Thursday, July 31, 2008

Simple Guide In Sending Fax Through Internet Learn About Email Faxing

Writen by Claudia Walters

Simple guide in sending fax through Internet: learn more about Email faxing There is lots of Internet faxing services that enable you to send your faxes through the Internet. It is a type of online services that provide subscribers with the ability to send and receive faxes without a fax machine. Instead, Internet access and an email account are all the necessary. Internet faxes are received or sent in form of email attachments or normal fax machine copies.

Some of these Internet faxing services are free while others require you to pay a certain amount of money on a monthly basis. Some of the examples of Internet faxing services includes: eFax, Call Wave Internet faxing, Green Fax, Trust Fax, Fax it Nice, Fax Mate, Inter Fax, Air Com email fax, and My Fax.

How Internet fax normally works?

To send an Internet fax, the subscriber creates an email account. The fax content can be written in the body of the email, and attachments are normally permitted. The destination fax number is entered in the 'To' field, along with the Internet fax service name (efax for example). For example, if the fax number were 1-555-234-5678, the email would be addressed to 15552345678@efax.com. In the subject・field, user will need to input the recipient name, for example: Attn: Mr. Fax.

Receiving Internet faxes is easy; you do not need to be familiar with faxing software nor fax machines neither to use the Internet faxing interface. Normally, the email faxing services will install a small tools (toolbar or window box) into your PC as a plug-in inside the email program. Upon receipt, an automated program converts the email to a fax format, then faxes to the number supplied in the fax-header. The recipient receives the fax normally, through fax machine.

Why Internet fax?

There are numerous reasons to start implementing Internet faxing services in your business or personal usage. If you have ever owned a fax machine then you can understand how frustrating it is when it jams, cuts off page text, stops in the middle of a transmission, or the receiving machine is constantly busy or out of paper. Eventually you might ruin your own business because of all those communication troubles caused by the traditional fax machines. Life with Internet faxing (or sometimes known as email faxing) will be much easier- 24 hours ready, no more engage tones, and no more paper jamming. Faxes will always sent out and arrived smoothly via your email account.

Perhaps you have never owned a fax machine because of the initial investment and ongoing maintenance was far too costly. Think about it --- the cost of the machine, the installation of a separate phone line to avoid conflicts with your answering machine, and the ongoing cost of replacement toner cartridges. With the invention of eFax services, now you never have to worry about these headaches with the soon-to-be extinct fax machine device.

Some get Internet faxing services because of their additional advantages. Let's take eFax (owned by J2 Communication) for example. They are offering more than just Internet faxing solutions nowadays. With the recent introduction on their new product: eVoice, you can even get voice messages sent to your email accounts or forward it into your private number. With eVoice, even the smallest of businesses can benefit with a professional answering service today and save costs on answering machine and extra phone lines.

Wrapping things up, Internet services are one of the online services that can beneficial greatly to your business or personal expenses. However in order to get the best from it, one must be careful and review more on the faxing services that's available in the market. Different Internet faxing packages are meant for different categories of users. If you only need to receive faxes, you can try out eFax Free which will cost you nothing; if you send faxes frequently and needs a toll-free number for your business, eFax Plus might be something you want to look at. If you are always on the road and need to send email faxes via mobile portal, Call Wave faxing services is recommended. To view more regarding on CallWave services: http://www.downloadcallwave.com; to view more on eFax services: http://www.myinternetfax.biz

Learn more about the services details when you are shopping for the right Internet faxing services: the reputation and customer feedbacks on the services, the ability to send to more than one fax number at a time, the faxing page capacity, the send/receive page amount-limit and the hidden cost of sending extra faxes are some factors that you do not want to miss out.

The author, Claudia Walters, is one of the expert writers in office tools and technology. People are not aware that they can send fax via internet, thus a website is built promoting top rated online faxing services.

Event Planning Software A Beginners Guide To Appointment And Event Management

Writen by Olan Butler

When you enter the world of event planning, the one thing you realize very quickly is that flexibility is a necessity. Your event planning software will need to track appointments you have set, events you are planning, your journal or diary entries you are writing, projects you are working on, and the tasks on your to-do list. In this beginner's guide article series, you will receive insights into each of these categories and some productive ways to use them.

First, let's take a look at appointments in event planning software. This is the most obvious category. When picking an event planning software package, make sure that you have a monthly view of your appointments. This view allows you to see your month at a glance so that you can make decision quickly and get a grip on your schedule flow to prevent costly schedule errors like double booking.

Second, let's take a look at your events in the event planning software. Your software should also give you a monthly view at this point too. Let me give you more detail on the characteristics on the monthly view. Your monthly view should be interactive without the need to compromise the view in your event planning software. In other words, you can make notations onto the calendar's monthly view without leaving that view. This is where you will get your biggest bang for the buck because you can make notations directly onto the view without popping up any extra screens and yet have full visual to every day of the month.

If you are like me, you have had to fumble with software that took you to a totally different window to add notes and while you were writing the notes you needed to go back to the original window to assess some critical data. You may have even had to copy out your notes to another program temporarily until you could flip back from the original screen. What a pain!

The flexibility to work on your appointment and events in an unencumbered environment are crucial to your productivity success. As you can see, there is at a basic level some important event planning software design issues to address when choosing package. In the next article we will tackle the journal.

(c) Copyright 2005 Olan Butler All Rights Reserved

Olan Butler is the Chief Architect of BHO Technologists, a computer productivity software and service provider http://www.bhotechnologists.com with headquarters in Kansas City. His works also include the Appointment Calendar Software Store and the Kansas City Computer Repair Site.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Great Plains Dexterity Microsoft Great Plains Customization Overview

Writen by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics and eEnterprise are Dexterity-written applications. Also small business line: Microsoft Small Business Manager or Small Business Financials is written in Dexterity and uses the same code base as Great Plains.

The history of the Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity - is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package - Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope - that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface.

• Native Dexterity Cursors. Dexterity was designed as platform independent programming language and so if you want your code to be operable on all currently supported databases - you use Dexterity ranges and loops to manipulate the records

• Great Plains Dexterity with SQL Stored Procs Nowadays, most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server - so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.

• COM Objects calls. Beginning with version 7.0 Dexterity supports COM objects - you register them as libraries in Dexterity. Refer the manual. This technique allows you to call such nice things as web services across the internet.

• Dexterity Forms - if you like VBA and are comfortable to do all the business logic in VBA - you can use Dexterity as new forms creator/editor. This is OK - but you have to purchase VBA/Modifier and Customization Site Enabler from MBS.

• Great Plains Alternate Forms. These are modification to existing forms – the ones found in DYNAMICS.DIC. The most popular customization are made on SOP Entry form. If you are designing your customization – we recommend you to avoid alternate forms – the problem is customization version upgrade. In the case of alternate form – customization should be redone.

Some restrictions. Great Plains is actually integration of multiple dictionaries: DYNAMICS.DIC, ADVSECUR.DIC, EXP1493.DIC, etc. In your Dexterity customization you can deal with one dictionary - DYNAMICS.DIC. If you need cross dictionaries customization - consider using SQL Stored Procs for crossing dictionary borders and pulling data/making changes in the other dictionary.

You can always have us help you with the customization. Call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918.

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, Michigan, Florida, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Erp Software Companies

Writen by Jennifer Bailey

Because of its extensive function within the organization, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) relies on very large and complex software. In the early days, numerous analysts, programmers and users did the implementation of ERP systems in a single firm. This was only until the development of the Internet that allowed consultants to connect to company computers for the installation of standard updates.

Today there are web-based ERP systems that can be downloaded through web browsers. These web-based ERPs are cross-platform and maintained centrally. Deploying them doesn't require any client installation.

However, in every ERP system implementation, customization is usually required. This is because some ERP packages are very generic in their reports and examinations. They may not correspond to your existing business processes or comply with your objectives and needs. You have to customize your ERP software because it is the customization that makes an ERP a success or failure.

ERP implementation and customization without expert help for large and transnational companies can be very expensive and complicated. There are companies that specialized in ERP implementation. They start with project planning, architectural design, data conversion and integration of ERP modules, e-business applications and legacy systems. They can speed up the process and accomplish the job in less than 6 months with solid pilot testing.

You may also seek the help of ERP vendors for technical consulting that involves programming and modification of software to suit the specific and unique needs of your business.

The third-party consulting companies can help you with ERP system configuration and business consulting. They will study the current business processes of your organization and fit them with the corresponding processes in the ERP system.

Educating and training your employees about the ERP system is essential in the transition from old processes to new. To reduce the cost of ERP training, you may seek the assistance of training companies that are specialized in coaching workers on using the ERP software.

Professional ERP software companies that have specialized in ERP will aid you in the implementation and customization of your ERP software system. Their assistance will save you the cost of experimenting with different, irresolute methods and will definitely put you on the right track.

ERP Software provides detailed information on ERP Software, ERP Software Solutions, ERP Software Companies, Manufacturing ERP Software and more. ERP Software is affiliated with HR Software Solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics Gp New Customization Development Integration Amp Reporting Opportunities

Writen by Andrew Karasev

Recent marketing decision of Microsoft to rename its products: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, CRM and Solomon into Microsoft Dynamics GP, NAV, AX, CRM, SL for Project Green Wave 1, intending to merge them into just Microsoft Dynamics in Wave 2. For application developer it should open new ways and opportunities. In this small article we'll orient developer in customization, integration & reporting tools.

• XML Web Services. Eventually all Microsoft Dynamics GP modules will be in your disposition through SDK. At this moment SDK is in progress – but it is clear that it will use eConnect or Integration Object SDK (new name for eConnect). eConnect objects will be expanded and will have web service interface.

• Microsoft Dexterity. In July 2005 we see some signs of Microsoft Dexterity renaissance. Microsoft resumes Great Plains Source code program – it is access to DYNAMICS.DIC, project and field service dictionaries with Dexterity scripts (regular dictionaries, that you can find in GP workstation folder have sanscript scripts stripped out). Program pricing will probably make it available for large and mid-size consulting companies only, but the fact of reopening this program gives some additional credits to Microsoft Dexterity and we believe that it will be playing role in the next decade. You can actually call web services from Microsoft Dexterity.

• Business Portal. Business Portal has all the chances to step-by-step replace existing proprietary interfaces for all Microsoft Dynamics future brands: GP, AX, NAV, SL, except probably CRM – it is already web-based (and MS Outlook-based – which is another strategic direction) application. Business Portal will have its own and hopefully open for MSDN subscribers SDK with C#, and probably VB.Net examples. Business Portal is .Net application. Plus you should be aware of new rewritten eOrder (new name – Order Management) – as you might know old eOrder was legacy ASP application. Order Management is being integrated into Business Portal.

• Visual Studio. As we will see GP object exposed via XML web services – this is where Visual Studio developer can take control (except Dexterity forms and screens). Visual Studio will be tool of choice to customize Business Portal, for example

• Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. These services more likely will be a replacement to Great Plains ReportWriter and Crystal Reports, especially when we are talking about Business Portal.

• Integration. You will have web services for the majority of GP objects. Plus Integration Manager will more likely use eConnect/Integration Object SDK technology

• Document Workflow. It will be a must in the close future. We know that traditional workflow provider is Lotus Notes/Domino. Microsoft will be working in this direction, where Microsoft Sharepoint might play a role in the close future.

Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia. Alba Spectrum serves corporate clients in Aerospace & Defense, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Manufacturing, Transportation & Logistics, Pharmaceutical, Food Processing, Placement, Healthcare & Medicine, Beverages, Agriculture, Non-profit, Distribution & Supply Chain Management, Financial Services, Furniture, Textile, Apparels, Conglomerates, Wholesale & Retail.

Monday, July 28, 2008

5 Minute Guide To Crm

Writen by Natalie Aranda

For any successful company, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of the most important factors in customer acquisition. It not only consists of building extensive relationships with customers and other businesses, but it also allows a company to find out how their product is viewed by their audiences.

In order to have a successful product, a business must have a great relationship with the public. For instance, if Disney were to come out with a new product line, they would have to know who their audience is, what they expect out of a product, and the type of quality they want. Although it sounds like a difficult quest, it is actually quite easy to find this sort of information. Luckily, CRM software can help find out these answers.

CRM software is extremely important for any company who is serious about accomplishing a goal. If they are ready to release a new product or just want to get better sales, these programs can help them determine what to do. Many businesses love CRM software because it allows them to analyze their customer's behavior and why they react a certain way. Depending upon the money you want to spend, these CRM solutions can either evaluate your data that you put in yourself, or collect information from the website visits or e-mails you receive.

When trying to find a great CRM solution, it is important to question your needs and what you want from the software. Many programs offer a different amount of features, thus it is important to break down what you would like. Also, you must remember that your employees will need to know how to use the software and understand the information that it presents. This may be a large problem if you have to train your entire staff. It not only forces you to spend more money than you need to, but it also slows down the process of building customer relationships.

Although CRM software greatly helps a company reach their goal and make more money, there are other factors to think about. Unfortunately, CRM software may only take you so far. After all, it is only a computer program! Every successful business needs an intelligent and creative staff who can take the company to another level. If you don't have a great team, your CRM software will only give you a massive headache.

While there are many factors that go hand in hand with great sales, companies still need to focus on satisfying their customers. For that reason, customer relationship management helps both the customer and the business itself. After all, if there are happy customers, chances are they will go and tell their friends about their favorite product. We all know that word of mouth spreads easily, thus resulting in better and bigger sales. However, small businesses know how terrible it can be to face negative and unhappy audiences. It is mind blowing to think that a few customers can mean the end of a business. Luckily, with hundreds of customer relationship management solutions and software, companies are now able to find out how they can please their customers.

Natalie Aranda writes on business and technology. CRM software is important for customer acquisition. Many businesses love CRM systems because it allows them to analyze their customer's behavior and why they react a certain way. Depending upon the money you want to spend, these CRM solutions can either evaluate your data that you put in yourself, or collect information from the website visits or e-mails you receive. Web based CRM has gained the popularity because of the ease of implementation and lower initial cost.

Business Software Your Needs Met

Writen by Leon Chaddock

Business software is very versatile to incorporate all types of products and services that you are likely to need. You will find a wide range of options to consider and this in itself is likely to be demanding and overwhelming. Nonetheless, it is essential that the software that you purchase be the right product for your needs as well as the best for your budget.

To help you find the business software that fits your needs the best, follow these pointers.

• Know what your specific needs in software are. Do you want an entire system that supports all functions of your business? Are you looking for just one specific area of expertise? This makes a large difference. If you do go with just one form or another, make sure that it will work with your current configuration well. Integrated software can work well together and this can allow for more flexibility.
• You should also know about the features and abilities of each software package that you consider. What services will it provide for you in specific? What level of expertise will it deliver to you? And, will these features be easy to use so that they are incorporated into your business structure?
• You should always look for answers when it comes to maintenance. Let's face it; many times you are going to have to call in some help. What level of help will the software company provide for your employees needs? Will they help to install it? And, if the program is a system wide usage will they insure that each of your locations is managed properly?

These things are all important when it comes to finding the right software solution. Taking the time to consider several options will help you to find the right overall product for your needs. Whether you are looking for a complete system or a simple accounting software program, business software can be found and purchased right online in the best capacity available.

for more information please see http://www.business-software-shack.co.uk

Sunday, July 27, 2008

About Norton Antivirus

Writen by Eric Koshinsky

With the many types of anti-virus software, it is helpful to read a brief description of what the different types do and how they can be beneficial to you and your computer. Norton Anti-virus

Symantec's Norton AntiVirus software is perhaps the world's most trusted antivirus solution. It is available for both Windows PC's, and Macintosh (Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh - S.A.M). Norton AntiVirus is a very reliable and easy-to-use anti-virus product. It's the best anti-virus product for catching viruses in downloaded files and E-mail. Norton AntiVirus is also more expensive than McAfee VirusScan although not by much, and the added abilities of Norton can easily make up the difference.

Norton AntiVirus includes many tools that can be run in the background, including watching for suspicious PC activity and automatically checking downloaded files for viruses. Norton AntiVirus is also automatically configured to handle E-mail virus scanning for email messages coming into your computer, as well as those you send. This process automatically scans and cleans both incoming and outgoing email, stopping viruses from infecting your computer or spreading to others. It removes viruses automatically, without interrupting your work and prevents infections during real-time online chats, and also detects viruses in instant-message attachments. Because so many viruses and internet worms are now spread using email and Instant Message Systems, this is extremely valuable and necessary protection.

Norton Installation

Installation is simple. Simply install the CD in your CD drive, and the installer will launch automatically. The installer should ask you if you want to do a pre-install scan of your system for viruses. This is a very good thing to do. Once this is finished, the installation will proceed, and you can accept all the defaults without worry. Once the installation is complete, you'll be prompted to go online and get up-to-date virus definitions. DO NOT skip this step. Having up-to-date virus definitions is essential to the performance of any antivirus software.

Normal Use

Norton is a very hands-off program. Pretty much it is an install and forget program that looks after itself. It will automatically notify you if there is anything that you need to do. If a virus is found, the software will try to automatically repair the file, if it can't, it will place the file in a safe 'quarantine' zone, and let you know. In addition to looking for known viruses, the Norton Antivirus Bloodhound feature tries to spot new viruses and worms by their behaviour that is common to such nasty programs.

Checking your system and downloading updates are two things you need to do regularly. Norton Antivirus makes them painless by setting up a full system scan once a week and checking for new updates (both to the software, and virus definitions) whenever you're online. These simple update scans hardly slow down your PC down at all.

Overall, Norton Antivirus is an excellent way to guard against viruses. It is the system that I recommend to my clients most often, and that I use personally.

Learn how to remove blackworm virus and how to easily block trojan horses, spyware, computer viruses, and other malicious software in the future. Growing library of Computer Security Articles

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Ecommerce Software What It Is And How It Can Help You

Writen by Frank Owen

Ecommerce Software To Boost Sales

Ecommerce software is a line of applications targeted toward businesses owners that are interested in boosting their sales. There are multiple forms of ecommerce software that businesses can use to streamline business processes. One example is online shopping cart software, which businesses can use to sell items directly to their customers. A shopping car providers businesses with multiple benefits including maximizing order conversion and increasing web traffic. Most e-commerce solutions integrate easily with other e-commerce applications to streamline business processes.

Other e-commerce tools that are beneficial for businesses include web site hosting and domain name registration. Web development software enables first time or experienced users to create professional looking Web pages in just minutes. Build it ecommerce software tools enable users to develop, build and even host their sites quickly and easily. Many come with built in tools to promote sites and to enable users to set up affiliate links quickly and easily.

Common Features Web Based Tools

Common features of these software products including point and click user interface, easy domain name registration and hosting. Others provide graphics capabilities and Web page analysis so the user can optimize Web pages without paying someone else to do so. A decent Web builder program will contain all the tools you need to build and promote your Web site in one handy package. Most take users step by step through the creation process leaving little to the imagination. This makes things easy and efficient particularly for first time users.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on ecommerce software for more on ecommerce software. http://www.softwareforbusiness.net/ecommerce-software/

Friday, July 25, 2008

Detecting Network Anomalies With Netflow

Writen by Jan Nejman

Introduction

The war in Iraq and the War on Terror have changed the focus of all three levels of government. Federal, state and local government - all three are seeking better ways to protect themselves, their equipment and data while working amid pressure-filled and dangerous situations. Of course, security has been the buzzword on Capitol Hill for some time, but generally speaking, physical security took initial priority, followed by outer system protection through intrusion detection and patch management. Security at the application level hasn't happened yet and is really the most critical. Attacks are becoming more sophisticated than worms or even viruses, and can shut down entire systems.

There are a lot of ways to monitor and analyze your network traffic and protect it from Internet intrusions. Organizations commonly use a firewall for network protection. Although firewall logs often provide a huge information regarding intrusion attempts, sometimes might be of too much data to sort through when there is a problem you cannot resolve it quickly. Some organizations also use intrusion detection systems (IDS) on border routers to analyze incoming traffic for patterns that indicate specific problems. But firewall or intrusion detection system is used primarily on borders with the Internet, rather than on internal networks. This is one of reason why Cisco's NetFlow came to the rescue.

Netflow Overview Netflow is a traffic monitoring and analyzing technology developed by Darren Kerr and Barry Bruins at Cisco Systems. Netflow describes the method for a router and/or intelligent switch to export statistics about the data flow, and this built-in feature is found on most Cisco routers (http://www.cisco.com) as well as Juniper (http://www.juniper.net), Extreme Networks (http://www.extremenetworks.com), Riverstone (http://www.riverstonenet.com) etc. NetFlow technology provides the data necessary to effectively analyze trend and baseline application data as it passes through the network. It can then be exported to a reporting package and can provide the information necessary to manage critical business applications.

What is Netflow? Netflow is defined as a unidirectional sequence of packets between a given source and destination which means there will be two flows for each connection session, one from the server to client, one from the client to server. In order to distinguish flows from one another, the source and destination addresses, protocol and port numbers are used. The Type of Service and source input interface index are also used to uniquely identify the flow to which a packet belongs. A flow is determined to have ended when it has been idle for a specified length of time, when it has become older than a specified age (30 minutes by default) or when the flow is a TCP connection a FIN or RST has been sent. The router may expire flows more aggressively if it is running out of cache space.

A number of router vendors have implemented their version of netflow, but version 5 is now the most common. For a NDE version 5, every single UDP packet contains one flow header and thirty flow records at maximum. Every flow record is made up of several base fields and the rest which include: next hop address, output interface number, number of packets in the flow, total bytes in the flow, source and destination AS number, source and destination network length and TCP flags (cumulative OR of TCP flags).

What is Caligare Flow Inspector? Caligare Flow Inspector (http://www.caligare.com/netflow/cfi.php) is a unique network software solution for companies, who need to plan, build, maintain and manage their network and at the same time keep their network more secure and efficient. Caligare Flow Inspector is a web-based bandwidth monitoring tool that uses NetFlow data export to provide detailed traffic statistics that help answer who, what, when, where of bandwidth usage.

CFI software was engineered to create a secure network-monitoring platform based on industry standards that will fit your existing security policies. The results are the ability to monitor in real time, significantly reducing the time it takes to identify problem and troubleshoot. CFI keeps track of what is happening in your corporate network, detecting attacks, and warning you of problematic network users. All information about network activities are archived in a central database.

Baseline Analysis A baseline analysis is a model describing what "normal" network activity is according to some historical traffic pattern; any other traffic that falls outside the scope of this traffic pattern will be flagged as malicious. A trend analysis reports is the most common and basic method of doing flow-based analysis. In netflow analysis is main focus on records that have some "special high traffic volume" attribute, especially the value of those flow fields that deviate significantly from an established historical baseline. Normally there are two ways to make use of baseline analysis methods: top sessions and top data.

Top sessions A top sessions means a single host tries to open an abnormally high volume of connections to a single node or block of nodes. The most reasons for these activities are worms, denial of service attacks and network scans.

Common clients connecting to the Internet should keep a relatively normal connection frequency. But if a host is infected with a worm, it will absolutely act different. It will mostly open a huge number of connections to the destination for its attempts

to infect the next batch of victims. For the same reason, when a lesser-skilled "script kiddies" is scanning a large block of addresses for certain vulnerable services, we will see especially high volume sessions sent out by that single IP address.

We can also use top sessions method to detect many kinds of network abuses, such as checking the flow records for port 25 connection requests sent out by every single host in real time. In a given duration, for any host, if the statistics of port 25 requests are above a 'normal' value, it could be considered to be a spammer or someone infected with some kinds of email worm. It would be better for the Internet as a whole if service providers started using this technology and shut down the spammers upon detection.

Top data streams A second method of using baseline analysis is top data. This can be defined as a large amount of network data transferred in a certain period of time from a single host to a single destination or block of destinations.

The Top hosts that transfer traffic data to or from the outside in an enterprise should be ranked into relatively fixed groups. If this pattern changes, and a new host suddenly appears in the Top hosts matrix, an alert should be triggered.

How to find out if I am being attacked? Traffic inspection and analysis is a very complex problem. On the market there are many tools as IDS, network traffic dump or network probes, but lack of them can process big traffic volume (e.g. 10TB/hour). We decided to use netflow data export (NDE) that is widely available on most high-end routers for user tracking and real time data flow analysis. Netflow brings transparent view what is happening in your network. There are several methods how to detect if "your" network is under attack.

  1. Packet size distribution. Many short packets (more than 60%) may signify suspicious traffic.
  2. Many connections from single host to considerable destinations.
  3. Using reserved or private IP address on the Internet.
  4. Excessive number of ICMP messages.

In the latest version of Caligare Flow Inspector software there is implemented packet distribution statistic. In our company we are using small honey pot network (without any real stations) for attack analyzing. You can use the following steps to locate the source of the problem and some tips on how to filter suspicious traffic.

Finding infected stations in your network NetFlow Inspector software is the ideal tool for detecting worm sources (infected stations) in your network. Trends menu may be used for this type of analysis. The following example gives you information on how to find infected stations in your local network.

Log into Caligare Flow Inspector and run the following steps:

  1. Select collector that stores netflow data exports (in our case: router R01).
  2. In the table selector choose current hourly table.
  3. Select statistic: source host distributions.
  4. Set source interface (Gigabit Ethernet 1/1).
  5. Set destination interface (not Gigabit Ethernet 1/1).
  6. Run search query.

After displaying source host distributions you can view top ten source IP addresses sorted by number of used unique destination IP addresses. These source IP addresses are candidates on the infected stations.

Check result and select possible infected stations (infected station pool more than 500 unique destinations in most cases). Ignore your servers that are normally heavy used. Web or application servers normally generate many connections to many destinations.

Write top 5 sources to notebook and then continue to infected station confirmation step. For each candidate IP address run the following query:

  1. Set statistic: destination ports by packet.
  2. Source IP address:
  3. Run search query.

Check destination ports that are in use by potentially infected station. In most case (when station is infected) you will see some of following ports: netbios (137, 138, 139), microsoft-ds (445), ms-sql-s (1433), www (80, 3128) etc (see picture 4).

Now, is a good time to consider if your candidate is infected or not. Decision is yours, because only you know "your" network and servers. If a station opens more than 500 unique destination connections to port 1433, this seems like very suspicious activity.

How to find out who attacked my network? The infected station tries to open a connection to all the servers in your network. You can simply locate this attack by finding the source host that is trying to open a connection to various destinations in your local network.

Check caption "Finding worm sources in your network" and how to find these source hosts. Sophisticated worm sources do NOT pool your whole network, but instead randomly or pseudo-randomly try to open from time to time a single host connection. Locating these attackers is difficult but NOT impossible! You can use TCP flags and ICMP tracking. When the attacker tries to open the TCP connection to an unused destination IP address the TCP SYN flag is set. If the connection is successful you will see cumulative TCP flags SYN and ACK, if the connection is unsuccessful you will see only flows with SYN flag. You can count the unsuccessful connections for every source IP address outside your network and source, the one with the most of connections found is your attacker candidate. If attacker is using UDP protocol and pools your whole network, an excessive number of ICMP messages will then be generated.

How to find out who attacked me? If you suspect (or know) that your station is victim to an attack, then you probably want to know who is the attacker. Locating the attacker is simple if source IP address is NOT spoofed. Select "Trends" menu and use "Source host by packet" statistic. Type in your IP address (victim) into destination host field and run search query. Result is a list of source hosts who communicated with you sorted by number of packets. Often the first host located is the attacker. In case source IP address is spoofed (often used reserved or private IP address) you can only locate source interface through that malicious traffic going into your station. You can not filter this attacker if he uses random source IP address, you can only contact provider or your ISP peer operator.

Protection and Prevention You can use many protection mechanisms, these are widely available through access lists on Cisco routers.

  1. Create new access list: ip access-list extended
  2. Add block rule: deny ip any
  3. Repeat step 2 for each attacker
  4. Permit any other traffic
  5. Check access list rules: show ip access-list
  6. Apply access list on source interface: ip access-group in

Example:

  configure terminal  ip access-list extended block_attacker

deny ip 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 any

deny ip 192.168.0.0 0.0.255.255 any

deny ip 80.95.102.33 0.0.0.0 any

permit ip any any

permit pim any any

permit igmp any any

exit interface GigabitEthernet 1/1

ip access-group block_attacker in

exit

Be very careful before updating access list! On many routers the default rule is drop any traffic if access list exists. We recommend removing access list from interface then creating a new access list and reassign it to interface. On picture 3 is the result of applying access list on our router R01 that was applied at 10:03.

Summary This attack detection manual has discussed the flow-based analysis of malicious traffic and abnormal activities. With top sessions and top data methods, network administrators can simply detect network anomalies in real time more effectively. There is no universal process on how to find source of attack, but with Caligare Flow Inspector software we may make your corporate network run better.

Full story with images and examples is on the: http://www.caligare.com/articles/worms.php

Caligare delivers the most intelligent and secure networking solutions in the industry, and we back the program with our commitment to making our partners successful. We measure success in terms of customer satisfaction, as well as partner profitability. Caligare is providing the Linux based software, to provide a solution that dramatically reduces the cost of providing security, for the midsize and large businesses or agencies. Our goal is to help our customers get an efficient software tool at a reasonable price.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Dvd Burning Software Make Your Copies

Writen by Craig Dawber

Need for burning of disk at home

You may need to create the copy of audio disk or DVD for use in case you lose the disk or it is damaged unintentionally by someone. The time and money required for getting a new disk will be reduced if you have a back up disk. You may also save some important data by making a back up copy. Doing it in the privacy of your home ensures security.

DVD Burning process

The DVD writer has become the norm in many computers available today even in less developed countries. There are many manufacturers of DVD writers today and the DVD writers are capable of writing CD-Rom, Audio CD, Mixed mode CD containing data and music and pictures, video CD, Super video CD, and DVDs.

Most of the DVD writers come bundled with the required software for writing to DVD and making copies of CD or DVD.

A CD or DVD has a layer of an organic dye layer or crystalline metal alloy in the recording layer of the disc. This layer is heated by the laser in the writing head of the disk. The recorder records the information by selectively heating the organic dye layer in the disk. The change in the reflectivity of the dye due to this heating encodes the information so that it can be read by the by the reading laser beam.

Difference in the CD/DVD ROM and DVD-RW

The change in the recording layer will be permanent as in the CD-ROM or DVD ROMs. For the DVD+RW the change will be in the crystalline metal alloy layer. The subsequent re-recording will re-melt the crystalline metal alloy to the required level and the process can be repeated nearly 1000 times.

What DVD burning software does?

The software for this purpose changes the laser beam strength and makes sure that the process is controlled as per the requirement of the work being done on the disk.

Typical DVD Burning Software Choices

In typical DVD recording software, you will find the following modes for writing to the disk.

1. CD ROM
2. Audio CD
3. Mixed mode CD
4. CD extra for data pictures and songs
5. CD copy
6. video CD burning
7. Super video CD burning for burning MPEG-2 files
8. CD ROM boot for your operating system
9. DVD with MPEG-4 format

You may need to select the various modes for writing to the disk that you are going to make. Make sure that you have all the required settings before you burn the disk otherwise the entire disk may go waste if you are not careful.

How does the software work?

The software first makes an image of the file system to be recorded and then starts the process of burning on the disk. Any interruption in this process is the end of session. Earlier only single session could be managed and the disk space could not be written later as the lead out from the disk was completed in one session.

Multi Session Disks Software

Later, multi session disks were developed and this made the process continuous from one session to another. In the multi session recording you will be given option of closing the entire disk at the end of this session. This will either close the recording or keep it open for the next step.

During Burning Process

The burning process does not require and intervention of the person recording the disk. Any ejection of disk may change the recording parameters and make the disk suitable for use as coaster of tea cup. Therefore, do not do anything unless software gives you the message that the recording was done successfully.

Your #1 Resource for DVD Articles, Products, News and Info! For more information on CD/DVD please visit http://www.dvdresources.info

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Choosing A Free Spyware Remover

Writen by George Royal

These are some of the most powerful and popular spyware removers which are widely available. All of them are completely free for download from their official websites and for personal use.

Advanced Spyware Remover (ASR): This software from Evonsoft protects your system against and removes numerous malwares such as stealthy spyware, aggressive adware, system hijackers, tracking cookies, keyloggers, dialers, etc. It also scans and lists the contents of key areas of the Registry and System. The new version even includes a Quarantine Manager. Available for download free of cost at www.evonsoft.com/download.htm/

STOPzilla (http://www.stopzilla.com/): STOPzilla is very powerful in protecting against phishing and ID Theft. It features Real-Time Spyware and Adware protection, Integrated Cookie and History cleaning, Integrated Home Page Hijacker protection and a Popup protection. The ZILLAsmart technology automatically checks for updates on a daily basis, and support is free 24/7 via live chat, email or a toll free number.

AD-aware Personal (http://www.lavasoft.com/): A product from Lavasoft, this spyware removal software provides advanced protection from known data-mining, aggressive advertising, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers, and tracking components b detecting known and unknown variants of malware by using the Code Sequence Identification (CSI) technology. It scans fixed and removable drives, memory and Windows registry.

Spy Cleaner Lite (http://www.spycleaner.net/): Programs and applications that automatically install themselves on your system are identified and removed by Spy Cleaner. It scans for traces of recognized adware modules in the DAT files, registry and temporary Internet files. After the search, it provides you with a log file.

Spy-Ad Exterminator Free: The software scans for and deletes, ignores, or quarantines your system's memory, hard drives, and registry for spyware, adware, worms, hijacks, keyloggers, IE Toolbars, etc. Has up to 20,000 malwares in database, which can be updated online.

Disspy Lite: The Disspy Lite scans memory, registry, cookies, files and folders and removes all detected malwares such as keyLoggers, Hijackers, Dialers, Spyware, Adware, Browser Helper Objects, Spyware cookies, aggressive advertising and other malware. All removed files are quarantined for restoration when needed, and users can choose to be alerted whenever a newer database version is available for download. Download available at http://www.h-desk.com/new/Download.12.0.html/

Free Spyware Scanner (www.spyscanner.net): This spyware remover has a huge database of spy components which infects the system, and offers remarkable features such as options for scanning your drives and Registry, updating online, and saving the last, best system set-up as a backup, and the option of saving log file of the scan result and file deletion for future reference.

AdDriller (www.cdmworld.com): AdDriller scans and cleans over 30,000 now malwares. It also includes features such as like active monitoring and HEX Viewers besides removing adware, spyware, malware, Trojans etc, and new features such as scheduling, scan depth, messenger services enable and disable.

Malware Sweeper (http://www.malwaresweeper.com/): This remover not only scans your registry and drives for known adware modules and Spywares, but for your active memory ad components, which are not stored on your hard drive and last only as long as the computer is powered up. It also removes bundled spyware components from Kazaa, Morpheus, audiogalaxy, grokster, Limewire, Imesh, Gnutella.

Antivirus HQ http://antivirus-hq.com/spyware-viruses.html your online resource to help protect your PC from viruses and spyware.

Spreadsheet Programs Powerful Tools For Organizing And Managing Your Business

Writen by Groshan Fabiola

Spreadsheet: A table of rows and columns, free for the entry of data, or formulae for calculating actions on those data. Each row or column is said to contain many 'cells' and these cells serve as 'homes' for every shred of information. Many spreadsheet applications nowadays have functionality above and beyond the traditional, offering a variety of charts, look-up tables, databases and more functionality than can be mentioned here.

Regarded as a very effective and reliable means of data management, monitoring valuable financial data, as well as optimizing processes involving frequent data entry and manipulation, spreadsheet programs have rapidly become popular among businesses of all types and sizes. Elaborate, properly constructed spreadsheets greatly simplify a wide range of activities and processes within companies, enabling business owners to economize valuable time and effort, increase the efficiency of their business (Analysis), keep track of different tasks, manage their budget, optimize the planning of future events (Forecasting), organize and access valuable information, and optimize the completion of specific tasks. And thus, thanks to their many benefits, spreadsheet programs have come to be considered indispensable tools for businesses in today's competitive climate.

From businesses to non-profit organizations, spreadsheets are used in different sectors, ranging from Entertainment to Culture to Education and to Health to name but a few. With the emergence of home-based businesses and an increase in the number of entrepreneurs in the marketplace, such software is now highly sought-after among home users as well.

Undoubtedly, spreadsheets can help you improve the efficiency of your company regardless of the nature or size of your business. However, it is very important to note that the process of programming formulae and mathematical algorithms behind spreadsheet programs can be very complex and time consuming; one having to invest much effort to create the most appropriate spreadsheet solution for one's company. Judging by this fact, the recommended course of action is to hire the services of a specialized company, a firm that will take care of all the details and subtleties of the spreadsheet programming in your place, and provide you with a ready-made or tailor-made spreadsheet solution that outperforms your expectations.

By requesting the services of such specialist spreadsheet-solution-providing companies, business owners can rest assured that their needs will be met with precision, dedication and professionalism. Such companies are empowered by experienced teams of Mathematicians and Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Designer/Programmers whose goal is to surpass the requirements and desires of their clients.

At present, some of the most requested types of spreadsheet packages in the market are: 'Spreadsheets for Small Businesses' and a subset of that: 'Spreadsheets for Actors'. 'Spreadsheets for Small Businesses' are as varied as the number of businesses out there! These solutions can boost the overall efficiency of your company. They account for many of the needs and requirements of small and medium-sized businesses, tracking sales exec commissions, business expenses at tax time and planning budgets to name but a few.

A popular category of ready-made spreadsheets mentioned earlier, is 'Spreadsheets for Actors'. 'Spreadsheets for Actors' includes sets of programmed spreadsheets that are especially designed for professionals in the entertainment industry, from Actors to Producers. The spreadsheets under 'Spreadsheets for Actors' range from facilitating the managing of budgets to keeping track of income emerging from many sources.

Apart from these very popular categories, business owners can find various other types of spreadsheets solutions by collaborating with a prominent, reliable spreadsheet-solution-providing company and opt for the 'Personalized Spreadsheet'; solutions that are especially designed to meet your imposed criteria, created from scratch, tailor-made and adapted to your particular needs.

Whether you are interested in obtaining ready-made spreadsheets or customized solutions, you are best served by employing the services of a specialized, professional spreadsheet provider. Requests for such help will benefit the user with the assurance of high quality, state-of-the-art products at competitive, affordable prices in less time.

Click on these links if you're looking to have a spreadsheet tailor-made for you, or if you are looking for Spreadsheets for Small Businesses, or for Spreadsheets for Actors.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Free Shopping Cart Software Versus Hosted And Managed

Writen by James O'Brien

A common question about today's Ecommerce software is, "Do I buy managed shopping cart software or use free open source software?"
Surprisingly, there is a simple and logical answer and many of you will find it's a pretty standard answer to most things in life. You get what you pay for!

Honestly, can free software really have;
a) Bug free stores and admin panels?
b) The most up to date upgrades constantly built into your store without you doing anything?
c) Up to date search engine optimization?
d) Tech support from the company who created the software?…. and the list goes on. It's just not possible to have all these very important details built into free shopping cart software, these functions and services quite simply need to be paid for since most companies prefer not to work for free, especially the good ones.

There are two general types of internet merchants, experienced merchants with the ability to do light programming and install software to a server which they may own, then there is the merchant who may have an online store or is just starting and would have a standard internet knowledge. At first I thought, being in the first category, that free software would be just perfect for me, make a few changes to the code, upload it to my server and run a perfect online store for a very low cost. Unfortunately I found that by the time I worked out the code and many bugs, then had the server cost, the security certificate cost and the ongoing enhancement errors, I could have run a managed and paid version for a set monthly fee and focused my time on the actual business. I ended up backwards with what I though would be a cheaper option.

It's pretty clear that managed shopping cart softwares are becoming the choice for everyone these days. It's problem free, works out cheaper in the long run and you receive the most up to date ecommerce information you need to succeed.
After all, can you see any free shopping carts ranked number 1 in the world?

James O'Brien http://www.ashop.com.au Internet merchant IT Professional SEO Consultant

Professional Software Icons For Your Standalone Application

Writen by Juan Pablo Sarmiento

User interfaces and accessibility are some of the most important aspect of an application. It can have a million features, it can do a thousand things once, but if it doesn't look quite right then it will be a disaster. Take Linux for example. This open source (free) operating system has been around for quite a while, and it has been very appreciated for its stability and speed. However, in its earlier days it lacked a user interface, which made it very unattractive to the general public. While a few years back Linux was used only by system administrator and computer freaks, Microsoft's Windows was all over the place, pumped up by its friendly user interface, even though it had a lot of bugs and was very unstable. Today's things are quite different. People have learned from their mistakes and now, most operating systems, including Linux, use a graphical interface and are very user-friendly - things that in the past you could do by writing lines and lines of instructions, you can now do with a few clicks. This major improvement has brought in a whole new class of users, and the popularity of this operating system has increased considerably.

This is why the user interface matters a lot to the average computer user, and icons are one of the most important issues at matter. But why use icons and not plain text? Well, icons are visual mnemonics, that is, they are easier to remember. We see an icon a few times (or maybe once) and we "learn" it, and afterwords we associate the image with a certain action. The same thing happens with text, but it's a lot faster to "read" an icon than it is to read a text, which makes icons a lot more recommended. Furthermore, adding icons to the important components of your application will sometimes save you from the frustration of answering the users who are not very familiar with the application and have trouble finding out how to use a certain feature. For example adding a question mark icon next inside the help button will make it easier for users to figure out where they can get help.

Today's developers know that users will learn how to use a certain application a lot faster if its interface looks like the applications they are already familiar with. Take for example a Mac: can you see how all applications look pretty much the same? So it's really easy to start using new applications, and you don't have to read the manual to see what each button does, because most likely you'll figure out that on your own. But there are two sides to this: if all applications look more or less the same, where is the uniqueness? Then again, if the application is totally unique, users might find it difficult to get acquainted with. So the best way to go is to use an interface that combines both these rules - not an "average" looking user interface, but also not a totally unique one. It's easy to get stuck with this idea, but this is where icons come in.

Icons are the easiest way to differentiate your application, while still keeping a note of familiarity. Most developers have found it very efficient to replace the operating system's stock icons with their own custom-made icons. How? Well, start with the little things. Try adding shadows to icons, or maybe apply different effects (emboss, blur, add a border, etc.) using a graphics editor. Another approach is to change the icon's colors. Make them all blue, yellow, or some other color you might think it would look great with the rest of the interface. A toolbar with enhanced, yet similar buttons (for example replacing the New, Open, Save, Print, Cut, Copy, Paste icons) really improves the overall interface. After replacing the icons, it's a lot easier to make the next step and start changing colors.

But what to do with these old-fashioned users that like to keep it simple? How about people with special needs, who might have problems reading small texts or seeing some colors. Also, there must be a way for all the people - and it's really a mystery here - who like the same old icons and colors on all their applications. Fortunately, the answer is simple: different application skins! It's a good idea to have a "standard" skin for the users who like to keep it simple, offering the basic features in a really easy to use manner, and then to create a few more enhanced skins for the people that like different interfaces - big fat buttons with shiny icons for the main applications features, or perhaps lots of toolbars with many buttons for advanced users. Again, the easiest way to creating new skins is changing the icons and colors. You don't really have to change the layout of the application and move all the toolbars/buttons/windows around, for it might require sometimes too much work. But replacing icons is really easy. Voila! You have a new skin!

Today's computer applications are focusing more and more on graphics, and especially icons, while text interfaces are becoming less popular. The modern applications' interfaces use icons and text as well, but paying a special attention to icons. This way it's a lot easier for users to learn how the application works, so therefore they will accomplish their tasks quickly. An intuitive interface and standard behaviors don't require much explanation, and a well-designed application must not get into the user's way, but must provide fast access to its most important features. This is the general rule which brought Microsoft millions and millions of dollars for it's main product - the Windows operating system - so why shouldn't we follow their example?

If you are looking for professional icons please go to http: http://www.iconshock.com - icon design

Monday, July 21, 2008

Credit Card Fraud Prevention Using Php And Mysql Database

Writen by Ivy Tang

Credit card fraud has become pervasive on the Internet. According to MasterCard International, account takeover fraud has increased by 369% since 1995. It has become one of the fastest growing types of fraud, and one of the more difficult to combat. More than $700 million in online sales were lost to fraud in 2001, representing 1.14 percent of total annual online sales of $61.8 billion, according to GartnerG2. Even if the credit card company has given the authorization as to the validity of the card, there are several ways fraudulent cards can be used on your site. The card may have been lost or stolen, but the card owner is yet to report its loss. Or the number on the card (and not the card itself) may have been lifted without the knowledge of the owner. There is also a scam called identity theft, where the card has been issued under false pretenses using someone else's identity and data.

As an online merchant, you need to have a system to check the authenticity of orders placed to safeguard your business. While the effort may require additional time and money, it can save you the cost and stress caused by charge-backs for fraudulent orders. You lost your physical products; you lose the sale price; you lose another business opportunity; and you will be fined an additional $15-$50 charge-back fee. If you have a high percentage of charge-backs, your card services company can even blacklist you and cancel your merchant account. You will also spend time looking up the order and provide the requested information to your card services company. All of these hassles are things you can surely do without.

How can you protect your business from credit card frauds? Here are a few steps that can be taken to ensure that the transaction is being requested by the real cardholder.

Suspect shipping address.
According to ClearCommerce Corporation, a provider of payment processing and fraud protection software for e-commerce, orders from Ukraine, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan have a very high incidence of fraud, and often have unverifiable addresses.

Untraceable email address.
In many fraudulent orders, the customer's email address is often at one of the free email services, like hotmail.com and yahoo.com, which are relatively untraceable.

Expensive items.
Be wary of expensive orders, especially for expensive brand-name items.

Multiple items.
It can be a bad sign, for example, if someone orders three X-Box or three DVD players at once, especially where the items have a high resale value.

Express shipping.
Most fraudulent orders specify overnight or 1-day shipping without hesitation.

Shipping address differs from billing address.
Receiving point and billing address are different in fraud orders. If you are selling valuable items, it can be a good policy only to ship to the billing address of the card's holder.

Suspicious billing address.
The address looks too simple or invalid. If the billing address is 123 Main St, New York, the order is probably fraud. You can use or online location tool to see if the address can be verified.

Leave at door or post office box.
If the courier service cannot guarantee delivery of goods, the risk of fraud is very high.

The advancement of geo-targeting in the Internet allows us to pinpoint the geographical region for an order. The information can be used to reduce the fraud by verifying it with the billing address and delivery address. This method can identify the scenario where someone from country X has stolen the credit card data from country Y. The IP address lookup service will reveal the real country instead of relying on the country filled in the order form.

IP2Location™ provides technology to translate IP address to country origin. The lookup table is available in several formats such as database and COM. It is the perfect solution to automate the fraud detection using client side programming languages like C++ & Visual Basic; or service side programming languages like ASP, PHP, JSP and CFML.

For example, company XYZ received a credit-card order from IP address 161.139.12.3. The order details are as following:

Name: John Ma

Address: 123 Main St

City: New York

ZIP Code: 11111

Country: United States

Tel: (503) 111-1111

Credit Card No: 1234 5678 9012 3456

Expired Date: December 2010

Credit card merchant processor will authorize this order if the billing address matches the order details. Unluckily, the credit card data has been stolen earlier by Mr. ABC from another country through the Internet. Later, he made a purchase of digital products from company XYZ using the information. His order approved by the merchant because all the details matched John's record in the bank's database. IP2Location™ technology can filter the difference between order's country and record's country upfront to protect your business. You can classify this kind of order for manual inspection before delivering the goods. You will be surprise how much this method will help in identifying fraud orders.

In this tutorial, we use the IP2Location™ IP-Country database to lookup country of origin from the visitor's IP address. Instead of loading the full database with 50000+ records, we could simplify this tutorial with assumption only two different IP address ranges in the world. IP addresses 0.0.0.0 - 126.255.255.255 originate from United States. Meanwhile, IP addresses 127.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255 originate from Japan. Here we are creating a database "IP2Location" with table "IPCountry" that consists of two IP address range records.

Step 1: Create and connect to 'IP2Location' database

mysql> CREATE DATABASE IP2Location

mysql> CONNECT IP2Location

Step 2: Create 'IPCountry' table

mysql> CREATE TABLE IPCountry

--> (

--> ipFROM DOUBLE NOT NULL,

--> ipTO DOUBLE NOT NULL,

--> countrySHORT VARCHAR(2) NOT NULL,

--> countryLONG VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,

--> PRIMARY KEY(ipFROM, ipTO)

--> );

Step 3. Import the 'ipcountry.csv' database into table 'IPCountry'

mysql> INSERT INTO IPCountry VALUES (0, 2130706431,'US','UNITED STATES');

mysql> INSERT INTO IPCountry VALUES (2130706432, 4294967295,'JP','JAPAN');

The full version of IP-Country database is available for subscription at $49/year from http://ip2location.com. If you have the full version of IP2Location™ IP-Country database, the import process is much easier by using the LOAD DATA feature available in MYSQL.

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE "/IPCountry.csv" INTO TABLE IPCountry FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY 'r';

We create a script to compare the lookup country and data given in the order authorization flow. It serves as a filter to reduce fraud. All rejected orders will be manual verify by merchants.

verify.asp

// country in billing address, in this example, we assigned "US" for United States.

$billingCountrySHORT = "US";

// Replace this MYSQL server variables with actual configuration

$mysql_server = "mysql_server.com";

$mysql_user_name = "UserName";

$mysql_user_pass = "Password";

// Retrieve visitor IP address from server variable REMOTE_ADDR

$ipaddress = getenv(REMOTE_ADDR);

// Convert IP address to IP number for querying database

$ipno = Dot2LongIP($ipaddress);

// Connect to the database server

$link = mysql_connect($mysql_server, $mysql_user_name, $mysql_user_pass)

or die("Could not connect to MySQL database");

// Connect to the IP2Location database

mysql_select_db("IP2Location") or die("Could not select database");

// SQL query string to match the recordset that

// the IP number fall between the valid range

$query = "SELECT * FROM IPCountry WHERE $ipno <= ipTO AND $ipno>=ipFROM";

// Execute SQL query

$result = mysql_query($query) or die("IP2Location Query Failed");

// Retrieve the recordset (only one)

$row = mysql_fetch_object($result);

// Keep the country information into two different variables

$countrySHORT = $row->countrySHORT;

$countryLONG = $row->countryLONG;

// Free recordset and close database connection

mysql_free_result($result);

mysql_close($link);

if ($countrySHORT == $billingCountrySHORT) {

// IP address same as country in billing address

// Low Fraud Risk

} else {

// IP address different from country in billing address

// High Fraud Risk

}

// Function to convert IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) to IP number (0 to 256^4-1)

function Dot2LongIP ($IPaddr)

{

if ($IPaddr == "") {

return 0;

} else {

$ips = split (".", "$IPaddr");

return ($ips[3] + $ips[2] * 256 + $ips[1] * 256 * 256 + $ips[0] * 256 * 256 * 256);

}

} ?>

Hexasoft Development Sdn. Bhd. (645996-K)
1-2-15 Mayang Mall Complex,
Jalan Mayang Pasir 1,
11950 Bandar Bayan Baru,
Penang, Malaysia.
URL: http://www.ip2location.com

{ sales@ip2location.com }

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Versals Amp Typography

Writen by Debbie Jensen

The better a person understands software, the more flexibility there is when designing with typography especially when it comes to versals. According the Google's dictionary, versals are the "oversized initial letters usually colored in red or blue and characterized by exaggerated curves, vertical strokes, and serifs (also called Lombardic Capitals)." To clarify, graphic designers not only have an oversized letter start out the body of text, but they make the text wrap around it too. Any given software tool can be the single answer to polishing up an awesome design. This is why graphic designers need to thoroughly understand the tools in which they work with. To get the desired professional look for their layouts, they have to thoroughly understand software tools first.

Graphic designers can learn from the stage play called "Lion King." The play has unforgettable stunning colors and perfectly orchestrated choreography. Everything about the play was artistic and cleverly done. In addition, the music perfectly harmonized with the stage play too. Amazingly, layers and layers of information were presented harmoniously as the audience watched in admiration. From this, graphic designers can learn the importance of orchestrating and fine-tuning as they bring together all the required information for their layouts. In theory, it sounds easy, and if measuring the "Lion King" to the challenge of a layout, it is easy comparatively. At times, I wonder how I am going to organize my racing thoughts as I attempt to pull my projects together. But, I try to stay mentally organized by dividing up my ideas which helps me to organize my thoughts. Then, I methodically and strategically put it all together.

For instance, when starting a layout, I first try to pinpoint what my message is going to be and determine who is going to be my audience. Next, I start thinking about the design elements such as the heading and subheadings, the versal, graphics, and color scheme. Usually, the versal is one of the last design decisions I make for a layout. It seems that a versal to a layout is like the icing on the cake.

If you are not sure if you have made your versal correctly, show your layout to others or open up some books and magazines and make some comparisons. In fact, you should always solicit critiques and feedback from your peers. Everyone seems to see and interpret information differently, and artists should welcome feedback because of this. You'll find with every versal you make, it'll get easier. Nothing beats time and experience. (revised 2/14/2006)

Debbie Jensen, http://www.debjensendesigns.com

Software Box An Organic Addition To High Quality Products

Writen by Ted Peterson

How to keep the public interest upon your product? There are many ways, or even magic tricks to do it. Some of them are professionally simple and literarily shooting, others are complete fairy tales or complicated systems with doubtful results. The quick ingenious solutions are the best in our world of continuous hurry and accelerate rhythms of demands and offers.

Even talking about software products we unanimously admit that the first step towards a fairy trade is the representation and the first question to be answered is how to make the representation purely attractive!

Attractiveness is the path to the customer. Attractive means personalized but not excessive, convincing but not aggressive. Thus, to represent something in an attractive manner means to use your fantasy without getting things too complicated.

You can make your product speak for itself, you can make it sing even, but what happens when the first glance touches the desired object? The eye slides on the image looking for representative suggestions of what the wrap could contain.

Every object to be sold is hosted by a box and thus, the box becomes the very face of the product, the stimulus to buy it or not. Before consulting the mind or the ratio, eyes make their own conclusions by being attracted or vice versa.

The first objective in sales matters is raising the interest, waking it up and maintaining it till "the box is opened".

Packages are not meant to hide, but to represent! This is the explanation of the importance of the image and text composition printed on the box. The image reflects the content and the text has its own informational utility. To let your product play the main part of it all using the function of the software box is to understand that the package serves the product on its way to consumption.

Every product carries an idea and the artistic creator is the only one authorized to suggest it, to make public its evidences and to encourage the acknowledgement of entire content.

All the ideas flow in fluids towards the concept of the software box. And the quickest solution is as simple as hard to imagine. What would you think about the freedom to generate your own software box? This how the entire process starts:

You have an endlessly useful software product and you need a proper software box.

You give enough credit to your own artistic instincts and you are eager to use them for your profit. Well, there are some tools to realize it! One thing to be tried could be eCover Engineer 4. And another thing to be tried is getting in complete control and order with your own business!

Ted Peterson writes for Adolix, home of eCover Engineer, a useful utility that helps you create ecovers and software box for your products.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Optimizing Photoshop

Writen by Jennifer Clarkson

Photoshop can sometimes be slow, especially when working with large images. That can be partly due to a slow computer - either processor or disk, or not enough memory. Here are some ways to change the settings on your computer and within Photoshop to optimize its processing time.

1) Configure Photoshop to use Virtual Memory, a.k.a. a scratch disk; here's how:

a) If you have multiple disks or partitions on your computer, determine which one has the most free space outside the main C: drive

b) From the Edit menu in Photoshop, select Preferences => Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks

c) Select the disk that has the most free space available (only select the C: drive if you have no other disks)

d) Optionally select secondary disks to be used, should the first disk fill up

e) Consider changing the Image Cache setting - a number closer to 8 will speed up image redraw time while slowing time to open images; a number closer to 1 will speed up image opening, but will cause image redraw to be slow

2) Configure Photoshop to use a medium percentage of your computer's RAM; making the percentage RAM too high will result in page swapping, which actually slows down processing time

a) From the Edit menu in Photoshop, select Preferences => Memory & Image Cache

b) Set the Memory Usage to 50-60 % for computers with up to 2GB RAM, and 70% for computers with more

c) Restart Photoshop to apply any changes made to Memory Usage

3) Defragment your hard drives to speed up opening and saving of files in Photoshop

a) For Windows users, select from the Start menu your program sub-menu, then Accessories => System Tools => Disk Defragmenter and follow instructions to defrag each hard disk

b) For Mac users, defragmentation is likely automatic, but check you user's manual for details

4) Configure Photoshop to reduce the number of actions saved in the History palette; by default it is set to 20, and each one slows down Photoshop

a) From the Edit menu in Photoshop, select Preferences => General

b) Reduce the number of history states from 20 (default) to the maximum number you think you'd use

5) Close other open programs, such as iTunes, Outlook, or graphically intensive applications to free up resources

For more photography articles, please visit Jennifer Clarkson's Photography website at http://www.jclarksonphotography.com. To read more about Jennifer's eSeries on Digital Photography, please visit the following sites:
Part One: Choosing your camera and accessories
Part Two: Getting the Most out of your Camera's Basic Settings

Friday, July 18, 2008

Antique Persian Rugs

Writen by Kent Pinkerton

Antique Persian rugs have all the ingredients to impress people. Be it style, color or elegance, antique Persian rugs are simply awesome. Antique Persian rugs are of various types. The categorization is mainly based on the design. If you go for vase rugs you will find a vase holding flower and vines. Similarly, animal rugs feature animals and flower carpets will have flowers. Antique Persian rugs have distinctive patterns and pleasant colors. The designers of antique Persian rugs use an innovative technique to produce these exquisite rugs. If you want to spice up your home, antique Persian rugs will definitely come to mind.

The elegance and magnificence of these rugs have amazed everyone around the world. Antique Persian rugs are basically the result of rug weaving in Persia and Turkey during the 15th and 16th centuries. Since then, the popularity of these rugs has always gone up. This is a very ancient handicraft, yet it still finds many takers. People now won't have to travel to the East to purchase antique Persian rugs anymore, as dealers are now doing business even in the West. Also, you will find several online stores selling quality Persian rugs. So, the job of buying antique Persian rugs is getting easier.

What to watch out for in antique Persian rugs is the magnificent flowery embellishment. This is the secret of their popularity. The flowers on the rugs are so lively that you may feel temped to smell them. The color on the antique Persian rugs is brilliant and exquisite. Antique Persian rugs have got the potential to improve your home atmosphere. So what are you waiting for? Visit your local stores and pick up your favorite Antique Persian rugs to add grandeur to your drawing room. The rugs have become all the rage.

Persian Rugs provides detailed information on Persian Rugs, Antique Persian Rugs, Discount Persian Rugs, Cleaning Persian Rugs and more. Persian Rugs is affiliated with Oriental Area Rugs.

Review Of Tikiwiki Content Management System

Writen by Diane Hildebrandt

TikiWiki is open source software — it is written in PHP, uses phpAdmin for mySQL database administration, and uses the Smarty Template Engine.

Installation - Since our host installed the TikiWiki, I cannot comment on ease of installation.

While TikiWiki has many features, only the features used on the Spotlight on Lake website will be reviewed.

Administration - It is hard to determine what some features are and do, such as the Ephemerides feature. Documentation is sadly lacking! The most complete documentation is for Version 1.6, and Version 1.9 is the current release — so many of the newer features do not have any documentation. While there are Forums and a documentation website, the "Search" feature does not work for either site! Many Forum questions are not answered in a timely manner or incorrect information is supplied. Asking a question with IRC chat may also be an exercise in futility or frustration. On the plus side, it is a simple process to turn features on and off by unchecking or checking a box.

User Rights — It is easy to set user rights to groups or individuals.

General Preferences - While you can add the site's title in this section, you cannot add metatag keywords or description. In order to add this information, you will need to modify the "header.tpl" file.

Theme — If you want to create a custom design or to modify an existing CSS theme, be sure to select the "moreneat" theme. After basing my design on a different style, I was later informed, "The others are buggy at best, use 'moreneat' as it's the most stable CSS template".

Home Page — Do not select the "custom home" option. I originally selected this option, and was told "It doesn't work correctly - don't use that feature".

The Wiki — This section was easy to set up and use. If you have never used a Wiki before there are several items of note: (1) to create a link to a new Wiki page, do not use any spaces in the link text and add double parentheses before and after the link text; (2) use the question mark ("?") link, to add content to the new Wiki page; (3) with spellchecking, there are times when the Wiki will place a question mark after a business name or word. To avoid this, use double parentheses around the word.

Articles and Submissions — This section was also easy to set up. It was also easy to add new Types and Topics. However, it is difficult to display only one Type or Topic on the Articles page. It was easier to use phpAdmin to modify the database tables than it was to use the Articles Administration Section to make this simple type of modification.

Calendar — There are 2 calendars: one is for private use in the "My Tiki" section; the other is for public use. The public feature Calendar is "buggy". There are so many steps to complete in order to add an event to the Calendar that I found it was necessary to include "How-To-Use" instructions on the Calendar page.

Banner Ads — Simple to set up and allows text or image displays. There are several options for frequency and you can set the zone where the add is to be displayed.

Featured Links, Forums, and Polls — These features were also easy to set up, and no problems were encountered.

Category System — There are 2 Category Systems. One is for the Directory feature, and the other is for the Wiki.

Directory — The Directory feature automatically checks for URL validation.

Email — The Email system uses only a very basic form with input boxes for user email address and comments. Ease of Modification

With college courses in C and C++, it has always been easy to read and understand other programming languages. However, the Smarty Template Engine code was a new experience. Quite a few hours were spent searching through the Smarty site, my PHP books, and both of the TikiWiki sites. I even asked the assistance of a friend who is a PHP whiz, and he couldn't figure out the problem.

Modifying the existing TikiWiki code should only be attempted by experienced programmers. After many hours searching through the Development section of the TikiWiki website looking for a flowchart, I was finally able to find a section that contained file relations.

With perserverance, I was able to modify the Directory, to build a Listing feature based on the modified Directory, and to include a customized Email system for the Advertising Contact page. By modifying the database, I was able to have only Articles listed on the Articles page and only Events on the Events page.

TikiWiki Rating

If I were to rate TikiWiki on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it an 8. This is due to the lack of documentation and also due to the fact that "buggy" sections are included. In my opinion, if a feature does not work correctly, it should not be included as an option!

Diane Hildebrandt owns MsDetta, Inc., a Northwest Indiana web development firm. Diane has a B.S. in Computer Science and believes that websites should be designed to be accessible by every visitor. Diane also emphasizes relationship marketing - turning a visitor into a potential customer of your product or service. Web development services include scripting, programming, Flash and graphic design, ecommerce solutions, database management, and content management systems.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Common Misconception About Objectoriented Programming

Writen by V. Berba Velasco

I've seen it time and again. A computer programmer proudly proclaims, "Yeah, my code is object-oriented. See? My data members are all private, and they can only be reached through public member functions. That's what being object-oriented is all about." I've even heard this kind of drivel come from the mouths of Computer Science graduates—people who have presumably studied object-orientation in the classroom, or who would have had ample opportunity to educate themselves.

Scholars may quibble about the fine points of object orientation; however, one thing is for certain: merely having private data and public functions does not constitute a proper object-oriented design. Rather, proper object orientation entails much more.

One of the most basic elements is information hiding. This means that objects should only present the information that needs to be seen; that is, it should present a coherent and well-selected interface of functions—one that does not betray the data contents and internal workings of the class. In other words, the manner in which the functions are implemented remains hidden from the user, allowing the developer to alter the implementation as needed. (Some also refer to this as "encapsulation," whereas others state that encapsulation is merely a means for hiding information. I lean toward the latter view; however, for the purposes of this article, this distinction is unimportant. Suffice to say that information hiding is a key element of object-oriented design.)

When a programmer declares that his code is object-oriented by virtue of having private data and public functions, he is placing the cart before the proverbial horse. Using private data and public functions is merely a means of achieving information hiding; it is not a goal in itself. For example, consider a design in which every single data member has corresponding "get" and "set" accessors (e.g. a data member "x" would have matching "getx()" and "setx()" functions). In this example, information is poorly hidden, since the choice of functions (indeed, their very names!) betrays the manner in which the data has been implemented.

Inheritance is another key element; that is, specific classes are to be derived from more general ones. Inheritance is a means of implementing abstraction; that is, it allows the user to identify objects with common characteristics, and which should therefore use common code (or at the very least, common interfaces). This is part and parcel of thinking in terms of objects, as opposed to thinking primarily in terms of functions and procedures.

Yet another key characteristic is polymorphism, which allows a descendant object to override its parent's member functions. With polymorphism, a descendent object does not have to respond to a message exactly as its ancestor does; rather, it can have its own implementation. Note that the descendant objects do not have to override these functions; rather, they should simply be allowed to do so, as needed.There is much more that can be said about the nature of object orientation; indeed, scholars often contend over its precise definition and its principal ideas. Whatever the case though, the point remains: merely keeping private data and a set of public functions does not constitute an object-oriented design—not in any meaningful sense of the term.

About the author:

V. Berba Velasco Jr., Ph.D. is a senior electrical and software engineer at Cellular Technology Ltd, a biotech company that provides ELISPOT analysers, human PBMCs and serum-free cell culture media.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Content Management Systems Website Builder Software

Writen by Gregg Makarowski

One of the great things about the internet is that today you do not have to rely on a website designer to build and control your website. A few years ago this was the case unless you knew how to program in HTML or other computer languages. With technology today there are far greater options out there. Systems known as content management systems that are website builder software platform that allow non technical people to build websites with no technical skills. That is correct allowing a user to manage all changes to their website or make additions to content, links, graphics, movies, pdf's, or even skins for the entire website all at the click of a button.

Because no two website builder software systems are the same be sure when considering a content management system that you only use one that is built around search engines. What I mean by this is websites that rank high they must be constructed properly in order to achieve this. Many website builders are simply good at creating pages based on what the user creates but when it goes live is it codes for search engine robots properly? Is the keyword density been considered and does the user have the ability to check it? Does the site also have the proper search engine robot code for the entire website?

These are very important questions to avoid the catastrophe of a user making a fatal mistake of building a site incorrectly and getting virtually NO traffic. And with the Internet target traffic (users looking for the website's product or service specifically) is everything. If the website builder submits to search engines then this is NOT the one to use as submitting is outlined in the Search Engine webmaster guidelines as a HUGE do not do. So be careful and choose wisely the one that best fits your list of criteria.

Gregg Makarowski - Is a successful Internet publisher and Search Engine Expert.
www.broadwavestudios.com

How To Use Labels In Microsoft Excel 2003 To Sum Cells

Writen by Chris Le Roy

Microsoft Excel is a fantastic tool but one of its downfalls is the use of cell addresses especially when you are trying to sum a series of numbers; however Microsoft has a really cool tool that allows you to add up a series of cells simply using the labels around your data. In this article we will investigate the steps you need to follow to be able to use Labels to Sum cells in Microsoft Excel.

Let us get started …

To show you how using labels works, the first step we need to undertake is to simply create a new set of data, so open a new Microsoft Excel workbook and click on Sheet 1. First off we are going to build the worksheet so in cell A1 I want you to type - Years, in cell B1 type the word Values and in cell C1 type the word Values1 and in cell D1 type the word Total. These four values we have typed into cell A1, B1, C1, D1 are labels. We are now going to put into the worksheet three more labels. In cell A2 type the value 1999, in cell A3 type the value 2000 and in cell A4 type the value 2001. The last three values entered will in fact become labels but we will convert them to labels a little latter on.

In the remaining cells simply put the following values:

  B2     29                 C2        32  B3     54                 C3        99  B4     62                 C4        72

Now that we have built a very simple spreadsheet and we have a few values to work with we have to tell Microsoft Excel to actually accept labels in our formulas in our spreadsheet. We do this by first going to the Tools menu and then choosing the Options command from the drop down menu. The Options dialog box will now be open in front of you. Simply choose the Calculation tab and in the bottom right hand corner you will see a check box that says Accept Labels in Formulas and you need to click on the check box so that it has a tick in it. Then to complete the process simply press the OK button.

Now we can use the labels we put in B1 and C1 to add up the values.

Lets try it out…

In cell B5, which is the Values column I want you to type the formula -

= Sum(Values)

The cell should return the total of 145. What you will notice though is that the formula looked up the column to where the label was and said everything in this column will be added together. We could have simply typed the following formula instead of using labels -

= Sum(B2:B3)

However, as I am sure you will agree, using labels makes your formulas a lot easier to read and much clearer to understand. Now it is your turn. In the cell C5 write the equivalent label formula for that cell. I will give you a hint if you are not sure -

= Sum(Values1)

How did that go?

Alright, the next issue we are going to visit is using numbers as formula labels. Now if we simply typed in cell D2 the formula -

= Sum(1999)

All that would be returned is the value 1999 so this will not work at all. In fact what we need to do is to tell Microsoft Excel that we want the cells in A2, A3 and A4 to be treated as labels. The first step we must do is to select cells A2,A3 and A4, then go to the Insert menu, choose Name from the drop down menu and then choose the Label command from the expanded menu. The Label Ranges dialog box will now be visible in front of you. All you simply have to do, to have the cells we chose before defined as Labels is to press the Add button and then press the OK button.

Click once on the cell D2. What we are going to do now is to type in the same formula I mentioned before and that is -

= Sum(1999)

By the way, press the Enter key if you have not done so already. As soon as you do that you should see that it adds up the values in cells B2 and C2 and you will see the value of 61 in your cell.

Try creating the formulas for the other two cells -

D3 = Sum(2000)

D4 = Sum(2001)

Finally, just to finish our spreadsheet off , we can total all of our total values in cells D2, D3 and D4 by typing the following formula in D4 -

= Sum(Total)

Using labels in Microsoft Excel is a very clean way of summing your values as it ensures that you do not miss a cell address and it makes the formulas a lot simpler. One issue that I do teach my students is not to put blank rows in your spreadsheets as I have seen cases where the blank rows actually affected the ability of the application to work out what was a label and what is not. By following the design process I outlined above you will find that you have absolutely no troubles in using Labels to sum cells in your spreadsheets.

Chris Le Roy has written a number of Excel Tutorials, Excel Shortcuts and a sample Excel Invoice Template to help you learn more about Microsoft Excel 2003.