Internet Fax Software

Google in India

2012-02-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

I found a rather interesting article about the continuing battle of social networking and search sites with censorship in India. It shows that some people are not willing to budge on these issues.

"Google India has removed web pages deemed offensive to Indian political and religious leaders to comply with a court case that has raised censorship fears in the world's largest democracy, media reported Monday. The action follows weeks of intense government pressure for 22 Internet giants to remove photographs, videos or text considered "anti-religious" or "anti-social." A New Delhi court Monday gave Facebook, Google, YouTube and Blogspot and the other sites two weeks to present further plans for policing their networks, according to the Press Trust of India. For India's more than 100 million Internet users, the government says, U.S. Internet standards are not acceptable. The case highlights the difficulty India faces in balancing conservative religious and political sentiments with its hope that freewheeling Internet discourse and technology will help spur the economy and boost living standards for its 1.2 billion people."

First of all, I wonder just how far it would extend. Would it include internet phone services since they are using the internet as well? Secondly, who is to decide what is deemed "offensive" or even anti-social? I guess if it is decided by the people, then that would be the definition of a democracy. It seems like people are throwing words around that they do not even understand the meaning of. What are your thoughts on the issue?

Do Not Call The Geek Squad Just Yet

2012-02-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

If your computer seems to be on the fritz, you might want try a couple of things by yourself first. If your internet phone connection is not too great, try restarting the computer or moving to spot where you can get better signal if you have a wireless internet connection. When you go online and constantly get spam messages with a ton of pop-ups, there is probably something going on in the background. It might be some simple hijacking malware, so you tell them. Just download Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy, and run them. It'll be fixed with virtually no effort on your part. One of the best reasons to try doing some of the things yourself is that if you take it in somewhere, it will cost you a pretty penny. I've heard prices range from $40 to $150 per hour. If your local shop falls into those higher rates and your repair is going to take three or four hours, you're now talking about a bill that's equal to a brand new tower. Last of all, you need to come to terms with the fact that you might lose some of your stuff.

Merging Your Data

2012-01-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

Most people today have more accounts than they know what to do with. They range from different emails and social networks to internet fax and internet phone services. It would be more convenient to be able to connect and lump some of them together. Google, of course, is one of the first ones to jump on the idea. The changes, which take effect March 1, will remove some of the legal hurdles Google Inc. faces in trying to link information across services from Gmail to YouTube to the Google Plus social network that replaced Buzz. More than 70 different company policies are being streamlined into one main privacy policy and about a dozen others. Separate policies will continue to govern products including Google’s Chrome Web browser and its Wallet service for electronic payments. The company said the new system will give users more relevant search results and information, while helping advertisers find customers – especially on mobile devices. The changes follow the shutdown of Buzz last month. After its introduction less than two years ago, the social networking tool was ridiculed for exposing users’ most-emailed contacts to other participants by default, inadvertently revealing some users’ ongoing contact with ex-spouses and competitors. Google has since made Plus the focal point of its challenge to Facebook’s social network. In the first seven months since its debut, Plus has attracted more than 90 million users, according to Google. To promote Plus, Google recently began including recommendations about people and companies with Plus accounts in its search results. That change has provoked an outcry from critics who say Google is abusing its dominance in Internet search to drive more traffic to its own services.

Internet Control in India...Again

2012-01-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

The internet is one of the most important things in the world today, that you cannot actually touch, interestingly enough. A lot of the world's commerce depends on it and many businesses use communication services such as internet phones and emails over it. That being said, I found an article today about the lawsuit that has been going on in India. Here is part of it:

Internet giants Google and Facebook told an Indian court on Monday that it is not possible for companies to block offensive content that appears on their websites, in a case that has stoked fears about censorship in the world's largest democracy. Google and Facebook are among 21 companies that have been asked to develop a mechanism to block objectionable material, after a private petitioner took the websites to court over images deemed offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

At the heart of the dispute is a law passed last year in the country that makes companies responsible for user content posted on their websites, requiring them to take it down within 36 hours in case of a complaint. The case was originally filed in a lower court, but the companies have appealed to the Delhi High Court, challenging the lower court's ruling asking them to take down some content. "The search engine only takes you till the website. What happens after that is beyond a search engine's control," Neeraj Kishan Kaul, a lawyer for Google's Indian unit, told a packed High Court hearing on Monday. Siddharth Luthra, a lawyer for Facebook told the court it was not possible for the social network to "single out" any individual on the basis of religion or views and said the users should be held responsible for content they post.

Improving Communication in a Business

2012-01-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

By being able to record the video conferences and internet phone sessions, I can improve the way my business runs. I can use it either for reference or review. It is also useful to share with others who were not able to make the conference. Another great thing about it is that you'll have free access to a full catalog of training options, including quick 2-minute "How-do-I...?" videos, as well as self-paced and instructor-led courses that cover everything from the basics, to best practices, to advanced-level skills. Of course if you run into problems that are not addressed in the videos, there is 24/7 technical support by WebEx for issues that come up. If you need to cancel an account, all you need to do is call the customer service toll free number. Your account will automatically renew at the end of your current term agreement. To cancel an account, you must call at least 30 days before the end of the term agreement to avoid being billed for the following month. Your current term is based on the date you originally subscribed.

Online Meetings with WebEx

2012-01-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

One of the best parts of internet phones services and holding online meetings is that not only are people able to share documents, they are also able to edit them remotely on the host's desktop. This makes things go much faster instead of the people trying to describe the changes that are needed to be made. You may pass the presenter ball to an attendee. The new presenter will share their own computer screen, application, or document, or you can let an attendee control your computer screen, application, or document and vice versa. VoIP or Internet calling lets participants join from their computer, using a computer headset with a microphone and speaker. Conference call-in number provides a single number for participants to call to join the conference and the Call-Me service makes it even easier for participants to join, by having the session call them at the number they specify once they've joined on the web. Another great thing about the phone service is that the toll-free calling provides your participants with a toll-free number to call in and also supports the Call-Me service mentioned above. WebEx services support mixed conferencing capabilities, so different people can join by computer or phone within the same session.

How Internet Phones Are Used

2012-01-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

Chances are good you're already making VoIP calls any time you place a long-distance call. Phone companies use VoIP to streamline their networks. By routing thousands of phone calls through a circuit switch and into an IP gateway, they can seriously reduce the bandwidth they're using for the long haul. Once the call is received by a gateway on the other side of the call, it's decompressed, reassembled and routed to a local circuit switch. Although it will take some time, you can be sure that eventually all of the current circuit-switched networks will be replaced with packet-switching technology. IP telephony just makes sense, in terms of both economics and infrastructure requirements. More and more businesses are installing VoIP systems, and the technology will continue to grow in popularity as it makes its way into our homes. Probably the biggest draws to VoIP for the home users that are making the switch are price and flexibility. This is also part of the reason that there are more home businesses being started. The phone services are so flexible that it lets the user control all the settings online such as setting the times and call forwarding features.

Gap Between What Your Brain Can Do and What You Explicitly Know

2011-12-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

Have you ever typed out an email or internet fax without even thinking about the motions that your fingers went through? This is referred to as the gap between the implicit knowledge that cannot be accessed consciously and the things that you are aware on a daily basis. The best way to mess up your piano piece is to concentrate on your fingers; the best way to get out of breath is to think about your breathing; the best way to miss the golf ball is to analyze your swing. These are the things that need to be left alone and let your body take control of these tasks. Another interesting finding about these two different types of memory is that one is completely independent of the the other. While many animals are properly called intelligent, humans distinguish themselves in that they are so flexibly intelligent, fashioning their neural circuits to match the task at hand. It is for this reason that we can colonize every region on the planet, learn the local language we're born into, and master skills as diverse as playing the violin, high-jumping, and operating the space shuttle. So what I am getting at here is that we should all take a moment to appreciate all the work that our brain really does.

TV Side Effects

2011-12-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

One of the side effects of watching TV is that it will lower your attention span. Not to mention that we are already scatter brain from all the different phone services and apps and constant feeds. Something obvious about watching large amounts of TV is that they will alter your dreams. I guess the extent of excitement of your dreams will depend on how intense the television shows are that you watching. Better yet, you can actually get rid of that lonely feeling just by watching TV, seriously. People tend to identify with characters and even feel a sense of belonging. Here is a no brainer: it also makes you gain weight. Well I think that it is not the TV directly that makes people fat, you have to sit to watch most TV. People have to get up and move around once in a while. This might be the reason for the obesity epidemic and that kids are getting taken away from their parents. Although, that might be pushing it.

Ban on Cell Phones

2011-12-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Many states are proposing a ban on using phone services in cars, from texting to even talking hands free, besides making emergency calls. One of the glaring problems with that is the issue of enforcing these laws. How would the police know that the person is talking on the phone, to someone in the car, or just singing to themselves? Also, what would deem a call an emergency? Part of the solution to finding people that are using their phone in their car while driving is to use the cell phone equivalent of a radar gun since all phones emit some sort of signal. I find extremely confusing that with all the wonderful statistics out there about people dying because they just need to send that last text or make that phone call, people are still doing it behind the wheel. The other day I saw a guy texting on his motorcycle at a red light and then as soon as the light turned green, he stuck the massive smartphone in his mouth and took off. I was left speechless.

Calling Options

2011-12-13T17:09:00.000-08:00

Call transferring is important when running a business so that no one gets a business signal or gets the answering service. Transfer a call while using a simple phone without call control capability. Call Transfer allows you to transfer a call even when your phone does not have a transfer button. To transfer a call, flash the phone (click the flash button or click the hang up button once) then dial the number you would like to transfer the call to. Once the transfer number answers, click flash again and the two callers are connected. If you have Flash Three-Way Calling, instead of transferring on the second flash, you are connected in a conference call. Once in the conference call, if you hang up the phone, the callers remain talking to each other, in effect, transferred. This is one of the best phone service features from BroadVoice because it keeps everything running smoothly and efficiently.

Hacker Skills

2011-12-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

With the technology advancing, so are the skills of the hackers. Many companies are actually hiring the self taught hackers to be able to find out their IT weak spots. Some of the things that you hear about in the news seems like science fiction but with the right weakness in the technology, hackers can find loopholes. The idea’s simple, and underlies the methods used today to gain illicit access to computers and related deices: Give a computing device too many balls to juggle by exploiting some programmatic mechanic and it chokes. That’s essentially how hacktivist groups like Anonymous and LulzSec smashed corporate and governmental security measures this year, hobbling web servers and knocking sites and services offline–even allegedly crippling the CIA’s website back in June. This means that not even fax machines let alone internet fax are completely immune.

Recycling: A Game

2011-11-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

I am sure that you have never thought of doing something good for the environment as a game but a company in Boston thought of a great way to play into people's compulsive need for instant gratification. Here is an excerpt of the article that I found:

But maybe it doesn't have to be. A Boston company called Greenbean Recycle is trying to make the act of keeping bottles and cans out of the landfill into a fun, competitive and engaging game for students at MIT. The new company, which won an innovation prize this week from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has converted a beefy recycling machine on MIT's campus into a point tabulator of sorts. When students approach the high-tech trash can to dump in their recyclables, they punch their phone number on a touch screen. A bar-code reader in the machine counts the number of cans, bottles and the like that the person has dropped off - and then uploads that data to Greenbean's website. There is also an 800 number that people can call to get more information about a particular machine. Recyclers can track their progress online, and even engage in competitions with fellow students.

Wireless Electricity

2011-10-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

Imagine a scenario where you are in the middle of an important internet phone call and you are starting to get really low on battery strength and there is not a power cord or an outlet in sight. We live in a wireless world so why should we have to plug our devices in to charge them? The wireless charging mat is still relatively new but it is bound to gain more attention and popularity in the next couple years. From experience, it is one of the best devices that really lets me live life uncluttered. The best part is that it is a universal charger for basically everything. Another great aspect of the charging mat is that I can charge many devices at once and when one of them is fully charged, the power to that device shuts off. So, there is no energy wasted. Do you use one of these charging devices?

Punishments

2011-10-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

When you were a kid, did it ever feel like the punishment for what ever you did was a bit overboard? Well, guess what, you are not the only one. It used to seem as though any punishment did not fit the crime and kids will not understand until they themselves have kids. I am sure that your kids thinks it was no big deal going over the data limit on the internet while downloading all those fun things from email and VoIP services. So why do parents act the way they do? The simple answer is fear. Yes, they are afraid that they are not doing enough to raise you and they are trying to cram all those years of knowledge of what to do and what not to do in the time span of two years, because all the other years, the kid will just drown them out. Parents do not have all the time in the world for their kids to learn by trail and error. There are too many errors that can be made and some you cannot go back from. So the next time your kids think it is rather unfair, the punishment is driven out of pure panic.

Cell Phone Side Effects

2011-10-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

Phone services are great to have, whether you just have a cell phone that has the standard functions or if you have a smart phone that can do virtually everything, including making internet phone calls with video conferencing. Something to consider is that everything can come with side effects. One of the things that you have to deal with is what I would like to call updated anxiety. It seems as soon as one phone comes out, they are already coming out with the update or something completely different and new. Also, your phone can a serious conversation killer. If you are out at dinner and everyone is tweeting about their food or checking their ex's status, you have just wasted a lot of time and money on pretending to get together. Phones can be the main reason that we miss out on real life because we are tool busy polishing up our online profiles.

Cell Phone Service in Subways

2011-09-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, it must be a huge pain in the rear when you cannot get cell phone service in subways. Some of the stations offer service underground. New York subways are finally getting the service that SF and Boston have already had for a couple years. The signals will cover the platforms and mezzanines of the stations, but extend only a short distance into tunnels. Cellular data services and text messaging will work in addition to calls. The company that's doing the wiring, Transit Wireless, has another five years to set up service at the other 271 stations in the system. That means it needs to wire about one new station per week. This is a great thing because then people will be able to get some work done on the subways if they are business professionals who do a lot of their communication with mobile phones.

How Much Do You Text

2011-09-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

Did you know that many young adults average about 110 text messages a day? For those of you who are still living in the 20th century or under a rock, the number is not that surprising. About a third of all cell phone service users actually prefer to get text than phone calls. To be honest, I would rather get a text too instead of phone calls. When you are on the phone, you can only talk to one person at a time while you can text as many people as you can at one time. It is also a hassle and takes a longer time check voicemail, even if it is visual voicemail. One of the things that I like about texting and is better than getting on your phone is that it is much more discrete and the people around you do not have to listen to your conversation. Even with internet phones being rolled out, people are still texting or using some sort of messaging service. This is one of the reasons that phone companies are raking in so much money from these phone services.

Finding That Lost Phone

2011-09-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

According to statistics, you have probably lost your phone at least once and then freaked out along with all the expletives about how your life is over because all your information is on that single device. Then you realize that you do not know anyone's phone number because you gave your memory to your phone several years ago, and then you come to the conclusion that your life is doubly over. Well, once you are finished hitting your head against that wall because you have nothing else to do, take a deep breath and relax. There are phone services that let you find your phone. Now, if it is stolen, it is not recommended that you confront the person that stole it, gadgets can be replaced but people cannot. One of the best things to do is to call law officials and give them the information that can lead them to where the thief is. On a different note, if you are ever thinking of taking someone's phone, please reconsider it. It really is not worth it because of all the GPS programs.

Gestures

2011-09-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Before playing video games meant that people would sit there and move their figure at the right and fast enough. Now with motion recognizing technology, playing video games means that kids and adults can get up off the couch and move around while having fun at the same time. With this type of technology, it would be very unlikely that it would just stay in the gaming realm. People are thinking of using this technology for things as simple as turning on the lights to as complicated as operating any application at a kiosk or even performing business tasks like working an internet phone service. One of the best things about the new technology that is being developed is that it does not need any wands like the Wii or the Kinect systems which use infrared cameras. It uses ambient electromagnetic radiation emitted as a matter of course by the wiring in households, by the power lines above homes, and by those gas pumps at the service station. I guess we will have to see where this takes us.

Unhackable Code

2011-09-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

With all these companies, such as phone service providers and other account holding companies, being hacked and compromised, it is important to find a code that is unbreakable. A team claims to have come up with a code that cannot be broken. Here is more on it:

"A unique key is generated for every encoded item. Even if someone were able to discover the key to unlock and decrypt one file, others would remain unaffected by the breach, the Kleiners say. They're so sure of their code's security that the Kleiners ran a contest this summer offering $100,000 to anyone who could crack it. No one broke the code during the two months that the little-publicized competition ran. They even challenged the National Security Agency to break it, which declined to comment beyond saying the agency welcomes such submissions. If you're skeptical, so are cryptography and cybersecurity experts. Encryption, they say, is not the weakest link in the security chain. People are."

The article makes an interesting point when it says that it is the people that are the weakest link. It rings true because we have seen again and again that people are creatures of habit. The need to have a password that is hard to forget is to the advantage of the person or program that is trying to get into the account. The security professionals need to be getting creative as well.

What Does Internet Fax Software Have to Offer Your Company

2011-08-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

If you decide to switch from traditional faxing to internet faxing the first thing you will notice is that you don't need and hardware in your office. You can start by throwing your old fax machine out the window. With internet fax you just need your computer and internet access and your ready to go. There are so many different features with internet fax that will improve your business communication needs and advance your business to levels of a corporate business. With internet fax software you can either use a toll free number or a local one depending on what you choose and what your clients are looking for. You can send and receive faxes as email so that they are stored in your account for easy access later. It's so simple all you have to do to send the fax is click the Ringcentral Fax Icon on the toolbar and your on your way. One of the best things about using internet fax is that it is so secure because it is sent over an encrypted connection and you keep your password protected on your online account. So get your company up on top with an easy switch over to Ringcentral an internet phone service company.

Skype Buying GroupMe

2011-08-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

The internet phone company Skype is expanding by buying GroupMe which is a group messaging service. This a great thing because texting plans are getting too expensive even if they are these so called "unlimited" plans. What type of communication do you use? Here is more about it in detail:

"The acquisition brings Skype into the quickly growing field of mobile group messaging, which has been rolled out on a variety of smartphone apps including one recently launched by Facebook. Skype already offers a number of group communication options, including Web-based conference calls and group video chats. New York-based GroupMe was founded last year at a gathering called the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. In addition to group texts, it offers conference calls, photo sharing and location sharing. Its services are free, though users have to pay for text messages they get or send.

Skype, a privately held company, did not say how much it will pay for GroupMe. Skype is based in Luxembourg and was founded in 2003. Skype is itself being bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. The deal was announced in May and the companies hope to close by the end of this year."

Internet Without WiFi

2011-08-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes traveling can be hard on your business because you need to keep up with all the internet fax and internet phone calls. Unfortunately internet is not everywhere you go and it is not always secure. One of the solutions is to tether your laptop or tablet to a phone that has 3G or 4G. Another solution is to use a USB modems. Here is some more information about it:

AT&T offers five models (four 3G and one 4G) USB modems ranging from free to $49.99 with a two-year contract or $49.99 to $89.99 without a contract. Data plans that can be used with these modems start at $35 per month for 3G and $50 per month for 4G.

Sprint offers four models (one 3G, one 4G, and two 3G/4G) ranging from free to $49.99 with a two-year contract and $199.99 to $249.99 without a contract. Sprint data plans start at $44.99 per month.
T-Mobile offers two 4G models, free and $79.99 with a two-year contract and $124.99 and $174.99 without a contract, with data plans starting at $39.99 per month.
Verizon offers four 4G models, both new and used, ranging from free to $79.99 with a two- year contract, $249.99 each without a contract, with data plans starting at $30 per month.

We Do Not Like to Finish Video Games

2011-08-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

With all the games out there, only about a tenth of the people that play actually finish the games. The question here is why not too many people are finishing the games when they are rated so high and apparently a lot of fun to play, according to the magazines that rate all of them. Well first of all, the average gamer is about 41 years old, which means that they are worried about doing other things such as raising kids, worrying about retirement, and in the middle of a career. People just do not have the time, they need it to send the extra internet fax, play with their phone, and update their Facebook status, of course. They also have much shorter attention spans because of the constant digital distraction. Another reason that people are not finishing those video games is that there are so many different games that people jump from one to the other. There is also the growth of the online multiplayer games to consider. With all the social networks, it was slightly inevitable. So the solution to people not finishing the games is to make them shorter but the problem with that is that people like to keep playing with the expansion packs which include more situations and territory.

Love: An Addiction

2011-08-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

For those of you with your head in the clouds or constantly using internet phones to call your sweetie, take a break and listen for a second. That feeling of love is the intense rush of chemicals in your brain. Sorry to burst your bubble guys but even that feeling of rejection has the equivalent effects of withdrawal from strong drugs. Haven't you ever wondered about the physical side effects of a broken heart? Just as going cold turkey, after being rejected, you would still be craving being with that person. So, the best way to treat a broken heart is to treat it like withdrawals from an addictive drug. Some of the suggestions in dealing with the emotional and physical pain include getting rid of everything that might remind you of that other person. Out of sight, out of mind as the saying goes. Another way to decrease the effects that this withdrawal might have is to try new things. Novelty increases the production of dopamine which makes you feel good. Any other suggestions? I do apologize for boiling "love" down to a chemical equation.

Facebook and School

2011-08-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

Now researchers are saying that there is an association between kids using social networking sites and grades. Children these days have a harder time keeping on track and focusing on one thing because of all the really cool technology that is right at their fingertip. The communication devices such as internet phones and social networking are also within reach. There are many arguments for and against social networking so tell me what you guys think.

"Psychologists and teachers can combat the decline in productivity by teaching students about the concept of metacognition — knowing how your brain works and how to study. For studying, that means turning off Facebook and not task-switching. One strategy that Rosen recommends to schools is “tech breaks,” in which teachers help students increase their attention span. Teachers start by picking a 15-minute block of time in which students must put away their phones and focus. When the time expires, students are allowed a one-minute tech break to use apps, sends texts or check Facebook.
“One minute turns out to be a pretty darn long time,” says Rosen. “We now know neurologically that if we don't have a tech break, kids are already starting to think about anything other than what the teacher talking about. If they know they get a tech break, they're able to stop those thoughts. It works amazingly.”

End of Smoking

2011-08-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Since the last century, the number of people smoking has been on the decline but the question is if there will ever be an end to the smoking habits. For those of us who are catching the last couple puffs before going back to the slew of emails and internet fax and meetings over internet phones, it might be time for a reality check. Or two for that matter. The first one is that it might be time for a job change if there is no enthusiasm about going back to the office day in and day out. The second one is that it is getting so expensive to smoke, both in the short run and in the long run, that it is very counter productive to be smoking at a job that you absolutely do not like. There have been prediction made about how the past-time of smoking will eventually decline. Some say that it is going to be a steady drop with both the smokers and cigarette companies. Other say that it might taper off but the hard core smokers will be the ones hanging on at all costs. Another aspect of this change to consider is the businesses around the area, which might soon ban it and it would be easier to control so less people will do. Either way, it is a step in the right direction.

Phone Shortcuts

2011-07-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

If you have a phone service with VoicePulse for your business but do not have enough time to get to the online account, here are some shortcuts that can be really useful:

*67 to turn on CallerID Block on a per-call basis
*69 to return a call to the last number that called you
*70 to disable Call Waiting on a per-call basis
*82 to turn off CallerID Block on a per-call basis
*100 to hear your phone number
*120 to turn Enhanced Voicemail on/off
*123 to check your voicemail
*130 to turn Call Forward on/off
*140 to turn Do Not Disturb on/off
*141 to turn Do Not Disturb prompting on/off
*150 to turn Telemarketer Block on/off
*160 to turn Anonymous Call Block on/off
*161 to turn Anonymous Call Block prompting on/off

These phone service features are extremely useful because they let you change settings and check voice mail on the go. It is important if you want your business to expand and grow, possibly going global.

Losing Contacts on a Smartphone

2011-07-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the number one reason that people lose their contacts on their smart phones and end up damaging certain phone services is by them falling in the toilet? I was cruising this internet and found that piece of information slightly funny. What I got from it, is that people are on their phones nearly 24/7 even when they have personal business to attend to. Is it me, or are we going to a bit of an extreme? Just a thought. Here is more information on the study:

"Smartphone users love to access their devices anytime, anywhere – even the bathroom. That’s why one in five people who have lost their smartphone address-book contacts have done so by dropping the device into the toilet, according to a new study. A new survey from online address book company Plaxo found that the toilet was the number reason why people have lost or damaged their mobile address book.

Meanwhile, about 55 percent of smartphone users say losing their address book information is a bigger hassle than losing their photos, email, internet fax, apps, calendar and music. But most of smartphone owners already know how important it is to back up information or store it remotely in the cloud, as 68 percent already back up their personal computers more than the general population. Over the next 2 years, two-fifths of respondents said they expect to increase reliance on remote or cloud access to their mobile contacts."

Virtual Addictions

2011-07-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of addictions that we have been dealing with over the years but more recent additions have to do with virtual goods, no joke. I guess if it is internet fax and constantly checking emails that is your addition, it can be a good thing for your business and career but as far as gaming goes, it is a whole other world. Video games put us in what is called a Skinner Box. We get rewarded for winning and then "punished" for not pushing the buttons. Our brains are wired in such a way that we respond to the rewards. This industry has taken a step further and made an entire industry out of virtual goods. Everyone needs and craves some sort of feeling of achievement and this is what feeds the video game addictions. Another reason people turn to video games with large amounts of time is that people like the fact that they can control what happens in the game and there is a connection between effort and rewards which is not as apparent in the real world. What are your thoughts on the virtual addictions?

Wristband Tracking Activity

2011-07-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Now after the gym, there is no place to hide from your personal trainer. Your new personal trainer is now on your wrist in the form of a wristband called Up by Jawbone.

The small piece of health-conscious wristwear, due out later this year, will tie into a clever smartphone app. On the app you'll be able to log your eating habits by snapping shots of your food. The Up app crunches the numbers, giving you a data-rich portrait of your lifestyle, complete with motivational nudges to improve upon your existing health habits.

In the vast realm of technology, consumer health tech remains largely unexplored. With the advent of the Wii, exercise and gaming suddenly made sense in combination, and Microsoft's Kinect has improved on the formula since. Jawbone's Up also takes its cues from devices like the Nike+, a small exercise sensor with a companion app. But rather than just focusing on the kind of stats runners care about, the Up wants to paint a comprehensive portrait of health, from what we eat to how we sleep. All this technology could also be hooked up to internet phone services as well so that you would be getting even more motivation from working towards goals with friends.

Both devices employ sensors to passively monitor our activities, zapping a wealth of personal data to the web where we can analyze and make sense of it. While we're arguably not quite cyborgs yet, more feedback technology on and in our bodies is just over the horizon.

Is the Cyberwar Real?

2011-07-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

With all the hacking attempts, people are starting to wonder if there will be such a thing as a cyberwar. Here is what some experts have to say on the subject:

However, while the security problems recently making headlines are no doubt serious, they do not amount to war. War means tanks and bombers and mass casualties and buildings destroyed. War can threaten a nation's existence. Yet despite what Sen. Lieberman and company say, there's nothing to suggest that the cyber threats we're confronting today are anywhere near as dangerous as World War II or the A-Bomb. The problem with the war metaphor is that treating a cyber attack as an act of war, rather than a crime, invites a different governmental response. In the offline world, vandalism, theft, and even international espionage are treated as crimes. When you detect them, you call law enforcement, who investigate and prosecute and, most importantly, do so while respecting your civil liberties. In war, these niceties can go out the window.

To some degree, I will have to disagree with the authors on this point. First of all, if something like email or internet fax is hacked it can be considered a crime. But what if something like a medical device is hacked and it results in the death of a person, and doesn't this mean that the possibility that it could happen on a mass scale exists. As we are becoming more dependent on technology, we are becoming more vulnerable if it is destroyed or taken away. Stealing information does not a war make, but it is how it is used or how much of it is destroyed. Just something to chew on.

Glasses That Tell You When To Shut Up

2011-07-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

I found this pretty futuristic article about glasses that can actually monitor the physiological responses of the person you are talking to and then infer the emotions and eventually tell you when to stop talking because the angle that you are trying to work is not working all too well.

"We've all been part of a conversation where we wish we had stopped talking a few sentences sooner than we did. Researchers from MIT and Cambridge have now developed a pair of glasses that can read the facial expressions of your conversation partner and let you know if your words are hitting their mark, or if you should simply stop in your tracks. Using a miniscule camera to monitor the action, compact computer hardware built into the glasses tracks 24 parts of the human face and infers emotions from this collective data. In addition to studying facial movements, the futuristic specs are intelligent enough to glean important mood information from factors such as speech pattern, skin moisture, and body language. When the glasses notice that something is amiss, a connected microphone quietly whispers the information into the wearer's ear. Should things get particularly dire, a small red light on the inside of the glasses flashes to indicate that it's time to keep quiet. The possible applications of such a technology are staggering. Law enforcement officials could use them as a first line of defense against lies and deceit, while retailers might equip their associates with a pair to make sure each sales pitch is perfectly received. The technology is still early, with just prototype versions of the shades now in testing, but should they ever be introduced at a consumer level, they just might make our conversations a tad less awkward."

Now, wouldn't it be nice to have a service like this for internet phone conversations? I was looking at the different voice recognition technology and I have found that it is still in the testing phase. What do you think of these glasses?

Which Browser to Use?

2011-06-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

When choosing a browser, there are certain things that need to be considered such as speed, security, and capabilities. This is also important because internet fax needs to be compatible with the different applications. Here is the breakdown that I found on the characteristics of browsers:

Speed
Two common ways of affecting the speed of your browser are through Javascript and caching. Javascript, a type of programing language, powers many websites. Switching to a browser with better Javascript performance can be like switching to a faster computer. Also, browsers take some parts of the websites you visit and store them on your computer's hard drive, so they don’t have to download those pieces again when you return. This “caching” makes webpages load faster. Some browsers will even download pieces of webpages before you decide to visit them (based on your Web-browsing patterns), so they will load faster when you do.

Security
Security is critical when completing important tasks on the Internet. Browsers use methods not only to protect your information as you access websites, but also to protect your computer from malicious websites. Encryption, phishing filters and download warnings are common in most browsers. Some also use a “sandbox,” a memory space that cannot talk to the rest of your computer, as a way of protecting you from malicious websites.

Capabilities
Browsers have different built-in capabilities, and most have the ability to expand on those capabilities through add-ons, extensions, or plug-ins. Some will allow you to change their look through different color “themes.” Customizing your toolbars by adding, removing or moving buttons and bars is another way browsers can be personalized.

Lets Talk About Tech

2011-06-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when those tech geniuses are rattling on about something that you cannot get a word in edgewise? They just continue yacking about VoIP systems and ways to optimize marketing through FoIP services. They sound smart but recent research has pointed to talking about technology actually making people smarter. Talking tech is in and of itself an involved process, and one that actively requires us to stimulate different layers of cognitive function like logic and reason. According to the study, homo-sapiens have been around for at least 200,000 years, dating back to small nomadic tribes across Africa. Despite more or less appearing to be the humans we are today, their capacity for deep thinking was still lacking. It wasn't until the advent of tools like the spear about 80,000 years ago that our minds were able to take the needed steps necessary towards our current cognitive and sociological state. The study suggests that crafting something like a spear requires observation, planning and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to explain how and why something works. So lets talk about it.

Gadgets and Software of This Year

2011-06-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Some of the things to look for this year in the gadget world is not so much the devices but more of what they can do such as through the internet, the operating systems, and improved phone services. Streaming media and online gaming have really taken off in the past couple months. Test programs are hitting the market that allow patients to receive medical information in new ways, such as getting text message reminders when it is time to take their medications. Meanwhile, as consumers become more tech-savvy, they expect the same from their physicians, the experts said. Although most doctors still don’t use email to communicate with patients, younger doctors are starting to use this method more. In the healthcare industry, more different devices are being used such as diagnosing devices. Internet phone and video conferencing is also being used more widely in places where it is hard for doctors to go to. Do you know of any other new technology to look for this year?

History of Cloud Computing

2011-06-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

I came across this interesting article about cloud computing. Did you know that even though it just started being used recently for streaming media and hosted PBX services it has been around since the 1960s. Just like the developments of mobile devices themselves, this is all being driven by the consumer's desire to do things more easily and efficiently, which usually means having access to all facets of their digital life at all times. Some of the companies that use cloud computing that you might not even know about is Netflix and Cisco. This is the technology that enables there to be streaming videos online and enhances communication systems. Since it makes the information go faster, the quality of the video and voice that is being streamed is greatly improved compared to trying to stream using a simple WiFi connection. It makes things run more efficiently.

Internet: A Human Right

2011-06-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

I do not know if it should go that far but when the UN said that the internet should be a human right, they have a point. As of today, the internet is the main way that people communicate and use devices such as internet phones, email, or the social networking sites. Besides communication, the internet is said to be the "main way that people can exercise their rights". With the internet, society can wage war on equality and even fight discrimination. It also pushes human progress and development further. To take having the internet accessible and affordable to more people a step further, there need to be more laws ensuring the security and anonymity of the people using it. It is important that data is protected online because if it is in the wrong hands, there could be massive damage done. What do you think? Is internet a human right or should it stay the way it is and be available to the people that have the means and access to it?

Use of Cell Phones

2011-06-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you used your phone as a phone? There are so many phone services, such as emails, text messages, or internet fax, that can be used to communicate without actually picking up the phone to talk. Well more and more people are using their phones for everything but a telephone. I suppose it is much more convenient and faster to communicate that way. When sending emails of texts, people are able to talk to many people at the same time and on the phone you can only talk to a certain amount of people. Many people have also said that calling seems a bit intrusive because the person on the other line has to stop whatever it is that they are doing to pick up the phone. This new wave of cultural shift is propelled by the news put out by the WHO about how there is an association between cell phone use and people developing cancer from the radiation.

Gold Plated Cellphone

2011-05-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

This is for those people who do not really care about the quality of the phone services that they get or even if the provider offers internet phone features and the like. Enter the cellphone that is actually gold-plated. Yes you read that right, I said gold-plated. As far as the usefulness of this phone goes, it is beyond me and I will not start a rant about that. This phone from Nokia is going on sale later this year and will cost over a grand. What happened to functionality people? Instead of wasting money on a phone that is just for looks, why not use the money for a good cause? Obviously the person who gets this phone does not need it to survive. Think about that one.

Sony Back Online

2011-05-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

After the blackout that the Sony network experienced, they are back online. Sony claims it's added "considerable enhancements to the data security, including updating and adding advanced security technologies, additional software monitoring and penetration and vulnerability testing, and increased levels of encryption and additional firewalls." Sony says it's also added "a variety of other measures to the network infrastructure including an early-warning system for unusual activity patterns that could signal an attempt to compromise the network." In a press statement, Sony executive deputy president Kazuo Hirai apologized for the second time to Sony customers, explaining the lengthy delay was because "we did not rush to do so at the expense of extensively and aggressively testing our enhanced security measures." The company also dropped in a quote from Symantec's senior vice president Francis deSouza, who took aim at cyber-crime, citing "a dramatic rise in the volume of cyber attacks, their sophistication and their impact on businesses."Another aspect of these attack is that they are spread out over different parts of the network and communication systems such as accounts, emails, and even internet fax.

Taxes Increasingly Done Over the Internet

2011-03-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

More and more people are filing their taxes over the internet so not nearly as many of them are rushing to the post office on April 15th at midnight to get them done on time. A lot of business and documents are starting to be done online either through private programs or even internet fax. Pretty soon paper filing will not be around as the IRS might be requiring people to do it online. There is no denying how evident the trend is. There are even apps that let people file their taxes on the go. One of the advantages of doing it using the mobile web is that it does not take nearly as long and it is not as stressful. Another advantage is that the numbers will be more accurate because they will be put through a system that does a series of calculations that also looks at previous years. One of the downfalls of this type of filing is internet security. People have to worry about their documents being secure and this is where internet fax might come in handy. Some advice is that people should scan their systems more often during tax seasons.

More People With Ebooks Means a Drop for Paperbacks

2011-03-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

The last time you were in a bookstore, assuming that you go to bookstores, did you notice how empty the shelves were? It seems like more and more bookstores are going out of business. The interesting part about that is that those bookstores are thriving online through the sales of ebooks. Since there were such good sales on the iPads and eReaders, it is no surprise that the ebook market really took off. These readers are used for more than just books and reading, they are even used by business professionals for things like video conferencing and internet fax. E-books raked in a strong $69.9 million during January 2011, up from $32.4 million in January 2010. While e-books hit it big, sales of adult paperbacks and hardcovers dropped 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Which do you like to read more, the ebook or regular books?

What To Do With The Old iPad?

2011-03-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

Now with newer version of the iPad coming out that has improved all the features, including phone services and other internet abilities, you are probably wondering what you could do with the old one. You could always give it someone who is interested in the iPad but is not willing to actually spend the money on it, if it is in good condition of course. Then again you can keep it for yourself and transform it into a paper weight. There are some ideas that you might not be familiar with though. I found a few of them in this article:

Jailbreak your iPad

It is easy, fun and with one click, the tablet will become capable of doing things you never thought possible.

Jailbreaking your device — eliminating the operating restrictions that Apple imposes by default — allows you to be rid of those pesky restrictions and install third-party applications not approved by Apple. When you jailbreak, you'll have access to a whole boatload of free and interesting apps that other iPads just won’t be running. Apple operates the App Store like Fort Knox, and the company keeps tight control on the comings and goings of apps approved to operate on its iOS. Freeing your device allows for much more personal use (and danger), such as tethering 3G iPads to iPhones without having to pay an extra $30 per month to AT&T.

However, if something goes wrong, you are your own. Apple won’t be there to help you bring that expensive tablet back online. But, hey, you’ve got the iPad 2 now, so take some fun chances with the old one. Or use it as a paperweight for your desk. It’s up to you.

Jailbreaking your device is as easy as downloading a program made by Spirit.

Transform the iPad into a personal TV

In January, Comcast announced its subscribers will be able to watch live news, TV shows and movies on iPads. This means customers with tablets and a wireless router can watch TV anywhere in the house. Now that you have the iPad 2 to do all your heavy tablet lifting, you can transform the original into a personal TV set to carry around your home.

Digital photo frame

Apple sells a camera kit that allows you to easily import photos from your digital camera to your iPad. The iPad’s 9.7-inch display is an ideal platform to view photos. Now, since you’ll be multitasking and performing all those important tasks on the iPad 2, use the old one for displaying photo albums. Set it up on the Aegis' iPad wood caseand stand and use the device as a digital picture frame. Set the iPad on slide show mode and allow it to move leisurely through hundreds of saved photos.

Just sell it

It is unclear how the used iPad market is going to respond to an influx of iPad 2s, but as of now, you can get a decent price for your iPad on places like Craigslist and eBay. Most likely you’re only going to get about $200 for that old device — maybe even less. But still, that’ll cover a good bit of the new one.

And then, of course, there is always the option to save your money for the inevitable release of the iPad 3. At that point, we could be talking a whole new tablet ballgame.

Cheaper Battery Power Helping With Communication Costs

2011-03-05T12:20:00.000-08:00

Now that we have been able to drive down the cost of long distance calling by using internet phones services, there is some movement in the way of charging the phones so that the phone services can be used. Novel idea, right? Anyway, in developing countries, there still lies the problems of charging the cell phones even though they have become much cheaper to own over the years. The price of energy, unfortunately is done everything but gone down. Fenix International, a San Francisco-based design firm, may have a better solution for these communities: a new ruggedized battery and generator system called ReadySet. The device, its designers believe, could put more electricity in off-the-grid homes, create jobs, reduce indoor air pollution by replacing kerosene lanterns with LEDs, and eliminate car battery acid leaks. Plus, the telecom industry is hooked on it. Network carriers can make 10 to 14 percent more money from users who can keep their phones charged, and an estimated 500 million cell phone users worldwide live off the grid, according to a report from the mobile communications group GSMA. This is definitely going to mean new advancements in the way of communications between different countries, even the ones that are still developing.

Smallest Computer Ever

2011-02-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

How small do you think the world's smallest computer is? The technology today enables us to make computers that are beyond what anyone would have imagined. This new computing device is about as big as one of the letters in this sentence. Now think about all the possibilities that these types of developments could bring. I mean we are talking about even better phone services and devices. The communication will be enabled through the use of radio signals. They could even be used in medical devices. I hear people talking about the technology that is going to be in the future but it seems like the future is now, we are the ones creating it. One day, these Lilliputian computers could track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and traceable. This is becoming more and more of an informational world where many material things that were once important have no use now.

Old Toys Getting New Makeover

2011-02-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

With the technology that is coming out, it is no surprise that toys are getting a makeover. Since almost everything is on the internet, some of these toys are getting connected as well through the integration of video recording and even internet phones with video. For example the Hot Wheels cars are coming out with a video camera that you can mount on the car and either record video or see real time video that is transmitted. These cameras can also be mounted on skateboards or bikes. It also comes with editing software for the videos. Scrabble is upgrading its technology as well. Made up of five electronic freestanding tiles that players speedily slide, shuffle and swap, plays create as many three, four or five-letter words as possible in 75 seconds. When the tiles are lined up to create a new word, the game’s technology recognizes the word and the tiles light up and beep. The tiles make it even easier for players by keeping time and score.

Cell Phone Use On Airplanes

2011-01-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered if it is actually alright to use your cell phone to talk or send internet fax on an airplane? The crew tells you to turn them off during take off and landing but I am sure the all of you have left it on at one point or another. Here are the details to that question:

A U.S. ban on airborne use of cell phones has been in place for 20 years because of concerns transmissions would interfere with cellular networks on the ground. While many airlines now offer Wi-Fi access via portable electronic devices from laptops to smartphones, cellular voice and data services on domestic airlines fall under that Federal Communications Commission ban.

The Federal Aviation Administration supports the ban, citing potential interference with aircraft communication and navigation systems. The FAA also advises airlines to make sure passengers turn off almost all portable electronic devices during critical phases of flight, below 10,000 feet. Airlines require electronics be turned off and stowed during takeoff and landing.

But airline passengers who have routinely neglected -- or forgotten -- to turn off their mobile phones without devastating consequences have to wonder, how dangerous can it be?

That turns out to be a tough question to answer, but those who've studied the rules sum it up as better safe than sorry.

The risk is small, "but why take that risk?" asked David Carson, a Boeing engineer who headed up a committee of aviation and electronics experts years ago to advise the FAA on the safety of Wi-Fi and cellular devices on planes.

He compared breaking the cell phone rules with not wearing a seat belt. "I could probably make a flight without a seat belt on and probably I'd be safe," Carson said.

Online Wholesale Distributor Uses Online Phone Systems

2011-01-11T15:54:00.000-08:00

This seems like a no-brainer, an online company is bound to be using an internet phone system but you may be surprised. Tradavo’s team of twenty is primarily based in the Lakewood, Colorado office with several employees working remotely. Prior to RingCentral Office, the company used a legacy phone system that was expensive, difficult to manage and did not meet the business needs for its remote employees. After experiencing regular difficulties with the legacy system, Travado President and CEO Bobby Martyna decided to adopt RingCentral Office. “We selected RingCentral because it was easy to set up, very flexible, and offered a rich array of functions and features to enhance our company communications. In addition, as a growing company we needed a professional business class system that not only met our short term needs but that would grow with us. Our old provider did not offer the services we needed and the outages were painful for a company trying to establish a solid reputation for service,” commented Martyna. As all of us in business know, an image is extremely important.

Tablet Sales to Skyrocket

2011-01-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

This past year with the introduction of the iPad, tablets became all the rage. They were the reason that netbook sales drastically decreased. Many businesses also adopted using the tablet and utilizing it, whether it is for internet fax or creating other reports. The HP tablet was actually marketed towards business professionals. The prices are also going down for the tablets to be in the range of about $237. according to a report released today from the technology research firm Yankee Group, tablet sales will grow from 21 million in 2010 to 168 million in 2014. What are your thoughts on the increasing sales of these tablets? What do you use it for or are you thinking of getting one? I still like using my laptop mostly because of the keyboard. I have tried using the iPad and the thing that really go to me was the touch screen typing along with the fact that it was not as easy to hold it in my lap as a laptop.

New Years Resolutions

2010-12-31T09:45:00.000-08:00

With the new year just around the corner, a lot of people are making resolutions either to lose weight, stick to an exercise regimen, or save more money. Technology is making it possible to make it easier to stick with these resolution because more than 40% of people do not continue with what they started on the first day of the year. One of the things that I want to change about this new year is to spend more time with the people that are close to me without the interface of technology such as emails, texts, and any type of internet phone service. It just seems like people are losing that interaction that is so important in the development of the mind and even emotional intelligences. It is just too easy to be someone else behind the protection of a screen. It is also so much more fulfilling to be able to talk to another person face to face and be able to see the interaction. As I look back on the year, there have been so many unnecessary misunderstandings that could have been avoided if one of us actually picked up the phone instead of just texting.

Emailing Santa

2010-12-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the days when you would sit down and hand write a letter to Santa asking him for everything you could possibly think of? Well those days are gone, considering that he is a very busy man, so now we will be able to email and maybe internet fax the big guy. Kids from all over the world can send their letters to Santa via a dedicated "Letters to Santa" site, santa.knowledgetree.com. The new site from KnowledgeTree – an online/cloud-based document management company – aims to show how easy cloud document management can be for small to medium-size businesses, and of course, complex workflows like Santa and the elves. For those that upload a child's letter to the site, KnowledgeTree will donate $1 to a local food bank. It seems like everything is done using the internet or some sort of communication device with a keyboard. I wonder if there are some things that should just be left for the old fashioned way of doing them. There is just something special about actually sitting down with a pencil and paper and writing a letter. When was the last time you did that?

High Speed Trains

2010-12-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

With the advances in technology such as internet fax and internet phones, it is no surprise that the current trains are hitting speeds of 309 mph. China has the train with the fastest land speed recorded. The unmodified passenger train reached a blistering 302 mph (486 kph) during a test run between Beijing and Shanghai -- supposedly the fastest speed ever recorded for a regular commercial train.
Specially modified trains in France and Japan have run faster, but this represents just the latest step in China's grand rail-building plans. The new passenger train is slated to cut travel time in half between Beijing and Shanghai to just five hours, according to the AP. Operations are scheduled to begin in 2012. China can also boast of having the world's longest high-speed rail network, as well as a Maglev bullet train that is the fastest in operation. This railway boom certainly looks impressive, but it's not a luxury for China -- the country needs the added infrastructure to cope with its massive and increasingly mobile population.

Looking For Internet Phone Services

2010-11-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

RingCentral was not one of the companies that I heard of during my search for internet phone services. What brought it to my attention is just how many awards they won. The criteria of the Internet Telephony award were one of the most surprising aspects I found. During my research of the magazine, I found that they are one of the most credible and reliable IP communications publishing out there. So when RingCentral won the product of the year award for the third time, it had caught my attention. Before I did not realize the attention the this internet phone company had paid to its products and services. They integrated landline, VoIP which had just had its introduction of DigitalLine, cellular, email, voicemail and fax with a powerful Web interface. Truly impressive. What services do you guys use?

Amazing Side Effects of the Internet

2010-11-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

I will admit that the internet or internet phones are not the root of evil which leads to lack of critical thought. To some degree anyway. There are plenty of good things that it can do and lead to. This is especially true in impoverished areas such as India. Here are some things that were seen as a result from letting children play around with computers:

1. Become computer-literate on their own -- that is, they can learn to use computers and the internet for most of the tasks done by lay users.
2. Teach themselves enough English to use e-mail, chat and search engines.
3. Learn in a few months to search the internet for answers to questions.
4. Improve their English pronunciation on their own.
5. Improve their mathematics and science scores in school.
6. Be prepared to pass examinations several years ahead of grade level.
7. Change their social interaction skills and value systems.
8. Form independent opinions and detect indoctrination.

National Un-Friend Day

2010-11-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

What happened to friendship and the definition? Didn't it used to be a sacred thing? When I think about my friends, it is the people that I feel some sort of connection and closeness to. These are the people with whom I can carry on a conversation over the phone or even video internet phone. To be honest that should be a good rule of thumb for the definition of friendship. It should be someone that you can talk to for an extended period of time. With all the social networks out there, the definition of friend is becoming rather loose. Also, is Facebook ruining friendship and making out to be too simple? It seems like it is just becoming a virtual address book full of friends and acquaintances where the line between them is blurry. To be honest, there are so many ways of communication that I can always get a hold of my friends and vice versa even though I do not have a Facebook account. By the way, Kimmel declared National Un-Friend Day for November 17. We should think about who our friends are and consider taking measures.

What It Takes To Be a Teacher

2010-10-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

Teaching can be described as an art. Not everyone can do it and it takes much more than going to school and getting a teaching license and then doing an internship for a couple months. One of the main things is that it requires extremely good communication skills no matter at what level is the teaching. It is not enough to just know what you are talking about, you need to know how to relay the information. If it is a computer class, for example, it is important to show not just tell how to use the phone services or how to program internet phone services. Also, it is important to earn the respect of the students, which is not always the easiest thing. It is the only way to get them to take the teacher seriously. If there is respect, then the teacher will be able to get through to the kids.

e-Book Theft

2010-10-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

With a lot of the media online, there becomes a greater risk of theft. Before, it was the piracy of music and videos but now it is the era of the ebooks. Publishers are actually losing $2.8 billion because of the pirated media. A lot of people seem to think that when they steal the music or books off the internet, they are just taking money from the artists and writers who have more than enough. The truth of it is that it is the publishers and editors and people that work behind the scenes who are trying to make an honest pay that are getting cheated when people steal online media. These are the people that are in the middle class that are being stolen from. They use communication devices such as internet fax to create the different types of media like movies. This is where the money is needed. So think twice about it the next time you decide not to pay for media.

Stay Young

2010-09-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Everyone would want to find That magical fountain of youth, but the truth is, it might be not magical at all. Turns out you need some good old fashion hard work and a little of your old excitement from those wonderful teenage years. Throw in some of the technology that the young people are using today such as internet phones and the social networking bit to connect with friends and people interested in the same thing you are and you are set to go.

1. Learning a new language, taking music lessons to play a new instrument, sitting in on an adult education class in a subject you've always been curious about, or traveling to an area you've never explored are all ways to get neurons firing and keeping your mind in tip top shape.

2. Keep your body in shape as well by always moving.

3. Watch what you eat and eat about 1/5 less of it.

4. Relax!!!
5. Play those mind challenging games but faster. Just time yourself and aim to decrease that time each time you play.
6. Make friends.

Document Scanners Have Drawbacks

2010-09-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you are planning to internet fax some type of document the all in one wireless scanner from HP might be of great use but otherwise it might post documents on the internet that you may not know about. It is made to put documents up online and it will do that for you almost too easily so that it becomes posted even though it was unintended. The problem stems from the fact the by many HP scanners include functionality known as WebScan, which permits the scanner to be operated remotely via a web browser, according to Michael Sutton, vice president of security research at Zscaler, who originally reported on the security flaw. “While the functionality provides a simple means of retrieving a digital copy of a document, it is also enabled by default, without any authentication,” he explained. “Therefore, when a scanner with Webscan is added to a network, any user on that network can remotely operate the scanner, and in doing so, potentially gain access to sensitive information if a confidential document is left on the scanner.” Making the matter worse, Sutton added, are misconfigured networks that expose the scanner to the Web and allow anyone access to the scanner. Fortunately, the fix is very simple. Owners of the all-in-one system need to ensure that administrative function on their scanners is password protected. This is as simple as changing a setting within the user interface. Another simple layer of protection is to make sure to always remove documents from the machine once the scan is complete, especially when using a machine with multiple users, as is typical in an office setting. Although Zscaler only pointed out the Webscan problem on HP Officejet systems, this issue serves to bring attention to other security problems with printers, scanners, and copiers. They include documents unknowingly stored in a machine’s memory and networking issues that can reroute documents to someone else’s computer. And HP isn’t the only company with security flaws in their systems. “Research is ongoing but we have found printers, scanners and copiers from other vendors that have even more frightening security weaknesses,” said Sutton.

Nokia Is Making a Comeback

2010-09-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

Nokia has been one leading cell phone service providers but it is much more popular in Europe than in America because it is hard to compete with the wireless giants Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. Over the past decade they have been making cell phones for the average user and even keeping up with the whole smart phone boom. Their latest phone is a smart phone with a touch screen. A lot of the phones are very useful to do internet fax and have internet phone services on them, since all you would need is an internet connection and a cost efficient subscription. One of the best thing about them is that they are priced lower than some of the competitors. What kinds of phones do you guys use? Which one have been the best and why?

The Mouse

2010-09-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

With the new technology everywhere, the computer mouse is getting close to being extinct. Since a lot of computer use happens on the laptop or smart phone, there is no need for the mouse. In truth, I do not remember the last time I used a mouse. Even if I am editing emails of internet fax, it is much easier to use a tablet, laptop, or a smart phone. Of course, Microsoft has better ideas. They decided to update the mouse.

"This is not the first time that the mouse has been threatened — look at 10 years ago when people started buying laptops that had integrated pointers and touch pads. Still, the mouse category continued to grow and grow," said Brett Ostrum, general manager for the Hardware Group at Microsoft. "The reasons people need external mice will not change: comfort and precision."

The touchpad may take some practice, but Microsoft has included three integrated buttons activated with taps to page up, page down and a customizable button for "user's choice". As people become adept at using touchscreens in their phones and other devices, applications like the Arc Touch mouse that use the same haptic feedback will seem familiar. The haptics were employed to simulate the vibration of a scroll wheel.

The wireless mouse can track on virtually any surface, according to the company. Two AAA batteries offer more than six months of batter life. The Arc Touch mouse is available for presale on Amazon.com, BestBuy.com and Buy.com for about $70; the mouse will ship in early December.

Making Scientific Connections

2010-08-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the other internet? While we are sitting here, waiting for a page to load or to finish sending that internet fax, which only takes about 4 seconds anyway, other people that we like to call scientists are speeding by on the internet at amazing speeds. Unlike the rest of the world they have very good reason to have an internet just for them. As scientists, they have to deal with incredible amounts of data or information, and this is not limited to the earth sciences. Social data and statistics are also a part of this "other" internet. This internet is also very global and it does not see political or even cultural borders. It enables scientists all over the world to come together to share information and even come up with new ideas and theories that this communication has made possible. There is also a part of the 'net that is set aside for other communication such as video conferencing and internet phone services.

Monitor Your Power

2010-08-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder just how much energy and battery time that internet phone or internet fax is using and how long it is going to be before it runs out? Well, there is an app for that, seriously. This app is able to keep track of how much of your battery is used on certain apps that are running. At first, this looked like a waste of space on the smartphone but then again it might be useful. If we are more aware of how we are using the battery on the smartphone, we might actually be more efficient with it. Since the phones are able to multitask now, it can become a problem keeping track of everything that is running. Sometimes I even forget that I have other things running in the background that are using energy. Then I usually end up wondering why the download is taking so slow. I guess this app can be a friendly reminder in the ways that you are using energy.

Light on Water

2010-07-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

Now this is taking 3D to the new level. The simplicity of it is the most astounding part. The technology used in displaying images on water droplets is energy efficient and, to be honest, pretty cool. The images are in 3D because of the multiple layers of water. This means that there are no glasses required and the image can be interactive to some extent because if the viewer touches the water, the image will be altered. I wonder if this idea will make it into homes and be used in conjunction with internet phones which would have video conferencing. It seems like too much work for the average person to set up and might also be rather messy if anything should disturb the water. Also, wouldn't the water be making noise as if fell. I guess there are a lot of kinks yet to be worked out with this new idea. More to come!

Microsoft and NASA: Match Made in Heaven

2010-07-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

NASA has the data and Microsoft can draw the picture using that data. It does not get any better than this. Microsoft set out on a mission to depict the galaxy, a sort of Google Earth, if you will. The project was launched in 2008 and now it is gaining more ground because of NASA's involvement. They provide the data which is sent over internet fax and then the computer giant turns it into magnificently accurate pictures. The data was collected from thousands of telescopes on the ground and in space over the course of 50 years. Now there are 3D images being created that are completely interactive and will let the viewer see the most minute details. This will also help with the research of outer space because scientists will be able to look at the whole picture.

iPhone 4 and the Death Grip

2010-07-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

One of the things that went wrong in the manufacturing of the iPhone 4 is the poor reception. The metal band around the phone that serves as an antenna has a gap and when the user puts their finger on it, reception can decrease up to 20%, which means that the call will be dropped. This might be bad news for business professionals who rely on their internet phone service because the chance of a dropped call is higher still. While using internet fax, there were less problems seen besides the screen turning to a different color.Fortunately, all these issues are being fixed and the 4G network is expanding. It is now available to 44 major metropolitan areas and continues to grow. Soon the internet will be accessible to almost everyone in the US. This could mean great things for the economy because the consumer base and the people that see the ads will significantly increase.

Invent Your Own App

2010-07-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

Google came out with the program that lets you "build" your own app without having any programming experience. Kind of like setting up your internet phone or internet fax with all the settings, you would be able to pick what you want in your app. This will let the user be more engaged and the phone to be more personalized. At a certain point is ceases being a phone and become something more. The consumer will be making most of the decisions. The way the program work is that there are "chunks" of code that stand for different features. The consumer gets to put the code together to get the perfect app and product that they want. Now that is a hard deal to pass by. The competitors in the phone service business will have to come up with something even more creative than that.

Good Morning Sunshine

2010-06-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

It is officially summer. Schools are out, the pools are open, and the beach is singing beautiful songs. Along with all of that comes the sun and the dreaded UVA and UVB rays. Many people are aware of the harmful effects that the sun has on our skin but what about the chemicals in the lotions that we put on? Some of the chemicals are harmful and even aid the sun in creating a perfect environment for cancer. Personally, after I read some of the information about sunscreen and the things that are in it, my next plane ticket is going to be to Seattle. There are metals in the lotions that are known to cause heavy metal poisoning or disrupt the workings of some hormones. To find out some information about different sunscreens yourself, just go to the Environmental Working Group's site or even contact them by a toll free number.

How to Care for Your Batteries

2010-05-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

It is simple enough, you go the the store get some batteries or you electronic device comes with them already. There have been plenty of rumors of how to make your battery last longer but it came to my attention that not too many people know which ones are true and which have just been passed down but are nonsense. So here is the rundown of how to keep the bunny going:

Cell phones: You may have heard the advice that you should let the battery run down completely before recharging it because it will make it last longer. This is not true with the cell phone batteries we have now. Before, when they had nickel instead of lithium, that was the case and the power of it would diminish significantly if they were not used completely. The best advice for these batteries is to keep them away from heat sources and turning off devices that are not in use such as internet fax or a GPS locator because they can hog up a lot of the power. The same goes for laptops. Just keep them from over heating.

AA and AAA: One thing you really have to watch out for is when they were made. Over time batteries lose their power, so just like veggies and fruit, they can go old. Also make sure to buy ones that have higher power capacities. Even nickel batteries are still made in this format, try to avoid them because they contain toxic materials.

Online Rip-Offs

2010-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

People seem to be getting worse and worse in this whole common sense idea. All I want to scream in their face is "What were you thinking?!" The worst part is that I do not even want to hear the answer because I have a feeling that I will become somewhat dumber for hearing it. Anyway, there are plenty of internet scams out there that we should all be aware of. They can range from the email from a desperate friends to the internet fax that can get intercepted and fall in the wrong hands. I thought I would list some for you guys in case you come across them and in a fit of dumbness fall for it.

Nigerian (419) Scam
This one, which plays on greed, is one of the oldest digital rip-offs on the books. You get an email from a wealthy Nigerian (fill in the appropriate country, this one travels well) who needs help in transferring millions of dollars from his homeland. If you are able to assist in the process, the email continues, you’ll receive a sizable cut of the fortune as a reward.

eBay Buyer Remorse
Buying on eBay can be great fun as well as a source of bargains on a whole cornucopia of goods and services. It can also be a disillusioning experience if you never receive the goods you bid on and paid for, or if what you gets doesn’t live up to the seller’s description. A majority of eBay sellers are legitimate and go the extra mile to maintain their good reputations. In a barrel this large, though, there will be some bad apples. Avoiding them is the best way to not get ripped off.

Gone Phishing
Identity theft is alive and well online. One of the slicker phishing ploys making the rounds comes in the form of official looking emails claiming to be from a bank, credit card company or site such as Best Buy or eBay asking you to verify your account details and password. The email is generally tricked out with authentic looking logos and authoritative text reassuring the recipient that their security is a paramount concern and includes a link for you to use in the verification process. Don’t do it.

Disaster Scams
Your humanitarian impulses offer rip-off artists an opening to take another shot at your wallet in the wake of well-publicized disasters such as Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake that devastated Haiti. The latest to raise its larcenous head uses the Iceland volcano that grounded flights around the world as its vector. The fraudsters hack email accounts and start sending emails to that account’s contacts list. A plaintive message is sent out saying that the account holder is stranded because of the eruption and needs money to get home. The recipient is instructed to contact the sender on where to send the money and the message includes an email address that looks like it comes from a Gmail account but is slightly different. A quick phone call can defuse this little bit of skullduggery.

Your Resume Has Come to Our Attention
Remember, stealing your time is as much a rip-off as taking your dollars. The major job search sites such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com do a good job of directly channeling job seekers to appropriate opportunities without inundating them with sales pitches or making them jump through hoops to browse job listings and details.
But there are some that take your job hunt and use it as a vehicle to upsell you to paid memberships if you want access to premium job listings or solicitations to fix your resume for a fee. Some are notorious for offering personalized critiques that in actuality prove to be formulaic boilerplate based on the keywords you use in your resume. The companies that do this are relentless. The best litmus test for a job search site is this: Does it spend more time steering me to the services it sells or to genuine job openings?

Craigslist Connivers
Craigslist is a wild and wooly bazaar of goods for sale, apartments for rent, jobs listings and meeting people. Because it’s faceless and generally free to use, it also offers safe haven for rip-off artists. Craigslist apartment listings, particularly in large metro areas such as New York City, are well-known hotbeds of fraudulent activity.
You see a listing for an unbelievable rental in a desirable neighborhood at a below-market price. Because it’s such a great deal and will rent quickly, you’re asked for an advance deposit, even though you won’t be able to see the apartment before forking over your money. You can see where this is going. Fraudguide.com reports that one woman running this scam collected $60,000 in rent and security deposits from several dozen different people. If you’re looking for an apartment on Craigslist, park your trust at the door and do your due diligence.

Fake Anti-Virus Software
Fake anti-virus programs account for 15 percent of all malicious software, according to a new Google study. Computer users are tricked into downloading these programs when a window pops up on their screen telling them that their computer has been affected by a virus. It provides a link to an antivirus program they can download that claims it will cure the problem. It won’t, since there’s no problem to begin with, but it will either steal the user’s data or demand a payment of $40 or more to register the fake product. Sometimes it does both.

E-waste: What is it?

2010-04-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Found a great article and something to think about on Earth Day. We should all do our part because this is our home and the resources are limited which translates into our time being limited.

Developing nations are generating more and more electronic waste, even as they remain a dumping ground for wealthier nations' old computers, cell phones and refrigerators, according to a new United Nations report.
This so-called e-waste contains toxic materials that threaten both human health and the environment. To combat the problem, the United Nations Environment Programme, which issued the report, recommends new recycling technology and policies to turn trash into raw materials for manufacturing.
The report "paints a more dire picture than probably many of us have realized," Odadele Ogunseitan, a professor of social ecology at UC Irvine, told TechNewsDaily.
Experts have long known that developed nations export e-waste to the developing world for recycling, often under unsafe circumstances, Ogunseitan said, but the new report illuminates another problem.
"What this shows is there's also a huge surge in locally-generated e-waste in those countries that will need to be dealt with," he said.
The report looked at 11 developing nations, including China, which produces 2.3 million tons of e-waste per year. That puts it second only to the United States, which produces 3 million tons each year. Cottage industries have sprung up in many developing nations to scavenge the recyclable and precious metals inside the waste. Many of these "informal" industries take few precautions to protect workers from hazardous materials like lead and mercury in the waste.
In the countries studied, televisions made up the largest chunk of the e-waste stream by weight. China alone tossed more than one million tons of televisions in 2007. The 11 countries in the report also threw out more than a million tons of refrigerators and close to 700,000 tons of personal computers.
Those numbers are expected to rise. The report predicts that the number of computers tossed in India will increase 500 percent between 2007 and 2020. By 2020, the number of computers thrown out in South Africa and China will be up 200 to 400 percent. Trashed mobile phones will increase by 7-fold in China and 18-fold in India, while television e-waste in those countries may double.
To boost e-waste recycling, the UNEP recommended the development of large, state-of-the-art recycling centers and "ambitious" regulations on the collection and handling of old electronics.
This approach would likely solve some of the environmental and health problems associated with informal recycling centers.
However, the UN should not view informal recyclers as a barrier to progress, but as businesses in their own right, said Josh Lepawsky, a professor of geography at Memorial University in Newfoundland.
Although "there's no denying" that e-waste is toxic, Lepawsky said, it isn't clear that the UN's solutions would create new jobs to replace the ones lost if the informal system were shuttered.
"This is, for a lot of people, a livelihood strategy, a survival strategy," Lepawsky said.
The report was co-authored by United Nations University, the Swiss EMPA federal laboratories and Belgian materials technology business Umicore.

Some of the things that companies and businesses are doing to do their part in preserving the environment is signing up for internet fax software which basically emiminates the need for paper and ink for faxes, which can end up being tons of paper and money wasted. There are many internet phone companies that offer these services free of charge as part of a package, such as RingCentral. They also participate in recycling old electronic devices.

An iPad Alternative

2010-04-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some news about iPad competitors and different mediums for internet faxing. Please leave your comments!

Previous commercial video focused on Flash capability in the Slate, something the iPad lacks. This video goes further and points to other iPad weaknesses. One punchy shot shows the Slate accepting a USB cable connection and an SD card. The iPad doesn't allow either.
The video also dedicates time to showing the built-in camera being used for video conferencing, yet another missing feature in the iPad.

The video shows many aspects of the multitouch interface we haven't seen before. Interestingly, the video doesn't show any signs of the Windows 7 operating system. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the device last January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it ran Windows 7. It's unclear from the video if these are Slate specific apps or if there have been changes to the operating system specifically for the Slate.

iPad Has Not Gone International Yet

2010-04-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

Apple announced that they will hold off on international sales of the iPad until the end of May because of such high US demand for the new gadget. The sales that were made the week it came out, were much higher than expected and the manufactures were not able to keep up with the demand. Along with the demand for the iPad, there is also a high demand for the different apps that are made specifically for the iPad. Even though it is geared more towards the public user and not business professionals, some of the apps include an internet faxing service and editing software. It does not seem like companies will adopt the tablet on a mass scale because it really doesn't replace smartphones or the capabilities of a laptop.

Broadcast Faxing

2010-04-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

I came across an internet fax broadcasting service that RingCentral does not yet have. They have internet faxing and internet phone for a very reasonable price that every business should look into but nothing in the way of broadcasting faxes. The way it works is by uploading a list of fax recipients and their fax numbers, along with the document you wish to send. Then you can launch your broadcast from the internet or even an internet phone. Some of the benefits of broadcasting with a fax is that your fax broadcast message carries more impact than US mail, and stands the best chance of being seen and read by your intended recipients. If it can't get through the first time, our fax service is persistent -- it automatically retries without any additional input from you. In contrast, direct mail pieces go unopened and may not even reach your intended recipients.Some of things to be cautious about are the penalties for advertising to people who do not want to receive faxes. In fact it is a federal crime.

Internet Fax Broadcasting

2010-04-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

jBlast internet fax broadcasting lets you send faxes out to multiple people at one time. There is no need for any special equipment or server, or even multiple phone lines. Just send them using the internet and jBlast's servers and manage them through the account.. The documents can be entirely personalized before they are sent out and the status of each fax can be checked online through a single account. The company also offers statistical reports so that you can keep track of the internet fax activity. Certain fax numbers can be placed on the "Do Not Fax" list along with the numbers that were unable to receive the fax, so that in the future when a broadcast is sent out, time and space will not be wasted on the numbers that cannot receive the faxes.

Faxing Went Green

2010-04-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Faxing has been around for a long time and these days its changing in ways that are adapting to the innovations of technology. Enter internet fax. Simple idea, yet genius. The new way of faxing is opening new doors throughout businesses. Before, there was so much money that was being wasted on paper and ink, but now the money can be put to more useful things. Not only are these companies saving money, they are also helping the environment by not using nearly as much paper and by extension saving trees. eFax offers secure ways to send and receive internet faxes. You will never have to worry about unauthorized people getting their hands on sensitive material. It also saves time because eFax has the capabilities to send faxes in different formats ranging from Word to a PDF file. Increase your business's productivity in a matter of seconds.

Libraries offer an online lifeline for today's disposessed

2010-03-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

One more interesting article for today! Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I settled in for a good hour of Internet surfing at the library. I like to surf at the library. The computers are always powered up, and time limits force me to do more with my day than stare at a computer screen. I can fit a lot in an hour, when the clock's ticking.

But I jealously guard those minutes. So I had to will myself to patience when the woman on my right tapped my shoulder. She went into a long explanation about e-mail accounts and documents and the library's printer. What she wanted, I discovered, was to print a document sent as an e-mail attachment. But she didn't know how to open the document. I showed her how, and went back to my computer station, where I had 30 minutes remaining.

"Excuse me," the woman said. "I'm sorry to bother you again. But how do you get this to the library printer?"

Feeling not just the minutes but my goodwill ticking away, I lumbered over to her computer and punched the printer icon -- and belatedly realized I was printing foreclosure paperwork.

"I'm losing my house," she told me, possibly because she wanted to confirm what I'd already guessed, or because she just needed to talk. "I got laid off a while back. I've been trying to find another job, but you know how that goes."

Since 2008, I've heard a lot of these confessions. I call them Recession Confessions. I hear them at the grocery store, at ATM machines, in coffee shops: about how so-and-so lost her job, her house, her identity; about the resumes sent out, the jobs that never came through, the hand-wringing in the early hours of morning.

But I'd never had one at the library until then. And that one conversation opened to another. The man on my other side piped up. "I lost my house last year," he said. He'd lost his job in construction and was thinking of going back to school. Still, he said, he spent six days a week at the library, looking for jobs, shooting resumes into the void of cyberspace.

I never noticed him before. I never noticed the turnover in my library's patronage, from tots and stay-at-home moms to the houseless and unemployed.

In the Great Depression, lost men haunted garbage dumps. In today's recession, blue-collar castoffs drift to library terminals, hoping to close the digital divide with the assistance of librarians, who more and more find their roles changing to accommodate the new clientele.

Yes, librarians still check out books and collect fines. But they also help patrons with online applications and job searches. They print documents, explain software programs, navigate unemployment sites, locate social services and buoy spirits. A study reported Thursday that one-third of all Americans use library computers, and that the percentage is even higher among poor people. Librarians have become the everyman's job counselors and computer instructors, and the libraries their career and business centers.

Because I'm a regular, I know the librarians by name. I know small facts about their lives -- who likes to garden, who rides horses and who has a son in Korea. I know one of my librarians may lose her job.

Minnesota is facing nearly a billion-dollar deficit. The money has to come from somewhere. But I hate to think of my library shedding personnel or closing its doors an extra day every week.
Because the library isn't just a warehouse of free entertainment anymore. It is a technological resource for those who've lost their access to technology. It is a training center for those whose former employment never prepared them for today's job search, which requires basic computer skills to fill out online applications and post resumes. Most of all, the library is a place to go, when the house is gone, and the job, to keep showing up and putting one foot in front of the other on the road back to economic self-sufficiency.

Personal Adds: Online records could simplify tracking of medical needs

2010-03-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

Found this article, decided to post it here. So read, enjoy and comment!

OK, I am not a tech-savvy person.

I can barely update the status on my Facebook page and my ancient cell phone doesn't even let me take photos.

I don't manage my checking or credit card accounts online and I have never used cool software like Skype. When I flip through my husband's "Wired" magazine, I am clueless.

But even I can see there is a problem here.

Every few days an Explanation of Benefits comes in the U.S. mail, first class delivery, from one of the two health insurance companies that cover my family of four. Or there is a bill in the mail from the doctor's office. Or there is a message on the answering machine reminding us of a doctor's appointment.

When I was going through the appeals process with my Type 1 diabetic daughter's health insurance company - they didn't want to spring for a new insulin pump when her old one went out of warranty - I contacted the university hospital that formerly provided Zoe's care and asked for some medical records.

I could send them a letter via the U.S. mail, requesting these records, the woman replied, or if I had a facsimile machine, she could fax them over. I would have to fax her a signed consent first, though.
"What about e-mail?" I asked. That wasn't an option, I was told. They don't e-mail such records.
And there was the time that Zoe's lab results came in the U.S. mail at lunchtime one day. Her blood urea nitrogen/creatinine ratio was pretty high and I was irrationally alarmed that her kidneys were failing.

I wanted to speak with someone at the doctor's office immediately, but I was outside the 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. window. I couldn't leave a voice mail because their off-hours answering service is not that sophisticated.

So I sent an e-mail.

I got a return phone call within two hours but I also got an admonishing e-mail asking me to not communicate in such fashion again. And not for the understandable reason -- that if everyone e-mailed them questions they would be on the computer all day.

Rather, they were worried about my daughter's privacy, because they could not guarantee the security of the information discussed over the Internet.

I could have easily reassured them though. The only people we don't want seeing Zoe's medical records are health insurance company employees. And, unfortunately, they have complete access to those records.

Again, I am computer illiterate, but I can see there's a glitch here somewhere.

How is it that I can buy a tub of yogurt at the grocery store and receive a coupon from a competitor along with my receipt?

Or that I can go online at the American Diabetes Wholesale Web site at any time and view every order that I have placed with them in the past five years?

It seems that we should have the choice to have our medical records online or not. I would love to see all of Zoe's Hemoglobin A1c's at one time without sorting through five years of paperwork. Or know via a Web site which immunizations her 5-year-old sister has received without searching for her little stamped card.

And it would be great to visit Zoe's health insurance company's Web site to see if her insulin pump has been approved. It gets old calling the company every few days to check in - which is what their staff recommends.

ChooseWhat Launches Email Fax Comparison Resource

2010-03-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

Do somebody use their services? What can you tell about them?

This week ChooseWhat released an email fax review category that offers users organized and detailed reviews of top email fax services, such as MyFax, MetroFax and eFax, in order to help small business owners make decisions regarding their faxing needs.

"With the rise of email to fax services springing up on the Internet, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a decision about which one to use. Our email fax category on ChooseWhat gives users a starting point to work from where they can compare more than 40 services," says ChooseWhat marketing analyst Koby Wong.

The number of people using an email fax service is rapidly growing, as evidenced by research from Davidson Consulting, a firm that predicts a $440 million market for email fax this year and an increase to $690 million by 2013. Because more users are searching for a reliable fax provider, they will ultimately need a trustworthy resource to break down all the options of online fax services.
The mounting popularity of email fax services is due to the many pros of the Internet service over traditional faxing. These advantages include a low monthly cost of around $10 (or less), mobility, the convenience to receive faxes on any computer or Smartphone, reduction of paper and energy waste and the ability to easily convert a fax to a PDF or Word document that can then be edited.

The ChooseWhat team carefully researches and tests every email fax service in order to evaluate how the provider measures up in terms of customer service and quality. ChooseWhat then breaks down each Internet fax service in easy-to-understand terms, allowing the user to quickly assess the terms of service, such as pricing, users available per plan and the number of incoming and outgoing pages allotted per month before choosing the email fax service right for his or her small business.

About ChooseWhat

Besides offering information on ChooseWhat, the company also publishes comprehensive review websites relating to small businesses, such as email marketing software, hosted PBX services and online tax software, among others. Since their respective launches, ChooseWhat’s comparison websites have helped thousands of users, who continue to utilize the B2B data and reviews to make relatively quick decisions.

Enterprise Fax over IP Featured Article

2010-03-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

Found this article, who can tell me about this company?

Enterprise content management software provider Open Text has announced a complete range of fax gateways that give organizations of all sizes a single source for all their fax over Internet protocol needs.

The new Open Text Fax solutions are designed to help customers lower total cost of ownership by consolidating voice and data network equipment for fax, according to company officials.

In many organizations, it's seen that communications networks are often intermixed with circuit-switched (telephony) and packet-switched technologies. Company officials said that Open Text Fax Gateway serves as the bridge between these two divergent technologies. Moreover, it simplifies FoIP implementations by converting telephony communications – fax T.30 signals and TDM protocols – to standards-based SIP and T.38.

With Open Text Fax Gateway, customers can leverage data networks for fax transmissions. Company officials said that this can reduce the costs of managing fax-based communications-something that becomes especially important for business processes that depend on mass faxing.

Additionally, Open Text Fax Gateway facilitates network consolidation, boosts fault tolerance. Plus, it also encourages virtualization of Open Text Fax Server, helping reduce TCO. In addition, extensive compatibility testing ensures wide-ranging support for and interoperability with dozens of telephony and IP devices, said company officials.

Open Text offers purpose-built fax gateways optimized to work with the Open Text Fax Server and eliminate complexity while giving customers and partners a single source for service and support.

"We're seeing more and more interest in fax over IP in organizations of all sizes because it gives them a promising way to lower costs and consolidate resources," said Matthew Brine, vice president for fax and document distribution at Open Text.

Brine said that the combination of the company's fax gateways and market-leading fax software makes it easier than ever to deploy a highly sophisticated FOIP solution that can deliver considerable savings and improve business processes.

Fax over IP Feature: GAO Research Releases T.38 Fax Relay Software

2010-03-02T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hope you will enjoy this news. Read carefully!

Toronto, Canada-based GAO Research released its T.38 fax relay software which, company officials claim, provides "optimal performance" when integrated with GAO's suite of ITU-T compliant V.34, V.17, V.29 and V.27ter fax software.

It is fully compliant with the ITU-T T.38 fax relay specification, company officials say, and supports "commonly used processors such as TI C5000 & C6000 series DSPs, processors and ADI DSPs and OS such as Windows and Linux."

In fact, the T.38 is billed as being able to "operate within a multi-tasking environment and is optimized for fixed-point arithmetic." The fax relay over IP software allows the transfer of facsimile documents in real-time between two facsimile terminals over the Internet or other networks using IP protocols.

A "spoofing" function is included in GAO's product to prevent jitter, delay or lost packets. All GAO's software are subject to t quality control procedures, which is reflected in its well structured code, detailed design documentation, and well-defined design and test plans.

Fax over IP isn't a relic from the 1990s. It is a technology you should have available. Recently Erik Linask sat down with Max Schroeder, senior vice president of Faxcore, at the ITEXO East to discuss the state of fax.

Linask asked Schroeder just why is fax so big. Schroeder said the reason fax is still "relevant" is because of "the legal system." Fax is considered a legal document the way an e-mail probably isn't, not just in North America, but around the world. So for health care and the financial industries, any industry which is "regulatory," Schroeder said, and has comply with things like Sarbanes-Oxley, fax qualify as legal documents.

One important feature with fax is that fax includes a date and time stamp ensuring a completed transaction.

Schroeder cited a study by Davidson Consulting finding that last year that FoIP grew by 53 percent. In fact, Schroeder said, global sales for his firm were up "even more than domestic sales," finding that "the global environment is driving the fax industry."

Eight Reasons Why Email Marketing Works for Travel & Hospitality

2010-02-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

Mention email marketing to folks in the travel and hospitality industry and you may find that many are still unaware of what it is and how it works. Others, however, are rapidly discovering that email marketing is just about one of the most effective means of generating sales.

Want proof? When Shop.org surveyed retailers for their State of Retailing Online 2009 report, they found that email was the most-mentioned successful tactic overall. The Ad Effectiveness Survey commissioned by Forbes Media in February/March 2009 placed email marketing second only to SEO for generating conversions. And, research conducted in 2009 by the Direct Marketing Association demonstrated that email out-performs all other forms of direct marketing.

The bigger question, of course, is why? Out of all the hundreds or even thousands of messages consumers are exposed to each day, why is email marketing so effective?

There are several reasons, and travel agents, hosts and others who embrace these principles will quickly find themselves joining in the chorus of praise.

Email marketing has a broad reach. It’s tough to find anyone who doesn’t have at least one email address these days, which means you can reach out to your entire customer and/or prospect base. Just be sure to get their permission first by asking if you can add them to your mailing list.

Email marketing is proactive. Many travel agents and destinations start promoting their businesses by taking out ads in a phone directory, a tourism guide, a local community newspaper, a billboard, etc. The problem is your customers and prospects have to happen across them in order to see them. Email marketing goes directly to a place they’re already looking – their email in-box – and gives them the opportunity to take action on the offer directly.

Email marketing is targeted. Most forms of advertising are based on the concept that if you hit thousands of people with your message, even though it means nothing to most of them, a few are likely to respond. Email marketing, though, is based on the idea of sending the right message directly to the right people based on their preferences, previous purchases, etc. You can build one master list, then segment it by gender, age, income, preferred activities, previously known destinations, time of year, geographic location or other criteria. It eliminates a lot of the guesswork that makes other forms of marketing so inefficient.

Email marketing provides data. If you’re using an email marketing application or service designed for small business, you can run reports that show which emails or messages worked, as well as which didn’t, so you can improve your next campaign. You can even run split tests, sending one offer or message to half your list and a different one to the other half, so you can get a better feel for exactly what makes customers and prospects buy from you.

Email marketing allows you to engage. It’s nice to get the one-off business from travelers trying something new. But your real goal is to build a relationship with your customers/guests so they think of you whenever it’s time for them to travel. Email marketing allows you to do that by bringing them news, favorable reviews, notices of special activities (music festivals), timely tips (such as an impending rate hike by the airlines), and more on a regular basis. It’s a great way to engage them – and keep them engaged.

Email marketing has a low cost of entry. Most forms of advertising or marketing require a big up-front investment before you see any results. That can get expensive for a travel-related business trying to watch its bottom line. Email marketing has very little up-front cost, allowing you to market effectively without having to stop your core business work for long periods to get it done.

Email marketing is less intrusive. Unlike television or radio commercials, or especially telemarketing calls, email marketing doesn’t interrupt a prior activity to deliver a message. Opening email is the activity your customers and prospects are engaged in when they see your message. If you’ve done a good job of building that relationship, they’ll actually look forward to seeing what you have to say (instead of using a remote to zap past your message).

Email marketing works. According to the DMA’s research, email marketing generated a return on investment of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. You’re unlikely to find that kind of ROI out of any other form of marketing or advertising. That, of course, is the best reason of all to launch an email marketing campaign.

Done correctly, email marketing allows you to become (and remain) visible to your customers and prospects with highly-targeted messages at a minimal cost. All while delivering outstanding, measurable results. And that’s a road well worth traveling.

About the Author: Wendy Lowe is director of product marketing for Campaigner, the email marketing solution that enables organizations to have highly personalized one-to-one email dialogues with their customers, measure how they respond, and analyze those responses to interact in a more intelligent, automated way – resulting in more profitable relationships. Campaigner is provided by Protus, provider of the highest quality Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) communication tools for small-to-medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise organizations, including my1voice, the cost-effective, feature-rich virtual phone service, and award-winning MyFax, the fastest growing Internet fax service.

RingCentral Internet Phone System, a Boon to Urban Real Estate

2010-02-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

Have found this page. There are many articles about RingCentral. So, if you are interested, you may read it. As for our theme I have found this:

The economic slowdown in the US might have affected realtors as a whole but Urban Real Estate is making use of RingCentral Internet phone system as an innovative tool to manage its company-wide phone communications, thereby boosting business while keeping down the overhead costs. RingCentral has replaced the conventional premise-based office phone system, to connect on-the-go brokers with customers, prospects and colleagues.

Cost containment for communications vendors and their carrier customers can be achieved on two fronts.

Over the past decade, consumer debt has surged at an alarming pace. The likelihood of recovering debt, however, decreases with each passing day.

RingCentral provides an Internet phone system for small business and offers full-access to core small business phone services and helps improve productivity for more than 50,000 customers worldwide. Urban Real Estate works with individuals and corporate investors that buy real estate in the downtown Chicago area.

The owner of the brokerage, Matt Farrell, attributes the company’s success in part to a web-centric business model because 80 percent of real estate shoppers begin their search online. Urban Real Estate leverages the Internet for business productivity and lead generation.

They needed a system that would not compromise on the connectivity, a very essential criteria for serving their customers and also to blend well with their web-based business model. The RingCentral Internet phone system gave them the option to save money and, at the same time, provides business services like multiple extensions with voicemail, professionally recorded greetings, and the ability to forward calls to any phone.

An efficient system was required for the business as many of the company’s real estate brokers were always on the mobile. Farrell explains, "Phone calls are critical in the real estate industry, but too many brokers rely on just their mobile phones. They miss calls and sound unprofessional." Farrell continues, "By using RingCentral’s Internet phone system, we have a competitive advantage – our team relies on RingCentral to manage communications no matter where our busy brokers are located at any given time." He claims that RingCentral allowed him to setup and customize the system within minutes on the web.

Urban Real Estate’s brokers can be accessed anywhere through the system as each one of them is provided with an extension on Urban Real Estate’s RingCentral phone system. Clients calling Urban Real Estate perceive that the entire team is working from one location with one phone number. The RingCentral service also includes Internet Fax, which is a significant communications tool for the real estate industry. With Internet Fax, brokers can send and receive faxes over the Internet through an online interface or email.

RingCentral Reports Record Sales in Recent Weeks

2010-02-01T04:36:00.000-08:00

Found this. Hope you will like it!

Even in tough economic times, there are always some winners to be found. And this time one of those winners appears to be hosted telecom services and companies that offer them. According to reports, an SMB-focused service provider named RingCentral Inc. reports record sales in recent weeks.

The company manages all of a customer’s phone, mobile, fax and email communications with a single phone number and an online control center. It combines a toll-free or local number with advanced call management, PBX, voice mail and Internet fax, enabling customers to set up multiple extensions with voice mail, automatically screen, forward and place calls, take voice mail, send and receive faxes, and receive message alerts.

According to the company’s Web site: "So far, more than 40,000 businesses have tapped into the power of RingCentral, and thousands more are signing up each month."

Of course, hosted services are a way for businesses of all sizes to lower their capex and opex costs by allowing the service provider to assume both the upfront equipment and installation costs and the ongoing management and maintenance of said equipment and the service it supports.

Virtualized fax cuts costs

2010-01-22T05:18:00.000-08:00

In data centers around the world, the traditional reality of one application per server is changing. Pressures to cut costs and streamline operations have brought organizations face to face with the expense and difficulty of managing a constantly growing number of machines running different applications and operating systems, often with different database requirements. Data centers are running out of space for all of the servers acquired over the years, yet hardware is underutilized and disaster recovery is complicated. Energy costs are skyrocketing and server administration expenses keep rising.
Ironically, some of the best steps small and medium-sized business can take to improve operations can actually contribute to these problems. Automating core business processes with solutions like fax servers produces huge gains in efficiency and sustainability by helping organizations quit paper. But process automation also generates massive amounts of data to be stored, backed up and recovered – which means more hardware and associated costs. And the need to power and maintain all the machines to handle that data presents a challenge to green business initiatives.
Taking migration to IP a step further
This paradox may explain in part why sales of Internet-based fax server solutions are growing at a rate of more than 50 percent, according to fax industry analyst Davidson Consulting, gaining predominance over conventional fax board-based solutions. Together with the emergence of virtualization software products like VMware, Hyper-V and Xen as valuable tools to run multiple applications and boost hardware utilization, Fax over IP provides the means for completely virtualized fax systems, and it addresses the expense of line charges and other costs associated with public switched telephone network infrastructures.
Virtualization coordinates access to a single piece of hardware, like a server computer, so that multiple guest applications (including fax server software) can share the hardware without interfering with each other. Fax server solutions can seamlessly be implemented in a virtual machine environment without hardware by integrating fax with Voice over IP networks.
Fax virtualization offers organizations significant benefits of increased efficiency and cost control in hardware utilization, data center resource management, energy consumption, administration and disaster recovery. Working with its fax server customers, Esker has found that virtualization typically reduces costs associated with fax operations by as much as 40 percent. Running fewer servers means less capital expense. And with virtualized fax there is no need for downtime during system maintenance, helping ensure business continuity.
Going boardless
FoIP enables organizations to take advantage of fax virtualization benefits without the need for fax hardware. Fax software such as Dialogic Brooktrout SR140 leverages VoIP architectures to fax-enable users and applications, providing FoIP capabilities by integrating fax technology with IP networks. Fax servers that play well with the SR140 technology thrive in the virtualized environment because there are no hardware dependencies and the fax server solution can be enabled on every workstation with no additional costs.
To address the expense and inefficiency of traditional faxing, fax server solutions leverage boardless fax technology and virtual machine software environments to offer compelling cost and administration time savings.
Success factors
SMBs moving to a virtualized fax server solution have several key factors to consider. First, traditional fax boards do not support virtualization. Companies need to make sure their fax servers have been tested with virtualization software components. And although virtualization reduces the amount of administrative work necessary for hardware, it will not make the need for system administration go away. System administration is still required for guest operating systems, which makes it important for the fax server to provide versatile capabilities for management and reporting. Also, applications may have multiple machines that need to access the same data. For example, an SAP customer master database is accessed by SAP applications as well as the fax server software and other business systems. This underscores the need for a fully capable fax server.
When these considerations are taken into account, fax server virtualization offers SMBs the potential to improve reaction time, provide a cost-effective means of disaster recovery preparedness, dramatically reduce network administrative costs, support sustainability and deliver significant cost savings.

eFax Available for Vista 64-bit OS

2010-01-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

Hope you will enjoy this article. Post comments below!

The updates extend the functionality of eFax's popular Internet fax application to include all current Microsoft OS versions. eFax® announced today compatibility of its free eFax Messenger Internet fax application with Microsoft® Windows® 7 32-bit, 64-bit, and Vista 64-bit operating systems. eFax Messenger makes it easy to create, annotate, sign, send, and print faxes from any computer.
The new OS versions now make eFax Messenger available for Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Windows 2000 32-bit operating systems, as well as Mac® 32-bit operating systems. eFax Messenger is a tried and tested Internet fax software that gives users full-featured fax management via a user-friendly interface. Among its many features, eFax Messenger allows faxes to be sent, viewed, and printed directly from within the application. In addition, fax history, drafts, and sent faxes can be easily viewed and referenced.
"eFax Messenger has proven to be a popular application for extending eFax's functionality beyond basic online sending and receiving of faxes," said Mike Pugh, vice president, marketing, j2 Global, Inc. "The ability to mark an online fax with an 'approved' or 'received' stamp, or with a customized stamp like your own signature, really makes a difference when working in a mobile environment or going green."
eFax is a pioneer in the fax business, with a string of technology and business firsts dating back to 1988. The company's global network recently grew to 3,500 cities worldwide, on six continents.

Medical Practices Reduce Operating Costs Says Patient

2010-01-04T04:20:00.000-08:00

Some news! Read and enjoy!

PatientNOW, a leading electronic medical records (EMR) and practice management software company, announced today that PatientNOW’s Medical Records Studio and Medical Spa Studio solutions have been enhanced with a fully integrated fax system.

Medical practices can now send and receive documents, such as prescriptions or orders from within PatientNOW’s practice management system using any workstation, laptop, or tablet in the practice.

This fully HIPAA compliant fax solution allows medical practices to send and receive faxes from PatientNOW’s software without additional hardware or dedicated phone lines.

Medical practices can reduce operating costs by removing dedicated fax phone lines and disposing of fax equipment that may break or wear out. Dedicated fax numbers are moved to PatientNOW’s Fax Service and all faxes are sent and received via the medical practice’s Internet connection.

The practice’s electronic mail system is not burdened using PatientNOW’s Fax Service as other fax solutions use email to send and receive faxes causing added strain and maintenance to the email system.

The practice’s medical staff can easily check the status of any outgoing fax by referring to PatientNOW’s Task Manager to indicate if the sent fax was received successfully. In addition, staff members can view any previously sent or received fax via the PatientNOW Fax Service archive.

For a limited time, medical practices can signup for a free PatientNOW Fax Service 30 day trial.

For additional information on PatientNOW’s Fax Service or to see a demonstration, contact Race Proffitt or visit PatientNOW.

Practicing law without the internet?

2009-12-28T03:05:00.001-08:00

Found this info and decided to share it with you! I also would like to wish you a Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to meeting you in the new year!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not on the cutting edge of technological breakthroughs. I don’t own a Blu-Ray player (Note to Santa…). I don’t have a Twitter account. However, without the Internet, I am completely lost.

For the better part of a month I have been without the Internet… and while its made checking fantasy football scores and uploading posts to this blog with regularity very difficult, practicing law became even more challenging.

Not only have I gone without online access to Westlaw and Lexis, I have not been able to access our firm’s network, which includes our client files and forms.

The fact that I have become so reliant on the Internet to practice law gave me an immediate appreciation of those who have been practicing for years.

It’s hard for me to imagine how attorneys worked without e-mail, let alone actually relying on “carbon copies.” We’ve gone from fax machines and dictaphones to scanners and voice-recognition software. So, what’s the next innovation that is going to change the way attorneys practice?

Protus Acquires Packetel Internet Fax Service Assets

2009-12-23T02:11:00.000-08:00

And what about that? Leave your comments below!

Protus, a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) communications tools for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced that it has acquired the assets, including the subscriber base, associated with the pFax Internet fax services from Packetel. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Based in California, the pFax Internet fax service is used by tens of thousands of small to medium business and corporate organizations. The subscription-based pFax fax-to-email service enables businesses to send and receive faxes. Protus, whose product offerings include the MyFax Internet fax service, my1voice virtual phone service, and Campaigner e-mail marketing service has established itself as one of the fastest growing and highest quality SaaS players in the market. The acquisition aligns with Protus’ strategic focus to accelerate growth in the Internet fax market, and further enhances the reach of Protus’ suite of productivity tools to SMBs.

RingCentral changes their site design!

2009-12-08T04:37:00.001-08:00

Hi guys!

Got some news for you! Today I found that RingCentral have changed their homepage design!
It is more comfortable and easy to use than the previous one, I think.
Now it is easy to find necessary services and it seems to me that many useless info is gone from the homepage, but maybe it is just correctly placed now?
Due to the new color pallette of the page it became more comfortable to read and orient.
As for the main menu, it was also optimized and made like a dropdown menu, everything was sorted by categories, it allows to find necessary info by simply choosing right category tabs.
Fonts, keys and distance between headers were increased and it also makes the homepage more comfortable to use!
Sign up forms are united now and the sign up button was moved to the right part of the page and increased and is more noticeable now.
Also, I would like to note that the new design is modern and trendy, and it is so important in nowadays due to a huge number of sites.
It is clear that the site design change is the correct and necessary company step, because of the specificity of the product, many potential and existing clients come to the site to find information about the offered services and it is necessary to make the homepage maximally informative and comfortable. I think they achieved it!

You can find new design here. I hope this article will be interesting for you. I will be glad to receive your comments!

Enterprise Fax over IP Featured Article

2009-12-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

Hey. Decided that this will interested. Enjoy!

In a recent TMCnet interview with Open Text, Senior Product Manager Geoff Anderson brought to light how fax over IP plays a large role in corporate compliance regulations requiring organizations to be more efficient and transparent. Ultimately, FoIP can more securely enhance service as well as ensure privacy and security. Part II of that interview is covered here. Without a doubt, enterprise fax over IP helps companies cut their communications costs, as it uses VoIP, or voice-over-IP technology for transmission of faxed documents. That means companies no longer need to use traditional phone lines to send and receive faxed documents. Globally, today’s compliance regulations call for companies to adopt a cohesive strategy to ensure compliance and control are a part of day-to-day operations. In fact, the number one driver for replacing fax machines with fax server software is most often regulatory compliance. In an interview with Geoff Anderson, senior product manager at Open Text, he explained how enterprise fax over IP helps companies remain in compliance of the standards that govern their business. According to Anderson, regulatory compliance is driving the growth of fax over IP and holds significant promise as this technology continues to evolve. “One thing is certain, the business need for safe, secure and reliable document delivery is not going to ebb. Many people have predicted that e-mail or e-mail like transmissions will overcome the need for fax transmission, but that has not been the case to date,” Anderson said. “Even using encrypted e-mail, the fact that the packets transverse the public Internet leads to potential sniffing, and even failure to deliver. I am sure you have sent e-mails that were not received. There is no audit trail to follow, and you end up shrugging your shoulders and resending. No encryption is unbreakable, and for some documents, credit applications, equities trades, mortgage documentation, etc., fax remains a strong mechanism for delivery.” At Open Text’s recent content world event, Anderson said he listened to a case study of a mortgage processor who received 2.3 million fax pages a day and, until 2001, they were using standard fax machines to receive these documents. “Imagine the security risk of lost pages in such an environment. By migrating to a fax server, and implementing customized cover sheets with routable information embedded in them, all their faxes are properly routed keeping the workflows moving, and not surprising, the time for approving a loan went from two-plus days to less than two hours, all with increased assurance of confidentiality. Think of all the trees that were being consumed by that number of pages being printed each day,” he said. Cases like this, according to Anderson, are everywhere. For example, recently there have been a string of high profile data breaches at credit card servicers. They are now redoubling their efforts to ensure security, and this is moving them to fax servers as a solution to enhance their internal security. As for the future, Anderson said Open Text is seeing a strong growth trend in FoIP installations, so clearly the technology has moved past the early adopters and into the mainstream. “The surprising observation that we have made is that often an organization has already made the transition to VoIP, yet still rely on their TDM connected fax solution. Now is a great time to leverage your IP infrastructure for both fax and telephony, and reduce your TDM PSTN footprint,” Anderson said. “One other advantage to going boardless and FoIP is the ability to virtualize your fax server solution. We currently support VMWare’s ESX platform for virtualization, and are planning on formally supporting Hyper-V solution by the end of 2009,” he explained. “Organizations are using these technologies to enhance the leverage of their infrastructure in the data center. Fax servers and FoIP in these virtualized environments provide outstanding scalability, flexibility, yet retain the security and features that regulators demand. As more companies adopt IP-based communications systems, security has emerged as a chief concern. Open Text Fax Server, RightFax edition ensures that its fax software yields secure and private document delivery, Anderson added. “Our 25 years of experience, and nearly 100,000 server installations attest to our feature set, and the security of the system,” he said. “The fact that 97 of the top 100 financial institutions rely on RightFax for their fax transmissions, attests to the security, reliability and regulatory compliance in our DNA. We are the natural choice for fax servers for any sized business from a small or branch office, up to multinational juggernauts.”

Yahoo courts partners in India

2009-11-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

Some news about YAHOO. Enjoy!

Eleven months into the Yahoo board after a failed buyout bid for the portal company by Microsoft catapaulted her to the top of the Internet media company in a management shuffle, she is clear about what her company is and what is not.

"We are a media company with amazing technology," she told journalists on Wednesday. "Half of our business is in search...but we are not Google."

With a focused description of itself as "the centre of people's lives online" -- or a pivot to drive traffic elsewhere amid an explosion of content sites and social networks -- Yahoo is now out to woo local partnerships in India, wearing on its sleeves a people-friendly brand, a heavy-duty technology infrastructure and its traditional leadership of online banner ads distinct from the Google's search-led leadership.

"India is excitingly complex. It is really important that we feel local to in India," Bartz (61), ranked 12th in the list of the world's most powerful women by Forbes magazine, told journalists. "We want to partner with those close to the people, wherever they are,...however regional they are."

Yahoo already has a partnership with Hindi language publisher Jagran group. It is also an investor in match-making site BharatMatrimony.com and in Tyroo.com that competes with Google's AdWords in search-based advertising. It also has a technology centre in Bangalore.

Yahoo has a strong presence in India, with 72 per cent of the people online connected by Yahoo accounts. A recent ad campaign led to a 40 per cent rise in time spent on Yahoo India sites. With 96 per cent of Indian telecom operators in partnership with Yahoo, Bartz believes prospects are rich as mobile Internet takes off.

"Of course, Internet penetration is very low, but we view that as an opportunity," said Bartz, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier on Wednesday and discussed possible ways to offer technology to bridge the digital divide and take more people online, particularly the the Unique Identity project.

Processing 500 billion e-mails a month (80 per cent of that unwanted spam) and 9 billion ads served every day and $1 billion (Rs 4,600 crore) in free cash flow every year, the company still has plenty of room to be relevant, Bartz said, dismissing talk that giants Google and Microsoft were out to eat Yahoo's lunch.

Bartz said half of Yahoo's business was from search, in which it got a new lease of life in a battle against Google after a partnership with Microsoft's search engine Bing. But she adds that people spend only three percent of their Internet time on search. The other 97 per cent is where Yahoo sees its big chances.

Bartz was earlier at engineering software firm Autodesk. On her second day there, she discovered she had breast cancer. She successfully fought both the disease and corporate troubles at Autodesk.

How to Tame Your E-mail Monster

2009-11-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

Decided, that it is enough useful info to share it with you! Hope you will like it!

Ubiquitous, effective, efficient, simple, annoying, maddening, perturbing, frustrating, and indispensable. All are adjectives that can describe e-mail. Most of us have a love / hate relationship with our email.

Like a hammer, e-mail can be used to build or to wreck. E-mail is a tool that can be used to improve your communications or confound it. It can be a time saver or a time sucker.

Your effective use of e-mail will put your time where it is most effective. Many of us find that e-mail and the Internet can be a black hole, exerting an irresistible, almost manic, pull on our productivity.

Here is proof. In my last column I suggested that you should only check your emails every 90 minutes. My own e-mail and (to a lesser extent) the comment section of the Insurance Journal Web site was blue with disdain. Many told me they have to check e-mail every 90 seconds in order to keep up. From the name-calling you would have thought that I had questioned the virtue of the reader's mother!

Ninety nine percent of the e-mail we all get can be addressed quite well, making clients quite happy, if we respond within a business day. If you can respond faster, great. Frankly, with many of the people I encounter, I'm just glad to get a reply without having to send a reminder!

Constant checking of e-mail saps productivity. Most of our work requires some level of concentration and attention. Being in the middle of 10 tasks means that you are constantly trying to figure out what is what, draining away time and contributing to errors.

Here are some more email time wise ideas:

Happiness is an empty inbox. When you check your e-mail, empty your inbox. Your inbox is for new mail. You don't leave mail in your post office box do you? When you get a new note delete it, reply to it, or put it in a folder for later reply. Trying to work from your inbox is like trying to manage your snail mail sitting in the mail room.
Your e-mail address should not be from Yahoo or Hotmail - probably not Gmail either. I am amazed at how many professionals do not have their own e-mail address. Bush league. Skip the e-mail style gimmicks. Don't add backgrounds, moving icons, or garish colors. Simple, clean, and neat.
Use the tools included in your software. Most will let you filter messages. Some put messages into folders and others attach labels. Your software can take notes from your inbox and put them into folders for future review. My e-mail moves the newsletters I subscribe to to a "Read Later" file. I never touch them until I'm ready for them.
Bing! Turn off the new-message indicator. You really don't need to know that you have a new e-mail.
Never send an e-mail without a descriptive subject. The subject line is what grabs your reader's attention and helps you (and your corespondent) find the e-mail six months later. Be descriptive.
Hold off on "reply to all." Does everyone really need to see that you said thanks?
Watch your tone. Are your messages perceived as curt? Explain yourself clearly. Never use "happy faces" in business e-mails!
Include a signature file appropriate for the recipient and your business. Almost every e-mail you send should have all your contact info at the end. Phone, website, fax, mailing address at a minimum. Include some biographic info if you like - no random quotes - inspirational sayings - or Hotmail solicitations! Dump the smiley faces and the environmental pleas too.
Temper your temper. Never hit send when you're angry. Stick the diatribe in your draft folder overnight and re-read it in the morning.
The pause that de-stresses. Set your software so that e-mail is delayed a few minutes before actually being sent. Most of us have had the experience of hitting the send button only to immediately want to add or delete something to the note.
Touch each e-mail in your inbox once - reply, delete, or, if you have to, put it aside for further work. If you do put it aside you only get to touch it one more time.
Use spell check. Why anyone sends an e-mail anymore with "teh" instead of "the" is beyond me. Use the technology you have available.
Don't rely on spell check. Their, there, and they're all pass spell check. Only one is correct within a specific sentence.
Short e-mails are almost always better than long e-mails. The habit of succinctness is vastly and overwhelmingly underutilized in today's world of commerce.
Limit the number of topics you cover in an e-mail. Everyone scans e-mails rather than reading them. Hit on a few topics. Use frequent and short paragraphs.
Sometimes, a phone call is better.

HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer

2009-10-30T02:43:00.000-07:00

Today I offer you this article to discuss. Will be glad to find your opinion about this!

HP's Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer is a color inkjet multifunction printer with one truly new feature: the ability to access Web-based applications for viewing and printing items on the machine. It's a cool concept, but it's not quite polished: The initial apps have some frustrating limitations, and we found small bugs in the programs--and even in the device itself. Given the unit's high purchase price ($400 as of 10/27/09), I was expecting a smoother start.

As a traditional MFP, the Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web performed competently in our tests. Using default settings, it printed plain text and graphics at better-than-average speeds of 8 pages per minute and 3.7 ppm, respectively. (HP's specs of 33 ppm for text and 32 ppm for graphics were derived from draft mode.) Print quality was fairly smooth and realistic, just a little grainy on plain paper.

The MFP includes a 100-sheet, letter/legal input tray and a 20-sheet photo tray, plus a 50-sheet output tray. The automatic duplexer is an especially nice feature. Connectivity is generous, including USB, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Slots accommodate CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD Card, and XD-Picture Card, and the unit also has a PictBridge port. Ink costs are average, running at 4.4 to 4.8 cents per text page and 12 to 15.5 cents per four-color page, depending on whether you use the standard or high-yield inks.

The Web-based apps are underwhelming because they're merely canned, limited versions of certain Web sites. For instance, in Google Maps, you can type in an address, view the location in map or satellite mode, and print the results in a few different layouts. (Driving directions? HP says that feature is coming.) USA Today's app lets you select and print a type of news (such as sports or weather), but you can't preview the contents beforehand. If you're a Snapfish photo site user, you can view, print, and upload photos, but you can't use the slideshow function--which would seem a natural fit for the MFP's 4.33-inch, color LCD. HP says it's considering this feature.

Those apps and a handful of other home-oriented ones arrived preloaded on our unit; you can download more from the HP App Studio site. HP says that a software development kit will be available in early 2010--now, that could be fun.

Note that the Web functions do not work unless the machine is connected directly to a network with Internet access. A typical installation via USB to your PC gets you nowhere (even if your PC has Internet access). This seems like an important point, but HP confirmed that it isn't documented anywhere.

The LCD works intuitively as a touch interface. As a display, it has a few problems. On our unit, for instance, the preview feature for copies and scans kept stalling; HP says a fix is in progress. A message that appears after you change ink cartridges has oddly overlapping graphical elements, which HP acknowledges. The company is also checking on an error message that kept showing up in Google Maps displays even though nothing was wrong.

The Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer definitely sets a new, if wobbly, direction for the category. I'll be interested to see future apps, especially the SDK. I just wish that HP had worked out more of the kinks before shipping.

Try before you buy customer services

2009-10-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

That is an interesting info! Read ad enjoy!

Smaller centres invited to play with the ‘big boys’ thanks to hosted technology.

Call centres up to 50-seats are being offered a risk-free way of testing new technologies before migrating to an IP (Internet Protocol) set-up, with a hosted version of CosmoCom's contact management software from new firm, Quick Contact Centre (QCC).

The QCC technology is designed to unify phone, email, web, SMS and fax communications, and offers functionality such as intelligent skills routing, self-service IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and multi-contact call recording. Paul Titcombe, director at Quick Contact Centre said that with deployment typically taking less than 48 hours, the chance to pilot services without huge IT projects makes it a compelling product for centres with limited resources.

“QCC's service is also the perfect solution for companies looking to run short term campaigns or trial contact centre concepts, while centrally managing and reporting on multi-site operations - including those operations of outsourced partners. Now the small-to-medium size contact centre can benefit from the same diverse and sophisticated features previously available to only the 'big boys'," says Titcombe.

Twelve per cent of internet users have no security software as two thirds of users lack fraud awareness

2009-10-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a useful info about scamming. Read... and be aware!

As National Identity Fraud Prevention Week reaches it mid-point, a report has revealed that 64 per cent of people admit that they throw sensitive documents in the bin without shredding them.

Also, 12 per cent of people said they used the internet without having any security internet software in place. The research from National Identity Fraud Prevention Week and featured on the Metro website, showed that the threat of identity fraud is real and current, according to spokesman Tyron Hill.

Hill said: “People are either naive or they continue to ignore the advice that could keep their identity, their finances and their reputation safe.”

Jonny Wilkinson, security expert at Websense, said: “Twelve per cent is a worryingly large number of employees without adequate security software. It highlights a significant gulf between the protection in place and the protection needed in today's Web 2.0 enabled world.

"A company's workforce will regularly interact with a range of websites, social networks and other information-sharing programs. The exchange of data is constant and, especially in the current economic climate, data is power.”

However Phil D'Angio, Director at VeriSign, commented that despite the low numbers, UK consumers are gaining knowledge of online threats. “As ID fraud continues to rise, consumers are increasingly aware of the fact that they could be a fraudster's next victim,” said D'Angio.

“Recent research commissioned by VeriSign found that 82 per cent of consumers are reluctant to shop from websites that do not display signs of enhanced security. It's no longer enough to offer behind-the-scenes protection for your online customers – they need to see a visible commitment to their safety when transacting online.

“Customers need recognisable signs which prove that that if they buy from your website, you are taking every possible step to protect them against online crime. The proof is in the pudding – if they have any doubts over to the security of a site, retailers risk losing their custom as they seek safer places to shop.”

Internet Never More Dangerous: Study

2009-10-08T04:19:00.000-07:00

Waiting for your comments for this. Read and enjoy!

Report finds a 585 percent spike in fake anti-malware and security software programs in the first half of 2009.

Malware, phishing sites and phony antivirus software programs are not only proliferating at a record pace but becoming more sophisticated each day -- to the point that going online is now more risky than ever before.

That's according to the latest data security report released this week by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

The group, whose members include such big names as Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, WalMart and EMC's RSA security division, said in its report for the first half of 2009 that hackers and phishers have turned the Internet into the Wild West, targeting PCs, company Web sites and mobile devices with scams that are as creative as they are destructive to personal and corporate data security.

"The Internet has never been more dangerous," said APWG chairman David Jevans. "In the first half of 2009, phishing escalated to some of the highest levels we've ever seen. Of even greater concern is the skyrocketing sophistication and proliferation of malicious software designed to steal online passwords and user names."

The report found that the number of detected malicious anti-malware programs and fake security software applications that actually infect user machines surged up 585 percent between January and the end of June.

New phishing Web sites detected in June rose to 49,084 -- the most since the 55,643 sites discovered in April 2007 and the second-highest number recorded since APWG began reporting on phishing sites. The number of hijacked brands and Web sites an all-time high of 310 in March.

APWG researchers working at Panda Labs' research lab counted more than 152,000 different strains of bogus anti-malware apps in June, up from slightly more than 22,000 such applications in January.

The number of compromised PCs also continued soaring. The report found that more than 11.9 million computers were infected in the first half of this year, up a staggering 66 percent from the same period last year.

Things are so bleak that APWG decided to create a new metric, using data collected by security software vendor Websense, to measure the growth of three separate categories of sophisticated malware.

Those include one category it calls data stealing and generic trojans, consisting of malware that sends information from an infected machine, controls the machine and opens backdoors on it. That's become a major threat to online activity: Researchers have suggested that hacked PCs aren't just giving criminals access to user data -- They're being used in botnets that are responsible for the vast majority of all spam.

The group also singled out "crimeware," which is code designed to attack the data held by financial institutions. And then there's "Other," which is defined as commonly auto-replicating worms and dialers for telephone chargeback scams.

"Due to evolution of attack sophistication, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate and report on attacks that are specifically designed to steal customer banking information," Dan Hubbard, Websense's CTO, said in the report. "Additionally, attacks that only for credentials from popular social networking, Web mail and gaming sites can lead to attacks for banking theft and crimeware."

Microsoft Releases Free Antivirus Software

2009-10-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some good news about protecting our PCs. So enjoy and protect yourself.

Microsoft today broadly offered its much-awaited free anti-malware service, making it available after a limited three-month, three-country beta test.

The service, Microsoft Security Essentials, previously code-named Morro, is now available for download in 19 countries and eight languages, on computers running properly licensed copies of the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. A spokesman said additional markets and languages would be added this year and next year.

The test sparked hearty interest among recession-weary consumers this summer; the 75,000 testing accounts for United States users were snapped up in about a day. The beta was also conducted in Brazil and Israel, where spots were also devoured quickly.

Microsoft said in November that it would begin the free service and end retail sales of OneCare, a more comprehensive product that wasn’t a big seller. The software giant’s antivirus technology has performed well in independent tests, and the new service has gotten high marks from testers for usability and its light demands on PC memory and horsepower.

The product has not been terribly appreciated by security-software industry, however, which fears Microsoft’s marketing might. Some players also decry the suggestion that the product provides users with the essentials needed to keep their computers secure, because it provides only malware scanning and not a variety of technologies, like firewalls and protection from potentially malicious Web sites, that are needed to deal with many of today’s top Internet threats.

Microsoft retorts that the product is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to provide a basic level of protection to the largest number of people around the world — particularly in emerging markets — who don’t use security software at all, often because of the high cost. Moreover, the company has built a firewall into modern versions of Windows and provides some defenses against malicious Web sites in Internet Explorer 8.

Security Essentials is available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.