As name suggests, this device does routing. But the question is what does it route? Computer routers are usually employed in commercial and residential environments for routing and forwarding electronic information. Imagine a scenario where you want to access a particular web page through your web browser. First you need to pass the URL of the website you want to access to the web browser and then the web browser converts the English in to electronic data packets and sends to the destination website. The devices called routers make sure these packets are successfully routed to the destination website.

Usually routers are used for two different purposes; internet access (connectivity) and internal access (intranet). Based on the intended use of the router, the features may widely differ. As an example, the routers used for internet connectivity will have more security features compared to the routers used for internal use. These routers can be programmed for routing rules so the security of the connectivity can be ensured in the data layer level. Usually in an organization, there are few areas interconnected in terms of networking such as floors or departments. These are separated as groups due to ease of managing the network related activities. These network segments are connected through routers for making sure the inter-segment information routing is done properly. The routers used in enterprise organizations are relatively expensive as there are many additional features included in the devices. 

There is another type of routers used at houses and small offices. These routers are used for connecting the home computers to a broadband network. These routers (residential gateways) are usually lower priced as they have a set of limited functionalities. These routers are not sophisticated or secure as an enterprise router and may not have a large number of ports as well. If you have multiple computers connected to your router, all the computers connected to the router will be shown as one computer with one IP address in the internet. This makes the computers secure as they are not visible to attackers. Many routers of this type now come with built-in firewalls making the home computers more secure.

The latest addition to the router family is the wireless (Wi-Fi) routers. These routers behave as the same way as residential gateways but there are no wires connecting the computer and the router. Instead, the computers have a devices installed that can receive and transmit radio waves and the router has an antenna transmitting the receiving the radio waves. This facilitates the wireless communication between the router and the computers allowing the usage of computers flexible. Wi-Fi routers come handy when it comes to wireless enable laptops. There are many types of enterprise level Wi-Fi routers available in the market for commercial use as well.

This world has become all about buying and selling goods. To facilitate this, or in other words, to take the products to the potential buyers, there are many techniques utilized. All these techniques are commonly called ‘marketing’. So, there are many methodologies and techniques used in the world of marketing including modern techniques such as telephone and SMS text marketing. Let’s discuss how does SMS marketing usually works.

There are many tools in the main stream of communication and SMS messaging did enter to the main stream short after it was introduced to the market. SMS messaging has matured itself within a short period of time compared to the other communications tools in the main stream. Now the SMS messaging is used as one of official communications mechanism in many companies and SMS messaging is employed for surveys from selecting your favorite singer to predicting who will win the next presidential election.

All of sudden you might receive an SMS from an unknown number asking you to buy a product or a service. Then you may wonder how did they find your number? Answer is quite complex; they collect your personal information even without your knowledge. It can be from the sales coupons that you fill or online forms that you submit for different websites etc. But end of the day, your information has been used for contacting you without your permission. Anyway, there are enough and more legal holes that they can go through if you ever try to prosecute them.

These SMS messages carry many types of messages asking you to carry out different actions. Some SMS messages provide you the facility to sign-up with their promotions or website through the phone. This makes you impulsive and you may press the wrong button even though you are not the type to get in to marketing gimmicks. Due to this nature of SMS messages, the conversion rate (the rate where the visitors become the customers) for SMS marketing is quite high compared to the conventional marketing methods for recent years.

There prominent advantage that the SMS marketing has over conventional marketing methods:
1. Relatively low cost involved in SMS marketing – for creating the campaign and maintaining it.
2. Enables users to sign-up with the marketing promotion from anywhere, anytime.
3. The marketing campaign can reach many recipients in a short period of time.
4. The preparation time required is relatively shorter than the conventional methods.

There are any additional tools available in the market for the people and companies who are focusing on SMS text marketing. Many software available for managing SMS marketing campaigns. If there is an interested party for marketing their products or services through SMS, they can contact a company specialized in SMS marketing and sign-up for a campaign.

If you are in to fleet management, transportation, or logistics, you may know how hard these businesses are. The prime challenge is to manage your fleet in such way that the fleet and the cargo is secured while increasing the productivity. Therefore, fleet tracking was introduced to the world of transportation for achieving many goals including the security and productivity aspects.

There are two main methods of fleet tracking; GPS and cellular triangulation. When it comes to cellular triangulation, typical mobile service carriers are used for tracking the position of the vehicle. Using three signal stations, the position of a mobile device can be tracked. In this method, a mobile chip is used in a similar device so it acts as a mobile phone but with restrictions on calling. Cellular triangulation carries a few disadvantages that are a bit expensive. The main disadvantage is that when traveling far, there can be many mobile service providers serving the same vehicle as different geographical areas are handled by different mobile operators. The switching between the mobile operators is usually costly and might not give a good value in long term.

As an alternative to cellular triangulation, GPS (Global Positioning System) came in to the picture with many advantages over the previous method. Fleet GPS tracking has become relatively inexpensive compared to the older method as there are many service providers in the market of GPS. The other advantage is that GPS provides the exact location up to one meter precision so there is very less room for an error.

There are three basic categories of GPS tracking for fleet; data loggers, data pushers, and data pullers. Data loggers log the position of the device at regular intervals to the internal memory of the device. Usually these devices have memory cards or internal flash memory installed for storing the data. No one can obtain the location data until the memory card is removed from the devices or the devices is connected to a computer. Once the data is downloaded to a computer or a special device, the fleet route can be precisely obtained. The issue with this type is that you will have no idea where the vehicle is at any given time and you will only know that once the fleet returns.

To address the issue discussed in the data logger type, data pushers were introduced. This type measures the location of the devices at regular intervals and then pushes the information to a centralized server through wireless. This way, the fleet managers will know exactly where the vehicles are at any given time. This is a more secure approach compared to data loggers. Data pullers behave the same way as data pushers but use a different technology. In data pushers, the devices send the data at intervals and no data can be obtained by the fleet managers between the intervals. But in data pulling technology, fleet managers can pull data from the GPS devices at any time.

In our previous articles, we discussed a few areas related to conference call services such as choosing the right conference call service and how to make a conference call. In this article, we look at the hosting conference call services.

Conference call hosting shares similarities with conventional web hosting and operates in a similar model as well. In simple terms, conference call is a telephone conversation (with or without video) between three or more parties. Conference call hosting means the facilitation of hardware, software, and required connection for making a successful conference call.

When it comes to web hosting, the host may have a server where several users are making use of it by hosting their web sites and web application simultaneously. The number of concurrent users that the server can handle is mainly determined by the ability of the server. This has no exception when it comes to conference call hosting. The central server used for hosting conference calls is called ‘Connection Bridge’ and this can handle concurrent conversations. The number of concurrent conversations and users the connection bridge can handle varies depending on the capacity of hardware used.

Same as web hosting, conference call hosting has many options available. Many organizations may host their connection bridge at host’s premises and maintained by the host. This has a certain level of cost involved as the organization has to pay for hosting space, electricity, digital security, physical security, and maintenance labor. If the organization makes heavy use of conference calling, hosting own Connection Bridge at organization’s premises will be an advantage.

In case if the conference call service host host’s the conferencing facility, you can choose a package without an operator. This way, you can further reduce the cost. One thing that you will have to be concerned is the security of the service. You need to asses and evaluate the security offered by the hosting company as if your system is compromised, you will lose many things.

Since conference calling gets popular every day, it is worthwhile to discuss on how to make a conference call in the right way. Nowadays, many organizations use conference call facilities and many of them do not utilize the facility in the optimum way.
 
After selecting the conference call service provider, you need to decide how the dialing works. There are two basic ways of dialing; toll-free and charged. If you like to bear the cost of the conference call, you can assign a toll-free number so the others can dial in with no cost. Otherwise, you can let the callers to bear the charges. When it comes to business organizations, the former method is usually used.

Scheduling the conference call is one of the most important steps of the process. You need to carefully select the participants and invite by sending invitations. Invitations should consist of some vital information. The most important information is the conference call code. This is a number that the participants should enter when they connect to the conference call for authentication. This way, no unauthorized person can login to the conference call and this make the call secured.
 
Next, it is important to mention the scheduled date and the time. If participants are located at different time zones, then the respective time zones of the participants should be mentioned when the invitation is sent. This way, participants will have a minimum hassle converting times etc. Most of the software available for sending invitations such as Outlook and Lotus Notes support the time zone facility.

At the specified time, everyone should login to the conference call and enter their conference code. At this step, usually the conferencing system asks the participants to identify themselves to the conference so the rest of the participants get to know who is logging in. After every one is logged in, you can start the conference call!

You may be surfing the World Wide Web every day, but it may be only once a while that you may find a website that you will remember for a long time. This is what I found recently and it is really strange and fun. So here’s how the system works.

Imagine that you are a network admin; there are so many things that you need to take care of each and every day. Maintaining email servers, maintaining and backing up, .pst (personal folder) files of users, making sure the web servers runs 24×7 and troubleshooting a crashed exchange server are some, just to name a few. What do you feel when one of these things go wrong or when you hear a bad news such as failure of email server? I’m sure your face will start looking sulky and frustrated if not annoyed and angry. So when this happens, all you need to do is take a photograph of your expression and upload it to
PSTpanic which in turn makes you a running candidate for an online competition!
PSTpanic has many users who post and visit the site regularly. They will rank your photograph and if you win, there are many attractive prices awarded to you. Finally, network admins have a break!

PSTpanic is a game for network admins with no restriction at all. It’s easy as taking a photo of your frustration and uploading it to PSTpanic. Once you participate for this competition, you will realize that there are many others that are facing similar issues. And the best thing is that you can find solutions for your network related issues. GFI (a prominent network solutions provider) backs PSTpanic and you will be exposed to the solutions offered by GFI as well.

PSTpanic is a great getaway for your frustration as a network admin because you can use your frustration, which is a part of your job to compete in a fun filled competition through which you will be rewarded.

With the advancement of the technology, we now get most of our things done in an unconventional way. Electronic medium has become de facto way of getting the jobs done easily and quickly. We used to have conferences or meetings to discuss important matters by hosting a meeting where everyone is participated. But at the ‘e-age’, we get that done via electronic medium called ‘Conference Call’. If you are choosing a conference call service for your organization, these are the things that you should take a look.

First, conference call services offer you many options. Therefore, it is your first duty to evaluate your communication needs beforehand. If you go for a conferencing service that which offers you more features that you really want, and then the solution may be costly while being an expensive solution where there is no justification. Therefore, get the requirements straight and right.

There are two main categories of conference calls; ‘operator assisted’ and ‘instant’. You need to select one method for your organization. Generally, operator assisted option is selected if your organization conducts formal, regular meetings. No one need to host and arrange the meeting as the operator does that for the participants. But if your company hosts frequent informal conferences and these conferences do not have a proper schedule, then the ‘instant’ option will be the ideal.

Apart from two options above, there is another alternative option gaining popularity nowadays; web conferencing. This works as the same way as a conventional conferencing service operates, but the connection is established through the internet. This method offers organizations to minimize costs as every household has a working internet connection and barely just a computer is required with necessary software. Further enhancing, web conference are now hosted with video option where webcams are used. If you choose the web conferencing option, then you get the facility of presenting presentations or artifacts at the same time. This is one of the key reasons that have made web conferencing popular.

Another option that you need to consider is the call recording facility. Some Conference call services offer the facility for recording the audio call so the called can be archived for later use (Ex: for someone who was not present at the conference). There are many conference call service providers offering the above services and you need to select only the options that important for you. It is simply because; more options mean more cost.

There are quite a lot testing and reviews happening out there and geeks are busy with comparing the web browsers again due to the launch of Google’s web browser. The overcrowded market of web browsers was not really expecting a web browser from Google and Google Chrome came in to the market as a surprise. Anyway, the question is why Google was this late?

In this article, let’s try to do a performance comparison between four browsers that we know; Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. When we consider the performance, we need to remember that all the browsers should be in the same status such as same toolbars or no toolbars installed, cache cleared, etc. There are so many users publishing their reviews and I’m not sure how many of them follow the standard guidelines for performance comparisons. If you just open the browsers in your computer and measure the startup times, I’m not sure you are doing a proper and accurate performance comparison.

Anyway, let me summarize what the users have seen so far related to these browsers in terms of performance. Chrome startup is now considered as the fastest and I assume this also depends on the hardware and the operating system configurations. Internet Explorer does a quite good job by starting up with a similar time or in a slightly less time. Firefox and Safari take a considerable amount of time for startup and it is almost 3 times as Chrome and IE.

Summarizing what people say about page load times, some claim that Chrome is the fastest of all. This statement has its flaws as you can expect a browser to be fastest for all the kinds of web pages available in internet. If you do a proper performance testing, then your sample of web pages should have a great diversity. One of those fair tests suggest that Chrome’s performance vary from fastest to slowest depending on what you throw at it. This is fair as Chrome is still at its beta stage and nothing more than this can be expected.

Google has used 1 million web pages as the test sample and there can be important web applications that they have missed. Surely they will perform and another few rounds of tunings based on the feedback received by beta tests.

The remarkable addition to the internet browser world, Google Chrome is making its way to the top. Released today, there have been thousands of downloads, dozens or reviews and blog entries are already available on the internet. In this article, we are going to look at some features Google Chrome offers.

First of all, this is just a beta release; not the full and final version. So, don’t be excited if you see some incompatibilities when navigating through the web. The appearance of the new member seems extremely simple and streamlined. Yes, Chrome has been designed with a vision; to make sure the user is not distracted by the browser features when doing work in internet. Chrome can be installed with just few clicks and Google has taken care of most of the background installation procedures. Now where is the user guide? I’m sure someone may want a user guide as this is brand new software. Yes, read Google Chrome Comic Book and that’s your user guide to Chrome!

A normal browser such as IE or Firefox would run as a process in the operating system and each tab will be a separate thread running in the process. So if one tab stops responding, then the whole process hangs. So eventually, users will have to close the browser, losing all the other opened tabs. Chrome offers a revolutionary solution for this problem; not the browser but all the tabs run as separate processes. So if one tab hangs, you can just close it without affecting others!

Chrome offers you another facility that you wouldn’t find prominently in any other browser; searching your bookmarks and history. What a feature??? If you want some site not to be recorded in history, then you can open a special tab for browsing and nothing will be saved in history (including cache and cookies).

There are many other new features offered by Google Chrome and it is here to stay! Let’s discuss some other features and performance compared to other popular web browsers in the next article.

Wikipedia does not need any introduction to World Wide Web users as it is the most popular online encyclopedia exist. It is free and easy to use. Most prominently, it is maintained by an open community where no financial matters are involved. Even you and I can be authors of Wikipedia articles contributing for the growth of Wikipedia.

If you need to read a Wikipedia article on a particular matter, then you need to access Wikipedia site through your computer’s web browser or mobile device’s web browser. For both the methods mentioned, you need to have a working internet connection. What if you do have a working internet connection in your possession when you need to access Wikipedia; especially if you are on the go and no mobile connection can be established? Here comes the solution; Wikipedia that can be stored in your mobile devices that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Sounds good? Yes it is. Pocket Wikipedia is a database of 14 million words including 24,000 pictures optimized for mobile devices. You can download Pocket Wikipedia on to your computer’s hard drive and then transfer it to your mobile device’s storage. The size of the installation is about 175MB and it is one of the best deals when it comes to the value and the storage cost.

There are three versions of Pocket Wikipedia; the version for Windows Mobile operating system based devices, Windows desktop operating systems and Linux operating systems. If you want to use Pocket Wikipedia in your Windows Mobile based devices, then you need to have .NET framework 2.0 redistributable (compact) version installed and the operating system should be Windows Mobile 5.0 or later.

You can carry Wikipedia in your laptop so you have most frequently accessed articles by the users on the go. The article selection has been done by Schools Wikipedia.

In the last article we had a look at Clickheat, a usability analysis tool. In this article, we’ll be looking at few other similar tools that can be used for tracking and analyzing user behaviors.

Bobby

This is an initiative taken by CAST for making World Wide Web more accessible to individuals with disabilities. This project has been in the industry for a decade and has helped both novice and professional web designers analyze and make improvements of their web sites. For the service this project has introduced, it has won number of awards from different bodies. From 2004, Watchfire sponsors the project as it was sold by CAST.

Due to the comprehensive accessibility coverage of Bobby, IBM has included this software in to IBM Rational Policy Tester Accessibility Edition and available widely from IBM.

ErgoLight

ErgoLight WebTester is a usability testing software which is focused on human factors. It emphasizes on user friendliness, usability and user reliability. On Dec 31, 1999, PC-Media wrote:

“Not all software developers can afford to use the services of usability labs. This is especially true for small software companies. The new products of ErgoLight Ltd. change the rules of this game. By tracking the details of site navigation on a central server and by intervention, WebTester provides the capability of usability validation to everybody.”

AWStats

AWStats is a free log file analyzer for famous web servers. Although this is not a full scale usability testing tool, this gives many information about user behaviors and application responses. This easy to install tool runs on Linux and can read log files of all famous web servers including Apache. You may have to tweak the logging format of the web server in the configuration files.

AWStats gives detailed information about the page hits, visiting IPs, visiting browsers, most accessed resources and user visiting trend over a period of time. This information can be used for placing valuable information on certain pages where most people do access.

Usability of web applications has been under spotlight for few years as it represents a set of significant qualities of the business application. Improved usability has been identified as a cost saver when it comes to user trainings etc. The business that has a higher attrition rate such as call centers expect their software to have high usability as it cuts down the cost in frequent user training.

In this article we focus on few tools used for tracking user behaviors for usability implementation. If the application to have higher usability, first of all the designers and the developers of the software should know the exact user behaviors. These sophisticated tools help designers and developers to monitor the user behaviors closely and accurately.

Clickheat

Clickheat monitors specific web pages of web applications and track where the users click. After monitoring user clicks for over a period of time, it generates a heat map indicating the click density of the page. This allows the application designers and developers to identify the main areas accessed by the users and perform the optimization for the web page. This information is vital for identifying the places for placing advertisements, important links etc.

Installation of Clickheat is quite easy. You can install Clickheat on a Linux PC and then you need to custom generate a JavaScript code which is about four lines for the web page you are intended to monitor. Placing the JavaScript code at the bottom of the HTML page completes the job and Clickheat starts recording every click on the webpage from there onwards. Eventually, Clickheat generates heat maps for different screen resolutions and time frames. Clickheat is free and open source software and installed on either Windows or Linux. It supports Mozilla Firefox 2, Mozilla Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 6 and 7.