Their trade secrets cant be made out at any cost.There is certain amount of risk in doing anything
online. Their information can be misunderstood or ill judged by public or by the clients and investors. This may be hazardous to the company.

Is money invariably linked with depression?

2008-05-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

Obviously money and depression are inter related in one way or the other. But cause of depression may not be always money. But the want of or lack of more money may lead to depression.

Depression symptoms are severe.First you may start up with mild head aches, then it may lead to body imbalances and heart problems and then it may lead to severe nevrous system disorders. All these consequenes of depression and stress are very much sever enough to
ruin anyone's life.People may try to take their life in depression.

Money also may be one of the causes. Financial problems are one such hassle in hman life that makes man helpless without money.That is very much true to be said.

Well even i have faced many such depressions and tensions. Who does not have any problems in this life tell me. It is common and very apt for every human being to get problems in life. Whether it is rich people or they are poor. But the main thing and very important matter is how you handle this matter. If you are really unable to handle your problems then they may cause you severe damages in life. You may enter depression zone.
Once you enter such depression zone you will be under danger. Because depression zone is a danger zone which can make you act according to it. You may go to a state of coma or unconsiousness due to depression or may loose control over your body and become lifeless.

Money or financial problems play a vital role in getting you to depression. But once you enter the depression zone you will find it very much difficult too come out of this depression zone even if you get back money and solve all your financial problems.

Why use VB.Net?

2008-05-29T04:40:00.002-07:00

Visual Basic. Net (VB.Net) is an evolution of Microsoft's VIsual Basic that is implemented in the Microsoft Dot Net Framework.

The main reason that led to the evolution of VB.Net is due to the lack of backward compatibilty with the older versions in Visual Basic. VB.Net has overcome this feature in the .Net framework.
VB.Net has a compact framework and better VB upgrade wizard. A lot of improvements have been done to take care of performance and reliability of the .NET IDE and runtime. These were some of the major drawbacks of VB 7.1

VB.Net is not entirely a new language. It has been developed from Visual Basic with some additional functionalities. Some new features like structured exception handling and short circuited expressions have been added in the .Net. There are some other slight variations that have been made in .Net in order to adapt itself to the .Net Framework , for example the short and the long integers have been doubled in .Net

Also the programmers faced lot of performance and maintainability issues with the previous versions of Visual Basic. This was one of the reasons to find the improvised version called VB.Net.

VB.Net has extensive documentation that covers the changes in the syntax, debugging applications, deployment and terminology when VB project has to be migrated to the .Net framework. So the programmers need not worry about rewriting the code from the scratch in .Net framework.
Also, VB.Net is backward compatible. Any new versions of the project developed in VB.Net can easily be traced back in the .Net framework with no or little efforts.

Hence, the developers now a days are preferring Microsoft's VB.Net than the traditional Visual Basic.

Where to learn VB

2008-05-29T04:40:00.001-07:00

Learning programming languages like Visual Basic is not a difficult job at all.
Now a days almost every couse materials is available on internet, so no need to worry about it at all.

You can either learn Visual Basic joining some training institutes or from self learning methods like online e-learning sites.

If you join a computer traning classes in India, the Visual Basic courses may cost form 4000 Rs to 6000 Rs, depending on whether the course includes basics or live project etc.
You will also get course materials and Software CDs if you join the live classes.

Else if you would opt for the e-learning classes and self study methods then you can very well access tons of sites on internet and get through with yourself.

Here are some good sites that you may refer to learn VB.
www.visualbasic.about.com/od/standalonevb6/l/bllvb _6d.htm
www.msdn2.microsoft.com/vbasic/ms789086.aspx
www.kidwaresoftware.com/lrnvb6.htm
www.sweethaven.com/free-ed/InfoTech/vb01/default.a sp

If you do not wish to study online then you can very well buy some good books and start studying. You can get lot of books in the market which can assit you to complete Visual Basic learning in 21 days or some other good stuffs.
You can also search for some Visual Basic simulation softwares online that can help nyou create your own widgets and forms and start coding that mimics the realworld application.

Understanding numeric color codes in Visual Basic

2008-05-29T04:39:00.001-07:00

Visual Basic provides color palatte with different values of coulours indicated in RGB format or hex format. This colour palatte gives you a choice to select from the existing set of standard colours or customize your own which are suitable to the webpages.
Only the proper combination of red, green, and blue colours can perfectly simulate any color humans can perceive.
The RGB system of color values that comprises of Red, Green, Blue colours are colours of intensities, each ranging from 0 to 255.
These colour codes are attributes for the variables BGCOLOR or LINK or BODY.

Some example combinations of these RGB values that are represented as colours may be :

255,255,255 represented as white
0,0,0 represented as black
128,128,128 as grey
0,0,255 as blue
Hence, various colour combinations can be made just by altering these RGb values.
These colours are most suited for web applications since they have compatible textures.

You can either make the custom color changes through your code or use the colour palatte.
You can also use the system colours in your application.
The usage of set and get methods are very handy at this time. System colours are mainly used to include values for Active Border, Inactive border, caption etc.

Tips for using VB 6

2008-05-29T04:38:00.001-07:00

VB 6 programming is one of the easiest and widely used programming languages.
First thing about coding in VB 6 is you need to follow some standards for that. MSDN has written satndards for codig in VB 6.

Follow these tips while using VB 6
- Document yor code clearly and easily understandable by people when they read them.
Make simple comments for some difficult lines of code.
Indenting the code and arranging them according to the loop structures is an important thing.

- In general adapt a coding style that will be easy to maintain.
You can refer to this link for coding standards:
http://www.visibleprogress.com/vb_law.htm
Follow these best practices of coding, naming conventions, indentations and commenting.

- Choice of naming the variables is also very important.
This makes your code easier to read and understand.

- There is no such a system that is free from errors.

Design plays an important role to judge the errors.
So design document should be a powerful one to beat these errors.

- You need to understand the binary compatibility in order to avoid the errors.

- There are lot of performance tunig tips that need to be taken care of in order to make your code efficient and high performing.

What is graphic device interface (GDI)?

2008-05-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

GDI is nothing but Graphic Device Interface.
In window system you need GDI to control the display of text and graphics.
You need to know about the GDI drivers before you go deeper into the GDI interfacing.
GDI provides several built in functions and structures.

You can display the grafic outputs on displays, printers and other output devices.
These GDI functions are used for various graphical purposes. They are used to draw lines,
curves,bitmaps,images and many more objects.You get various tools for drawing purposes like pens, pencil, paint brush,spray,fillers etc. You also have differnet fonts and font styles to write text with various styles.

Our windows system also comes with a GDI with colourful graphics but it has limited resources.
Applications have the privilege to direct the output to either the devices like printers or memory drive.
But this device is detected by the application handler pointing to the device context created in the software.
This device context will contain certain control functions that specifies which device has to be used for display.

You can very well refer to the msdn link below for more info on device interfaces and GDI.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.a spx

basics of SQL Server Express 2005

2008-05-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

SQL Server Express 2005 is used for building flexible and reliable data-driven applications.
This is regarded as one of the developer's favourite tools in bulding relational database.
The developers can build robust and reliable applications with the help of SQL Server Express 2005.
Building data driven applications have become a challanging job now a days.With the help of SQL Server Express 2005 this can be very easily achieved.

We might have noticed that some websites are too slow in retrieving data. This may be prevented using SQL Server Express 2005 integrated with Visual Web Developer form a dynamic tool for building reliable wensites, deploy and manage them.
The main reason being SQL Server Express 2005 uses query optimizer tool thats helps in faster retrieval of the information.

When you have large set of data it gets very difficult
to manage them and track them individually. So a kind of statistical graphs have to be designed for htis purpose.
SQL Server Express 2005 provides powerful reporting services delivering traditional reports,graphs,tables etc.

Once the software is developed and initiated, it has to be maintained regularly. This is a pretty diffuclt job since bugs keep on ocming contantly. SQL Server Express 2005 provides support and maintanance giving the developer a lot of flexibility.

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How OLE DB works with VB programming

2008-05-29T04:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone wants a faster access to the applications and manipulate the data in the database whenever required especially the administrators. There comes the role of ADO or ActiveX Data Objects. These ADO objects mnipulate the data in the database server through OLE DB provider and makes your application run faster.
OLE DB is nothing but Object Linking and Embedding for Databases which is mainly used to handle the relational databases which was one of the major drawbacks of the older versions ODBC. OLE DB uses a set of COM interfaces for accessing and manipulating of data.
It acts as inter...

pros and cons of corporate blogging

2008-05-29T04:25:00.001-07:00

Because technology is changing rapidly, this means that the way people communicate - both personally and professionally - is changing rapidly as well. Corporations that used to rely on pen and paper and the U.S. post office have advanced to voicemail, e-mail, and even instant messaging to make sure that employees are connected to volumes of information at any given second. Some companies are even looking even beyond e-mail and instant messaging to other new ways of communicating electronically: through blogs (Web logs), podcasts, wikis, discussion boards and streaming video, among other means. Indeed new ways of communicating digitally are being developed at a fast pace and with greater speed.

But are these new technologies useful or just distracting? Just because a medium is available does not necessarily mean that a need exists for it. While having a blog or a podcast may be important to a technology-based company such as Apple or Microsoft, does it have the same importance in other companies that do not concern themselves primarily with new media technologies?

The advent of these new technologies poses several problems. Many technologies, such as the discussion forum and the blog, allow for a high level of interactivity from users. When used in an adult manner, feedback and discussion ican be very beneficial. But when the first user writes something slanderous or replies in an unprofessional manner, the usefulness of the tool decays as responses get edited and feedback gets diluted.

This study focuses on one such mode of communicating electronically, through blogs. Although reports now indicate that people use them more frequently, do they take blogs seriously? Do they feel a blog is an appropriate forum to stay in touch with his or her workforce, or do they consider it too informal? Because people differ in the extent to which they use blogs, will a knowledge gap accrue among the usually technologically-savvy bloggers versus those who do not?

What are blogs?
The Webster's dictionary defines a Web log as "a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page."
That the use of Web logs is exploding can be exemplified on Technorati.com, a Web site that tracks blogs and the topics that are being discussed within them. It first began tracking blogs in November 2002, when it was tracking a mere 13,000 blogs.Just three years later it reports that more than 20 million blogs went through its system. Only six months prior to that, the site hit the 10 million mark (Weil, 2006). As of November 2006, Technorati says it monitored almost 60 million blogs. (Technorati: about us, 2006)

Although most blogs are personal in nature, its uses have permeated the corporate world as well. Companies that have a lot invested in technology (i.e. Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Google, IBM) are the forerunners in this category, but companies that have other primary interests (i.e. Pfizer, the Berkshire Publishing Group, the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks) are beginning to jump into the bandwagon. It is clear, therefore, that blogs are becoming prevalent.

There are several types of corporate blogs: internal (to employees only), external (to customers and shareholders), blogs written by CEOs/executives and blogs written by employees. External employee blogs seem to be pretty rare; Microsoft is one of the few companies that allow its employees to blog fairly freely. (Weil, 2006). Many companies do not advocate blogs, even personal ones that do not address company information, and will inflict severe penalties, including termination, on employees found to have one. Internal blogs written by the average employee are not very common either at least not yet. What most corporations appear to be utilizing blogs for right now are external communications to customers and internal communications to team members.

Corporate blog pros:
Large companies (and even small ones) have such a collective wealth of information that it is nearly impossible to share it all with every single employee in the company, especially in an effective manner. In my experience as a communicator at a large company, mass e-mails are usually very impersonal and are phrased in "corporate speak", which a large number of employees have no tolerance for. The popularity of "Buzzword Bingo" and television shows such as The Office, which skewers cubicle life, proves that the corporate world and all of the buzzwords that go with it leaves something to be desired to a good deal of the workforce. Employees have become so frustrated with whitewashing and corporate speak that I believe they may start to tune it out after a while. Because of their informal, diary-like tone, blogs can help Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and their direct reports become human to their employees again while still accomplishing the goal of sending pertinent information to the masses.

This is a plus for blogs that I feel is underrated, at least in very large companies where the executives are just names. A blog can help the image of a company leader and establish that they are regular people who talk and write just like the average Joe does. (Flynn, 2006)

For executives who want to stay in touch with those who are actually "in the field" every day, blogs are an "unparalleled information-gathering mechanism" (Weil, p. 134) that connects them with the water-cooler buzz that they probably don't have access to otherwise - at least not in large companies where the executives may not even work in the same country as many of the employees.

Another point for advocating blogs is that executives can not only send important information, but receive it as well. The CEO of Pfizer said he receives 75 e-mails a day from employees who tell him what competitors are doing, which is an incredible source of information for him. (Wall Street Journal, 2005) If he had a blog, he would have the same line of valuable communication straight from the employees, but would have it all in one place and could tailor the topic to get team member responses about a specific concern or issue.

When you compare that kind of customization to 525 weekly e-mails about topics that range wildly and may not be a matter the CEO wants or needs feedback on, you see that blogs can greatly increase effeciency and decrease time wasted on needless e-mails.

Although e-mails are in the same vein as blogging - they are both essentially sending a message from one person to another - blogging is much more user-friendly. When publishing a message via e-mail or to a Web page, the process takes more than 40 steps. To publish to a blog that has already been set up, the process is cut down by 90 percent to four or five steps. (Kline and Burstein, 2005)

All of the reasons listed above for why blogs can increase CEO credibility, efficiency, visibility and even likeability lead me to another reason that blogs are for the savvy business: the executives get all of those positive results for an incredibly low price.
Compared to other communications strategies, blogs can be very affordable (Weil, 2006). The time and effort involved in putting together PowerPoint presentations, messages in hard-copy magazines and mass e-mails that have to go through an extensive approval process before being sent out can be quite costly when converted to man-hours. A blog is the time of one person, jotting down his or her thoughts. It can take five minutes, if that's the time the executive has, or it can take an hour.

Some pro-blog arguments state that blogging is not going to be an option executives will have the opportunity to consider in the future - they will be mandatory for companies who want customers and employees to take them seriously. "In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees and the broader business community through blogs. For executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than e-mail is today." (Schwartz, p.30) By that argument, then, it seems wise for companies to make the leap now and appear to be innovators, rather than hop on the bandwagon after most companies already have.

Corporate blog cons:
Although it seems blogging can only be beneficial for businesses, there is another side to the story. In a world that is increasingly litigation-happy, blogs might make it too easy for defamation and invasion of privacy or to breach information security.

A majority of employers surveyed are worried that corporate blogs may result in security breaches and loss of company confidentiality (Wired News, 2005). Although this is primarily a concern for external blogs, there is the potential for internal breaches of security as well. For instance, if upper management is considering downsizing and an executive says something that might allude to that in a blog without wording his or her thoughts carefully, mass chaos could erupt in the company.

A fear related to the one above is the fact that blogs mean companies would not have the rigid control over the message being sent out about their brand that they are used to having and expect to have. This very fear has stopped 22 percent of employers from starting a corporate blog (iUpload, 2005).

One issue corporations appear to have reservations about is loss of productivity. Even if employees are writing or reading a professional blog that pertains to work and the company, it is still taking time away from their "real" jobs. Although the blogs would be business-related, bosses may feel that their reports could use their time better elsewhere, perhaps making sales or collecting on delinquent accounts doing something that involves "real" money. This may boil down to different environments at different companies, but it is still a mindset that needs to be considered. Their fears may be justified according to a 2005 article in Ad Age, "35 million workers, or one in four employees, spend 3.5 hours, or nine percent of the work week, in the blogosphere." (Johnson, 2005) That research doesn't include the time an employee spends surfing the Internet on sites that aren't blogs. In terms an employer can relate to - money the cost of the average worker wasting two hours a day is a loss of $759 billion in productivity every year (Malachowski, 2005).

A major concern of executives from the writing standpoint is the amount of time it is going to take them to blog. While blogs can be ghostwritten, saving the executive time, people can typically tell when an executive is writing for himself or herself or if they are having a marketing or communications consultant write for him. Even if they can't tell immediately, they are extremely disillusioned when they do eventually find out the blogger hasn't really been writing entries and the blogger's credibility drops (Wielage, 2006). This fake blogging phenomenon is called "flogging". "Blogs that are written by dispassionate marketing professionals who are simply going through the motions of writing copy... are destined for failure, public ridicule and perhaps attack in the blogosphere." (Flynn, p. 86)

This research proves that if an executive says he or she is writing a blog, he or she really needs to be writing the blog. Executives may think that writing a blog themselves is going to take a huge chunk of time, which can be true for those who are not trained in proper grammar, spelling and linguistics. Executives who are more formal may have a hard time writing in an "off-the-cuff" manner and it may take them time to craft an appropriate blog entry perhaps wasting their time and therefore the company's money.

Another reason time is a valid concern is that for a blog to be successful, it must be updated frequently (Wielage, 2006). The number of times per week or per month is much debated but likely varies with the company, the topics and the person writing. If the executive is not comfortable with writing, providing content that frequently is going to be time-consuming.

If the problem is the staid executive, and the solution is to communicate more informally with employees, why can't that be done in formats that already exist within the company? Examples may include mass e-mails, intranet postings or company newsletters. Although the start-up costs of a blog may appear to be very small, someone has to maintain it at least minimally, especially if the executive writing the blog is not comfortable receiving real-time, unedited comments that most blog formats have. An employee would have to be salaried to maintain that blog when they had previously been using their time to be productive in other areas. A mass e-mail doesn't need anyone to maintain it and therefore does not cost manhours. Although one of the "pro" arguments says that an e-mail takes many more steps to complete, people in the corporate world send sometimes hundreds or e-mails every day with little trouble.

Another important variable in this research is age, which, surprisingly, is not a factor that was taken into consideration in most research on internal blogs. It stands to reason that a majority of older generations are not as comfortable using the Internet and related technologies as generations X, Y and those that followed. A study conducted by Perseus Development Corporation (see table below) found that the difference in percentages of teenagers and 20-somethings blogging versus bloggers ages 30 and up is significant.
(Perseus.com, 2005)

Age is not the only reason an employee would be uncomfortable commenting on or reading an executive blog - another variable is education levels. Team members who work in technology and have advanced degrees may be more comfortable with developing technologies, whereas team members who work on the loading dock and may not even have a high school education may not be comfortable with computers.

A third factor is the level that team members are engaged in their work for the company. Team members extremely devoted to work and the brand of the company are more likely to be interested in what their company leaders have to say about various developments. Team members who only work for the money and have nothing invested in their jobs might be more apt to overlook an executive blog.

The impact of corporate blogs on internal communications is growing every day. While they are not 100 percent accepted by corporations as of 2007, especially in traditional companies such as those in the financial industry, they do have a business use and that business use will be fully realized as the medium is finely honed and perhaps regulated to a degree. The answer to the problem/question are blogs a viable form of internal communications is that yes, they are beginning to be and they only have room to grow. Any form of communication that allows the top level to communicate more clearly with the lower levels and make them feel more included in the company will be successful. The potential is tremendous and the popularity of blogs will increase as technology-savvy people advance their careers.