Monday, September 22, 2008

How to create One-Click Restart icon on your desktop?

Today tip will help you to enjoy the quicker restart of your computer with a single click on desktop Restart icon. You can set the time when your computer will start the restart process. A single click on Restart icon will close the all running applications and start the restart properly after predefined time. This tip is very useful to save power and time as well. After the execution of this command, a small window will appear to start count time of system restart.

Follow the given steps to create the shutdown icon:

To create a new shortcut, right click on any empty area of your desktop and go to New then Shortcut.

Now a small windows dialog box will appear with the title “Create Windows”. In the “Create Shortcut” window, type the following command.

SHUTDOWN -r -t 30

Here t 30 means time in second, for example if you want your computer will restart automatically after half minute then the command will be shutdown -r -t 30. But if you want your computer will restart without any countdown then type command as shutdown -r -t 00.

Click Next button to type the name of this shortcut and press Finish to close it.

This command starts a 30-second countdown for restart, which permits you to abort it (with a shutdown -a command).

At the end, when you click on restart icon, a windows dialog box will appear with the information” This system is shutting down. Please save all work in progress and log off. Any unsaved changes will be lost. This shutdown was initiated by administrator”.

Monday, September 15, 2008

AT&T might lock rates to win BellSouth OK

AT&T Inc. thinks it should be able to buy BellSouth Corp. with no conditions, but it’s willing to compromise if necessary.

In meetings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the company has discussed not raising rates charged to other carriers to use its facilities, as well as locking in prices for business leased lines, according to a Friday letter from AT&T to the agency.

The FCC is the last body that has to sign off on the US$67 billion acquisition, which was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and state and foreign agencies without conditions. The deal would fold the incumbent carrier for most of the Southeastern U.S. into the nation’s largest service provider.

Consumer groups and competitive carriers have voiced alarm over the deal in the wake of recent consolidation in the industry, saying it will reduce choice for businesses and consumers. On Friday, a divided FCC delayed a decision on the deal and opened a public comment period. It is now set to vote on Nov. 3.

Among other proposed conditions, the merged carrier would agree to keep offering competitors access to its network and not seek higher state-approved rates for that access. It also would not raise rates for DS-1 and DS-3 leased lines in its territory, nor would it increase its interstate tariffs. AT&T/BellSouth also would do business in line with the principles of an FCC policy statement on network neutrality issued last September. Most of the conditions would stay in effect for 30 months from the close of the deal.

Other steps that have been discussed give a glimpse into AT&T’s possible plans. One proposal would have AT&T provide broadband — though defined only as Internet access over 200K bps (bits per second) — to all residences in the BellSouth territory by the end of 2007. Only 85 percent of that would be wired broadband, while the remainder would use alternatives including satellite and WiMax. Another point discusses AT&T initiating 10 new trials of wireless broadband, including at least five in BellSouth’s territory, by the end of 2007.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association dismissed the proposed conditions, saying AT&T is already bound by such rules from its merger last year with SBC Communications Inc.

“It’s kind of a restatement and a slight extension of those,” said Catherine Sloan, vice president of government relations for the group.

The group, made up of companies including Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Red Hat Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., has called the proposed acquisition a step backward. It wants strong network neutrality rules, consumer privacy protection, divestiture of wireless spectrum and other conditions imposed on the company.

For consumers, worries about reduced competition among telecommunications carriers are backward-looking, because the next great showdown will be between phone companies and cable operators, said telecom industry analyst Jeff Kagan. However, he acknowledged that coming battle doesn’t yet benefit enterprises because cable companies are largely ignoring businesses for now.

Source: http://fastcreators.com/article

Sunday, September 14, 2008

How to enable password and compression feature in windows XP?

You can store your data on hard disk using less space than normal size in windows XP. There is no need to install any third party software to compress or decompress your data, you can use windows built-in data compression or decompression feature to manage disk space issue.

I think many users are worried about the security of their file and folder also, so another benefit of this feature, you can protect your compressed file and folders with password.

Follow the given steps to implement the compression and password feature to mange data:

First double click on "My Computer" and locate the disk where you want to create compressed (zipped) folder. For example, if you want to create this compressed (zipped) folder on C drive, then open C drive.

Here open the "File" menu, go to "New" then click on "Compressed (zipped) Folder" option.

Rename this folder according to data information and press "Enter" button.

Now you can move (drag and drop or copy and paste) your files and folders to this compressed (zipped) folder then compression feature will implement automatically on that data.

When you want to open these compressed files, simple right click on compressed folder and click on Extract All. This extract wizard will automatically extract all these files to location you choose.

Now if you want to protect this compressed folder with password, simply open the compressed folder and go to "File" menu then here click on "Add a Password" option.

A small dialog box will appear with title "Add Password", type password in "Password" box and confirm password also then press Ok button.

Now when you will try to open your compressed files, system will prompt you a dialog box to enter password to open this file.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

How to connect your home computer from Remote location?

Using the Remote Desktop feature, you can connect your home computer (host) from any other remote computer (client) and can access all computer resources (installed programs, data and any network resources). You can run any computer application on the remote computer as you were running actually sitting in front of home computer.

Follow the given steps to configure your computer to connect remote computer:
  1. To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.
  2. To perform this task, first make sure your both computers are connected to the internet.
  3. First you have to configure the host computer that allows the users to connect it remotely. On the host computer, right click on "My computer" and click on Properties option.
  4. Under the Remote tab, select the option "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer" and click Ok button.
  5. Now get the IP address of host computer (type the "ipconfig /all" on the command prompt of host computer to find IP address).
  6. Now make a connection on remote or client computer, click on Start button, go to All Programs> Accessories, and Communications, then click on Remote Desktop Connection, option. A Remote Desktop Connection, dialog box will appear.
  7. Click on Options button for detail configuration, under the General tab, type the IP address of host computer in the Computer box and also type username and password of host computer then click on Connect button to make a connection to remote computer.

If your username and password is correct then a remote desktop windows will appear.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

How to translate a word or phrase into other languages?

Dear friends before this tip I have brought many useful and interesting tips for you. Today tips will help you to translate a single word or phrase of one language to other language using MS Word.
Sometimes you have problems to translate any word or a phrase into foreign languages. But when you read this tip then you don't need to be a linguist expert to translate a word or phrase into other languages or vice versa. You should thanks to Microsoft Word for its surprising Translate feature because MS Word can translate one language phrase to others language automatically.
MS Word can translate a word more rapidly than any third party language translator. You can translate a word or short phrase very easily using this option but if you are going for a long phrase then the MS Word translation skills are not much better than any translation software.
Follow the given steps to use built-in MS Word translation feature:

  • First of all open your word document that you want to translate then go to Tools menu and then click on Translate option.
  • Now a translate pane will appear on the right side of your document.
  • Here type any new text or choose Current selection or Entire document options to translate your opened word document content into other language. Now under the "Look up in dictionary" area,
  • Choose that language in which you want to translate that word e.g. English into French. Here click on Go and then result of translation will appear in Result box.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

A Guide to RSS Aggregators

One of the most popular features of Internet portals, websites, pages and even emails is a frame that features an organized list of news headlines and periodic updates from other web sources. Really Simple Syndication, formerly “Rich Site Summary” or simply, RSS makes this possible.

Most users visit a lot of websites whose content continually change, such as news sites, community organization or professional association information pages, medical websites, product support pages, and blogs. As Internet surfing became an intrinsic part of business and leisure, it became important to get rid of the very tedious task of repeatedly returning to each website to see updated content.

RSS easily distributes information from different websites to a wider number of Internet users. RSS aggregators are programs that use RSS to source these updates, and then organize those lists of headlines, content and notices for easy reading. It allows computers to automatically retrieve and read the content that users want, then track changes and personalize lists of headlines that interests them.

The specially made computer programs called “RSS aggregators” were created to automatically find and retrieve the RSS feeds of pre-selected internet sites on behalf of the user and organize the results accordingly. (RSS feeds and aggregators are also sometimes referred to as "RSS Channels" and "RSS Readers".)

The RSS aggregator is like a web browser for RSS content. HTML presents information directly to users, and RSS automatically lets computers communicate with one another. While users use browsers to surf the web then load and view each page of interest, RSS aggregators keeps track of changes to many websites. The titles or descriptions are links themselves and can be used to load the web page the user wants.

RSS starts with an original Web site that has content made available by the administrator. The website creates an RSS document and registers this content with an RSS publisher that will allow other websites to syndicate the documents. The Web site also produces an RSS feed, or channel, which is available together with all other resources or documents on the particular Web server. The website will register the feed as an RSS document, with a listed directory of appropriate RSS publishers.

An RSS feed is composed of website content listed from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual content being described. In some instances, the short description or title line is the all the updated information that a user wants to read (for example, final games scores in sports, weblogs post, or stock updates). Therefore, it is not even necessary to have a web page associated with the content or update items listed -- sometimes all the needed information that users need would be in the titles and short summaries themselves.

The RSS content is located in a single file on a webpage in a manner not very different from typical web pages. The difference is that the information is written in the XML computer code for use by an RSS aggregator and not by a web user like a normal HTML page.

There are 2 main parts that are involved in RSS syndication, namely: the source end and the client end.

The client end of RSS publishing makes up part of the system that gathers and uses the RSS feed. For example, Mozilla FireFox browser is typically at the client end of the RSS transaction. A user’s desktop RSS aggregator program also belongs to the client end.

Once the URL of an RSS feed is known, a user can give that address to an RSS aggregator program and have the aggregator monitor the RSS feed for changes. Numerous RSS aggregators are already preconfigured with a ready list of RSS feed URLs for popular news or information websites that a user can simply choose from.

There are many RSS aggregators that can be used by all Internet users. Some can be accessed through the Internet, some are already incorporated into email applications, and others run as a standalone program inside the personal computer.

RSS feeds have evolved into many uses. Some uses gaining popularity are:

•For online store or retail establishments: Notification of new product arrivals
•For organization or association newsletters: title listings and notification of new issues, including email newsletters
•Weather Updates and other alerts of changing geographic conditions
•Database management: Notification of new items added, or new registered members to a club or interest group.

The uses of feeds will continue to grow, because RSS aggregators make access to any information that individual users like more convenient and fun.

In the mean time, Good Luck on your journey to success…

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AND for a Limited Time, you will also receive a FREE copy of a limited number of the amazing 60 page eBook “52 Highly Profitable Instant Online Business Ideas That You Can Steal As Your Own And Start Today On A Very Tight Budget!”, which is jam packed with so many ideas you can use to instantly create an automated income for life! That’s my GIFT to You as a way of saying thank you for reading my articles.


About The Author
Terry Leslie is a very successful and world renowned authority figure in both on and off line marketing, and rapid business creation. A much sought after global speaker in the areas of internet marketing, business development, self-improvement and human peak potential training.

For more Secrets to Internet Business success, check out http://www.secrets2internetfortunes.com

Monday, September 1, 2008

The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.


About The Author

Nicholas C Smith is the project manager at Breakfrom Limited, who specialise in affordable ecommerce solutions and general web design knowledge and advice.

For more information and advice visit http://www.breakfrom.com