Orange is relaunching their fixed broadband service again to new contract customers. If new customers sign a contract for a minimum of £30 a month, they receive the basic fixed-line home broadband for free. Orange plans to use this as a marketing strategy to increase sales. Orange is also expected to increase the package value, by offering an increase in the allowable downloads.

Tom Alexander, Chief Executive for Orange UK, stated that the new service brings customers a significant improvement in the quality of service. They had stopped marketing the service last year, and focused their attention on improving the basic components. The customers are already expressing their satisfaction, and it is evident that the fixed line service is better than it has ever been in the longest time.

As new customer offers are launched, considerable progress is anticipated. The fixed line broadband now offers better stability, less service problems, and an improved speed. Customer satisfaction scores are also soaring, compared to what they were in the past 12 months. With such major improvements in the quality of the service, Orange is now ready to begin remarketing of the service, and they are confident that the results will be very successful.

Do you recall when laptops for gaming were a niche item? Though they didn’t ship a large deal they still generated the most in relation to other types of laptop computer. The cost was just too high to justify purchasing these types of laptop for the masses. People thought they were the best laptops and rightly so. Despite the buzz caused I do not think they were great sellers because I don’t think purchasers would buy laptops as an alternative to desktops as they were so costly. The global players have recently set about taking advantage of giant opportunities in gaming notebooks, so that is all changing.

They are aware there is cash to be taken here. They could dominate the niche. With such small profits on other laptop computers it is not a surprise they would like to be included here. I am quite certain that many would buy laptops if marketed to everybody by these global companies. I have no guess what this will do to littler resellers however it will have a negative effect on them. I say this due to the fact that the technology which was once exclusive and high priced is now getting standard. In my opinion if anyone’s prepared to part with a lot of cash the well known brand always wins.

The manufacturers latest notebook computers are receiving a fair amount of accolades as being the best laptops from the media. In my opinion the unknown retailers should move on this if they’re to go on. Majority of the time the pre built notebook computers are good performers however not powerful enough and a few buyers don’t like that. These types of buyers generally are well educated in the technology and are able to compare part for part. In my opinion I believe people care more about the performance ahead of design.

This could be rather beneficial from the buyers view. In the end, the costs will be lowered even more making high end technology to be a choice that we will all be able to afford. Although that is my view on it, its just my point of view and probably not what will take place. Prices will probably remain relatively high as there are constantly new things being introduced. The big manufacturers have already started in the gaming laptops division so we will have to be patient and observe what what the result is I reckon.

Most of us use a PC these days, but how many of us are really serious about securing it? Well, not most of us! They just need to get their job done sitting on the PC and hence look no further. But they do find themselves in great trouble when the PC crashes, files are corrupted, login information are stolen or attacked by viruses and malwares. Now, we know that “prevention is better than cure” and “self help is the best help”. So according to the lines of these famous proverbs, I will try to highlight some tips through which a newbie user would be able to secure his PC. This article even applies to advanced and experienced users alike. So read on and help yourself to ward off your PC security woes.

1. Use an Antivirus

In the era of high-speed internet and portable media, you just cannot afford to compromise your PC and valuable data. So, Antivirus software is a must for each and every PC user. The Antivirus stays active in the system memory and monitors your file transfers, network/internet connections, and programs for suspicious activities and keeps away harmful computer viruses, worms and trojans from playing devil on your PC. It can even clean, heal or quarantine affected files already on your PC and keeps your data safe.
There are many AntiVirus Packages available, out of which many are free to use.

Some of the free packages are:

a. AVG Free Edition: http://www.free.grisoft.com
b. Avast! Home Edition: http://www.avast.com
c. Antivir Personal Edition: http://www.free-av.com

2. Use a Firewall

To protect your PC with network/internet connection from the prying eyes of hackers and abusers, it’s a necessity to install a Firewall software. A firewall is simply a piece of software that sits between your PC and the outside world (network/www) and allows certain programs/data to pass through it, thus filtering the traffic based on configured rules.
Like Antivirus softwares, the list of firewall softwares is also long…and there are a number of free options available.

Some of the free packages are:

a. ZoneAlarm Free: http://www.zonelabs.com
b. Kerio Personal: http://www.kerio.com
c. Outpost Free: http://www.agnitum.com
d. Sygate Personal: http://www.sygate.com

3. Use an AntiSpyware/Adware

Every passing day gives birth to a score of new malware, which is any sort of program written solely to get itself installed on the victim’s PC without his knowledge, monitor his activities/logins and send them to a hacker for identity theft. Similarly there are adwares which deliver unwanted advertisements and spoofs/redirects browser addresses. Thus, you never know that the form which you have filled 10 minutes ago is not from the original site! To protect your PC against these nasty pests, you need an Anti-Spyware/Adware package.

Some of the free packages are:

a. Spybot S&D: http://www.safer-networking.org
b. Adaware: http://www.lavasoft.com
c. MS Antispyware: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

4. Backup Often

It is really important to backup your valuable data often so that you can get a copy at hand when there is a system crash, virus attack or hacking. Just keep only the important files and folders as backup and not your whole disk! A habit of backing up never upsets you in the long run. It is a good idea to backup your data on a different hard-disk or removable, cheap media like CD, DVD, and Pen-drives to name a few. There are many free and paid softwares to choose from.

5. Follow Some Good Habits

a. Do not ever give out your password/login information to anyone.

b. Don’t give out your credit card number or any online banking login to anyone.

c. Use a strong password which is difficult to guess; containing alphabets, numbers and special characters.

d. Password protect or encrypt confidential, valuable information to avoid being abused by someone.

e. Always set a password for your Operating System/BIOS logon.

f. Don’t open suspicious email attachments or knowingly send someone an infected file.

g. Do not mount a known virus affected media to a PC without Antivirus protection.

h. Don’t reply to emails asking for confidential login information even if they seem to come from the company or website. It might be a phishing attempt.

i. Do not reply to spam messages or scam emails like “You have won $10million lottery sum!”. If you reply to spam emails, the spammers become aware of your activity and spam you even more. Just ignore them and keep the spam filter on.

j. Don’t post your email id all over the internet (e.g.-forums)…spam bots might be harvesting them. Use myid[at]provider.com format.

To conclude, I would like to say that the steps that have been outlined above are not too difficult or time consuming to follow. You would certainly benefit by using those precautions and measures to secure your computer. Remember, if you secure your own PC, you not only help yourself, but many other users too. So spread the word and start acting now…Good Luck!

Agnivo Roy is a student from India, currently pursuing BCA. He is the webmaster of The Helios IT Forum [ http://www.heliosforum.com ] & ArticleWiz - FREE Article Directory [ http://www.articlewiz.com ]. He likes to spread knowledge and help users through his forum, websites and offers free PC advice. He invites you to visit his websites and awaits your feedback at agnivo007[at]gmail.com

Step aside Desktop, it’s the era of the laptop computer, or at least that what the colossal demand implies. But take note if you want the most up to date tech than you need to cultivate some patience as there are likely to be part shortages. Laptop computers have just been a phenomenal business to watch. There has been no let up on shipments. The technology is developing in all directions simultaneously too.

I’ve seen a lot of gaming notebooks being released recently. I think gaming notebooks have never been at such low prices. You can hunt down some extremely good offers out there that will get you playing games. With the advent of dual core processors, notebook computers are worthy of gaming. I also think that some gaming notebooks look really funky, with some slick, aggressive features. Still there is a big gap between the power of notebooks and desktops however desktops are more spacious to make way for better cooling and airflow that all help. I would not give it too long before we see ultra portable gaming notebooks on the shelves.

I think we are seeing an increased amount of start-up companies exclusively retailing custom built notebooks. I think the components are more respectable and operate more stable. The good thing is that you don’t end up coughing up for unrequired extra’s you don’t need. Pre-configured laptop computers are aimed at people who have like minded needs and that is probably not you right? This is the purpose as to why custom notebooks are here. I like that idea that there are lots of smaller companies offering great service for custom notebooks. Yet another great reason.

Next generation notebook computers do look like a mouth watering proposition. I forgot to mention the large increase of internet gadgets and portables. total new sector has developed overnight it looks. Consumers need notebooks that are light as a feather yet additionally big enough to be functional and easy to use. If we ignore processing speed I’m sure we’d see those versions of notebooks today. Gaming laptops for playing games on will get thinner, that’s for certain. Every year we get new innovations so who knows what we will see next.

NASA says not to worry about the comet and yes it is breaking up as it heads on its way towards the sun. It will come very close to earth but the comet will not hit Earth NASA scientists say. That’s good to because with the high oil prices and the possibility of a showdown and an Iranian war we just don’t need any more trouble. The 2006 Atlantic tropical hurricane season is about to start and the sun is putting off solar flares we just don’t need a comet right now to hit the Earth and kill all the People-asaurs!

For more information on this over hyped media event, which more resembles a scary science-fiction movie of Armageddon check out this web site;

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5236

It does seem as though there are a couple of conspiracy theorists which believe that the world governments do not want to let people know that a comet is breaking up into about 30 pieces and ready to rein on the earth. When is all this supposed to not happen well, on May 25th 2006. Yes, five days before hurricane season starts. Some scientists say however there maybe small tiny fragments, which may enter the earth’s atmosphere and cause a very spectacular meteor shower, which might be a very pretty thing to watch. So what some are calling doom and gloom, may be a wonderful thing to watch with you and your family. Comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann is coming and it is breaking up and will fly right by our planet, isn’t that really cool? Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Reverse osmosis is based on the process of osmosis. Osmosis involves the selective movement of water from one side of a membrane to the other. Reverse osmosis is also known as hyper filtration. It is the same process as used by a human body to filter out contaminants. Particles or impurities can be removed from a solution through the process of reverse osmosis. The solution is passed through a semi-permeable membrane. The semi permeable membrane allows the passage of water but rejects ions like sodium and calcium or contaminants like bacteria or urea. Gore-tex is a common semi permeable membrane. Gore-tex fabric contains an extremely thin plastic film into which billions of small pores have been cut. The pores are big enough to let water vapor through, but small enough to prevent liquid water from passing through.

Reverse osmosis involves a process known as crossflow, which allows the membrane to clean itself. As fluid passes through the membrane some of the fluid continues downstream, sweeping the contaminants away from the membrane. For reverse osmosis to occur, pressure must be applied to the fluid. The most common method of applying pressure is the use of a pump. The higher the pressure applied, the greater the force created. As the concentration of the fluid being rejected increases, the force required to continue concentrating the fluid increases. Pressure is exerted on the area containing the concentrated solution, which forces the water molecules across the membrane to the area of the fresh water.

Reverse osmosis rejects bacteria, salts, sugars, proteins and other elements that have a molecular weight of greater than 150-250 Daltons. The separation of ions with reverse osmosis is aided by charged particles. The membrane rejects charged ions such as salts.

The process of reverse osmosis is of immense benefit to mankind. The most common application of the process of reverse osmosis is in purifying water. It is used to produce water that requires meeting certain specifications. Reverse osmosis is used in commercial and residential water filtration. It is also used to desalinate seawater. Reverse osmosis is used to purify liquids in which water is an undesirable impurity, for instance in glucose or ethanol.

Impulse shopping in the checkout lane may be what drives grocery store profits, but chances are it doesn’t do a thing for your business. Your customers are far more likely to need up to nine contacts from you before they trust you enough to buy from you.

Nine!

That’s up sharply from when I entered the marketing field lo those many years ago, and you should expect that number to continue rising over your career too. The good news is that there are some very simple steps you can take to eliminate some of those contacts, or at least shorten the time span from initial contact to first sale.

The first step is to acknowledge that we’ve created our own monster in our efforts to build our businesses. On average, we’re bombarded by more than 3,000 sales and marketing messages everyday. That’s 3,000 times a day someone waves something in our face, or shouts something in our ear in an effort to get us to buy this, do that, and spend the rest now.

Next, think about how you react to this daily assault. As consumers (for ourselves or our company), we’ve all gotten very good at tuning ads out online. It’s a basic survival tactic.

Like warriors on a dawn patrol in enemy territory, we’ll jump from a site two seconds after we land there if we catch a glimpse of an annoying animated gif whosits or doodad in the corner of the page. We use weapons like search engines, popup blockers, personal portal homepages and newsreaders to filter out all but the information we want to see right now.

But we do more than try to avoid them. We sneer at blinking yellow “security alerts” that offer to eliminate adware deposited on our computer when someone clicks on something like a blinking yellow security alert message. We roll our eyes at Hollywood style hype. And our response to claims of “new and improved” anything is a yawned, “yeah, right.”

We’ve become jaded, cynical, distrustful, and focused on nothing but fending off all distractions between us and the information we’re online to retrieve. Is it any wonder we arrive at the end of our day exhausted, with cramped hands, hunched shoulders and clenched jaws?

Now switch hats quickly and look at this from your perspective as a business promoting yourself online. Any way you can help a battle weary consumer get more value out of your website and emails will help you earn their business, right?

Obviously, giving them a clearly marked path from landing point to information source wrapped in an appealing design is something you must do. But that alone may not be enough to win their dollars. You still have to win their attention and their respect before they’ll set foot on that path.

Fortunately there is a very simple, affordable way you can do it. With no shouting.

Today’s streaming video tools allow you to easily provide visitors with a brief personal message that does more than command instant attention. A simple greeting that you create and manage yourself opens the door to a genuine conversation. All the technical barriers of the web fall away in the face of it and your visitor learns what he needs to know about you in seconds.

How? Your expressions, your gestures, your smile, and your tone of voice, hold more power to attract attention, convey a deeper meaning to your message and convince people of your sincerity than anything else you can do. Scientists have proven that up to 93% of what we learn and remember from a conversation comes from these unspoken, and unwritten clues.

Your human visitors absorb and process all that complicated information a matter of seconds in an attempt to answer one question. They’re looking for the consistency between your words and your non verbal message that will tell them whether or not they can trust you and believe what you say has value to them.

That makes you the very best tool you have to increase your credibility. If you’re feeling too shy to step in front of the camera consider this. As a consumer, you wouldn’t dream of turning off your spam filters and popup blockers, or opening every attachment that came your way.

As a businessman using the Internet to generate leads or sales for your company, can you really afford to leave your big gun at home?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Micik turns your video learning curve into a fast and easy profit curve in her newest book, “Cue the Director: 10 Simple Steps to Online Video Success.” Visit www.powerpresenters.com to have free weekly video tips emailed to you.

IP Telephony or VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology
allows the convergence of voice and data communication
technologies. This allows the integration of desktop
applications to be enabled on the telephone. It enables new
e-Business applications such as Web-enabled customer care and
Contact Center. It allows Unified messaging solutions allowing
voice, email, Fax and video integration. It increases mobility
and accessibility to information with Web, wired, wireless or
Teleworker applications. It also simplifies your voice and data
administration and management with Plug and Play installation
for lower TCO. Another useful capability is the real time
collaboration feature that increases productivity with simple
“point and click” video and audio conferencing applications,
secure corporate instant messaging and file and document
transfer. Business users that take advantage of these features
will be able to propel their business forward and retain their
competitive edge.

We all hear of the concept of the “Enlightened Master”, and I do believe they exist.
However, awakened kundalini DOES NOT automatically make one an enlightened master. It just means that you’ve begun to access your inner energies and begin creating your life as you intended to live it when you came back here.
Awakening the kundalini is NOT the end result or the goal. It’s just a waypoint on your spiritual/emotional/physical development. It’s like crossing a river. Now you’re on the other side, but the journey continues.
I’ve met people whose sole focus in life was the kundalini. That’s all they want to study or talk about. While the study of kundalini can in fact encompass EVERYTHING, if you read everything only looking for the paragraphs that have the word ‘kundalini’ in them and ignore the rest…
Awakening the kundalini is a part of discovering our true self.
In western society we learn to wear a variety of masks, each of which represents a part of our learned personality. We LEARN to be different people for different situations.
Awakening the kundalini clears all of that away, leaving the student (or victim depending on ones outlook) with a completely clean slate.
After awakeing the kundalini all of the masks that you’ve learned to wear will have been completely stripped away and for most of us it can be a very frightening time. Suddenly everything that you thought you knew about yourself is different, and suddenly everything else looks different as well as you’re not seeing it from behind the masks of your learned ego.
What do you do with that?
The simple answer (beware the simple answers in life) is that now you can become the person that you were MEANT to be, rather than the person that you were TAUGHT to be.
Your next step on the path here is to *surrender* to yourself and be willing to go where you have to go and do what you have to do, to be the person you were meant to be.

About the Author

—
Robert Morgen is a Reiki Master who currently holds a Black Belt in Hoshin Roshi Ryu and founded High Mountain Hoshin in Denver, CO.
He travels and teaches as much as possible and you can find out how to attend one of his Kundalini Awakening seminars at his website at;
http://www.windhavenco/events.html
His new book Personal Mastery: Develop your true internal power by awakening your kundalini will be released in June 2005.

CCNA exam success depends largely on noticing the details, and this is especially true of configurations involving directly connected serial interfaces. And of course, it’s not enough to notice these details - you’ve got to know what to do about them!

A Cisco router is a DTE by default, but directly connecting two DTEs with a DCE/DTE cable is not enough. In the following example, R1 and R3 are directly connected at their Serial1 interfaces. The line goes up briefly after being opened, but the line protocol goes down after about 30 seconds.

R3(config-if)#int s1

R3(config-if)#ip address 172.12.13.3 255.255.255.0

R3(config-if)#no shutdown

2d18h: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial1, changed state to up

2d18h: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial1, changed state to up

R3(config-if)#

2d18h: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial1, changed state to down

The problem is that one of the routers needs to act as the DCE in order for the line protocol to come up and stay up. If this were your CCNA / CCNP home lab, you could just go over and look at the DTE/DCE cable to see which router had the DCE end of the cable attached. In this example, though, we don’t have physical access to the routers. How can we tell which router has the DCE end of the cable attached?

R3#show controller serial 1

HD unit 1, idb = 0×1C44E8, driver structure at 0×1CBAC8

buffer size 1524 HD unit 1, V.35 DCE cable

The show controller command gives us this information. (There’s a lot more output that this with this command, but it’s unimportant for our purposes.) The router with the DCE end of the cable needs to supply a clock rate to the DTE, and we’ll do just that with the interface-level clockrate command.

R3#conf t

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.

R3(config)#int serial1

R3(config-if)#clockrate 56000

2d18h: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial1, changed state to up

In just a few seconds, the line protocol goes up and stays up.

When troubleshooting a connection, always run show interface first. If you see the combination shown below, the connection is physically fine but logically down. That’s generally the result of a needed keepalive not being present. With Frame Relay, it’s probably an LMI issue, but with directly connected serial interfaces the issue is most likely the DCE end of the connection not supplying clockrate.

R3#show interface serial 1

Serial1 is up, line protocol is down

Troubleshooting is a big part of the job, and it’s a big part of the Cisco CCNA and CCNP programs as well. Know your show and debug commands and you’re on your way to passing the CCNA!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.

For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Get your CCNA study guide with The Bryant Advantage!