Answers to 4 Excellent SEO Questions

1)If he could have just one: site or social media presence.which one would he choose and why!

Answer:

I'd always bias to taking the website over the social media presence. It's not that a great Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare or LinkedIn account aren't

great, it's just that the flexibility, power, branding and measurability of a website has yet to be matched on any platform. With a website, you can custom

build virtually any form of analytics, leverage any type of web technology to display/deliver content and control your own destiny. Even if Facebook or some

other new, wholly flexible platform allowed for all of these features, you would still never truly own your home on the web.

I'm a huge supporter of and advocate for social media marketing, but I don't think I could ever endorse having your primary base of marketing and acquisition

happen anywhere but on a site you fully own and control.


2)what is the future risk for duplicate content on product descriptions for 3 similar geotargeted domains?

Answer:

Unfortunately, this is an issue that's fluctuated so much over the past 5 years that I don't feel entirely comfortable giving a solid answer and feeling

secure it will be the right one long term.

The current situation is that for Google, most of the time this isn't a problem. You can set up a site in Spanish targeting Spain, another in Mexico and a

third in Peru, many with overlapping content pages and so long as the country TLDs are unique (e.g. .es, .com.mx, .pe, etc.) and/or you've separately

targeted the sites through Google Webmaster Tools ( more on that topic here), you're relatively safe from duplicate content filtering.

That said, Bing is not nearly as sophisticated on this front (usually), though they are getting better. I don't know how search engines like Baidu, Yandex or

Naver might handle this situation, currently - if anyone in the comments has expertise here, please do chip in. Given this, it's often wise to choose either

a globally-targeted site OR biuld very customized sites to specific regions (even if there is language overlap). You can always use the cross domain

rel=canonical if you want to "share" content between/across sites and self-select which one Google returns.


3)what will effect SERP's more twitter or Facebook?

Answer:

It depends whether you mean directly or indirectly?

Directly, it will likely be Twitter. Google's ongoing animosity with all things Facebook shows no sign of shifting and thus I'd say it's unlikely Google will

start using Facebook signals directly in the results. However... as we showed with correlation data, things that do well on Facebook tend to do quite well on

Google, too. Indirectly, the ability to influence a wide network on Facebook, earn lots of shares, comments, likes and activity may indeed lead to very

positive and influential second-order effects (links, tweets, positive content analysis signals, etc).

With Twitter, it remains to be seen whether they achieve ubiquity in a wider world. The service is a clear leader in many fields - marketing, politics,

technology, investing, media and more - but it's not yet a service everyone's using (~100 million actives vs. Facebook's 750 million). If it sees growth

spikes, engagement increases and they become more ingrained in the fabric of "normal" society, then they may indeed be competitive with Facebook for

influencing the results, on both first and second-order levels.


4)how will the new extension at $180K each for big businesses affect the rest of us?

Answer:

The honest answer is that no one really knows. However, I'd strongly suspect the .whatever TLDs(see Mashable's article on the subject for more) will have far

more impact on the branding landscape of the web than it will directly in search results, for searchers or for organic marketers. I do have some guesses:

    The new TLDs will become commoditized quickly - $180K is not a big financial hurdle for many medium+ businesses
    The "cool" factor is likely to exist in the tech startup and web-savvy worlds (like a Quora or NameSake), but your cousin in Michigan won't have heard of

them and will have trouble using them or believing they work (if they see them in offline advertising)
    They may actually increase the desirability of .com domains as the gold standard everyone's used to and comfortable with
    A few might earn enough brand recognition (as .ly and .us have in the web 2.0 runup) to get some escape velocity and be on par with .info or even .net...

But, I wouldn't put money on that :-)

Normally, I'm a huge fan of early adoption in new marketing tactics, but this doesn't feel ROI positive for enough folks to make it a strong recommendation

from me, personally. Like everyone else, though, I'll be watching with anticipation to see how it's adopted and used.

سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ میں گوگل کی نئی کوشش

دنیائے انٹرنیٹ کے سرچ جائنٹ گوگل نے فیس بک کے مقابلے میں نئی سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ویب سائٹ متعارف کروا دی ہے۔گوگل پلس کا مقصد انٹر نیٹ پر حقیقی زندگی کی طرز پر شیئرنگ کی سہولت مہیا کرتے ہوئے پچاس کروڑ سے زائد صارفین رکھنے والی سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ویب سائٹ فیس بک کا سخت حریف بننا ہے۔

گوگل کارپوریشن “گوگل پلس” نامی ایک ایسے پراجیکٹ پر کام کر رہی ہے جس میں حقیقی زندگی کی طرز پر آن لائن شیئرنگ کی جا سکے گی۔ اس وقت انٹر نیٹ پر دستیاب دوسرے سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ٹولز چھوٹے گروپس کے درمیان شیئرنگ کو مشکل بنا دیتے ہیں۔ یہ ٹولز ایسے الفاظ کے استعمال کی اجازت نہیں دیتے جو لوگ روز مرہ زندگی میں گفتگو کے دوران استعمال کرتے ہیں۔

تجزیہ کاروں کا خیال ہے کہ انٹر نیٹ صارفین جو فیس بک پر اپنا ایک سماجی حلقہ بنا چکے ہیں، ان کے لئے کسی نئی سوشل ویب سائٹ پر جا کر تمام چیزوں کو ایک بار پھر شروع کرنا مشکل ہو گا۔

ایک اندازے کے مطابق امریکہ میں انٹرنیٹ پر ہونے والی ہر تین میں سے دو سرچ گوگل کے ذریعے کی جاتی ہیں تاہم اس قدر مقبولیت کے باوجود  گوگل  کے اس قبل سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ویب سائٹ “گوگل بَز” اور “گوگل ویو” متعارف کروانے کی تمام کوششیں ناکام ہوئی ہیں۔

ماہرین کے مطابق گوگل پلس، فیس بک کے لئے ایک سخت حریف ثابت ہو سکتا ہے۔ گوگل کا کہنا ہے کہ گوگل پلس پر ابھی تجربات جاری ہیں اور اسی لیے ابھی عام صارفین کیلئے مہیا نہیں کیا گیا ہے ۔

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/

Device Preview: Panasonic TOUGHBOOK with Android

Keeping with last week’s rugged tablet theme, today I would like to showcase a device by Panasonic. Falling under their TOUGHBOOK line of computers, they have announced a rugged Android Tablet. Now tablets tend to be delicate devices but coming from the leader in rugged mobile computing, nothing is missing. The Toughbook tablet has everything you’d expect in a modern tablet: GPS, “full-shiftâ€� battery life, 3G/4G options, but also a bright, daylight viewable 10.1-inch XGA matte screen compatible with an included active stylus. There isn’t any word on price or availability but expect it to be released sometime in the 4th quarter.

We think this can be the perfect mobile audit or mobile inspection device.  For electronic safety managers who need something bigger than the a PDA (mobile handheld) this is a perfect option.  Not only that, this is one of the first rugged devices to have the Android operating system.  We’ve noticed that more and more devices are coming out with Android… sign of the times?  I think so.

LAPTOP OR NOTEBOOK - THE DIFFERENCE

[a]    NOTEBOOK COMPUTER:

A standard notebook has the following features:

1. Ultralight. Less weight is better.

2. 4 - 5 hour battery life.

3. No internal floppy drive.

4. Minimal graphics subsystem.

5. No internal DVD or CD system.

6. 12" - 14" TFT screen.

7. Low profile (thin).

8. Integrated modem and network connection.

9. Smallest possible keyboard that retains functionality.

10. Low power consumption Celeron/Centrino or Sempron style processor.

    A notebook computer is designed to provide mobile computing that won't break your back carrying yet still offer all the power the mobile users requires for work and some leisure pursuits.                            This portability normally comes at a price. The level of minituarization involved comes at a cost and high end notebooks can prove to be quite expensive.

 

[b]    LAPTOP COMPUTER:

Now for the laptop computer. Again look at the name. A laptop is designed to sit on your lap and you can therefore expect it to be quite large and loaded down with features and power. The
The standard laptop computer would have some ,if not all, of the following features:

1. 14" - 17" (widescreen) TFT screen.

2. Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon graphics subsystem.

3. Internal DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive

4. Large full featured keyboard.

5. 3 hour+ battery life.

6. Upgradeable.

7. Integrated modem, network, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities.

8. High quality integrate audio and speaker system.

9. Low power consumption, high performance Intel Centrino style processor.

[3]  finally 
(1) NOTEBOOK is quite opposite that of the LAPTOP. (2) NOTEBOOKS offer reasonable power and extreme portability. (3) LAPTOPS are designed to be capable of replacing an entire desktop PC if necessary whilst still offering desktop performance in a mobile platform. 

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/

Things to Check before Deciding on Quitting Your Job

When you are not happy at your current job or are just feeling restless and under-appreciate, the thing that pops into your mind most often is that the best option would be to quit your job. In such scenarios, just the thought of quitting your job makes you feel happier and in control of your life. We all have been there and have often felt the uncontrollable urge to leave the job. However, the bottom line is that quitting your job just like that takes a lot of courage and faith. You don’t only have to quit your regular job, you also have to make sure that the decision you make is right. The decision to quit your job can be quite confusing and one has to think carefully before making the final call.

Before you make the decision to quit the job, you need to make absolutely sure that you are making the right decision. Here are a few things you need to check before you decide to take the huge step:

How Long Have You Been Working At the Company?

The first thing that you need to analyze when you are thinking of quitting the job is the time you have spent working at the current company. For anyone to be able to judge the feasibility of staying on at a job, he has to spend at least 2 years with that company.  If you have worked at a company for only 3 to 6 months and are thinking of quitting, you need to be patient and invest more time in the company. You are only getting settled at the company in the first 6 months and are just learning the ropes. To make an informed decision as huge as quitting your job which can affect your career, you need to make sure that you have spent ample time with an organization and are confident that leaving the job is the best option.

The only exception to this rule is when you know from the very beginning that you made a wrong career move by joining the organization. This might include a switch from one field to another and realizing that you made a wrong choice.

Are You Overburdened?

Most of the times when people think of quitting their job, the main reason behind this is that they are having problems in handling the workload which in turn gets them in trouble with the bosses. Nowadays most of the companies are cutting their costs by any means possible which includes terminating some of the people and managing the company with fewer resources. This means that every person working at an organization has to work to his maximum capacity. If you are facing similar circumstances, it might be because you have lesser resources at your disposal. The increased workload and the inability to meet the deadlines might be causing frustration leading you to thoughts about quitting the job.

If you are facing such issues, it is best that you talk to the management and ask them to give you more resources to deal with the increasing workload. This simple improvement can prove to be the change that you need to go on with your current job.

Are You Just Bored?

Sometimes when you have been working at the same company for years and are performing the same tasks every day, you can lose interest in your job and start thinking about quitting the job. When you feel that your job is not challenging enough, you can get frustrated and start looking for jobs elsewhere. When you are facing such a situation, it is best to try to find more challenging assignments at work, volunteer for assignments which interest you and take active part in anything work related that might break the monotony of your daily routine. However, if you feel that there is nothing at your current job that holds your interest and there is no chance of improvement in the near future, leaving the job for a better one might be the best option.

Is Your Personal Life Satisfactory?

Sometimes when you are facing problems at your home or in your personal life, you can easily blame that on work. So if you are frustrated with your job, you need to analyze how much of the frustration is due to work and how much is due to problems in your life. If you are not happy with the way things are unfolding in your personal life, you need to address those issue on priority basis, rather than thinking about quitting your job.

Are You A Workaholic?

People who are workaholics and do not have a personal life often ten to reach a point where they feel frustrated with themselves. Since they have nothing else in their lives, their work takes up all their time and eventually leads to a burnout very soon in life. So try to find a balance in your life which involves some family time as well as work. If you find the proper balance between work and personal life, you won’t be thinking about quitting your life every now and then.

Do You Have A Horrible Boss?

Working under a supervisor who is unprofessional and unethical can cause a lot of frustration in anyone. If you happen to be working for an unreasonable boss, then the thoughts of quitting your job are not so unreasonable and actually make a lot of sense.

Are You Underpaid?

Being paid less than your level of experience is one of the strongest reasons why people consider quitting their jobs as it affects their output negatively and leads to a lack of motivation. If you think you are an underpaid employee, the best course of action is to ask for a raise. If your boss does not agree and raise your pay scale, you should definitely look for another job.

Do You Have Another Offer?

No matter what the circumstances are, before you quit the job make sure that you have an offer from another company so that you o not have to face joblessness. Being jobless can be much worse than being stuck at a bad company.

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
 

Important Questions to Ask yourself for Achieving Career Success

If you want to be extremely successful in your professional life, you have to make sure that every move you make is in the right direction. When you are working in a professional environment, you have to keep analyzing every move you make so that you are aware of the consequences of every step you have taken in the past. A person, who keeps analyzing himself in a professional context, can improve his chances of being successful in nay career he has chosen for himself.

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself if you are looking towards long term professional growth:

Do You Love Your Job?

One of the most important factors which determine your career success is whether you enjoy your work and is your job what you always wanted it to be. When you are happy with your job and love what you are doing, you enjoy your work a lot and learn a lot more. If you are working at a place that is not what you wanted in life, it is time to make a change. Even if you have to make some sacrifices to start in your preferred career line, do it. Once you start on you true career path, there is no limit to your success.

Do You Have A Goal?

When you are thinking in terms of professional success, you do not concentrate on the financial aspects of a job or a career path. You need to think of the long term goals which you need to accomplish when you are working with any company. You need to have some professional challenges and goals in your life which will keep you trying to achieve the best. If you do not have any particular goal in your life, you might end up feeling frustrated with your job and career path as a whole.

Are You Contributing Towards Your Professional Goal?

When you are working at a company, you need to make sure that your current career path is leading towards the ultimate professional goal that you have set for yourself. If you are not on a career path that has anything to do with your ultimate goal, you are just wasting your time rather than contributing towards your professional growth. In such circumstances, you need to evaluate what needs to be changed in your current professional trend to steer it towards the ultimate goal and then start working on making that change without any delay.

Where Does Your Motivation Come From?

Whenever you are working in a professional environment, you need to know what motivates you and drives you to work harder. By finding your passion and the force that motivates you, you can easily determine the best career path for achieving professional success.

What Have You Achieved So Far?

When you are evaluating your professional growth and career success, you need to look into the goals you have achieved so far. You need to make a realistic estimate of the success rate you have had so far and then plan what need to be done in the future accordingly.

Are You Improving Yourself?

The most important question that you need to ask yourself on constant basis is whether you are growing professionally and improving yourself or not. You need to work on improving your leadership skills, communication skills, presentation styles etc. You should also participate in workshops and training programs which can help in improving your skills. All these steps will make sure that you achieve greater professional success in the long run.

What Are You Doing To Reach The Goal?

One very important question that you need to ask yourself is what steps have you taken to reach the goal you have set for yourself. If you have not taken any steps in this regard, you can start now by making a list of all the steps that need to be taken to achieve the goal. The best way to reach a goal is to set up several smaller goals which lead to the ultimate goal. This way, the bigger goal seems achievable and less daunting so you will feel more motivated towards achieving the goal.

Are You Willing To Pay The Price?

When you set a professional goal, you need to be able to make some sacrifices in your professional and personal life. So when you set a goal, you need to make sure that you are willing to make the sacrifices that are needed in order to achieve the goals.

Do You Have Help?

No professional goal can be achieved singlehandedly and you need the support and help of people at home and at work. So when you set a professional goal, you need to analyze who will be able to help you in achieving this goal and keep those people in your network.

Skype Adds More Facebook Features

Skype‘s beta version 5.5 of its desktop software for Windows adds even more Facebook extras to its already deep integration with the social network.

In the new version, out Monday, Skype for Windows users can instant message their Facebook friends via Skype, “like” and comment on friends’ Facebook status updates without logging into Facebook and view all their Facebook contacts in a new Facebook-dedicated contacts tab.

Skype for Windows 5.5 beta also includes a redesigned call control toolbar and other visual call-related adjustments.
Previously, Skype for Windows users could view their Facebook news feeds from within the application and place Skype calls or send SMS messages to their Facebook friends, if friends included their phone number in their Facebook profile.
The latest infusion of Facebook functionality further cements the connection between the two applications and makes cross-platform messaging more seamless.

Skype was acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in May. The deal was approved by the Federal Trade Commission June 17.

Mozilla releases Firefox 5

As expected, the Mozilla Project has released version 5.0 of Firefox. The update to the open source web browser comes just three months after the project's last major version, Firefox 4.0, which suffered a number of delays – Mozilla has adopted a version model similar to that used by Google for its Chrome browser.

One of the most important additions in Firefox 5 is support for CSS animation, a feature that browsers such as Safari have offered for some time. When creating a CSS animation, a developer specifies the animation's duration and name in the CSS rules for the HTML element in question. The @keyframes selector associated with this name is followed by the rules that describe the element's beginning and end points as well as optional intermediate stages.

In Firefox 5, the Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved "to increase discoverability". On Windows, it can be found under "Tools->Options->Privacy", while on Mac OS X, it is under "Firefox->Preferences->Privacy". This preference allows users to tell web sites that they don't wish to have their browsing behaviour tracked. Whether a site respects this or not is up to its developers.

Other changes include improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance, as well as updated standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL and canvas. The "desktop environment integration for Linux users" has also been improved. Introduced in previous Firefox Beta updates, the Firefox development channel switcher has been removed.

The mobile version of the web browser has also been updated: Firefox 5 for Android is now capable of sending the Do-Not-Track (DNT) header – the developers say that it is "the first mobile web browser" to offer such a feature. It adds support for IPv6, "overflow: scroll" and "overflow: auto" CSS properties, Restartless Add-ons and HTML5 online/offline events. Users can download the release from the Android Market.

More details, including a list of known issues, can be found in the release notes. Firefox 5.0 is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the project's web site. Alternatively, users can upgrade to the new versions, either by waiting for the automated update notification or by manually selecting "Check for updates" from the Help Menu. Mozilla encourages users to upgrade to the latest releases as soon as possible.

Firefox binaries are released under the Mozilla Firefox End-User Software License Agreement and the source code is released under disjunctive tri-licensing that includes the Mozilla Public License, GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1.

Update: Firefox 5 also addresses a number of security holes in the browser, five of which are rated as "Critical" by Mozilla.

Microsoft Gathers Digital & Conventional Media

The trends of blogging seems to be in the hot fashion in Pakistan like all over the world and number of individuals are being witnessed to get connected with online journalism to spread news, information, images and opinions.

Thanks to technology that helped establish a number of number of youngsters, professionals and intellectuals – who have been engaged to express their words and thoughts with different styles and concepts through their blogs and different other digital tools.

As per estimates, blogs reach to at least 3.4 million Pakistanis. They have adopted diversified style as majority of them are spreading their thoughts through written expressions, some of them through pictures and rest of them through videos.

Yesterday, Microsoft organized a workshop to open a debate over various prevailing trends in the Pakistani blogging culture, its different aspects and the exclusive use of technology that make bloggers more credible, reliable and unique.

Shoaib Khalil, the moderator of the workshop, who is also Marketing Lead of Microsoft Pakistan said that “technological innovation, which previously allowed the mass distribution of news and information to large audience is now giving the same power of media outlets to individual as well.”

Couple of dozen bloggers and technology journalists were present in the discussion and shed light over strong and weak areas of blogging trends of Pakistan.

Though bloggers in Pakistan have built a strong reputation and credibility but could they be considered same as journalists in the mainstream media?

Journalists were of the view that despite of the fact, the bloggers are enthusiastic, creative and outstanding to express their freedom of speech through blogs and social media tools, like twitters, they are lacking credibility to being considered as digital or social media journalists.

They were of the view that this is because they are subjective with no regulative authority at all, mushrooming without any formal training of journalism. Therefore, they are not showing responsibility and expressing themselves haphazardly without any care of national interests and society norms.

It is due to fact that digital journalism or blogging is at infant stage in Pakistan with no training platforms available to them. However there are number of individuals who gained reputations from being stylist, argumentative and unique, getting limelight of the mainstream media and retain their positive authority and credibility among the readers.

The workshop emphasized that bloggers should act with responsibility and perceive the implications and fallouts of the words, photos and videos they spread to the masses.

There is a strong need to educate bloggers whether in the field of ethics and responsibility of journalism or in the field of monetizing themselves through use of technology with available solutions.

The digital journalism enables media to impart news instantly with low entry barriers through internet and computer networking technologies. It also provides bloggers and journalists with new avenues for writing genres and creative innovative landscape for 21st century.

The workshop concluded on the note that conventional media and social media are source of information and opinion alike though they are not equal and familiar with each other. The social media is also important for our society and youth as well and it will take time to get credibility among its readers.

How to install Windows 8 on VMware virtual machine

We have seen couple of Windows 8 leaks by now and most of you may like to test it.Installing and reinstalling may be a tedious task so today we would like to write a tutorial as how to install Windows 8 on VMware virtual machine which would ease your work.
First of all the minimum system configuration of Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7 so you should atleast have the following configurations-

• 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• 1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

Here are the steps to install Windows 8 on VMWare Virtual machine-

• First of all you need to have Windows 8 build which you have to install on virtual machine.
• Download VMware player from here or from here. After downloading VMWare player just install it.VMWare can be installed on Windows XP,Windows Vista or Windows 7.
• Select Create a New Virtual Machine option from the list

• Now choose Installer disk image file (iso) and browse for the Windows 8 image file

• In the next menu select Microsoft Windows as operating system and Windows 7 x64 if you are installing Windows 8 x64 or select Windows 7 if installing 32 bit version.

• In the next menu leave the Windows Product key empty and just enter the name and password (optional).

• Set the name of the Virtual machine and browse the location where you want to install it ( select where you have average 40 GB free when installing Windows 8 x64)

• In the next menu enter the maximum disk-size, prefer to keep it minimum as 40 GB

• In the next menu click on Customize Hardware and modify the memory if installing Windows 8 x64. Keep the memory minimum as 2 GB. You could also change the number of cores depending on your processor.

• Finally click on Finish button and your Windows 8 installation on Virtual machine would start

10 essential tools and services for work-at-home IT pros

I have been working out of my home office for more than three years now, with job functions that cover a wide variety of IT roles, such as software developer, network engineer, and system administrator. Over this period of time, I have learned that the office equipment, software, and services needs of remote workers are different from those of someone on site in a number of ways. Today, I’m going to share what I’ve found to be 10 must-have tools and services for remote IT workers.

1: Quality Internet service

If you are working from home, it is obvious that you will need the Internet all day long to do your job. Where a lot of people go wrong on this is by getting cheap Internet service, such as a consumer grade DSL or cable modem line. The problem is, these services are aimed at providing fast downloads, sometimes with a “burst” of bandwidth for a big item. But they have slow upload speeds, no static IP address, and no guarantees of service quality.

Instead, I recommend a business class account. While it is more expensive, the benefits for a home worker are huge. Having a static IP address lets the home office feel more comfortable in opening services to you, for example, and host services yourself if needed. Business class accounts come with bandwidth and technical support response time guarantees, as opposed to the “best effort” you get with consumer accounts. And many times, the bandwidth is segregated from the residential access so your access does not get jumbled up with the mass of BitTorrent, Xbox Live, and Netflix from the house next door.

2: A real phone

Cell phones are great, but when it comes to call quality, nothing can replace a true desk phone. Even if that phone is connected to VOIP, the quality of the call is far superior. You will be on the phone a lot more than you would be if you were in the office, which makes call quality very important. I tried a good cell phone + good Bluetooth headset, and not only were the bills huge (often more than $200 a month), but the call quality was lousy. Now, I have an inexpensive phone, a Vonage account, and a Jabra GN9350 headset (cannot recommend this item enough), and it’s rare to be asked to repeat myself.

3: Company credit card

When you are on your own, you can’t wait for a central purchasing department to buy something and have it shipped to you. And as an IT professional, you will often buy things that cost more than you will feel comfortable paying for out of your own pocket and getting reimbursed for. In addition, there will be times when you’re on the road and need to pay travel costs. Have your employer furnish you with a company credit card, and life will get a lot easier for you.

4: Ergonomic office furniture and layout

I’ve written a number of articles here at TechRepublic about the ergonomic equipment I use, and there is a reason for it. If you thought you spent a lot of time at your desk in an office, just wait. You will spend even more time at the desk when working from home. It’s simple: You no longer need to get up for anything other than a bathroom break or food and drink. The days of going to the server room or a co-worker’s desk to solve a problem are over, and it is not uncommon to discover that you’ve been at your desk for eight to 10 hours without more than a five-minute break. You don’t even leave the house to get lunch most of the time. Being in a chair this long makes ergonomics even more important than they are in an office. Personally, I love the Herman Miller Embody chair and Envelop desk, the Kinesis Advantage keyboard, and Evoluent Vertical Mouse. Find what works for you.

5: Scanner and inexpensive black-and-white laser printer

Print may be dead, but you will still need to print things out from time to time. Printing is so infrequent for me that inkjet cartridges are often dried out after only a few printings, which is why I recommend a small, inexpensive black and white laser printer. You can get one for under $100 that does a perfectly good job and never dries out. The only things I find myself printing are directions and contracts to be signed. And that is where the scanner comes into play. I have found that working at home, there are about five to 10 times a year where something requires a real signature. Given that you can buy a dirt cheap flatbed scanner for under $50, it does not make sense to lose half an hour driving to the office store just to send a fax. That half hour is worth $50 or so to your employer anyway.

6: Redundancy, onsite backups, and offsite backups

When I worked at an office, there was an IT department (or I was the IT department) that took care of my data needs. If a drive or entire PC died, they would have it swapped out and fixed in a few hours. Everything was stored on the network or they had backups being done on my computer. Working at home is a different ball of wax. Given the speed of the network, I find myself storing a lot more locally and syncing when needed, instead of directly using network storage. And if the system blows up, I am responsible for getting myself back online. As a result, I count on a combination of RAID 1 (mirrored drives) to protect myself in case of drive failure, an internal disk dedicated to nightly backups in case of system meltdown, and offsite backups through an online backup provider to handle catastrophes (such as a fire).

7: Smartphone

When I worked in an office, a smartphone was a “like to have” not a “must have.” If I was away from my desk, it was rarely more than a 10-minute walk back in case something went horribly wrong. But at the same time, it was expected that it would take a real emergency to get me back into the office after hours. Working from home, there is the assumption that you are somewhat available regardless of the time or hour. Having a smartphone allows me to stay on top of what’s going on and provide that availability, while still letting me screen out the less important problems. You will especially want to make sure that your phone handles email seamlessly. I have found that the Samsung Focus (a WP7 device) fits my needs better than anything else I have used, but it is a matter of personal taste and needs.

8: Power protection

In an office, the IT department and facilities teams handled power issues for me. At home, dealing with power outages and protecting the equipment from power spikes and dips are my responsibility. Faced with a choice between being out of commission for three days to repair equipment damaged by a “power event” and spending money on a good, line conditioning UPS, the UPS is a better bet. I like the low-end Eaton/Powerware dual conversion units. They provide my small setup here with plenty of runtime in case of power outage and give me 100% assurance that a power event won’t wipe me out.

9: Laptop/notebook

Working from home, you will need to be on the road at least once in a while. For me, that is about once a year to visit the home office, and a few times a year when I go on vacation or three-day weekends. While that does not justify a great mobile machine for me (I am using a laptop that was mid-range three years ago), I still need one. Depending on your requirements, you may need a better one. I like to have a powerful desktop machine but just enough laptop power to do what I need to do on the road. You may prefer a full desktop replacement.

10: Gym membership

If it weren’t for the gym, I would probably leave my property about three times a week. Getting to the gym every day not only provides me exercise, but it also gives me a much-needed break in the workday. (Remember, you aren’t taking lunch breaks anymore.) Working from home, I have found myself even more sedentary than I was in an office, so getting to the gym is an important part of staying healthy and sane. If you don’t like the gym, take walks or go for a jog every day.

Developing for Windows 8 and Chrome OS --- Part 1

All of you know by now the future belongs to Html5/Javascript based touch
enabled operating systems. The early leaders currently are Chrome OS and Windows
8. But more important from our i.e. developers view is the Windows 8 Application
Marketplace and Chrome Web Store. Eventually all OSs and Application Web
Stores on the client side will be similar to these.
If we want to develop software for these OS’s and App stores the first
thing we will need to learn is the File API’s without which no applications can
be built. The future is here, lets us start our work:
File Upload API's and File System API's Tutorials:
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/file
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/dndfiles/
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/filesystem/


File Upload API's and File System API's W3C Specs:
http://www.w3.org/TR/file-upload/
http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-system/pub/FileSystem/

Laptop MotherBoard Repair And Diagnosis

All we can say about laptop motherboard repair is that unless you have some of the latest diagnostic equipment, a test jig, ESD setup workshop, an array of tools, digital multi meters and an oscilloscope then don’t think you can narrow down your fault diagnosis to the exact component that is causing your laptop to misbehave... nobody has that much time.

What I can also say is that even your local authorised repair centre for all the brand name laptops don’t go to this much trouble either. I have personally been present for a number of different manufacturers service calls and witnessed how they operate.

For example -

If you log a call for your Acer laptop which is in warranty, the technician will turn up (for onsite warranty ) with a fist full of spare parts. He will take a quick look at the machine, keeping in mind they already have a fault description and have narrowed it down prior to turning up. After looking at the machine and verifying it has a fault they will basically gut the machine and rebuild it with new internal parts.

I have seen this same technique carried out by IBM, HP/Compaq, Acer and I assume most others would do the same. This excludes Toshiba who have a different system.

Here are some things you can do to isolate what sort of problem you have, you may think you'll have to undertake some sort of laptop motherboard repair but quite often the motherboard gets blamed for a fault that may be somewhere else in your machine.

Look closely at the symptoms, determine when the fault occurs (unless it’s constant) and try and pinpoint the function that is failing.

Here is a good example.

Your screen goes dim and appears to switch off whilst in use.

- Try the machine using an external screen.

You can already get some idea here of what may be the problem, if the external screen is working it may be the LCD or the inverter board.

If the external video doesn’t work either then you mustn’t assume the LCD is faulty as you would have external display if it was just the LCD panel.

You could now suspect the video card or chipset, in which case you would need to find out whether the video chipset is part of the motherboard or on a separate PCB.

This is where your authorised repair centre will come in handy, give them your machine type and they should be able to tell you, if they can't burn their number and never call them again, they're a waste of time, find another repair centre.

I wouldn’t expect that most people would be game enough to pull their own laptop apart just to stare blankly at the exposed motherboard looking for the faulty component or track to jump out at them, it's not going to glow red or have smoke coming out of it so the whole venture would be fruitless.

Another example.

External port faults are common, like USB ports and headphone jacks. An easy way of determining these sorts of faults is to plug in as many different devices that suit to see if it is indeed the port or the device which is faulty. Also try uninstalling then reinstalling the USB device. If the function doesn’t return after this sort of work then you can go one step further and reinstall Windows (or Linux) using your recovery cd’s or your own created SOE , remember to BACKUP your data first.

If the fault is still present after this then you can assume that your hardware is to blame for the issues. Finding out what part the actual hardware (USB ports) are located on should be your next step. These sort of ports are not always located on the main board and will often be found on a smaller less expensive board.

Do your testing using normal basic methods to determine as closely as you can what part may be causing your problem then seek some advice from a professional to see if their opinion is the same.

Sometimes it may be a case of having to replace components and use a process of elimination to find what's at fault, obviously if your optical drive seems to be playing up and you're able to plug in another one that you know is good and the problem remains your next step is to look at some sort of laptop motherboard repair, unless you're a whiz bang electronics tech this will probably mean just replacing the board.

 

Thanks & Regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/

How To Compare Two PDF Documents Visually Using Free Tools

Adobe Acrobat Professional offers features letting users compare PDF Documents showing the differences between two versions of a file, however the software suite is not free - but fortunately we have free utilities to get the task done easily.
Free, open-source, cross-platform and portable utility DiffPDF allows users to compare PDF files visually for changes supporting two comparison-modes - Text and Appearance, the text comparison mode highlights text-changes while the appearance mode also takes care of any changes made to embedded images.

The nice and simple to use single-pane GUI just get the job done as easy as possible, the utility also features handy color customization options to suite one's preference.

Download DiffPDF :

• Instructions for Windows, Linux and Mac
• Another free alternative - Winmerge with xdocdiff plugin

Any Drive Formatter : Free Utility For Hassle Free Formatting of USB Removable Disk's On Windows

Many times you must have faced the “Windows was unable to complete the format” error while trying to format usb disk drives and memory-cards, free windows utility Any Drive Formatter lets you get past this error and format your portable storage media the easy way on Windows 7, Vista, and XP computers.

Download Any Drive Formatter :

• setup-any_drive_formatter.exe
• Download.Com

How to Survive the Workplace Bully

When we are young, a bully at school can make us terrified of going to school. However, as we grow older, we get better adapted at dealing with such people in life and once we enter the professional field, we feel safe and know that the years of bullying are over. Yet, the fact is that we often face bullies at work, the only thing different is that the techniques have changed. There are all kinds of office bullies who can make your professional life difficult and make sure that whatever you do, you do not get a good response.

What Is Workplace Bullying?

The term workplace bullying is used to describe aggressive and unreasonable behaviour at work designed to negatively impact or destroy a colleague. A workplace bully can be anyone; a manager, a co-worker, a subordinate and even a client. The workplace bullies are basically insecure people who make every possible attempt to mask their insecurity by exhibiting control and domination over anyone and everyone they can.

In most of the cases, workplace bullies target people whom they envy, such people have the traits and talents that the bully wishes he/she possessed but does not. So the bully just attempts to harm the skilled and more talented colleague which helps them feel more secure in their employment.

Tactics Employed By Workplace Bullies:

Most of the workplace bullies arm themselves with the following tactics to make sure that you do not make a good career for yourself as long as they are working with you:

• Intimidating the other person by any means available
• Interfering with a colleagues projects
• Sabotaging a colleagues projects
• Criticising the work or personality of a colleague
• Undermining the work of a co-worker
• Constantly finding mistakes in someone else’s work
• Threatening work status or reputation of a colleague
• Laying about a subordinate’s performance during the evaluation process
• Making unrealistic and unachievable demands and deadlines

Dealing with Bullies at Work:

Most of the employees do not report the workplace bully as they fear that the attitude of the bully will further worsen and they might end up losing their jobs.  However, the fact remains that ignoring such a problem will not solve it but it will give more confidence to the bully as he/she will know that you are not going to do anything about it.

If you have been a victim of an office bully, you can handle him by following these tips:

1.  Perform your Tasks Well:

As an employee, it must be your foremost duty to make sure that you are performing all your duties properly and to let others know you are doing your job well. Workplace bullies basically target you so that you get disturbed emotionally and mentally which will inevitably take a toll on your performance. So make sure that whatever he or she is doing, you do not let it affect your output. If you are not performing your tasks properly, he/she can easily get you fired.

2. Don’t Take it Personally:

When workplace bullies criticise and ridicule their target, the main purpose is to make the other person feel bad. The best way to deal with such people is to make sure that you do not take these comments personally and realise the agenda of the bully. If you start taking these comments seriously, they will bring you down and consequently affect your performance.

3. Gather Proof:

When you are being bullied at work, it is best that you gather witnesses, who can be co-workers and friends, who can come up to your defence if the need arises. This part might be easier said than done as most of the bullies are your bosses, you might not find people willing to be on your side when the time comes.

4. Avoid Private Interaction:

A bully might refrain from indulging in bad behaviour openly, especially if you are the only target of his bullying. So if you have observed that the office bully only mistreats you when you are alone with him, try to avoid such interactions at all costs.  Even if he starts insulting you in public, at least you will have witnesses of his bad behavior.

5. File an Internal Complain:

One of the best ways you can get rid of a workplace bully is by filing a complaint against him with your HR department. As the HR department is usually concerned with maximizing the output of the staff members, they will take an action on your complaint. However make sure that you provide documentation and witnesses of the incident so that you can backup your claims.

6. Look for Another Job:

When nothing else works and you can do nothing about the bullying, it is probably time to start looking for a new job. When someone is bullying you at work, he is basically after your job and wants you to either leave or get fired. So if you think you can take the pressure, it is best that you stay on and exhaust the bully so that he/she knows that his tactics are not working. However, if you feel like the pressure is too much for you to handle and your performance is being negatively affected, it is best that you start looking for a new job and get a new start in life.

 Thanks & Regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/

Office 365 Brings the Cloud to Education

Microsoft announced today that Office 365 for education, the company’s next-generation cloud productivity service for K-12 schools and universities (and the successor to Live@edu), will launch later this year. The company made the announcement in London at BETT, the world’s largest educational technology showcase.

Also in London today, Microsoft announced that 15 million students now use Live@edu, up from 11 million students just three months ago. Office 365 for education will be the successor to Live@edu, which is Microsoft’s current communication and collaboration offering for K-12 schools and universities.

Just as technology is changing the world of work, it’s having a profound impact on education, said Jon Perera, Microsoft’s general manager of Education Strategy. The same enterprise-class productivity software that is untethering workers from their desks is now entering the classroom. That shift holds the promise of leveling the playing field for students worldwide.

“Our mission is to help people and organizations around the world realize their full potential, and we at Microsoft believe there's no better place to make that come to life than education,” Perera said. “We’re committed to developing technology that can unleash student creativity and help students and educators connect and collaborate.”

Office 365 for education will include everything available in Office 365 for enterprises – Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Office Web Apps, and Office Professional Plus desktop software. The suite also will include templates and pricing designed to meet the unique needs of educators and students, Perera said.

Anna Kinney, director of Live@edu, said Office 365 for education will extend learning possibilities to students while helping them master technology they will use in their future careers.

“Office 365 for education changes the game for schools and universities by offering enterprise-class tools for better communication and collaboration,” she said. “The ability to work anytime, anywhere across platforms and devices is really powerful, whether that’s a PC, MAC, tablet, Windows Phone, iPhone, Nokia phone or other device. Our customers are expanding the boundaries of the classroom and challenging thinking of where and how people can learn.”

When Office 365 launches, existing Live@edu customers will have a smooth path to the new platform, Kinney said. “They will have the ability to transition at their own pace as they introduce new capabilities that have never been available on this scale before,” she said.

Cloud Already Transforming Education

Western Kentucky University is one institution that has seen how technology can help students collaborate, according to Dr. Robert Owen, the university’s vice president of Information Technology. Western Kentucky University just deployed Live@edu for 42,000 students and alumni.

Last semester, the university ran a pilot project for Microsoft Lync, which integrates e-mail, instant messaging, audio, video and Web conferencing. The students who participated in the pilot were doctoral candidates in education, the vast majority of whom worked fulltime while they went to school, Owen said. That meant they had to study late at night or early in the morning, when it would be tough to find someone for help.

“Obviously you’re going to hesitate before you call someone at 1 a.m. and ask for help,” he said. “With Lync, they could immediately see who else in the class was online and communicate with them however they want, whether IM or phone or video chat. We found that aspect worked very well.”

Owen said the efficiencies gained from moving to Live@edu will save Western Kentucky at least $50,000 a year in hardware and software costs alone. Letting someone else take over systems management frees IT staff up to help deliver innovation to the classroom, he added.

“We’re in the business of educating students, not administering e-mail systems,” he said. “Everything we can do to get away from having to mess with that allows us to focus on enhancing students’ educational experience.”

Chip Matson, director of Information Technology Services and the chief information officer at Augusta State University, said that an increasingly tech-savvy student body expects to be able to access school resources on whatever device they have in their hands.

“This is a new generation of students,” he said. “They have grown up with all these devices that let them always be on, always be connected. They have a new set of expectations.”

Every fall, more and more students arrive with smartphones and tablets, and it became critical for the school to be able to deliver resources to them off-campus. That was a major reason why Augusta State University also recently decided to go with Live@edu, Matson said.

Western Kentucky and Augusta State are among thousands of schools and universities from around the world that have signed up for Live@edu.

Kinney said IT pros and students won’t be the only winners as education joins much of the business world in shifting to the cloud.

“With Office 365, educators will be able to provide a secure online learning environment that uses social networking to enhance collaboration, all within the familiarity of a classroom environment without the boundaries,” she said. They also can save time by conducting and recording online tutoring sessions in Lync, then posting them on their SharePoint class sites so students can watch them anywhere and at any time.

Also, with Office 365 students get enterprise-leading technologies – Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Office Web Apps – for free, Kinney said. Faculty and staff get Exchange Online for e-mail and calendaring for free as well. Additional capabilities are available under Microsoft’s academic licensing program. The broad availability of these enterprise-leading technologies at no charge for students enables schools and universities to create a more level playing field and a well-prepared workforce.

Put in a bigger perspective, the shift to anytime, anywhere learning has just begun, Perera said, and technology’s ongoing impact on education will resonate beyond the classroom.

“If you think about the 20th century and how countries competed, economic output and military might were the primary yardsticks for how countries were measured,” Perera said. “Today, when assessments in how all countries around the globe are doing in math and science comes out – that's the new yardstick for how countries compete. It's no longer about the arms race – it’s how many computer scientists, engineers and stem cell specialists that your country is outputting. Microsoft is hopefully at the center of helping countries create and unleash those types of workforces and those types of students.”

10 IT positions ranked by prestige

Humans have an innate desire to categorize everything from animals to social status. We do so because it is how our brains simplify and understand a complex world. People may categorize or stereotype you based solely on your job title — your prestige, or respect if you prefer, is determined by your position.

This class structure within IT is largely unspoken but real nonetheless. I will discuss it here and attempt to rank the following IT functions from most to least prestigious.

1: Systems analyst

The systems analyst is admired for his or her expertise in the multiple roles needed to build a successful system. They’re self-supervised and independent, and managers get out of their way and let them do their job. They are envied for their autonomy, high pay, and challenging work. They earn admiration for their high level of education, knowledge, and accomplishments. This unique combination puts the systems analyst at the top of the list.

2: Programmer

The programmer enters the room and a hush falls across the crowd. One person with awe and reverence showing on his face whispers in a respectful hush, “That’s the programmer who wrote the AI code!” Okay, programmers may not receive this amount of aggrandizement, but they are typically held in a special place of esteem.

To the average person, programmers do nothing short of magic. They make the Web come to life with a multitude of useful applications. They create new and strange virtual worlds. They enable computers to do everything from gaming to running essential functions of business. And they do so with mysterious and enigmatic languages known to only those select few who are the keepers of the code.

3: DBA

If you have done any database work at all and are fortunate enough to have a database administrator, you will appreciate the workload that the DBA removes from your plate. A smart developer learns early on that a good, experienced DBA is critical to the successful completion of the project. Part art and part science, DBAs’ skills can have a significant impact on the performance of the systems they help develop and support.

4: Project lead

Project leads who get their hands dirty and help with all phases of the project lifecycle are respected for their technical as well as their management skills. The role is not given to newcomers. Only those with years of experience make it to project lead. This alone is enough to earn the high esteem of the other project team members.

5: System admin

Access rights granted by sysadmins are just a hurdle in the completion their peers’ tasks. Sadly, the other good work they do goes unnoticed, primarily because even IT professionals have no clue what else they are responsible for. And all it takes is one bad experience trying to get system access for a user to lose any admiration for all system administrators.

6: IT manager

Unlike other professions, where manager would be at the top of the list, IT managers are hurt by the perception that they don’t do the “real work.” IT managers earn respect for their advancement up the career ladder, but this is offset by their perceived lack of technical skills. It may be unfair ,but managers lack IT cred. In addition, employees believe that their managers may have a general idea of their work but lack a detailed understanding of exactly what they do.

7: Network admin

Mention the words network admin to most, and these are the thoughts that are likely running through their head: “Isn’t he the reason I can’t see Facebook and Twitter? Sure, I get a blazing fast connection to the Internet, but what good is that if I can’t get to Youtube? He’s probably reading my email too!” No love there, and the network admin gets no love for the network being up, either — only grief when it goes down.

8: Reporting specialist

When you get right down to it, the reporting specialist is nothing more than a glorified cleric, pulling data from the system, putting numbers into charts, and spitting out reams of paper in the process. If you have to deliver charts with bad numbers to your manager, you may need to use this time-honored phrase: “Don’t shoot me. I’m Just the messenger!”

9: Technician

Never appreciated until a hardware or system emergency occurs, the lowly technician becomes associated with bad circumstances. You know there’s trouble if the tech shows up. He or she may be given the moniker “hero for the day,” but more often than not, users just want technicians to fix their system and be on their way. The uninformed may compare the technician’s skills to the auto mechanic or the Maytag repairman. Usually in crisis mode, the high stress, low pay, and difficult hours typical of the technician do not garner much prestige.

10: Help desk analyst

Help desk analysts are the Rodney Dangerfields of the IT world. The people answering the phone on the help desk get no respect from clients or other IT professionals. They are expected to solve as many problems as possible at tier one but are not paid the wages befitting that level of technical expertise. When the phone rings, there is almost always an unhappy customer on the line. Help desk analysts take unwarranted verbal abuse for circumstances beyond their control and are rarely recognized for their efforts. Their performance is typically measured by the number of calls they take and complete per hour — not exactly a formula for friendly verbal banter, low stress, and thoughtful problem resolution. Respect? Even Rodney Dangerfield got more respect without the added stress.

The bottom line

Much of what I have written is totally unfair to the IT professional. Unfortunately, I believe it’s how many people perceive the IT roles I have listed — and perceptions can be difficult to overcome. While it is true that stereotypes and perceptions often predetermine prestige, it is equally true that prestige can be earned in the most mundane of jobs as well as lost by those in the most respected of jobs.

Unlike the social classes of Victorian England, where right of birth was the sole determinant of one’s class, the working classes of IT are open to all who are talented enough and industrious enough to achieve them. The reporting specialist, or any other IT role for that matter, can be a stepping stone to a better paying position with higher prestige. For example, I turned my reporting position into a developer’s role by automating the weekly charts. If you are looking to climb the prestige ladder, you can do the same. You only need to be clever enough and wise enough to recognize and seize the opportunities that present themselves.

I am reminded of the old joke where the body parts get together to decide which is most important and therefore should lead. One of the morals of the story is that all of the body parts are important. If you have a job that is low on the prestige ladder, you should walk proudly with your head held high. You know how hard you work. You know the unique skills required to do your job. You know how important you are to the overall success of the company. Never let anyone, including me, tell you otherwise.

Thanks & Regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/