Free IT Library

Introduction to The Free IT Library

2008-07-04T11:17:00.000+06:00

In this website you will find the great Free IT Library of the computing resources such as tech tutorials, computer study guide, connecting networks tips, active topology, computer glossary, computer technology resources, free computer tests, network devices, computer study guide, computer networking, computer tips, basic computing, advance computing, Online exams and other computer resources all for free.

Information technology (IT) or information and communication technology (ICT) is the technology required for information processing. In particular the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and retrieve information from anywhere, anytime. The purpose of this website is to provide tech tutorials, computer study guides, computer tips & computer certifications information.

The IT Library has been designed as a free introductory level, online computer related website, providing tech tutorials on computer hardware, software, operating systems, and basic troubleshooting, IT glossary, IT certifications and IT interview questions, university library, library it, it reference, central library, tech library, tech learning, tech tips, free tutorials, tech online, basic tutorials and IT infrastructure.

If you just want to learn more about your computer's hardware, networking, Certifications and other IT related information, here's a good place to start! Read the tutorials, then try the exercises and computer Tests provided. If you have trouble with the review questions, tutorials or any other please let us know.

The computer computer tips, Interview questions, networking and Free tests may also be helpful for those preparing for Certifications exams, preparing for the interview of computer related jobs, and for students, teachers and the IT professionals.

The Free IT Library intended to help all the students, teachers, & other computer/IT professionals of the Computer Science & Computer Technology Field by providing the industry renowned tech tutorials.. We have sorted out much information to help them all.

Computer Science and Computer Technology has become the vital part of the education throughout the world.

Computer science (academically, CS, CSC or compsci) encompasses a variety of topics that relates to computation, like abstract analysis of algorithms, formal grammars, and subjects such as programming languages, program design, software and computer hardware & tech tutorials.

Computer training is possible through formal education attending one of the many colleges or university offering both IT and computer science programs.

The study skills lesson plans should be so structured that it is dynamic and capable of being altered to suit the student’s growing and changing needs. This helps to make the students more focused in their approach, as they are continually involved in the process of change. After all the students are the ultimate beneficiaries. This however does not mean that the content can be ignored. There should be adequate coverage of any topic so that a certain degree of mastery is indicated.

The Free IT Library is meant for providing the latest IT related topics overview, study guides, certification preparation tips, Router labs, free software downloads and many other free IT resources. Whatever study skills lesson plans are drawn up, remember there is no end to it. All plans have only beginnings, for human beings are unique, and it is this uniqueness, which is conceptually infinite. Whatever plan we draw up will be inadequate, but we do require a basic framework from which to operate.

We are continuously updating our website. If you have any questions, suggestions and feedback please let us know. We can improve our website in a very progressive way with your help. Your feedback is always welcomed.

The Free IT Library provides the basic & advance computing guides, Online exams & Free Tutorials

PC Troubleshooting

2008-06-29T05:13:00.010+06:00

In this troubleshooting article, you will learn that how to solve the common problems of a PC. By using the right techniques and tools today PCs are much easier to troubleshoot than before. There are many troubleshooting and diagnostic utilities in the Windows based operating systems that help to solve the common configurations, connectivity and other hardware and software related errors. The PC components that are involved with the display are motherboard, processor, RAM, video card and power supply. If your errors are related to the display then the problem will be mostly likely to these components. If you PC does not boot up, make sure everything is plugged correctly and also check the CMOS battery, memory stick, power supply, power button, video card and the processor. If your PC hangs up or freezes it may be due to the hardware/software conflicts, faulty processor fan, inadequate RAM and a virus/spyware attack. To deal with the security related threats such as viruses, hacking attacks, spyware, adware, Trojan horses, browser hijacks and other, you need to install up-to-dated antivirus, anti spyware software and properly configured firewall software or hardware. This article will provide you help in troubleshooting the most common problems with your PC.

Hard Disk Problems

If you hard disk does not spin up then you need to do the following.

Check the power connectors are properly connected.
Check if the IDE ribbon cable is properly connected with the motherboard and hard disk.

If the problem still not resolved then there may be bad sectors or other physical defects in your hard disk. Use a hard disk diagnostic utility, it will diagnose the health status of your hard disk and will help you to troubleshoot the common problems.

Printer Problems

If your printer does not print, then you need to do the following.

Check the cables.
Restart the printer.
Update the driver.
Check the alignment of the printer.

If the problem is still not resolved then you need to reinstall the printer.

Memory Problems

Sometimes bad or low memory leads to system crash, slow response time and the system freeze. To troubleshoot the memory related problems in your system you need to do the following.

Check the memory sticks.
Replace the memory modules.
Increase the amount of memory in your system. It will fix a number of system errors that are caused due to the low memory.

Motherboard Problems

A PC motherboard consists of an I/O ports, expansion slots, input device ports, RAM memory and CPU socket. A misconfigured motherboard may results in the system errors or no display at all. To troubleshoot the errors with your system’s motherboard you need to do the following.

Double check the motherboard’s jumper settings
Upgrade the drivers of the newly installed motherboard and set the BIOS according to the manufacturer’s manual.
Remove all the optional devices and see if the problem is solved or not.
Double check all the connections to the motherboard.
Check the system’s BIOS and see if it is properly configured or not.
Make sure that the keyboard and mouse are properly inserted into the motherboard.

Network Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot the connectivity related issues in your computer network, you need to do the following.

Update the drive of the LAN card.
Check the network cable at both ends. It should be properly inserted at both ends i.e. one end in the hub/switch and one end in the computer.
Restart the hub/switch or router.
Restart your computer.

If your connectivity issue is still not resolved then you need to replace the LAN card with a new one and configure it.

CD-ROM

The most of the problems in your CD/DVD-ROM are related to lens. If your CD/DVD-ROM does not read the CD/DVD then either the CD has scratches of the lens is covered with the dust particles. Try to replace the CD/DVD with a new one and if you problem is still not resolve then you need to clean your CD/DVD-ROM with a lens cleansing lotion. Additionally, you need to check the power connector to CD-ROM is properly connected.

Web Security Software

2008-06-29T05:11:00.001+06:00

The web is evolving rapidly and become more dynamic with the use of the web 2.0 applications. But it has also been used to launch the various attacks. There are many threats browse the internet, check emails, transfers files and shop online. Every online computer can be infected with the viruses or spyware in only 20 minutes if the proper security solutions have not been implemented. The well known threats include viruses, spyware, adware, phishing, Trojan horses, malware, web worms, intruders and the cyber villains (hackers). If you computer is infected then all other connected computers can get infected automatically.

There are many internet bugs that can corrupt your data, degrade the performance of your system, steal your critical data and crash your system. There are many internet filtering, antivirus, anti spyware, anti-phishing and security solutions available. With the implementations of the web security solutions, you can protect your entire network from being attacked from the viruses, hackers and other online threats.

Some of the common techniques to deal with the online threats are to install an up-to-dated antivirus software, install and configure firewall, update your operating system, raise the security of your browse, never open any email attachment from the unknown source, never give away your passwords, credit card number, SSN and bank account’s details through the emails. Some of the web security solutions include the following.

Norton Antivirus

Norton Antivirus provides the complete solutions against the viruses, spyware and adware. It helps to protect your computer from the online threats. It works in the background so that you can surf the net, play games and download the software or music. Norton Antivirus automatically checks for the updates and blocks the emerging threats. There are a wide variety of the security products and you can pick the best product according to your requirements.

McAfee Antivirus Software

McAfee is a leader of the security risk management, intrusion detection and prevention. McAfee Internet Security Suite provides you the protection against the viruses, spyware, adware, Trojan horses and hackers. It helps to detect the thousands of the viruses on your computer.

GFI Web Monitor

GFI Web Monitoring software protect your computer from downloading the dangerous items from the internet, reduce cyberslacking, prevent data leakage and lower the risks of the social engineering and the phising websites and emails.

Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite

ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 provides the anti spam, firewall and antivirus capabilities and protect your computer from the well known internet threats.

Networking Devices

2008-06-29T05:09:00.000+06:00

Computer network devices also known as communication devices and they constitute a data communication network. These devices are routers, switches, hubs, LAN cards, gateway, modems, hardware firewall, CSU/DSU, ISDN terminals and transceivers. In an Ethernet or WAN network, the data communication cannot be performed without these devices. Being an IT professional or a network administrator, you must have the good understanding of these devices.

Based on your business requirements, you have the select the best devices for your network and before selection, make sure that they are compatible with each other. It is recommended that you select all the devices for your IT infrastructure from the same vendor.

The top vendors are Cisco, D-Link, LinkSys, Baynet, RealTek, 3Com, NetGear, Intel, Nortel, and Lucent etc. A well designed IT infrastructure with the proper placement of the routers, servers, gateway and switches can reduce the operational cost and enhances the overall performance dramatically.

Routers

A router is a communication device that is used to connect two logically and physically different networks, two LANs, two WANs and a LAN with WAN. The main function of the router is to sorting and the distribution of the data packets to their destinations based on their IP addresses. Routers provides the connectivity between the enterprise businesses, ISPs and in the internet infrastructure, router is a main device. Cisco routers are widely used in the world. Every router has routing software, which is known as IOS. Router operates at the network layer of the OSI model. Router does not broadcast the data packets.

Switches

Like the router, a switch is an intelligent device that maps the IP address with the MAC address of the LAN card. Unlike the hubs, a switch does not broadcast the data to all the computers, it sends the data packets only to the destined computer. Switches are used in the LAN, MAN and WAN. In an Ethernet network, computers are directly connected with the switch via twisted pair cables. In a network, switches use the three methods to transmit the data i.e. store and forward, cut through and fragment free.

Hubs

The central connecting device in a computer network is known as a hub. There are two types of a hub i.e. active hub and passive hub. Every computer is directly connected with the hub. When data packets arrives at hub, it broadcast them to all the LAN cards in a network and the destined recipient picks them and all other computers discard the data packets. Hub has five, eight, sixteen and more ports and one port is known as uplink port, which is used to connect with the next hub.

Modems

A modem is a communication device that is used to provide the connectivity with the internet. Modem works in two ways i.e. modulation and demodulation. It coverts the digital data into the analog and analog to digital

LAN Cards

LAN cards or network adapters are the building blocks of a computer network. No computer can communicate without a properly installed and configured LAN card. Every LAN card is provided with a unique IP address, subnet mask, gateway and DNS (if applicable). An UTP/STP cable connects a computer with the hub or switch. Both ends of the cable have the RJ-45 connectors one is inserted into the LAN card and one in the hub/switch. LAN cards are inserted into the expansion slots inside the computer. Different LAN cards support different speed from 10/100 to 10/1000.

Multiplexer

Multiplexer is a device that is used to combining the several electrical signals into one signal.

Web Marketing

2008-06-29T05:08:00.000+06:00

Internet is a great tool for the online marketing. Internet marketing or online marketing is the way to promote and sell your products and services through the Internet. Today thousands of the companies in the world sell their products are services through the internet and generate a good stream of income and all this is possible with the best web marketing strategies.

Effective online Marketing and promotion of a website is very important for the success of a business. A website without promotion is not able to generate the results. The most important thing for you is to learn through some research that which marketing strategies are most important for your business.

Internet marketing includes all the aspects of the web advertising and promotional methods which include pay per click, search engine optimization, banner exchange, social bookmarking, RSS feed, paid links, directory submission, press release, articles writing and submission, free giveaways, email marketing and online market research.

Broadcast advertisement may results in providing your site thousands of the visitors but it is not sure that who will purchase your products and services through your website. The best strategy is to reach only the targeted audience rather to getting all kinds of visitors. If your website gets quality and targeted visitors then the chances of the sales through your website are greater. Secondly, your website design, look and feel, credibility, visitor’s privacy, and website contents greatly impact that whether the visitors will stay on your site for a long time or not.

Before starting online marketing, you need to design the comprehensive marketing strategies and set your goals. Once you have designed a good marketing plan to get the more prospects through the targeted visitors and you are working hard in the right direction then your marketing process will become automated after sometime.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Alta Vista etc are biggest source of traffic on the internet. People from all over the world search through the search engines to find the information, products and services. Search engines traffic is divided into the following three categories

Information Seekers & Researchers
Visitors who compare the products and services.
Buyers.

Search engine optimization is one of the most important and best marketing strategies for any website on the internet. A properly optimized website can generate thousands of the targeted visitors and if your website has potential and all the aspects of a good website then surely you can get prospects, which generate leads and sales.

Pay Per Click

Getting good positions in the search engines for the targeted keywords take some time. If you want quick traffic for your website and pay per click is an excellent option for you. There are two main players in this field Google Adwords and Overture. You can sign up with Google Adwords for $ 5. After creating your account, you need to design excellent campaigns for generating traffic. If you have designed campaigns successfully with the targeted keywords then the leads and sales thorough your website are not far away.

Articles Writing and Submission

Article writing and submission has dual benefits i.e. you write articles and submit in the articles directories and if people find your articles useful they will be interested to visit your website, which they can find in your author’s bio, usually at the end of the article. Secondly, by placing live links of your website in your articles, is very helpful in improving the position of your website in the search engines. There are a lot of articles directories that allow you to submit articles and place your website links in the articles text and in the author’s bio.

Directory Submission

Submitting your website in the popular web directory again has dual benefits i.e. you get one way links to your websites, which are very important for improving your ranking in the search engines and secondly submitting website in the web directories is helpful in promotion.

Links Popularity

Links popularity has many benefits i.e. promotion, SERP improvement and traffic. By placing your website links on the popular but related websites can results in a big traffic and ranking for your website. You can get links from the other related websites free or paid. In the free method, you have to place the link of the other website on your own website too and this is known as links exchange or reciprocal linking.

Web Conferencing

2008-06-29T05:05:00.001+06:00

Web conferencing is a great internet based technology that is used for the audio and video communications. With this technology a group of people from different parts of the work can work collaboratively on the same project and they can communicate with each other by means of voice, video and chat. It has also been using for the online presentations, webinars, business communications, education, group discussions and remote meeting between the individuals at different parts of the world. It has become the basic requirement for the enterprise and many businesses worldwide. It has been providing great benefits to the small and big businesses and the individuals who are involved in the global marketplace.

Microsoft Net Meeting or Yahoo Messenger and high speed broadband internet connection is used to participate in the web conferencing and you can attend your business meetings from your home or office. Web conferencing can also be used for conducting or participating in the large scale events, employee training, distance learning, sales presentation, marketing seminars, software demonstrations, new product training and products launching. It allows you to meet a remote person regularly without any travel cost. Every computer user with a high speed internet connection, web conferencing software and with microphone/headphone can conduct basic web conferencing.

Many conferencing service providers offer it as a service and they provide the access of specialized software that is hosted on their server and you can share your desktop or communicate with several options. Many service providers offer the same service with some variations in the features and their services are either subscription basis, fixed fees or cost per use. Mostly there is no software to download, install and configure in your computer and the application for the conferencing is hosted on the service provider’s server.

The conferencing application offers the video chat, audio VOIP communication options. The cost of the services varies from company to company and the cost is determined by the number of participants and the number of minutes online. Based on your budget and business requirements you can select the service provider. However the overall cost for the web conferencing solution is much lower than the costs involved in the business trips and business meeting arrangements.

Web conferencing is a great tool that helps you to generate sales and saves your time and money. The quality of this technology has been improving and new features are being added over time. Conferencing market continues to expand at a very rapid pace as it provides the excellent communication solutions to the worldwide businesses.

Telecommunication

2008-06-29T05:04:00.000+06:00

The need for the Communications over the longer distance has become the most important aspect of the human lives. The term telecommunication is applied on the number of things such as internet, mobile phones, VOIP, satellite systems, radio, television, LAN and satellite phones. It is a great medium for the distant educational resources, business promotion, voice communication and entertainment. It has reduced the need of physical travel as with its power we can communicate with each other through the video conferencing, emails, chats, and internet phone calls. It has made the people from all around the world to come closer to each other. It has great impact on the large number of the businesses.

Today we need to communicate with the people on the other part of the globe. Telecommunication is the electronic transmission of the voice, data, text, images and video signals over a long distance through different mediums such as micro waves, radio waves and fiber optic cables etc. A telecommunication networks consist of multiple transmitting and receiving stations.

Telecommunication includes the satellite systems, broadband systems, microwave systems, digital networks, telephone networks, radio stations, LAN and wireless networks. In a telecom network, data is transmitted in the form of communication signals known as carrier wave that travels over the radio or microwave. The telecom systems consist of three basic elements i.e. transmitter, transmission medium and receiver. The transmitter and receiver can be combined into a single device known as transceivers.

The other telecom hardware includes the access gateway, routers, switches, receivers, equalizers, translators, antennas, splitters, amplifiers, repeaters, CDMA modem cards, connectors, splitters, fiber optic cables and other networking products. The different transmitting and receiving devices are combined together to exchange the data and transmission signals between them.

The industry has been experiencing a potential growth over the past few years, which and brought the greater employment opportunities for the telecom engineers, network specialists, WAN engineers, telecom security specialist. Telephone system, internet, LAN and radio stations are the examples of the telecommunication systems.

Online Games

2008-06-29T05:01:00.000+06:00

Internet has revolutionized our lives in many ways. Today, people from all over the world use internet to get up-to-date information and news, promote business, do research, seek education, earn money through home based businesses and get entertainment related stuff like movies, songs and games. Gaming is the fastest growing entertainment in the world and anyone can participate in the online games regardless of the age, gender, time and money restrictions.

Online games are the most popular type of the games and a person from USA can play the same game with the person in UK. There are many types of the game such as puzzle, adventure, flash, classic, action, arcade, sports, fun and joy, strategy, casino, racing and fighting games and you can pick any game according to your choice and mood.

In the multiplayer games, many people can participate form any part of the world. If you have high speed internet connection you can play games by yourself, match up against your friends and colleagues and participate in the online gaming contents to have fun and win the prizes. The games are relaxing and full of fun because there is no time limit and you can play anytime.

Another great benefit you can get from internet games is to brush up your language skills because you get chance to play with the people from all over the world. On the big gaming sites, the games are categorically arranged with a full description and new users can learn and play easily.

The internet games can range from simple to more complex and they have become a social activity on the internet because many people can participate in the same game from all over the world. Due to their huge popularity a large number of the games have been developed to provide the fun, entertainment and joy according to the tastes of every kind of people. Different people are inclined towards the different types of the game such as adventure, sports, racing, action, casino, strategy and fighting etc.

Gaming is also helpful in building the relationships between the different community and it brings people of different culture, languages and history to come closer with each other. Many online games require you to install the Macromedia Flash player on your computer. For a new user, picking a game from the gaming site is very easy because they are categorized as New, Top rated, Most Popular, Single player, Multiplayer, Most played and top 10 games.

Today, online gaming has become a very profitable industry. The popular gaming websites charge the monthly fees from the surfers. These sites are regularly updated with the latest games to provide the best experience to their members.

Online Shopping

2008-06-29T04:57:00.000+06:00

The internet has revolutionized the shopping. It has played an important role in the business promotion, work at home opportunities and shop at home. Online shopping is the process of buying through the internet. It is safer than before to shop online. Almost every kind of products can be purchased online like beauty products, computer related stuff, clothing, books, automotive, electronics, flowers, toys, sports related stuff, office products, Pets, DVDs and almost everything. There are a wide range of online shopping outlets and online stores.

Online shopping is a type of E-commerce that is used for the B2B and B2C transactions. Walmart, Shopping.com, Bizrate, Yahoo Online Store, Amazon, and Apple are the common stores. Every E-commerce website has the shopping facility with it. Online store are available 24 hours a day and consumer can access it from home or office anytime. The payment options include Paypal, Google Checkout, Money Booker, 2CO, wire transfer, postal money order and E-Gold etc.

The main reasons that why people shop online is the convenience of shopping, unique products, better pricing and convenience of transaction within minutes while at home. While people shop online, they have their security concerns and they want to know that whether they provide their information online is secure or not. To avoid any kind internet frauds always shop on a secure website.

Secure socket layer (SSL), HTTPS, firewalls, antivirus solutions and many other security mechanisms are being employed at the web hosting level as well consumer level should also be protected with the firewall, anti virus solutions. Consumers can research the credibility and repute of the online stores before start purchasing from them.

Safer Online Shopping Tips

Shop with the merchant sites of excellent credibility.
See what other customers have to say.
Look for a secure website.
Look for the real world contact information of the online stores.
Check the return policy.
Protect your password by using the combinations of the special characters.
Double check pricing.
Read the privacy policy.
Take print out and file the receipt of online transaction.
Know where you can file complaint in case of misusage of your secret information.

Mobile Computing

2008-06-29T04:52:00.000+06:00

The objectives of your growing business needs can be achieved through the mobile wireless networks. Today, no business is successful without the fast and in-time communication. Delayed communications in the businesses may result in the financial losses, client’s dissatisfaction, reduces sales and the problems with in-time decision making. Mobile computing refers to using the small portable and hand held computing devices such as PDA, laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, tablet PC and Palmtops in a wireless enabled network. In broad sense, it is referred to use any handheld computing device without the cables.

It provides the continuous access to the wireless network services and the flexible communication between the people. It provides the real-time business to employee communication, enhanced customers interactions, improved B2B options and fastest communication between the individuals. The communication occurs with the real-time wireless connection. It provides the data, audio and video access to any user, any time with a wireless enable device.

The wireless network may be WLAN, wi-fi, GSM, CDMA, Wimax or GPRS. The cell phones and laptops are the most commonly used mobile computing devices. It can be referred to the two main field portable and mobility computing. It can be used to checking the email via the mobile phones, sending SMS, accessing internet and sending MMS. This technology has enabled the users to remain connected while on the move and it provides all the benefits of the computer network but without the cables. There are many companies that provide the mobile computing solutions to the home users and businesses.

The portable device that uses this technology is the laptop computers. The geographic coverage of this technology is pretty broad and anyone on the move with portable and handheld computing device can access it such as travelers, taxi drivers, warehouse workers, postal services vehicles and automobiles etc. Mobile computing devices can access any type of wireless network such as Wi-Fi, Wimax and wireless conventional network to access the internet and the network.

Mobile computing services can be provided for the specific purposes and its cost varies from company to company. The laptop users, businessmen, home users and PDA users can achieve the usefulness of this technology. Additionally, there are customized mobile computing solutions that are designed for the different commercial fields like health care, business, education, pharmaceutical, IT and service providers. With the wireless technology, businesses, sales force, customers and partners will be able to maintain the smooth communication between them.

Mobile Phones

2008-06-29T04:50:00.000+06:00

The mobile phone also known as cellular phone is a small handheld electronic device that is capable of keeping you connected with the rest of the world. Today, they have become the fashion and status symbol. There is no other electronic product that got so much popularity like the cellular phones. A mobile phone has become an important necessity of our lives. The innovations and the insatiable demands of the phone phones have resulted into their continuous supply all over the world. Today cellular phones offer many latest features such as Bluetooth, infrared, SMS, MMS, MP3, FM radio, external memory, Multimedia, GPRS, mega pixel camera, internet access, tracking and a lot of other features.

The top brands in the cellular phone industry are Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony, Orange, Siemens, NEC, Sanyo, Panasonic, Virgin Mobiles, Sharp, Siemens, Blackberry and T mobile phones. Some of the technologically advanced mobile phones such as Apple iPhone, AT&T Tilt, LG Rumor - white (Sprint), LG Voyager - VX10000 (Verizon Wireless), RIM Blackberry Pearl 8130 - silver (Verizon Wireless), Nokia N95 (North American Edition, Unlocked), Sony Eric' W910i, Samsung G600, Motorola KRZR K1 (Silver), Sony Ericsson W580i and Nokia N95 offers many great features.

These cell phones have passed their predecessors in design, functionalities and other features. The most common features of these and other latest cell phones include the following.

Visual Radio
MMS
SMS
Email
Document Reviewer
Internet browser
Bluetooth
GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband)
IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Visual Voice Mail
Widgets
Google Search
Instant Messenger
Music Player
External Memory
Email search function
Software
Content Management
GPRS
Virtual QWERTY keyboard.
Dazzling Colors
Latest Games
Push to talk
Voice Mail
Memo Recording

Cell phones are available in different packages and they are in the reach of every common person. Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of the mobile phones with the global market shares of about 40%. The cell phones are categorized into the 3G devices, satellite phone, Fashion phone, GPS phone, MP3 phone, Blackberry phone, mega pixel phone and Windows mobile phones. Based on your unique requirements, you can buy any cell phone according to your choice and budget. You can buy online from a large number of retailers and directly from the manufacturer’s websites.

Medical Transcription

2008-06-29T04:48:00.001+06:00

MT is multibillion dollars industry one of the fastest growing field in the health care. Medical transcription is a health profession that covers the process of converting the voice files into the readable text format. In medical transcription the data is transcribed into the predefined formats known as templates and a transcriptionist has to follow the templates very carefully. Medical transcription or MT is a highly professional skill, which requires a professional degree and skills. Transcribers listen to the dictated recordings and transcribe them to the medical reports and the transcribed reports are returned to the client usually through FTP.

The medical dictations usually include the patient’s history, consultation notes, discharge summary, laboratory reports, X-ray reports, operative reports, pathology and psychiatric reports. To understand accurately the medical dictation/dictated reports, a transcriptionist must understand the medical terminology, medical procedures, anatomy, physiology, medicine, diseases and other related information.

Currently health care providers transmit the dictated recording through the dictation servers or FTP. Digital recorders are used to record the dictations. The medical dictation is recorded by the physicians or their secretaries. Although the speech recognition technology has become more widespread in almost many medical specialties but it can’t be the real substitute of transcribers because their need in the MT field is still alive.

Sometimes there are much complex terminologies, diseases names and unfamiliar accent and speech recognition technology fails to understand them. The medical transcriptionists are in high demand in all over the world especially in the USA, Canada and Australia. Transcription services ranges from home based businesses to the high tech sophisticated companies.

In most of the countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lank and Bangladesh, a MT does not need to require the highly professional degree in IT but only good listening, English language, medical terminologies and basic computer skill is required.

Listening is considered to be the most important skill in MT. MT has a lucrative career and it’s a very ideal field for the doctors and medical students. Some of the most common specialties include general medicine, orthopedics, cardiology, radiology, pharmacology, medicolegal, surgical and general labs. MT business can be setup independently at home. All you need is to have the direct links with the doctors and health care providers in the USA.

Setup

Pentium III to IV computer.
High speed internet connection.
Medical, medicine, and English dictionary.
Billing/Invoicing software. (PractiCount is recommended).
Ms Office.
GearXport Software (for downloading the voice files and uploading the transcribed reports and for converting the .dss and .gxe files into the .wav files).
FTP client.
Foot paddle with software.
Headphone.
Spell Checker software.

MT is a primary method by which doctors, hospitals and medical professionals communicate the patients’ records with the insurance companies and other physicians.
MT is a very lucrative and fastest growing field not only for the doctors and medical professionals but for the simple graduates. Anyone with some basic skills and experience can become a highly professional MT. There are many companies and institutes that provide the MT training. You can enroll in an online MT training course from your home.

How to Make Money Online

2008-06-29T04:46:00.000+06:00

In these days everyone wants to earn some extra money by doing some home based work on the internet. Through the internet many people are earning thousands by participating in the different kinds of programs. Some online businesses required few hundred dollars for equipment and setup. Today there are many online money making programs such as Affiliate programs, directory sales, Paid surveys, Google Adsense, selling ebook, blogging, web hosting and many others. The process of making money on the internet is simple once you have the skills, expertise and work hard in the right direction. In this article, you will get an overview of how to make money online by some of the best money making programs.

Affiliate Programs

You can make money by using the different affiliate programs from Cj.com, Azoogle Ads, Never Blue Ads, ClickBank and many others. You need to put the affiliate links in your website and generate the targeted traffic through the search engines, PPC, email marketing and others.

Direct Sales

For selling the products and services on the internet, you need to have a professionally designed, SEO friendly website.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense is excellent money making program on the internet and thousands of the websites are generating income with Google Adsense program. For participating in this program, you need to have a highly professional, unique content rich website. Once you have a good website you can apply in this program and after approval, you get a HTML code that you need to insert in your web pages. This cod automatically generates the text, image and video ads that are exactly related to the content of your pages. Whenever a user clicks on any ad on your website, you get paid.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is another great way of earning money on internet. You need a reseller or affiliate account with a good web hosting company and you can sell the hosting space directly to the customers through your website.

Selling E-Books

Selling E-books at ebay.com is also a great way of generating income on net.

Content Writing

If you have writing skills then you can also generate income by writing content for different websites. You can get the content writer jobs at the elance.com, through forums like forums.digitalpoint.com and through the organic traffic from the search engines.

Graphic Designer/Web Designer

If you are good at graphic and web designing then there is a great opportunity for you. Make your business website with an excellent portfolio and promote your website through the search engines, PPC, forums, email marketing and other promotion methods. On the web, there is a great scope for the web designers, graphic designers, web developers and webmasters.

LCD Plasma

2008-06-29T04:43:00.001+06:00

LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Device and is a flat display device, which utilizes a small amount of the electric power. LCD uses two techniques for producing the colors active matrix and passive matrix. The LCD screens are used in the laptops, CD players, digital clocks, microwave ovens and watches. The application of the liquid crystal display technology is very wide. The LCD screens used in the laptops are backlit or transmissive. If you want to purchase a LCD, the important features to consider before buying are resolution, matrix type, refresh rate, brightness, viewing angle, dot pitch, contrast ratio and aspect ratio.

In color LCD screens, each pixel is divided into the three colored cells such as red, green and blue. Each cell is controlled individually to produce the millions of the colors for that cell. High resolution color display computer monitors use the active matrix structure.

The active matrix technologies include the twisted nematic, in-plane switching and vertical alignment. The top vendors of the LCD screens are Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, LG, Sanyo, Acer, HP, Fujitsu, ViewSonic, Xerox and Vizio.

Based on your unique requirements and budget you can buy LCD TV or LCD laptop from any online retailer or from the manufacturer’s site directly. The most common online retailers are Amazon.com, Plasma Depot, BestBuy.com, Circuit City and Good guy. Before buying a LCD screen, you need to consider the right screen size, compatibility with the other hardware devices, range, resolution and of course price.

The major benefits of the liquid crystal display screens include the flat panel screen, built-in tuners and speakers, media receivers, support for the plug and play devices, increased response time, smooth colorful pictures and HDTV display. LCD tends to consume the less power than the plasma screen.

Along with the numerous benefits, the LCD technology has few disadvantages like it has relatively limited view angle as compared to the plasma or CRT technology, they are more fragile than the CRT components, dead pixel occurrence, horizontal/vertical banding and less contrast ratio than the CRT screens.

Based on the users’ reviews the best and most selling LCDs are Sony KDL-46XBR4, Sony KDL-40S3000, Sharp LC-46D92U, Samsung LN-T4665F, Sharp LC-32D43U, Sony KDL-52XBR4, Sony KDL-46V3000 and Samsung LN-T5265F.

Computer Networking Glossary

2008-06-29T04:40:00.000+06:00

10 Base 2: A type of Ethernet that supports the speed of 10mbps.

10 Base 5: 10base is an Ethernet standard that supports the speed of 10mbps and within a distance limit of 500 meters per segment.

Apple Talk: A type of the computer network protocol by Apple.

ATM: Asynchronous Transfer Mode.

Authentication: A process in which user’s identify is checked.

Access Point: Access points are the central transmitters and receivers of the radio signals. They have built in antennal, dedicated hardware and radio transmitter.

Backbone: Backbone is the communication channel that is used to carry the heady load traffic between the ISPs.

BPS: Bits per second.

Bandwidth: Capacity of a medium. Information carrying capacity of a network.

Broadband: Broadband is a type of the internet connection that provides the simultaneous transmission of the data, voice and video signals over a high bandwidth medium.

BootP Protocol: A type of the internet protocol that is used to discover the IP address on the network.

Byte: A group of the bits.

Bridge: A bridge is a network device that operates at the data link layer and is used for transmitting the network packets in network segment that uses the same protocol.

CDDI: Copper distributed data interface.

Cookie: A cookie is a small code that contains the information, which is sent by the web server to the web browser.

Compression: Compression is a technique that is used to reduce the bandwidth that is required to encode the block of information.

Congestion: Excessive traffic in a network causes congestion.

CSMA/CD: Carrier Sense Multiple Access Collision Detection.

CPU: Central Processing Unit.

CHAP: Chap is a protocol that is used to authenticate the user name and password.

DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. DHCP is a network service that is used to assign the IP addresses automatically to the client computers.

Domain Identifier: Domain identifier is the last portion of the domain and it is used to identify the Host type.

DCE: DCE is a service that is used to support the distributed applications.

Domain Name: A domain name identifies the website on the internet.

Ethernet: A Local Area Network communication standard.

EGP: Exterior Gateway Protocol.

Encryption: Encryption is a type of the network security that is used to encode the information so that only the intended user can access it.

Filter: Filter is a set of rules that defines that which packets pass the network.

Firewall: A firewall is of two types i.e. software and hardware and it is a line of defense for the computer networks. It protects it from the internal and external threats.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol.

Frame Relay: Frame relay is a packet switching technique that is used for the WAN communication.

Frame: A frame is a collection of information that is sent over the network.

Gateway: In a computer network a gateway is a device that connects the local network to the internet.

Host: A host is a computer in a network.

IEEE: Institutes of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Internet Gateway: A gateway that is used to access the internet.

IP: IP is a type of the internet protocol that is used on the Ethernet and Internet.

LAN: Local Area Network.

LDAP: Light Weight Directory Access Protocol. It is used for accessing the directory services.

Leased Line: It is a type of the permanent network connection between the two points.

MAC Address: Media Access Controller Address.

MBPS: Mega Bits per Seconds.

MAN: Metropolitan Area Network. A type of computer network that exists between the two locations within a city.

Multiplexing: It is a technique that allows the multiple logical signals to be transmitted over the single physical channel.

Modem: A communication device that is used for the modulation and demodulation.

Network Administrator: A person who is responsible for managing, maintaining and troubleshooting the computer network.

Network: A collection of communication devices, cables and systems that are used for data transmission from one computer to another.

OSI: Open System Interconnectivity.

PAP: PAP is a protocol that is used to identify a user and password.

PING: A network diagnostic utility that is used to check the connectivity between two systems.

Protocol: Protocol is a communication standard and agreed upon ways that must be followed by the two communicating devices.

POP: Post office Protocol. It is used to transfer the emails.

RIP: Routing Information protocol.

Router: A network device that is used to connect two logically different, LANs and WANs.

SMTP: A protocol that is used to send the emails.

SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol.

Session: A session is a state of connection and when it gets established both the devices can communicate with each other.

Subnet Mask: A subnet mask is used to identify the network within the large network.

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a stack of more than 65000 protocols.

Telnet: Telnet is a protocol that is used to check the connectivity with the remote computer.

WAN: Wide Area Network: A type of computer network that covers a larger geographical area between two cities, two countries or two continents.

WINS: Windows Internet Naming Service.

WAP: Wireless Application Protocol.

Wi-MAX: Wi-MAX is a type of a long range and mobile wireless network.

Zone: A logical group of the devices and the services.

IT Related Interview Questions

2008-06-29T04:36:00.001+06:00

The best way to eliminate the stress of the job interview and to make your interview successful is to prepare for it. In this article, you will find information technology jobs related most commonly asked interview questions. The questions are categorized in their related categories.

Operating System

What is a COM component?
How do you register COM component?
What is a Raid?
What is normalization?
Explain hidden shares in Windows 2000.
How do you convert a FAT into NTFS?
How does a virus affect the computer?
What is the latest version of the MSDOS?
What is a distributed system?
What you mean by deadlock?
What is DRAM?
What’s the difference between FAT32 and NTFS?
What’s the difference between process and thread?
What is page fault?
Define root directory?
What’s the difference between Windows and UNIX?
What’s the difference between RAM and ROM?
How do you configure built-in firewall in Windows XP?
What is virtual memory?
What are the main components of the operating system?

Networking

What is WAN?
What is firewall?
What is DHCP?
What is DNS?
Define the functionality of a router?
What is broadband?
What is gigabyte Ethernet?
Define OSI layers?
What is TCP/IP?
What is VPN and how does it works?
What is IP addressing?
Define WLAN?
What is a gateway?
Define VOIP?
Name ten TCP/IP protocols?
What is Wimax and Wi fi?

Cisco

What is RIP?
Define OSFP
What is frame relay?
What is ISDN?
What is ATM?
Define Qos?
Define VLAN.
Define switching.
Define Trace route.
What is the authentication method and how it works.
How SNMP works?
Define cryptography?
Define subnets.
What is ACL?
Define port monitoring and mirroring.
What is a router?
What is a deadlock?
What is virtual memory?
What is multitasking?

Hardware

What is a microprocessor?
What is BIOS battery?
What is cache memory?
What is difference between RAM and ROM?
What is a compiler?
What is a data bus?
Define Pentium?
What is NVRAM?
What is a Router?
Define LAN card?
Define motherboard.
Define the types of printers.
What’s the latest processor speed?

PHP

How do you define a variable in PHP?
How to communicate with sockets?
What is .htaccess file?
How to get domain name in PHP?
What is Joomla?
How to define functions?
How is Zend engine?
How many types of errors in php?
How do you define an inline style?
What’s the difference between echo and print?
How to capture audio in PHP?
How to capture video in PHP?
What is captcha?
How do you compare PHP with Perl?
Explain the PHP data types?
What is the difference between a script and file?
How to pass variable to forms?
How to know the browser’s properties?
How to download the files by using PHP?

Search Engine Optimization

What is supplemental index in Google?
What do you think about page rank?
What are the Meta tags?
What is a XML sitemap?
How do you get one way links?
What is the difference between the black hat and white hat SEO techniques?
What is page segmentation?
What is latent Semantic analysis?
What SEO tools do you regularly use?
What is copy writing?
Have you attended any SEO related conferences?
What is nofollow link?
What’s the difference between on-page and off-page optimization?
What’s the difference between SEO and SEM?
Can you write HTML code?
Do you have any experience in managing the PPC campaigns?
What web technologies are you familiar with?
What are the top most important SERP factors?

IT Consultancy

2008-06-29T04:35:00.000+06:00

Consultants are the persons who help the organizations to expand their businesses or help other people to learn from their experiences. There can be various IT related issues including network design and implementation, securities implementation, training issues and other technological issue that should be resolved for the smooth business operations of your organization. Getting consultancy is about plugging a gap in company’s expertise. In many companies of any size, it is required to get outsourced help to expand their IT infrastructure. There are many consulting services providers that provide you help in expanding your business to a new height.

They can help you out in your business planning, expansion process and technology transfer. IT consultancy refers to providing IT enabled services like software development, computer networking, web development, web consultancy, desktop support, data storage, search engine optimization and E-business consultancy etc. Getting the outsourced consultancy services can help you to focus on your core business, reduce the operational costs and they are also good if your organization lacks the internal resources and expert team.

By adding the consultancy services into your work plan, you may get increased performance, profitability, fast communications, better efficiency and risk free IT infrastructure. Many IT consultants are specialized in providing maintenance of the large websites and online shopping malls, financial transactions services on the internet, proxy services, mobile computing, wireless networking, internet security and web security, firewalling, email messaging, authentication and online business promotion. You IT staff may not be expert in all these services so there is a definite requirement to hire the services of a consulting company, which is specialized in providing these services.

Before selecting any company, you need to do little research on its services, experience in a specific field, workforce, turnaround time, Check Company’s background and references, charges and clients’ reviews about the company. In order to provide the professional services to any industry the IT consultants should have in-depth knowledge related to that industry.

Although the consulting firm provides the best services that your company requires but your IT staff should not be completely dependent on the outsourced consultants. They should be full trained and experienced in handling the day to day IT related issues in your company.

Web Hosting Glossary

2008-06-29T04:26:00.002+06:00

.Com is a type of the domain name that is used by the commercial enterprises.

ASP
Active Server Pages is a server side language that provides web developers an easy, fast and reliable platform for developing the web applications.

ASCII
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange is an international standard for the code numbers that are used by the computers to represent all the numbers, upper cases, lower cases, Latin letters and punctuations. There are 128 standard ASCII characters/codes.

Apache
Apache is open source web server software.

Anonymous FTP
Anonymous FTP is an option in the FTP software that allows the users to download the files without establishing an account.

Auto responder
Auto responder is a program that sends auto replies to the incoming emails.

Applet
Applet is a small Java program that can be embedded in a HTML page.

Byte
A byte is a set of bits that represents a single character.

Browser
Browser is a client software that is used to see the different web pages.

Broadcast
Sending packets to all the machines on the network.

Bandwidth
The capacity of the medium i.e. how much data can be transferred in a given time over a medium.

CGI
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface is a small program that describes that how a web server communicates with other software.

CGI-BIN
CGI-BIN is a name of the web server directory in which CGI files are stored.

Cold Fusion
Cold fusion is a scripting language that is used for the advanced development and database interfacing.

Cookie
A cookie refers to a piece of information that is sent by the web server to the web browser and saves it.

Data Transfer
Data transfer is measured in the GB and it means the total amount of the outbound traffic from a website.

Dedicated IP
Dedicated IP is an IP addresses that is fixed with a single website.

DNS
DNS stands for Domain name system/server. DNS is used to translate the host name into the IP address and IP address into the host name.

Domain Name
Domain name is a name that uniquely identifies a website.

E-Commerce
E-Commerce is the online transactions of the businesses.

E-Commerce Hosting
E-Commerce hosting is a hosting plan that allows the merchants to accept the orders online.

Front Page
Front page is a HTML editor that is used to create the websites.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
A FTP is a way of transferring the files (uploading and downloading) across the internet.

Firewall
A firewall is a security system that prohibits the access to the network. A firewall is of two types software and hardware.

HTML
Hyper text markup language is a code that the web pages are written in.

HTTP
HTTP is a protocol that is used to transfer the files across the internet.

IP Address
An IP address is a unique number that is used to identify a computer on the internet.

ISP
A company that provides internet services and connect the computers of the consumers to the internet through dial up, DSL and cable connection.

IIS
IIS is web server software from Microsoft.

Java Script
Java Script is a scripting language that is used to add interactive and dynamic elements to a website.

Linux Hosting
A type of hosting that supports Linux.

Load Balancing
Load balancing is a technique of dividing the load of a single website or services over the multiple servers.

Log File
A log file is a file that records the activities of the web server.

.Net Hosting
A type of the web hosting that supports the .Net applications.

OC1
OC1 is a type of the fiber optic connection that is capable of transferring the data at 51.85 mbps.

PSTN
Public Switch Telephone Network. Regular telephone network.

Router
A router is a network communication device that is used to connect the two or more different networks with each other.

Shared IP Address
An IP address that is shared by the multiple websites.

Shopping Cart
A shopping cart is software that is used to make the site’s products catalogue for online ordering.

SSL
SSL stands for the secure socket layer that is used for the encrypted authenticated communication.

Shockwave
Shockwave is a web based application by Macromedia that is used to view the entertainment, movies, images, flash, songs, rich-media chat, games and interactive product demos.

SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a protocol that is used to send the emails over the internet.

SQL
Structured Query Language. A specialized language that is used to send the queries to the database.

Server
A server is a specific type of computer that provides the services to the clients.

Site Monitoring
Site monitoring is a type of the service that is used for monitoring the website. It sends alerts to the administrators in case of any problem.

TCP/IP
TCP/IP is a suite of the protocols. To be on the internet your computer must have installed the TCP/IP suite.

Telnet
Telnet is a command that is used to login from one internet site to another.

UNIX Hosting
A type of web hosting that supports UNIX.

USENET
A worldwide system of the discussion groups.

WAN
WAN stands for Wide Area Network that covers that broader geographical location.

Web Mail
Web mail is a type of the email that is access through the web browser.

Introduction To Data Communications

2008-06-29T04:25:00.001+06:00

Advancements in the information technology sector have brought many benefits to the people all around the world. Today with computer networking, we can chat, speak and see each other over a long distance. Data communication refers to the transmission of the digital signals over a communication channel between the transmitter and receiver computers. Communication is possible only with wired and wireless connectivity of the computers with each other.

All the computers, in the logically and physically networks have to follow the same rules known as Protocols such as TCP/IP, IPX/SPX and NETBEUI etc. Today, there are many computer networking technologies such as LAN, MAN, WAN, WLAN, ISDN, ATM, Frame Relay, X.25, Bluetooth, GPRS, CDMA and many others.

There are different types of the physical medium that allows the communication between the network devices such as UTP, STP, Fiber optic, coaxial cable, Microwave, radio frequencies, satellite and electromagnetic waves. The devices that are involved in the data communication process are LAN cards, hub, router, switch, CSU/DSU and modems. Following elements are involved to form a network communication system.

Computers
Protocols
LAN Card
Hub/Switch/Router
Mediums (UTP/STP, Fiber optic cables, Air)

Protocols are the set of rules, agreed upon ways and standards that are used to make data transmission process. Every computer in a network should support the same protocols. TCP/IP is the most common communication protocol in the LAN, WAN and on internet. With the advancements in the communication technologies data, voice and video signals can be transmitted over the same channel such as broadband internet.

Every computer network exists in a topology, which means physical design or layout of a network. The common network topologies include star, mesh, bus, ring, hybrid and tree. The star topology is the most commonly used topology in the Ethernet network.

In the star topology, every computer in the network is directly connected with the centralized hub or switch. The failure of any system in a network, does not affect the other computers. In the Bus topology, every computer is connected with the serial cable and in case any problem with a singe PC results in terminating the whole communication process. A communication channel UTP/STP and Fiber optic cable is a path or medium over which information is transmitted. These are the dedicated lines for transmitting the digitized data, voice and video signals.

Every message in the transmission process is divided into the seven logical layers known as the OSI layers model. Security and privacy are the biggest concerns in the data communications. Wireless networks, faxed business letters and the computer without proper security implementations can be hacked. To deal with these internal and external security threats the data communication networks should be properly safe guarded with the antivirus, antivirus and firewall solutions. Computer networks should also meet the performance, reliability, consistency, recovery and security criteria to maintain the smooth flow of data in an organization.

Business Phone

2008-06-29T04:24:00.001+06:00

A business phone is one of the most important communication systems in your organization. Today, every business in this world requires fast, secure and reliable communication system and a business phone system provides the communication solution to the businesses all around the world. Before implementing any phone system in your office make sure that it is right according to your unique business requirements and determine the required lines and extensions. You may not want that your important calls routed incorrectly, disconnected or missed.

There are a large number of the companies that provide the business phone to the small to enterprise organizations and the cost can range from $ 700 to $ 900 hundred dollars.

Before buying a business telephone system for your company you may need to consider things such as check the compatibility with the other equipments, price and support. Most of the IP telephone systems have the wide range of the features such as remote LAN access, customer relation management, computer telephony integration, email integrating, unified messaging, call recording, call forwarding, voice mail and high speed internet access.

Today, there are four different types of the business telephone systems such as VOIP, private branch exchange system (PBX), key systems and KSU-less phones. They are available in a wide range of brands such as Toshiba, Comdial, Avaya, Lucent, Samsung, Motorola, Philips, Sony, Nortel, Panasonic and Talkswitch.

VOIP phone systems offer the facility to place and receive the phone calls through internet thus it is a most economic voice communication solution for the organizations. VOIP technology provide the cost savings, call routing, call transfer, call forwarding, caller id, call waiting, speed dialing, messaging, call recording and many other features. VOIP phone systems implementation is best for the big organizations.

PBX phone system is the best solution for you if your company has more than 40 employees. PBX Systems are programmable so that can support the complex configurations. PBX requires the professional installations and maintenance. KSU-Less system is ideal when your company has less than 10 employees.

The significant drawback of the KSU-Less phones is that they are not expandable. The organization with 4 to 40 employees should use the Key Systems. Before implementing any phone system in your organization, you need to determine your business requirements for the next 5 years.

You can buy online through the retailer’s stores such as Amazon.com, Alibaba.com, Twacomm.com, Tigerdirect.com or directly through the manufacturer’s sites.

Computer Tips n Tricks

2008-06-29T03:47:00.002+06:00

Computer users face different kinds of errors that can be related to the software, hardware, configurations, security issues and others. PC users should know the techniques that how to secure, maintain and keep their computers in the good health. So to get the optimized performance from your computer, it is necessary that you know the basic tips and tricks.

This article will provide you solutions for the most common computer related issues include hardware, software, databases, internet explorer, outlook express, network devices, network securities, Windows, DSL, data security and other miscellaneous tips. With these tips, you can solve your problem by yourself without call the help desk support staff that will charge you on the hourly basis. Most of the computer related issue can be resolved with the little skills, technical knowledge and right tools in your software inventory.

Sometimes, the tools are not required and by applying little tricks you can solve your problem within minutes. The Free IT Library provides the nxn tips and tricks of many day to day computer related problems.

Hardware Tips

2008-06-29T03:44:00.000+06:00

Computer hardware includes the physical parts, digital circuitry inside the computer. Different hardware components collectively make a computer unit. Computer with weaker security settings, faulty hardware devices, misconfigurations and outdated software are suffered with different kind of problems. Regardless of the computer hardware problems, there are few basic steps that can avoid many problems. The hardware problems lead to the error messages, system boot up problems, noise from the devices, blue screen errors and the system crash.

Normally computer hardware problems are easier to resolve than the software problems. To troubleshoot the system’s hardware related problems, you should have the right tools and techniques. To identify the hardware failure in your system, you need to use a diagnostic utility. It will help you to find out the right cause of the problem.

Hard Disk

Use a hard disk diagnostic utility to check the status of your hard disk.
Use UPS with your system, it will help your hard disk to avoid bad sectors due to the power failure.
Regularly scan your hard disk for the viruses, spware, adware, Trojans and other threats.
Don’t shake or vibrate your computer while it is working.
If your hard disk finds the logical bad sectors, it can be removed with the formatting.

Memory

Insert the memory sticks in the memory slots tightly.
If case of memory related errors, change the memory modules and check the status.
In case of persistent problems, change the memory sticks with the new one.
If your system freezes up or response slow, increase the amount of memory inside your system.

VGA Card

Insert the VGA tightly in the PCI slot of your computer.
In case of no display on your monitor screen, check the VGA cables and make sure that it connected tightly.
Make sure that you are using the updated driver for your VGA card.

LAN Card

Check whether the LED lights of the LAN card are blinking or not.
Check to see that the UPT/STP cable should be properly connected at both ends i.e. one end in the LAN card and the other in the switch/HUB etc.
Make sure that the LAN card’s driver is up-to-dated.

If you LAN card’s issue still not resolved, replace it with a new one and reconfigure it.

Printer

Make sure that you are using the up-to-dated driver for the printer.
To get the optimized performance from your printer, select the “Best Quality” in the properties of your printer.
Clean your printer regularly with soft cloth and cleansing lotion.
Power down your printer properly.
If you are using more than one printer in your network, make sure that you are using a very descriptive name of your printers.
For getting the technical and additional information about your printer consult the printer’s manual.
Run the inkjet printer's cartridge-cleaning utility.

Miscellaneous Tips

Avoid vibrations and shocks to your computer system while it is working.
Before changing any hardware device inside your computer first shut down the computer and unplug it.
Don’t put any liquid or drinks near your computer hardware.
Keep the air filters and the ventilation paths clean to provide the easy passage to the air in and outside of the computer.
Plug the computer devices’ cables, connectors and screw tightly.
Use UPS (uninterrupted power supply) to avoid the data lost of system crash due to the power failure.
Use POST card in your computer. POST stands for Power On Self Test it helps to troubleshoot the common startup problems.
Use the Device Manager utility in the Windows based computer to diagnose and troubleshoot the devices problems in your computer.
To avoid the overheating in your computer, make sure that the processor and the computer fans are working fine.
Always keep the case of your computer close.
When your newly installed hardware device does not work, it is most likely due to the hardware conflict, incompatibility, misconfigurations, outdated drives and loose cable connections. You also need to follow the manufacturer’s instructions carefully.
If you are a computer hardware technician, make sure that your toolkit is equipped with the screw drives, extra jumpers blocks, masking tape, compressed air, flash light, bootable cds, devices’ drivers, hardware diagnostic utilities, connectors and testers.

Networking Tips

2008-06-29T03:30:00.000+06:00

Computer networks are used to share the data and resources and for the communications. To get the optimized performance, data protection, maintenance, improved reliability and the security, every system administrator and network administrator should know the basic maintenance, troubleshooting and security techniques. Downtime is very dangerous for the critical network business applications and servers. In this article, you will learn some of the best networking tips and by using them you can get the optimized performance from your network.

Security

A compute network is susceptible to the internet and external security related threats, which includes viruses, spyware, adware, Trojan horses, rootkits, web worms, intruders and hackers. To keep your network secure

Firewall: Install and configure a software/hardware firewall on your gateway and all other computers in your network. Firewall is used monitor the inbound and outbound traffic and block the unauthorized access and hackers’ attacks.
Antivirus: Install antivirus software such as Norton Antivirus, Trend Micro Office Scan, Panda Antivirus or McAfee and regularly scan your computer with an antivirus program.
Anti spyware: Install and configure an up-to-dated anti spyware software in your network.
Updated Operating System: Update your Windows based operating systems with the latest service packs, hot fixes and security patches.
Browser Security: Raise the level of security of your web browsers.

Connectivity

Computer networking sometimes considered to be complex and seems to hard to troubleshoot. The connectivity problems occur in the computer network due to the devices conflicts, outdated LAN card’s driver, faulty hardware, faulty cable or connectors and misconfigurations. To troubleshoot the connectivity related issues, you need to perform the following tasks.

Check the LEDs of your LAN card.
Update the driver of your LAN card.
Scan your computer for the viruses and spyware.
Check the UTP/STP cable, the both end of the cable should be properly inserted i.e. one end in the LAN card and one end in the hub/switch or router.
Check the configurations of the LAN card.
PING the destination computer and check the status.
If your problem is still not resolved, replace the LAN card and reconfigure it.

Maintenance

Computer network availability and security is very critical for the businesses. Maintenance include the domain setup, dealing with the internal and external security threats, assigning IP addresses to the computes, enabling/disabling network services like DHCP, FTP SMTP, SNMP, taking data backup, adding/removing users, troubleshooting the software/hardware, configuring the firewall and implementing the security in the overall IT infrastructure. To perform the maintenance related tasks in your compute network, you need the perfect tools.

Troubleshooting

You can troubleshoot the computer network related problems by using the right tools and techniques. Be default, Windows based operating systems offer the TCP/IP stack, which contains the troubleshooting and diagnostic utilities such as PING, IPCONFIG, Hostname, ARP, Telnet, NSLOOKUP, Tracert and many others. Pinging a network computer is the first troubleshooting step as it checks the connectivity with the destination computer. Additionally, you can use the other troubleshooting tools such as Ethereal, IP Sniffer, LanGuard, Packeteer and many others. These tools help to diagnose the cause of the problem and troubleshoot them.

Performance

To get the optimized performance from your computer network, you need to perform the following actions on every computer of your network.

Use System Tools
Delete Unnecessary Files
Update Device Drivers
Update BIOS
Uninstall Unused Programs
Update Operating System

Wireless Networking Security Tips

The following tips are very helpful in securing your wireless computer network.

Change the Default SSID
Change the Default Administrator’s password
Disable SSID broadcast.
Enable Mac Address Filtering
Assign Static IP address to the Network devices and computers.
Turn on and configure the firewall on every computer in your network.
Enable IPSec, SSL, Encryption, WPA and WPE according to your security requirements.

Wireless Network Security

2008-06-29T03:28:00.000+06:00

Wireless network has become very popular in the home and office networks. Wireless network security is required to protect your wireless network from the unauthorized access, viruses, hackers and other internal and external threats. An unsecured wireless network is an open invitation to the hackers, intruders and the viruses. Many worldwide businesses and the home users are rapidly adopting the wireless networking for the key advantages that it has like the mobility, ease of work, easy management, scalability and the lost cost.

If you plan to implement the WLAN or wi-fi then its important for you to understand the security challenges that are associated with it to protect it from the security threats. The most common security threats include the following.

Viruses
Hackers
Spyware
Intruders
Unauthorized Users
Denial of Service
Network Injection
Trojans

Solutions

The possible steps that can be taken to protect the network are the following.

All wireless network devices including routers, access point the PCMCIA LAN cards need to be secured.
The wireless network needs to be monitored for detecting and preventing it from the security threats and for monitoring the users’ activities.
All the users should be educated about the security threats.

Security Solutions

A wireless computer network can be protected from the internal and external security threats by implementing the following techniques.

Change the default password of the router.
Disable SSID broadcast.
Map the IP addresses with the MAC addresses
Enable WEP, WPA and WPA2 security mechanisms.
Enable 128-bit WEP encryption.
Use strong passwords.
Disable Remote Administration.
Do not auto connect to the open Wi-Fi networks.
Assign static IP address to the devices.
Enable firewall and the antivirus software on each computer.
Place the router and access point in the center of the network.
Turn off the network when you are not using it.
Limit access rights.
Upgrade to wi-fi protected networks.

Anti Spyware/Adware

2008-06-29T03:25:00.002+06:00

Spyware is a piece of software that is installed in the computer to monitor the activities of the user. Once installed it spread to all the computers in a network. They can redirect the browser, install additional software, collect personal information, change the computer settings, corrupt the Windows registry, slows down the internet connection speed, log the key strokes, steal your privacy, pop up Windows, make a computer crash and monitor the user’s activities on the internet. To deal with the spyware, many companies, launched the anti spyware products separately because only antivirus software is not enough to deal with the internet and external security threats.

To prevent the spyware, you need to install and configure antivirus software in every computer of your network. Secondly, regularly update your operating system to install the latest patches and hot fixes. You also need to install and configure up-to-date firewall software in your Windows.

Spyware Doctor

Spyware Doctor is an award winning anti spyware software that is used to protect your computer from the spyware attacks and privacy threats. It detects, removes and blocks all types of web threats including spyware, adware, web worms, malicious codes and others. Its automatic update feature makes this software up-to-dated all the time. It has been downloaded millions of times and awarded by the experts as a best anti spyware solution in the world.

CounterSpy 2.5.1032

Counter Spy provides the best safety against the spyware, adware, rootkits, malware and Trojans. After a system scan with the Counter Spy, it can delete, quarantine and remove the spyware from the computer. It includes advanced scheduler, history cleaner and many other advanced options.

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008

McAfee VirusScan Plus is a best tool to prevent your computer from the internet security attacks including viruses and spyware. McAfee VirusScan Plus includes the SiteAdvisor web safety that helps you to avoid the unsafe web sites. It provides you the best security against the prolonged attacks by combining the antivirus, anti spyware and firewall technologies.

Windows Defender

Windows Defender is a free diagnostic utility that helps to protect your computer the security threats including pop-ups, slow performance due to the spyware and unwanted software. It provides the real time protection against the internet threats and has the excellent monitoring system.

Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5

Webroot Spy Sweeper provides the advanced spyware detection and removal features. Webroot Spy’s advance discovery methods locate and destroy the spyware that are not discovered by the other tools. Spy Sweeper’s database is continuously updated to provide solutions the latest definitions of the spyware.

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot Search & Destroy is a diagnostic utility that search your hard disk for the spyware and adware and once they are discovered, Spybot Search & Destroy completely eliminate from your system. It also allows you to fix the registry errors and inconsistency in operating system files.

Software Firewall - Hardware Firewall

2008-06-29T03:18:00.000+06:00

Firewall is a first line of defense and protective barrier between your network and the outer world. It can be a software or hardware and it is configured and attached with the gateway computer. It encrypts, filters, monitors, permits or denies all the network traffic. A system without the implementation of the firewall can easily be attacked by the viruses, hackers, intruders, unauthorized access and other internal and external threats. It regulates the traffic between the computer network and the internet. It protects the resources of the private network from the internal and external threats.

Windows XP Professional has built-in firewall software that allows the users to filter the incoming and outgoing traffic by applying different rules. The rules can be based on the IP addresses of the source and destination, port number, domain names and specific applications and protocols such as FTP, HTTP, Remote desktop, Telnet, SMTP, POP3 and Https etc. A firewall works closely with the router and many routers has the built-in firewall. The common functionalities include packet filtering, application gateway, proxy server and circuit relay.

Firewall Features

The common features of a firewall program include the following.

Packet filtering
Ports blocking and scanning
Web filtering
URL Screening
Web caching
User blocking
Domain blocking
Antivirus
Spam Filtering
Email Scanning
Network Access Rules
Network Address Translation (NAT)
User Authentication
Intrusion Protection
Network Activity Monitoring

Types of Firewall

Firewall can be categorized into the following two major categories.

Software Firewall

There are many software firewall products that are usually installed and configured on the Server computer. The most common software firewall includes Zone Alarm, Wingate, Barracuda spam firewall, Symantec Norton Personal Firewall, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus and Sygate® Personal Firewall PRO.

Hardware Firewall

A hardware firewall is a dedicated device that is usually attached with the gateway computer. Many routers provide have built-in firewall features. It filters the network traffic and blocks the unwanted traffic.

How To Secure A Computer

2008-06-29T02:56:00.003+06:00

The confidentiality, availability and the integrity of the data is the most important aspect of the computer security. Computer security refers to securing your computer from the unauthorized access and from internal and external threats like virus, spyware, Trojan horses, phishing attacks, hackers and intruders. There are a large number of techniques that can be used to protect your computer from all these threats. In this article you will learn that how to secure your computer from the most common security threats.

Security can be implemented from the operating system to computer hardware level. Following is an overview of some of the common PC threats and the solutions from preventing them.

Computer Viruses

Computer viruses are the one of the most common threats to a computer. Any online computer can be attacked by the viruses and other online threats in less than 20 minutes if it has not been using a proper security mechanism. A virus infected computer can transmitted the viruses to the other connected computers in a network. Viruses can harm your computer in a variety of ways such as they can corrupt data, corrupt the hard disk, delete the operating system files and can crash the system. Install an up-to-dated antivirus program and regularly scan your computer to get rid of the potentially dangerous computer viruses.

Spyware

Spyware is another big threat for the online computers. Spyware enter in your computer through the numbers of ways such as when you visit a spyware infected website, install spyware infected software and access online spyware infected online application. To get rid of the spyware, install an up-to-date anti spyware software and regularly scan your computer with it.

Phishing

Phishing attack is another growing threat for the online computers. Phishing is a type of online deception techniques that is designed to steal your confidential information, passwords, credit card information and important login and password through the fraudulent emails. The best solution to avoid this treat is to not open the email attachments from the unknown and unreliable sources. Secondly, never give your personal information to anyone even the emails claim to be delivered from big sources.

Firewall and System Probing

If you haven’t implemented a firewall system on your computer then chances are that your computer can be accessed by the unauthorized users and hackers. The best solution to avoid this problem and keep your privacy intact is to install and configure a software or hardware firewall into your system.

Physical Threats

The physical threats to a computer involves the physically damage to the computer components with the fire, water and destructions. The best solution to avoid the physical threats to your important computer system and data is to set an off-site replication. Replicate your data regularly at some remote location.

Employee’s Sabotage

An organization’s employees are most familiar with the computers inside an organization. There are a lot of examples where the annoyed employees of a company are involved in sabotaging the computer system. Employee’s sabotage include entering data incorrectly, destroying system hardware, deleting data, changing data, changing the passwords and entering the data incorrectly. The best way to avoid the situations like these is to delete the employees’ account after they leaves the company so that they can’t no more access company’s systems. Secondly, regularly monitor the activities of the employees and restrict their access to the sensitive resources in the overall IT infrastructure.

Vendor’s Default Password Attack

Vendors of the computer systems have the default passwords at many different hardware and software components like the router, system BIOS and others. It is very important to change the default password of the computer devices and applications.

Human Error

Errors and the omissions are the great threats to the integrity of the data and the computer system. Data entry operators, programmers, system administrators often make errors that can compromise the system’s security. The effect of the various security threats caused by the human errors varies. Employee’s training and awareness training should be given to the employees to avoid such kinds of errors that can lead to the financial losses for a company.

General Security Tips

Install an up-to-dated antivirus program and regularly scan your computer.
Regularly update your operating system with the latest security patches, services packs and the hot fixes.
Install and configure a software or hardware firewall.
Set a very strong password at your computer.
Make backups of your important data and emails.
Don’t download anything from the insecure websites.
Never open email attachments from the unknown and unreliable sources.
Increase your browser’s security level.
While using MSN messenger don’t open any links from the unknown sources otherwise you will lost your account’s access.
Use UPS to protect your hard disk failure and data loss due to the power failure.

Introduction to Desktop Computer

2008-06-29T02:53:00.001+06:00

Desktop computer refers to the personal computer and it is most widely used computer in the home and offices. It comes in different styles like the large vertical tower case, desktop case and small form factor models that come with the LCD monitor. The term desktop refers to the horizontal case and the monitor is usually placed on the top of it. It has the advantage over the laptop because of the easily availability of the spare parts, lower prices and the greater availability.

It has many expansion slots like PCI, ISA and AGP and a number of the components and cards like VGA, Sound card and LAN card can be placed in them. In the modern computers, the PCI slots are the most commonly used slots and almost all the cards are inserted in them. A number of the peripheral devices like monitor, scanner, keyboard, mouse and speakers can be attached with it.

It can easily be upgraded and different components like the hard disk, RAM, optical drive, CD-ROM and the cards can be replaced. There are different manufacturers like Dell, Compaq, HP, Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, Acer and Gateway that manufacture the different variety of the desktop computers.

Before buying a computer it is necessary that you know your requirements. Before making a purchasing decision, you need to take into account certain things like the upgradeability, warranty, after sales support, wireless connectivity, processor speed, hard disk capacity, RAM, Processor, optical drives, accessories, operating system and others. The average price of it ranges from $ 500 to $ 1500.

You can also find the reviews of different computers on net and can compare the features the manufacturers’ websites. A Desktop computer performs all the computing tasks and they provide the best working experience to the users. It is best choice of the home and business users.

Printer Guide

2008-06-29T02:44:00.000+06:00

A printer is a peripheral device that is used to that accepts the graphical and text output from the computer and display the results on the papers. It produces the hard copy of the documents that are stored in the electronic form. It is an external device and attached with the computer with a cable. It can be shared with the local and the network users. In the big networks, a print server is a dedicated computer that handles the printing requests only. A network printer can also be a dedicated device and the network users are attached to it through the Ethernet port.

Every network users can send a printing request to the print server. Print server prioritizes the requests based on its settings. Modern printers are 4 in 1 i.e. they come with fax, photocopier and scanner. They vary in sizes, speed and the specifications and the cost also depends on these factors. The main features of any printer are the color quality, speed, resolution and the memory. Today speed is measure in the pages per minute and this measure is used as the marketing term.

People ask about the speed before purchasing it. Printer provides the different instructions to the printing device to control the font, size, graphics, prioritized settings and the other things. There are different manufactures of the printer like HP, Canon, Lexmark, Minolta, Epson and Xerox. Based on the specifications, quality, speed and performance the printer can be classified into the following main categories.

Dot Matrix

It creates the characters by striking the pins against the ribbon. The combinations of the dots make the characters on the paper.

Inkjet

It sprays the ink at the paper to product the text and graphics.

Laser

Laser printers use the advanced technology to produce the high quality text and graphics at a high speed.

Daisy Wheel

Daily wheel is similar to the ball head type writer. It has a plastic or metal wheel. Daisy wheel printers can produce the text but not the graphics.

Thermal Printer

Thermal printer works by pushing the heated head against the heat sensitive paper. These printers are used in the fax machines.

LCD

LCD uses the light emitting diodes or liquid crystals to produces the images and text.

Introduction to Peripheral Devices

2008-06-29T02:42:00.000+06:00

Peripheral devise are the computer devices that are connected to the computer externally such as printer, scanner, keyboard, mouse, tape device, microphone and external modem. They can be internal such as CD-ROM or internal modem and external as the scanner, printer and Zip drive. Peripheral devices can be classified according to their functions.

Input

Input devices are the type of the computer devices that are used to provide the control signals to the computer. Keyboard and the Mouse are the examples of the input devices.

Output

Output devices are the devices that are used to display the results. Printer, scanner, speaker and the monitor are the examples of the output devices.

Storage

A storage device is a device that is used to store the information such as hard disk drive, flash drive, floppy disk and the tape drive.

Introduction to Hard Disk

2008-06-29T02:39:00.000+06:00

Hard disk is a non volatile store device inside the computer that stores the data on it in the digital form. All the programs and data is stored on the hard disk. It is the most popular storage medium that is used for the desktop computer, laptop, video recorders and the gaming consoles. It is made up of the base, spindle motor, head set, voice coil and media. Data is recorded electromagnetically on the concentric circles or the tracks on the disk. H.D.D consists of several platters and each platter has read/write heads. The platters are coated with the ferromagnetic material.

Modern technology uses glass or ceramic platters. The magnetic layer on the platters has the magnetized domain, which is used to store the data that comes from the read/write heads. The platters are the actual disks that store the data. Read/Write heads are attached to the single accesses arms. Each platter has the same number of the tracks. The disk accessed time is measured in the milliseconds and the disk rotating speed varying from 4500 to7200 rpm.

The rotating motor is responsible for the movements of the head arms all over the HDD. Typical desktop HDD stores the data ranging from 120 to 300 GB with the media transfer rate of 1Gbps. The main components of the HDD include the following.

Platters
Spindle Motor
Read/Write head
Head Actuator

The major manufacturers of the HDD are Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum and Conner Peripherals. There are different types of the HDD like SCSI, ATA, SATA, IDE, ESDI and fiber channel. HDD are classified into the desktop, server and laptop hard disks. Desktop includes IDE and SATA interface, laptop includes IDE, SATA and SCSI and server includes ATA, SATA and SCSI interfaces of the HDD. SAS is a new type and is being used widely.

To keep your business profitable and productive the performance of the HDD is very important. SCSI HDD is more suitable choice in more cases for the databases and web servers with the high usages of the HDD.

External HDD is used to transfer the huge amount of data that cannot be transferred over the network. The quality of the HDD is determined by the capacity, spindle speed, seek time, aerial density, transfer rate and the interface speed.

Computer Hardware Guide

2008-06-29T02:31:00.001+06:00

Computer hardware means the physical (internal and external) component of a computer and the digital circuits and computer chips inside the computer. In the recent times, the hardware has been evolved in that way that it can be controlled, configured and troubleshoots through the software. Most of the hardware has not been seen by the users as it has been embedded inside the computer. Hardware includes the internal and external components, storage controllers, removable media and communication and peripheral devices.

There are a large number of manufactures that develop the hardware components. Common hardware manufactures are Intel, Acer, Compaq, Toshiba, Samsung, HP, FujiTsu, Sonic View, Apple, Cisco and Asus. This article will provide you an overview of the most common hardware devices and their functionalities.

CPU

CPU stands for the central processing unit. It performs the calculations inside the computer that enables the computer to perform different kind of functions. It provides the data highly or bus system that moves the data between the different components of the motherboard. The speed of the data moving along the buses of the motherboard is measured in the MHz.

Motherboard

Motherboard is the hardware component inside the computer that provides the platform for many devices such as RAM, hard disk, peripheral devices, PC cards and controllers.

Processor

Processor is the heart of the computer that processes the instructions that are given by the user. Processor is manufactured by the different companies including Intel, AMD, Cyrix and Motorola.

Memory

RAM is the physical memory inside the computer and it stores the data temporarily. The computer’s performance depends on the RAM. More is the RAM, the better is the performance of the computer. RAM is used by the processor and other devices to store the data temporarily. There are two basic formats of the RAM SIMM and DIMM.

Video Card

Video card is an important component and it controls the display of the computer screen.

Sound Card

Sound card enables the computer to output the sound to the audio devices. Today most of the computer systems have built in sound cards in the motherboards.

LAN Card

LAN card or Network adapter is communication component inside the computer. Every computer in a network must have a LAN card to communicate with each other. Every LAN card is configured separately and a unique IP address is assigned to each LAN card.

Modem

Modem is a communication device that connects the computer with the internet. There are two types of modems internal and external.

Hard Disk

Hard disk is a storage device inside the computer. The common types of the hard disks include IDE and SCSI. Hard disk varies in sizes and capacity. An IDE hard disk is connected to the motherboard by using the Ribbon cable.

CD-ROM

CD-ROM is a device that is used to read the data from the CD.

DVD-ROM

DVD-ROM is a device that is used to read the data from the DVD.

USB Device

A USB is a portable storage device.

Printer

Printer is a type of the peripheral device that is used to print the documents.

Scanner

Scanner is a type of the peripheral devices that is used to scan the documents and images.

Monitor

Monitor is a type of the hardware device that is used to display the video signals.

Keyboard

Keyboard is an input device that is used to give the input to the computer to process it.

Mouse

Mouse is a pointing device that detects the motion of the mouse ball with the surface.

VOIP Solutions

2008-06-29T02:28:00.001+06:00

VOIP has evolved greatly in the recent years and it has advanced the internet based telephony system. It assures revenue saving for the organizations that require internet telephony solutions. VOIP stands for voice over IP and it is used for making the phone calls over the internet. It converts the voice signals into the digital packets. VOIP technology supports the two way conversation by using the voice over internet protocol. Many businesses around the world have been implementing VOIP solutions due to its great features and low price.

This technology provides the scalable, mobile, reliable and secure voice communication solutions to the small, medium and large enterprises around the world. The calls over the internet can be made by using the services of the VOIP provider, computer’s audio system and headphone. The other methods of placing the calls are by using the VOIP telephone and by using the normal telephone with the VOIP adapter. The users can make the calls in very easy way. This technology offers great saving over the conventional phone calls. Due to the recent advantages of the voice over IP technology like low cost and increased reliability has made it the best voice solution over the internet.

Businesses and call centers around the world require more bandwidth, scalability and secure infrastructure for the implementation of the VOIP solutions. Some broadband service providers have less bandwidth than required. Before getting the VOIP services from the service providers, heck its features and make sure whether they suite your business requirements or not. Sometimes due to the low bandwidth, network latency, packet loss and jitter the users get the unsatisfactory voice quality.

VOIP Features

Voice over IP technology provides the following features for the businesses.

Voice Mail
Call Waiting
3 Way calling
Caller ID with name
Enhanced voice mail
Anonymous call blocking
Speed dialing
Call transfer
Phone to phone option
Repeat dial
Call logs
Conference calling
Customized ringing tones
SMS delivery solutions
Call back facility
Secure calls by using the standardized protocols.

What is Firewall

2008-06-29T02:23:00.002+06:00

A firewall is a software or hardware appliance that is used as a line of defense between your computer and the external threats from the internet. Firewall technologies have evolved to meet the security requirements of the IT infrastructure. In a computer network, a firewall solution is usually implemented at the gateway computer to block the threats like intruders, hackers, viruses and unauthorized access. There are different types of the firewall techniques and the implementation methods and the most commonly used techniques are packet filtering, proxy server, application gateway and the circuit-level gateway.

There are many companies that produce the firewall products and the most commonly used firewall products are manufactured by Zone Alarm, Microsoft Windows Firewall, Comodo, F-Secure, Kaspersky, LavaSoft, McAfee, Symantec, R-Firewall, AShampoo and Trend Micro PC-cillin.

Firewall works very closely to a router program by examining each packet of the data. A properly configured firewall prevent your computer form the internal and external threats. Most business class firewall products offer application layer filtering. Application filtering is required to prevent the spam, viruses and the application layers threats. Performance is very important in the busy networks and the firewall throughput can range from 150 mpbs to 1 gbps. Configuring the firewall requires the detailed understating of the network applications and the overall IT infrastructure. To select the best firewall product, you need to know your IT infrastructure and the level of security you require. Most of the firewall products posses the following features.

Firewall Features

Monitoring inbound and outbound traffic.
User’s authentication.
Ports blocking
Bandwidth management
Logging
NAT (Network Address Translation)
Antivirus
Spam Filtering
URL Screening
Web caching
Centralized management
SSL
VPN
Email Security
IP Spoofing
Blocks Intrusion attempts
Blocks viruses, spyware and other web threats.
HTTP Filtering
MAC Address filtering
Remote administration
Ports Scanning
Application monitoring
IP Address ban list
Application Layer Filtering

Before selecting a firewall product you should consider the following things

Do you prefer software firewall or hardware?
How many concurrent connections you require.
Do you need high availability?
What VPN protocols do you want to use.
Which level of security does your network require?
How many VPN tunnels do you need to run concurrently?
What type of user interface do you prefer?
Authentication features.

IP Addressing

2008-06-29T02:16:00.000+06:00

IP address is a unique identifier of a computer on TCP/IP networks and on the internet. Every computer requires a unique IP address to be a part of the internet and the IP address is provided by the internet service providers. Every IP address consists of the 32 bits and a binary system of 0s and 1s. The binary number system consist of only two types of digits 0 and 1. It is easier for us to remember the decimal numbers rather than the binary number system such as 011001101. On a same network segment, all the IP address share the same network address.

There are five classes of the IP addresses such as A, B, C, D and E and only 3 classes are in the use. Class D IP addresses are reserved for the multicast group ant cannot be assigned to hosts and the E class IP addresses are the experimental addresses and cannot be assigned to the people. Every IP address consists of 4 octets and 32 bits. Every participating host and the devices on a network such as servers, routers, switches, DNS, DHCP, gateway, web server, internet fax server and printer have their own unique addresses within the scope of the network.

TCP/IP protocols are installed by default with the Windows based operating systems. After the TCP/IP protocols are successfully installed you need to configure them through the Properties Tab of the Local Area Connection.

IP Addresses Classes

Class A

The binary address for the class A starts with 0. The range of the IP addresses in the class A is between 1 to 126 and the default subnet mask of the class A is 255.0.0.0. Class A supports 16 million hosts on each of 125 networks. An example of the class A is 10.10.1.1. Class A is used for the large networks with many network devices.

Class B

The binary address for the class B starts with 10. The range of the IP address in the class B is between 128 to 191 and the default subnet mast for the class B is 255.255.0.0. Class B supports 65,000 on each of 16,000 networks. An example of the class B address is 150.10.10.10. Class B addresses scheme is used for the medium sized networks.

Class C

The binary address for the class C starts with 110. The range of the IP addresses in the class C is between 192 to 223 and the default subnet mask for the class C is 255.255.255. Class C hosts 254 hosts on each of 2 million networks. An example of the Class C IP address is 210.100.100.50. Class C is used for the small networks with less then 256 devices and nodes in a network.

Class D

The binary addresses for the class D starts with 1110 and the IP addresses range can be between 224 to 239. An example of the class D IP address is 230.50.100.1

Class E

The binary address can starts with 1111 and the decimal can be anywhere from 240 to 255. An example of the class E IP address is 245.101.10.10

It is very important to know that all the computers in the same network segment should have the IP addresses for the same class i.e. form A, B or C.

IP Addressing Tips

A Network ID cannot be All 0s
A host ID cannot be All 1 because this represents a broadcast address for the local network.
Each host must have a unique host portion of the IP address.
All hosts on the same network segment should have the same network id.
A host address cannot be 127 because 127 has been reserved for the loop back functionalities.

Computer Networking

2008-06-29T01:55:00.000+06:00

Computer networking is a linking of the network devices and computers with each other to provide the data communications and sharing the network resources such as printer, scanner, modem, CD/DVD and internet access. A computer network can be interconnected with the UTP/STP cables, coaxial cables, fiber optics and wirelessly through the radio waves. Today, no business can work effectively without the data communications within the organization. A network can be designed by different layouts known as topologies.

The common topologies include star, hub, mesh, hybrid and ring. Star topology is the most common topology in Ethernet based local area network. There are specialized rules and standards and based on these standards, the devices communicate with each other.

One of these specialized standards and agree up ways is known as protocols. TCP/IP is the protocol suite that contains the multiple communication protocols such as TCP, IP, SMTP, FTP, DHCP, LDAP, PPP, Telnet and many others. TCP/IP works together and it is the most common communication protocol for the LAN, WAN and internet. The communications on the internet is based on the IP addresses, which is a part of the TCP/IP stack. No computer on the internet or in the LAN/MAN/WAN can communicate without a unique IP address.

Networking and data communications provides the flexibility, easy of work and communications with each other and today every kind of business in the world, which involves more than one computer, require a computer network. A network can be setup by using the following things.

Computer with Windows/Linux operating system installed.
Every computer requires a unique LAN card, which should be properly installed and configured.
Ethernet cable with the RJ-45 connectors at both ends.
A Router/Switch or hub.

The other devices are bridges, transceivers, terminal servers and gateways and they can be setup according to your requirements.

There are three main types of the computer network i.e. LAN, MAN, WAN, CAN, GAN and PAN and each network either be a peer to peer or client server network. In a client/server network model, a centralized domain controller is used to control all the computer network. It provides the services to the clients like logon authentication, printer access, scanner access, centralized data storage, user management, resources management, DHCP, DNS, FTP and internet access.

To communicate with the other computer, each computer should support the same protocol and the TCP/IP is the most commonly used protocol in a computer network. Internetwork is a type of computer network that connects the two or more different networks. There are three main types of the internetwork i.e. intranet, extranet and internet.