AT&T has always being one of the pioneers in introducing trends to the industry of telecommunications. Everyday, AT&T comes up with something new and this time, we are going to talk about new AT&T cell phones. Let’s discuss about the models, prominent features and the trend of their new devices.

HTC has been in the market for quite a while and it has attracted many mobile users. Many of the mobile users consider HTC as the Windows Mobile based iPhone introduced to the market. AT&T now offers the latest member of HTC family; HTC Fuze. This phone has the same HTC look and feel but the internal features show a big difference. Unlike many HTC members, this phone includes a hard keyboard.

LG Incite is one of the prominent products offered by AT&T with their packages and this is quite a big phone. This also has the same look and feel as HTC, but looks different in the outer design. This device features Windows Mobile 6 and carries the elegant and slim look and feel LG always offers.

As one of the new concept phones, AT&T Quickfire, changes the way we look at the mobile phones. This device has a slim look but also carries a fancy design. Featured in colors such as white and grey, for someone, this may look like a toy. 

Although Motorola RAZR is history, AT&T introduces the new Motorola RAZR2 V9x with many new features. The outer design inherits from the early members of Motorola RAZR and this can be boring for the users who have already used RAZR for years. 

Pantech has about three models to offer with AT&T packages and they are slowly making their way to the US consumer market. Two of the phone models (C610 and Matrix C740) do feature the same functionally as any other modern mobile phone. The model called Pentech Slate (C530) does resemble a couple of recent Nokia mobile phones and offers features such as inbuilt keyboard, high resolution big screen etc. This also slightly resembles Blackberry Curve mobile phone that was released sometime ago. 

AT&T offers about five new Samsung mobile phone models. The model called Samsung Epix, is closely related to Pentech Slate and includes similar functionality. Samsung Eternity resembles Apple iPhone very closely. This might be a good alternative for iPhone lovers who do not like moving away from Windows Mobile 6. The rest of the Samsung models are almost the ordinary devices and much of the emphasis should not be given.

Many of the new AT&T cell phones look similar to Apple iPhone design and offer many eye-candy features with them. Overall, half of the new phones in the offer do not really give you the cutting edge technology and something that you can brag about.

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.

First let’s see what cell phone batteries were made from. They are made of Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) because this material is light in weight and can be recharged. This type of battery is completely different than alkaline batteries which are used in normal devices like toys, head-light, and hand radio. Li-Ion batteries are very sensitive and you must avoid dropping the cell phone, as it damages the cell phone and battery.

You may have recently heard some news about incidents happened while recharging a cell phone battery such as short circuit and fire. This shows the importance of maintaining a cell phone and its battery.

Followings are some points and tips on how to increase the life of your cell phone battery and its usage.

1. You should not keep your cell phone next to heat as it damages the battery.
2. Be careful not to drop the phone as it heavily damages your phone as well as its battery. If your phone drops and you see functional problem, then immediately take your phone to a service center.
3. Do not overcharge the cell phone, it might cause short circuit.
4. Do not keep the battery (without phone) next to metal items like key and coin.
5. If you drop your cell phone in the water, it is better to change the battery, because this might create safety problem.
6. Never buy any battery from unknown dealers as you may get an imitation one which will damage your cell phone, buy only from authorized dealers.
7. You should not keep your cell phone under heavy items because this can damage the battery.

For increasing the usage duration of your cell phone battery, follow the below guide:

1. Turn off your keypad tone.
2. If you do not use Bluetooth, then turn it off.
3. Do not use vibration and ringing at the same time.
4. Do not play games in your cell phone, playing games can immediately drain your batteries charge.

Spamming has become one of the costliest misbehaviors of internet for last few years. When spamming gets together with marketing, it creates a huge impact on the well-being of the internet. There are number of measurements that have been taken for stopping spamming but it looks like spammers find more sophisticated techniques day-by-day which helps them to continue on what they do.

NDR Spam (Non Delivery Report Spam) is one of the common forms of spamming which would result from usual spamming. Let’s try to understand more of NDR spamming. A spammer can send spam emails to thousands and sometimes, millions of email users by using your email address (as sender). You may wonder how they do that without having access to your email account. It’s quite simple; when emails are sent through SMTP, senders email address is not authenticated for existence or validity. So, anyone can mention someone else’s email address when they send emails even though it is not legitimate. Out of those thousands or millions target emails addresses of spam, there are so many email addresses that are not valid or do not exist. Whenever an email is sent to an invalid email address, a NDR will be sent back to the sender. In this case, since your email has been used as the sender for spamming, you will end up getting thousands of NDRs. This is what we call NDR spam or backscatter spam.

GFI, one of the leading developers of network security, content security and messaging software, does introduce tools and technologies of managing and eliminating NDR spamming. GFI tools help enterprises to block NDR spam and reduce damage cause by the spammers to the IT infrastructure.

GFI MailEssentials, the trademark anti spam filter of GFI which has won over 60 awards and 80,000 satisfied customers, offers a full-scale solution for NDR spamming. Currently, MailEssentials has over 98% of success capturing spam and also in the process of making it even higher in the future. Once MailEssentials is installed on the enterprise IT infrastructure, there is no need to update anti spam software on each desktop to block NDR spam as MailEssentials is a server based filter.

GFI offers a range of products and services that cater best for small-to-medium size businesses. Founded in 1992, GFI has offices in Malta, London, Raleigh, Hong Kong, and Adelaide which support more than 200,000 installations worldwide.

Linux has been the OS choice for many PDA manufactures for quite sometime, but never came under the public spotlight until recent introduction of a series of Sharp PDAs. In this article, we try to introduce two most respected PDAs running a version of Linux kernel.

Before we discuss about the devices, let’s have a look at the differences between the Windows Pocket PC / Windows Mobile operating systems and Linux based operating systems for PDAs. The most prominent difference is the cost. For Windows operating systems, you may have to spend money and the Linux based PDA OS is free as always. Although Windows PDA operating systems have a fixed set of features and no extra feature will be available until the next major release, Linux based operating systems would have frequent releases with additional features developed collectively by a group of communities. I’m not trying to say one is better than the other but to show the advantages of using non-proprietary software.

Sharp Zaurus 5500D was the first PDA to have attached a lot of public attention for a Linux based PDA. Lots of users fell in love with this device as this introduced some features where they were considered “hot” at the time the device was released. Apart from that, OS offered lot of eye candy with changeable themes, extra applications etc. Also this device is one of the first PDAs to have a sliding QWERTY keyboard integrated where it comes in handy when writing an email or a document. Most of all typing could be done singlehanded. The Linux based PDA OS called Opie was one of the popular operating systems used by Zaurus users. It was just a matter of “flashing” the ROM to get the operating system installed.

Zaurus 5500D was followed by Zaurus 5600, the enhanced version of the earlier version. The design of the device had changed including the specifications. This version included a processor with more power while RAM/ROM was also upgraded. But it lacked the feel of touch provided by 5500 and there were disappointed users due to the same reason. Anyway, let’s simply say that these two cousins were the first revolution that made a mark in the general public for Linux PDAs.

With the advancements of software development technologies, techniques and methodologies, just a working software does not mean any thing to the more advanced and matured enterprises anymore. What makes software win in the market (when they are products) or makes the customer satisfied (when they are customized solutions) is defined by various other aspects of software such as performance, security, usability, overall quality etc. In this brief article, we discuss the performance aspect of software development.

When it comes to performance of software product or the solution, there are various aspects depending on what is expected from the software. If the software is mission critical and used 24×7 with no downtime, then the availability and reliability would be considered as more important over other performance characteristics. Online shopping carts that cater to the worldwide customer base would need this kind of performance for a continuous service. There are so many examples of losses that had occurred due to temporary unavailability of web sites in the history. One of the major causes for having less availability for some of the web application is that they are not designed for handling large number of concurrent users. Most web applications just meet the expected functionality and security requirements but not the concurrency requirements. One important reason for this is lack of expertise in the software houses (especially when they are small) for testing the application for concurrency in the “real” way.

When 9/11 terrorist attack happened, do you know the stress that built up on BBC news site? It was estimated as 40,000 hits per second. If BBC news site was not designed for such a concurrency, the accountability of BBC would rapidly go down as they are not able to cater the news readers at the hour of need. I think this example is more than enough for understanding the availability requirement of web applications.

Software performance has other various characteristics such as business transaction performance, stress, load, scalability etc. In the next few articles, we’ll be looking at these factors one by one and see how important they are in the world of software development.

Energy has almost become a crisis or it will be a crisis in no time. Whatever the technology that can be used for preserving and making more energy would be great news for the mankind. Anyway, preserving and producing more energy is not that straightforward and easy. Generating energy is a complex process and preserving it is much more complex process. Nowadays scientists are carrying out experiments using nanotechnology in the field of energy to make sure the world does not run out of energy bringing about catastrophes to the civilizations.

The first focus area is reduction of energy consumption. As an example, currently used light bulbs only convert approximately 5% of the electric energy to light. 95% of the electric power has been wasted where other nineteen bulbs could have been lit if no waste. Scientists are experimenting to develop energy efficient LEDs or Quantum Caged Atoms (QCAs) using the nanotechnology. Another stage where the energy is wasted; at the process where the energy is primarily generated. Assume an example of hydro-electricity. Does the full energy of flowing water is converted in to electricity? I guess not! Using nanotechnology, scientists experiment for developing more efficient solar cells which would generate more energy than the commercially available solar panel that convert only 15%-20% of the sun’s energy. One other place which has room for improvement is the combustion engine. Currently it has only 30%-40% efficiency and there are plans for using nanotechnology for maximizing the catalysts surface area.

The third focus area is renewable energy. The classic example is the fuel cells powered by hydrogen. These fuel cells have catalyst consist of carbon supported noble metal particles with diameter of 1-5 nm. On the other hand nanotechnology can be used for cleaning up the emissions using nanoporous filters by catalytic coatings on cylinder walls and catalytic nanoparticles as additive for fuel. Recycling of batteries is one of the other main areas focused right now where the same batteries can be used by recharging them for a period longer than the current. So these super-capacitors that are made with the help of nanotechnology would have higher rechargeable rate compared to the existing ones.