Protect Your PC Against Catastrophe

Backing up the hard drive on your home computer is like flossing your teeth-everyone knows they should do it but few people do so regularly.

According to a recent study from Dallas-based Parks Associates, a market research and consulting company, more than one-third of consumers don't back up their digital documents and content at all, putting nearly 30 million households at risk for catastrophic data loss. By postponing the backup of your computer's hard drive, you may risk the loss of files that represent irreplaceable memories such as baby photos or wedding videos, digital music collections or critical data such as financial records or tax returns.

Hard drives are the computer component most likely to fail. It is not a question of if a hard drive will fail, but when. The cost of recovering a crashed drive is remarkably expensive, typically falling between $600 and $4,000-depending on the extent of work involved and the urgency of turning around the recovery.

M. Fahim Siddiqui, Chief Executive Officer, Sereniti, Inc., a home and small office computer networking and security solutions provider, recommends taking the following steps often to secure files on your computer:

• Select a backup system-Files can be backed up by copying them to an external storage device, commonly called Network Attached Storage or NAS, to a CD-ROM, DVD or a USB memory device.

• Back up regularly-The more often you download music, photos or video or save documents, the more frequently you should back up the computer.

• Back up all your files-Users often back up only a small set of files, without realizing how much valuable information is stored on the entire hard drive; for early backups, users should ensure that the entire hard drive is copied.

• Make sure your backup is secure-Users should check their backup device regularly to make sure that their archives are complete and useable.

• Use an automated backup device. Managing backups can get complicated, since it requires managing schedules, file locations and storage; to make backups easy, use an automatic backup device.

• System restore-Learn how to do a "system restore" on your computer, which, in the event of a major problem, may enable you to retrieve data on your machine by restoring the programs, settings and files on it to the way they were days or weeks earlier. WindowsXP includes this within the Accessories programs.

One way to expedite the backup of single or multiple home computers is to have a central backup system that is attached to all the computers in the home. Sereniti's EasyCare360 is a subscription PC and network support service that includes 80GB of network storage with automatic backup, wireless router and secure Internet Gateway that can automatically back up any computers on the home network.

Pimp Myspace Profiles Can Attract A Lot Of Visitors

Having a profile on MySpace is easy but customizing them will require a lot of thought. Since you are on the site for networking, it is important that you use the profile properly. You should pimp the profiles well with the help of MySpace layouts. Using the images on the layouts, a great deal can be said about the profile.

You can talk about your interests in the profile, and this will surely be of interest to the other users who look at the profile. By using unique layouts, you will be attracting a lot of visitors, as they will be impressed with the profile. All they need is a good image, and they will be attracted to read the message on the profile.

However though it may look and sound easy, a lot of creative input should also be put into the use of the MySpace layouts. Imagine you used a dark layout and no one can read what is on your profile, then it will be of no use. You should also make sure that your theme is related to what you write. This will be important as well.

Visitors will be attracted to themes, as they will be able to figure out what exactly you want to do. You might be interested in some activities, and you can use such images to post on the profile. With this, you can tell people about what you are doing. This way you can form a lot of groups and can also complete your activities as you wish.

It is also important to attract the visitors the right way. You should use something that is very pleasing to the eye, and this should also be creatively very impressive. If it talks about your interests, then you will be able to attract a lot of visitors. Most people will e looking for people with the same interests and thus will be looking at such profiles.

Thus if your profile has images of your likes, then people can connect instantly and also make new friends with you. You can pimp the profile as you wish, as you will have content that will be different from the others. However if it is chosen the right way it will make a lot of sense, as there could be thousands of MySpace layouts to choose from.

To attract a lot of visitors, you will also need to use the right colors as well as graphics with the layouts. Since there are so many layouts to choose from, you can keep getting versatile with the use. This is also another way to attract visitors. If they are ken on looking at them, they will come back to your profile.

Nokialand

I guess you haven´t heard of NokiaLand before? The naming NokiaLand has to do with the worlds big-gest handset manufacturer Nokia and Finland, the country it comes from.

Nokia

Nokia has not always been a world leader in cell phones, digital technologies, telecommunications networks, wireless data solutions and high tech gadgets like the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Some 100 years ago the company was manufacturing paper, toilet paper, galoshes, tires and raincoats.

Finland

Thanks to Nokia Finland has become one of the fastest-growing and most prosperous economies in Europe. And Nokia phones have a dominant market position on its home market. This is why Finland is sometimes referred to as NokiaLand.

In the 1980s Finland was best known for its paper and pulp industries and long dark winters. At the same time Nokia made the decision to shift its company focus from timber, tires, and rubber boots to mobile phones. Good move - today the company sells more phones than any other company in the world.

The Nokia success story had an enormous impact on the finnish economy. Nokia increased the finnish GDP by more than 1.5 percent in 1999 alone. In 2004 Nokia's share of the Finnish GDP was 3.5 percent and accounted for almost a quarter of Finnish exports in 2003. Last year more than 20 000 people were employed by Nokia in Finland which is roughly 2 percent of the people in the Finnish business sector. Also several tiny companies such as Perlos have grown into large ones as Nokia subcontractors.

As Nokia´s profits grew, the Nokia share price increased and this also created a large number of new very rich households in NokiaLand – thanks to Nokia.

The President

Believe it or not there was a secret plan some 5 years ago in NokiaLand to put Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia as president of Finland. This did not work out, but if it had we surely would have had our NokiaLand. The story was revealed when Sauli Niinistö published his memoirs this summer. He writes that he had asked Jorma Ollila, the chief executive of Nokia, to run for president in the 2000 presidential election. According to Mr Niinistö, Mr Ollila pondered over the matter when Niinistö made him the offer in the spring of 1999. As we all know Mr Ollila didn´t go for it!

Love Screensavers With Flowers - Convey The Romance

Innovation is the key to growth. As in other fields, the screensaver designers are constantly working to make better and well packaged screensavers. The latest to hit the Internet are Love Screensavers with flowers as the main theme.

Flowers are the main theme - All these screensavers have lovely flowers as the main theme. That is why they are called Love Flower Screensavers. Flowers can evoke the feeling of love without any other addition. In these Flower Screensavers, love has been as added as a theme by introducing hearts and romantic text. That gives a unique effect to these screensavers.

Download flower screensavers and send them - screensavers are recommended for downloading. in this case I would recommend that you send as many as you can to your sweetheart as the message of love in place of ecards. Everybody sends ecards. Why not surprise your darling with love screensavers, which he/she will be delighted to watch.

Download care for love flower screensavers - take few elementary precautions while downloading these screensavers and sending them to your darling. The screensaver should be free of adware and spyware. Download the flower screensavers from a secure website that guarantees downloads free of adware and spyware.

Adware and spyware can slow down your computer. Many free flower screensavers come with lovely music. Chose the ones with music. Avoid downloads of very heavy files. The installation and removal should be very quick. Take these basic precautions.

ITIL: Understanding and Using IT Service Management

‘ITIL’ is a term that is fast gaining currency around the IT world. It is often wrongly described as ‘IT governance’ – in fact, on its own, it certainly isn’t this. ITIL is a collection of best practices that helps companies implement an IT Service Management culture. However, its growing popularity reflects the substantial impact it can make on a company’s IT and business performance and the fact that, in combination with other frameworks, it is a vital ingredient in creating true IT governance.

What is IT Service Management?

Today’s businesses are increasingly delivered or enabled using information technology. Business and IT management need guidance and support on how to manage the IT infrastructure in order to cost-effectively improve functionality and quality. IT Service Management is a concept that deals with how to define and deliver that guidance and support. In common with other modern management practice, it views things from the customer’s perspective, i.e. IT is a service that the customer or consumer receives. It can be made up of hardware, software and communications facilities, but the customer perceives it as a self-contained, coherent entity.

So what is ITIL?

Standing for ‘IT Infrastructure Library’, ITIL is a set of best practices that are at the heart of the IT Service Management approach. It provides guidance on how to manage IT infrastructure so as to streamline IT services in line with business expectations. ITIL is a best practice framework, presenting the consolidated experience of organisations worldwide on how best to manage IT services to meet business expectations.

ITIL was originally developed during the 1980s by the UK’s Central Computer and Technology Agency (CCTA), a government body, which created ITIL version 1 as an approach to incorporating various vendor technologies and serving organisations with differing technical and business needs. CCTA has now become part of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which, as official publisher of the ITIL library, updated it, published version 2 and continues to develop and support it.

ITIL has since become widely adopted across the world in both public and private sectors and is recognised as best practice, being deployed in organisations of all shapes and sizes.

What makes up the ITIL Library?

ITIL documentation consists of seven ‘sets’ or ‘volumes’: Service Support, Service Delivery, ICT Infrastructure Management, Security Management, Planning to Implement Service Management, The Business Perspective and Applications Management.

Of these, Service Support, Service Delivery and Security Management are considered the central components of the ITIL framework, covering vital issues such as Incident Management, Configuration Management, Change Management, IT Service Continuity Management, Availability Management and IT Security Management.

Learning about ITIL

The seven ITIL volumes are published by The Stationery Office, the official publisher of the UK government, and are available from http:// www.itgovernance.co.uk/catalog/23 . In addition, to gain an overview and a sense of how to navigate these, it is helpful to consult one of several recommended introductory texts. ‘Foundations of IT Service Management Based on ITIL – An Introduction’ is widely accepted as the best starting point and self-study guide. ‘Implementing Service and Support Management Processes – A Practical Guide’ is a thorough and comprehensive handbook on the subject, while the ‘itSMF Pocket Guides’ provide a good overview of each of the ITIL components. These supporting texts may be obtained at http:// www.itgovernance.co.uk/catalog/7.

Getting certified

Part of the reason for the recent growth in ITIL awareness is the publication in December 2005 of a new global standard to which businesses can become certified. ISO 20000 (or ISO/IEC 20000:2005, to give it its correct name) is closely based upon the pre-existing British standard BS15000 – in fact, it is virtually indistinguishable. The standard comprises two parts: ISO/IEC 20000-1 is the specification for IT Service Management against which an organisation’s practices can be certified; ISO/IEC 20000-2 is the 'code of practice’ that describes best practices and the requirements of Part 1.

BS15000 has become widely used around the world since it was published in 2003 and was adopted virtually unchanged as the national standard in Australia and South Africa. A number of companies across the USA, Europe and Asia have already become certified as BS 15000 compliant. We also recommend several excellent books that provide guidance on achieving BS15000/ISO 20000 compliance.

Upon the publication of ISO 20000, BS15000 was withdrawn and individual standards and certification bodies are drawing up their own formal transition programmes for conversion to the new standard. Companies already holding BS15000 should encounter no difficulty in converting their certification to the new standard, as this should be one of the considerations addressed by the individual certifying bodies.

Practitioners can also pursue a structured programme of ITIL examination and certification, comprising the ITIL Foundation Certificate, ITIL Practitioners Certificate and ITIL Managers Certificate. Examinations and certification in Europe are managed through two independent bodies: EXIN, the European Examination Institute for Information Science; and ISEB, the Information Systems Examination Board. Between them, these two organisations control the entire certification scheme. In the United States, HDI is a principal organiser of examination and certification, and it and similar organisations provide coverage elsewhere around the world. These organisations ensure that personal certification is fair, honest and independent of the organisations that provide the training, and accredit training suppliers to bring about a consistent quality of course delivery.

ITIL and IT Governance

When combined with certain other frameworks, ITIL makes a major contribution to the creation of effective IT governance. ITIL processes can be mapped to CobiT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) processes, and the two frameworks complement each other nicely: if the CobiT control framework tells the organisation ‘what’ to do in the delivery and support areas, ITIL best practices help the organisation define ‘how’ to deliver these requirements. Similarly, ITIL works very effectively with ISO 17799, the international code of best practice for information security, providing guidance on how to manage the various processes that ISO 17799 prescribes.

By drawing upon these three complementary frameworks as appropriate to its needs, an organisation can establish an IT governance regime that delivers real and lasting competitive advantage to its business.

How to cure Agoraphobia

Many people in the world have a disorder known as agoraphobia. This disorder brings on extremely strong panic attacks when in crowded places. Most agoraphobics eventually wind up trapped in bed or institutionalized. The definition for agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder. The main manifestation of the disorder is a fear of having an embarrassing situation that the person can not escape from Someone with Agoraphobia will sometimes have panic attacks when they are in a situation where they feel trapped, uncomfortable or when they are not in control or are too far away from their comfort zone, which are usually their homes. In extreme cases an agoraphobic may only be able to exist in only a room or two of their own home and may even become unable to get out of bed. Sufferers of Agoraphobia are often overly sensitive to bodily sensations and over react to everyday occurrences, like climbing a flight of stairs. The effort it takes to climb stairs can cause a full blown panic attack, because their hart rate rises as does their breathing. The sufferer may see this is the onset of an attack and actually causes the attack to start, instead of seeing it as a natural reaction to climbing stairs. With the invention of the internet many agoraphobics have found they are able to have contact with the world while still at home in their "safe place" and one thing that many agoraphobics have in common is that many of them enjoyed being able to gamble with other people in online casinos. Many doctors feel that online casinos is a great form of therapy for people suffering from agoraphobia because they can interacts with several people at the same time, and it gives them the ability to interact and be relaxed at the same time and in many cases the agoraphobic has been able to lessen their fears and eventually leave their home with the goal of eventually getting to a real casino with other people. But after October of 2006 when president George Bush Signed the Unlawful internet gambling ban into law he took away the best form of theory doctors have found to help Agoraphobics re-enter society. Doctors found that in games like poker and blackjack where the player's game depends on the moves of the other players; have a tendency to be better for patients rather then on online roulette or craps game, where you can easily have no interaction with other players. The interaction is healthy because the agoraphobic is not concentration on themselves they are actually concentration on the game and the other layers moves. For a sufferer of this disorder this is a huge step in being able to re-enter society, but unless the online casino ban is overturned doctors will have to find other ways of helping their patients.

The Best Answers

Shure's Music Phone Adapter (MPA) is our favorite iPhone solution, since it lets you use the headphones you're most comfortable with. It has an iPhone-compatible jack at one end and a microphone module with an Answer/End/Pause button and a female 3.5mm audio jack for connecting to your own headphones. We connected the adapter to the Shure SE110 in-ear headphones, whose cabling is modular; the top half is fairly short, so when used with the adapter, the cable is the right length, but the mic lays around your navel. The MPA comes with three different sizes of foam and silicone tips and a carrying pouch. Shure's coated memory-foam tips are the most comfortable on the market, and they stay in your ear securely--especially if you wear the cables over the tops of your ears. http://desktopcomputer.freehostia.com/2007/12/13/shure-mpa-with-se110/