Internet Fax

The Greatest Innovator of All Time

2012-01-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

Who would you say is the greatest innovator of all time? What are the criteria that you measure it by? How much of history do they have to change in order to be up on the list? Even the Apple generation doesn't favor Steve Jobs over the most iconic inventor in U.S. history. Young Americans overwhelmingly chose Thomas Edison as the "greatest innovator of all time" in a new MIT survey. That doesn't mean Jobs lacks for fans in the wake of his death last year. The man who relentlessly drove Apple to create the iPhone and iPad received 24 percent of the vote among some 1,010 Americans ages 16 to 25 who participated in the survey. But a whopping 54 percent voted for Thomas Edison, who was credited with the first practical light bulb, the phonograph for recording sound, the movie camera and other marvels of the modern age. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical telephone which laid the ground for all other phone services, came in third with 10 percent. He was followed by scientist Marie Curie, famed for her pioneering work on radioactivity, and Mark Zuckerberg, the young founder and CEO of Facebook.

Phone Stacking

2012-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the latest thing people are doing with their phones? It is not some super gadget or a dumb hipster craze, it is having the audacity to put their phone services, emails, and internet fax on hold and pay attention to who they are with. It still continues to amazes me that people will make plans to get together and when they finally see each other, they are still checking their phones. Maybe if they look up from that glowing screen once in a while, we might actually get somewhere as a society. If you are eating out with friends or family, you have to place the phone in the middle of the table as you place your order. Then if any of the devices start ringing, you cannot answer but if you cannot resist the temptation, you are responsible for the whole bill. Now I am sure that no one is going to be jumping for paying for their friends' lunch when the fridge at home is half bare so this seems to be a great incentive to actually spend time with the people around you. Hopefully, over time it will become a habit and more of a ritual that we will come to appreciate. What are your thoughts?

Importance of Communication

2012-01-11T11:21:00.000-08:00

If you are getting ready to start a business, there are certain tools that are a must have in order to be able to survive in the market. Of course, first of all you need to have the skills in doing what you do. Second of all, you need to be able to communicate with your clients and employees. This is where an internet phone or VoIP system comes in. When you are talking with employees, you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page with all the projects and promotions that are going on. In order to do that, the communication system that you use will enable you to collaborate in real time. This will save a lot of time and money. You would be able to use the whiteboarding, note-taking, and annotation tools to mark up documents as you share. Then give anyone in your meeting the power to do the same. You will also be able to see the people you are talking with using the video conferencing tool. Another great part of these features is that you can use it anywhere and on any device.

Circuit Switching - Old School Telephony

2012-01-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

In the mid 1900s, phone service were run very differently. When a call is made between two parties, the connection is maintained for the duration of the call. Because you're connecting two points in both directions, the connection is called a circuit, which is the foundation of the Public Switched Telephone Network. During the time of the phone call, the circuit is continuously open between the two phones. In the early phone system, up until 1960 or so, every call had to have a dedicated wire stretching from one end of the call to the other for the duration of the call. So if you were in New York and you wanted to call Los Angeles, the switches between New York and Los Angeles would connect pieces of copper wire all the way across the United States. You would use all those pieces of wire just for your call for the full 10 minutes. You paid a lot for the call, because you actually owned a 3,000-mile-long copper wire for 10 minutes. Telephone conversations over today's traditional phone network are somewhat more efficient and they cost a lot less. Your voice is digitized, and your voice along with thousands of others can be combined onto a single fiber optic cable for much of the journey (there's still a dedicated piece of copper wire going into your house, though). These calls are transmitted at a fixed rate of 64 kilobits per second (Kbps) in each direction, for a total transmission rate of 128 Kbps. Since there are 8 kilobits (Kb) in a kilobyte (KB), this translates to a transmission of 16 KB each second the circuit is open, and 960 KB every minute it's open. In a 10-minute conversation, the total transmission is 9,600 KB, which is roughly equal to 10 megabytes. If you look at a typical phone conversation, much of this transmitted data is wasted.

Digital Kids

2011-12-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

In the world today, kids probably do not know what a book is or this place called the library, but I can guarantee you that they can navigate the internet, internet phone services, communication sites, and the computer in general like it's nobody's business. I am talking about kids that are younger than 6 years. I realize that I am starting to show my age but the fact is that some of this technology cannot replace certain things. I cannot tell you how many times I was trying to have a conversation where the other person had to check their phone, sometimes without even saying a word. Needless to say, I usually end up talking to the other person's forehead as they click away on that smartphone. It usually feels like they are done talking yet I never got a warning besides just being blatantly ignored. What are your thoughts on the technology today?

Remorse and The Long Return Lines

2011-12-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

With the holidays being over and all the gifts exchanged, it is time to either hit the stores or the customer service and return lines. When it comes to tech gadgets, the remorse is slightly more painful because of the high price tag of the fancy hi-tech toy. During the rush of the holiday season, we all want to give the perfect and nice gifts for everyone on our list but many people never stop to think whether the other person really needs it or if it is just something that sparkles. I mean do they really need the extra tablet for internet phones or internet fax? So the solution is to return it because you probably do not want to spend a couple hundred dollars on a toy that is going to be used as a coaster. The way that stores are going to get you with their return policy is that they have a very short window frame of when you can return the item. At Best Buy, you have just 14 days to return any unwanted computers, monitors, projectors, camcorders, digital cameras or tablets, compared with the usual 30 days. Walmart gives you 15 days for tech gear, 75 days less than the usual return policy allows. Remember, that’s the time after purchase, so if somebody did their Christmas shopping early, you might be out of luck. You’re a little bit better off if you ordered through Amazon. The site gives you 30 days after a computer or Kindle is delivered to return it for a gift certificate or refund.

Fancy Keyboards

2011-12-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

As if trying to type out an email or internet fax on a virtual keyboard was hard enough with the lack of the textile feedback wasn't hard enough, here comes the multi-touch keyboard that is completely made of glass. It works because it is entirely made of glass. Infrared light is shined into it, and the light rays are reflected inside the keyboard. When touched, a finger alters the reflection and that change is detected as a key press by a small camera below it. The keyboard also has a matching mouse. As an added bonus for tinkerers, the guy who patented the idea, Jason Giddings, is using open-source software to control the keyboard. Apple recently patented a similar idea, but it works very differently, relying on pressure sensors. I guess if the keys were to be able to pop back up, it might be a hit. Another great thing about this keyboard is that the keys can change according to the language that is used which means that it will be able to expand to other countries and be used there.

Call Waiting

2011-12-13T16:51:00.000-08:00

Having great communication devices and service is everything when you start a business. It will be the way that you interact with the customers. In addition to the internet faxing, which is great for invoices and communication between employees, you should also have a great phone service. Call Waiting allows you to receive another call while you are on the phone. When a second call is received while you are already on the phone a call waiting tone alerts you. See the caller's ID on your phone if you are using Caller ID. To answer the waiting call, simply press the flash button or switch hook. You will be connected with the waiting party while your original party holds. Press the flash button or switch hook again, to reconnect to the original party and hold the waiting party. You can continue to alternate between parties as often as you’d like. It's like having two lines while paying for only one. The user can also cancel Call Waiting for calls in progress. The system plays a confirmation announcement and then applies a dial tone. The user then dials the destination number. For the duration of the call, the user is not presented with any waiting calls. Call Waiting is automatically re-activated when the call ends. Call Waiting completes when any party hangs up. Users can also execute call waiting via the BroadVoice Call Manager.

Conferencing

2011-11-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

With internet phone services, audio and internet conferencing has never been easier. You will be able to communicate with your employees no matter where they are right from your office. Onebox offers crystal clear teleconferencing on your virtual office phone, giving you the ability to hold meetings involving customers and colleagues at multiple sites. Your conference calling solution begins by simply dialing into your Onebox Conference Center and you can communicate with up to 95 people in a single call. Take advantage of our conference calling solution wherever you are, whenever you need it. You can also have web conferencing. Forget about the hassle of booking the conference room. Using the ultra-convenient Web Conferencing feature is an easy way to conduct virtual online meetings and do important business directly from your desktop. You can perform live demonstrations in real time, share and exchange files, and collaborate on documents with multiple participants

Call Recording: Making Business More Efficient

2011-11-24T10:09:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to go back and review specific parts of a telephone conversation? The ultra-convenient call recording phone service from Onebox is the perfect tool for any business that strives to improve its accuracy and efficiency. Inbound and outbound calls of any length can be easily recorded just by pressing a button. When the call is completed, you will receive a link of the recorded file sent via email and stored in your message center for thirty days. Improve customer service, check the accuracy of order fulfillment, and enhance your sales training with immediate access to calls received through your Onebox account. Call recording with Onebox requires no hardware and can be quickly added anytime. With great customer service, people will keep coming back and will recommend your services to their friends and family.

Filters

2011-11-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

Does your mouth have a filter on it when you talk? Or how about your fingers when you type out a status update or something more formal such as an internet fax? The other day I was talking with one of my friends and she is the type to be brutally honest about everything. The honesty and blunt frankness used to stop me short when we were debating a topic or an idea but now I see it as a blessing. For the first time, I am able to formulate ideas and what I want to say with precision because I know that there will always be questions and criticism on the other end. The only way that we can become better at what we do, is if out of the group of people that are praising our work, there is always someone that will say it was not good enough and be blunt about what was wrong. So I guess the question here is if there is such a thing as being too honest and not having a filter being a bad thing? Personally, some people are better at the whole "lack of filters" attitude. Others are just downright mean because they are just name calling without giving the reasons for their statements.

Feeding the Trolls

2011-10-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

Whenever you communicate by typing, always remember to be respectful and sound like you have at least some brain cells. It does not matter if it is a formal communication such as internet fax or just a quick email to a friend, there always has to be some sort of integrity. On the internet, there are people that acts like complete jerks just to get attention. We live in a world where it is acceptable and almost an instinct to insult these people. One of the best ways to really put these people in their place is to actually not say a single word. These type of people are called trolls and they show up in chat rooms and message boards along with the occasional post that rants on and on about how horrible this or that is. The thing that we have to realize is that this person, troll, is not interested in an argument because if they were, then they would actually have made a reasonable point instead of just name calling.

Watch Out

2011-10-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered just how many times you appear on any camera throughout the day? Well now you have to worry about people taking pictures or videos of you. In a recent study, it was found that about 50% of people with a smartphone are willing to take a video of you if you decide to do something that they deem youtube-worthy. Topping the list of scenes people would want to catch on video include people wearing embarrassing outfits (23 percent) in public. Other popular scenarios include athletes at a sporting event (20 percent), someone tripping (15 percent), an attractive waitress at a restaurant (10 percent) and a shirtless hunk mowing the lawn (9 percent). So the next you are having a very animated conversation with someone over an internet phone service, consider how it might look like to someone who does not see the phone that you are looking at. Yes, you will look like an idiot yelling at your hand.

Reality vs the Imagined

2011-10-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

It sounds a bit like something from the philosophy of Descartes, but researchers have determined which part of the brain is responsible for telling the difference between reality and the imagined. It is a fold at the front of the brain that develops late in pregnancy, and is missing entirely in 27% of people. This discovery leads to some information about the disease schizophrenia. One of aspects of this research is that it also showed that there are more factors in the disease because only about 1% of the population actually has it. Either way, it is one step closer to understanding the relationship between structure and function in the brain. There is still a lot left to understand about the brain works or even malfunctions. With internet communications, there will be more research that can be done. The key brain structure identified by the study is called the paracingulate sulcus (PCS), a fold in part of the prefrontal cortex, the region that is involved with planning, thought and judgment. The size of the PCS varies greatly in normal people, and some people a PCS only on one side of their brain, while others have one on both. Compared to the quarter or so of healthy people who are completely missing the PCS, 44% of people with schizophrenia do not have it, suggesting that its absence could play a role in the disease.

Interesting Spam

2011-09-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

If you make a habit of misspelling email addresses or even typing in the wrong internet fax, you might be the next target for these spammers. There are some websites with names that are confusingly similar to legitimate sites have been set up to reply to any mail sent to them. The responses are framed as out-of-office replies, but sneak in mentions of a new product or service you should try. Another part of this type of spam is that it is made to look like from one of the people in your address book so it is ideal when people use their business email account to send the emails to the wrong addresses. It was also found that there are actually a lot of people that make these typos. I mean it is enough that the people that set up these websites are actually making money. Something else that is important to note is that a small security firm recently reported setting up 30 Web addresses, with names similar to those of major corporations, and saving every email that came in over six months. The firm, Godai Group, ended up with 120,000 emails, with contents that included trade secrets and network usernames and passwords. Think about that the next time you are double checking that address.

Laughter Can Be Good Medicine

2011-09-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

It has been known that laughter releases hormones that act on the same "feel-good" receptors as opioids and drugs like heroin. There was a recent study on whether laughter can help people that experience pain and if it increases their tolerance. Here is an excerpt of the article:

"The current research did not directly measure endorphins in the brain, but prior studies of opioid-blocking drugs in humans and animals show that endorphin activity is tied to pain relief. Earlier research shows also that endorphins are important for bonding between parents and children. Endorphins are released in babies' brains when a soothing parent responds to their cries, providing safety, warmth and food; babies come to connect that endorphin-induced stress relief with their parents' presence. Research has further shown that opioids are one of the few things that can ease the cries of young animals that have been separated from their mothers. This may help explain why childhood trauma — particularly abuse and neglect — dramatically raises a person's risk of future heroin or prescription opioid addiction. When a person's stress system becomes overactive in the absence of parental nurture or social support, he is more likely to seek external opioid drugs to soothe it. Increasingly, research finds that emotional and physical pain are not distinct and that social contact, whether it be a parent's touch or a friend's joke, can provide relief. That should be good news to all those working comedians out there—or maybe, a bit more pressure. If they're not laughing, they're may be hurting."

With this study in mind, do not forget to call that friend that lives such a long distance away over the internet phone. It won't cost you anything but it might mean everything to that person.

Learning the Bigger Picture

2011-09-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

More and more schools are focusing on academic success and forgetting to teach kids some of the most important lessons of life such as focus, diligence, and self-motivation. Another things that needs to be taught is control. This is seen in how the kids are using the social networking sites. Sure, they know how to use all the available features but some of them do not understand the consequences of what they are doing online or even how they are using the internet phones. One of the things that parents can do to help their children develop into successful adults is to praise their hard effort and not necessarily the product of the effort. This in turn will encourage them to keep working hard to produce the success. Another way that parents can help is by showing kids not just the information that is needed but also the skills that are needed to find that information. Where do you think the schools are headed? Is there really too much focus on getting good grades and not enough on working on long term characters of these kids?

Using Dropbox

2011-09-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is easier to share documents in a less formal way than internet fax because that is usually used for invoices and very professional documentation. A great way to share photos, videos, and documents is the Dropbox, which is yet another cloud based service. It will let you share no matter where you are in the world and no matter what device you are using. Dropbox offers 2 GB of space for free, enough for thousands of documents or hundreds of large photos. Users also have the option to upgrade to a Pro account, which offers 100 GB, for $19.99 a month. It also offers a highly reliable backup system for documents and other electronic files. It is one of the better priced cloud services that are offered for documents. What do you think of it?

Internet Mobile Fax

2011-08-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

If you have a mobile company and the office is your car, plane and hotel most of the time mobile internet fax is perfect for the mobile business user. With Ringcentral's internet fax you can send and receive faxes via email so there is no need to actually be in the office to accomplish this. With Ringcentral office you will be able to use the fax features with one dedicated number that will help to promote your business operations with communication technology integration in your programs. This allows you to use Microsoft Word and get fax editing software that will help you in your marketing endeavors. All you need to do is download the free softwrae and start designing your fax covers for your business that will help take it to the top with a personal touce you add to them for your business needs. In fax editing software you will have the options to sign and add notes to your fax without printing it out. You can also go back and make changes to the fax before you send it to perspective clients to make sure it's perfect and ready to impress them. With the free mailbox all your records will be kept and stored for you to view at any time.

Battery Charging Itself

2011-08-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be great if you never had to charge any of your batteries except to just shake them? This technology is not new. I am sure that you have heard of those emergency flash lights where you have to shake it to charge it. Well what if that technology could be applied to smaller things such as phone service devices or even certain sensors? This could be very useful for places where there is no electricity let alone outlets. People will also not be so tethered to the wall or a car when their phone battery runs out. MicroGen is developing a battery that incorporates four chips with small cantilevers — about 1 centimeter squared — that respond to even the smallest vibrations. When they oscillate back and forth, it causes piezoelectric material at the base to create an electric current that can be harvested and stored in the on-board battery.

Self-Esteem In Social Networking

2011-08-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

For the parents out there, social networks do not have to be such a horrible adolescent experience. There is plenty of research that points in both a positive and a negative direction. Now with Facebook adding internet phone service, it just adds another layer of complexity. We have heard all the experts put their two cents in about the social networks but have you ever wondered what the teens, who are the biggest demographic group, have to say? Some of them say that their friendships are affected by the online world and their friends get mad if they do not comment often on pictures and statuses. Others say that it is important for them to get a lot of "likes" or they do not feel good about themselves. They also get jealous if someone else gets more attention than they do. Posting pictures has also become so important that these kids cannot just go enjoy an event or a party, they have to worry about getting good pictures to document it. Another aspect of the sites is that they are somewhat addicting and kids spend time on them instead of doing homework or other activities. How do you feel about the social networks?

Time to Hit the Unlike Button

2011-08-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

With all the privacy setting that you can find on the different social networking sites, there is one entity that you can never be private in front of, and that is the site where you have your account. With the "Like" button and now even phone services and communication solutions, Facebook is able to collect information about the user and build a complete profile of that person. Even though they say that the service is free, you are paying with information about yourself. In Germany, the data protection commissioner had stated that the Like buttons gave data to Facebook which was then transferred to the US. Of course, the social network denied the allegations. The Associated Press on Friday quoted an unnamed Facebook spokesman saying the company can see "information such as the IP address" of users who click a "like" button, but that such information is deleted within 90 days. The spokesman called that standard for the web industry.

Emigration

2011-08-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

Have ever considered living abroad, either for business or personal reasons? When it comes to business, there are plenty of communication devices such as internet phones and call forwarding, that will help and even enable the move. Once that problem is taken care of, you have bigger fish to fry. It might not be as easy to move to another country as you may at first think. First of all people in other countries tend to be very nationalistic which means that they do not take too kindly to foreigners. So lets say you got past that part of moving. In addition to the people giving you the third degree, the governments usually have strict requirements for being able to come in. If you plan on moving somewhere different because you think that the grass is greener on the other side, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. There will be good things and horrible things no matter where you go. In general, it will be much harder to adapt to the different way of life than you think.

Solar Light Bulbs

2011-08-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

With all this talk about making the world a greener place, it is a surprise that solar light bulbs have not hit the mass market. Businesses already have internet fax to save paper because more documents are digital and stored with cloud computing. Solar lights are the next step for people to have. This is how many street lamps work. It sounds like a great idea but the question now is where to market these lights. Some experts have said that the developing countries are the best places that they will be used. In more of them, they get light by burning kerosine, which is costly and can be damaging to the health of the people that spend a lot of time around them. These light bulbs are a great alternative solution to the darkness. Some of the challenges that the sellers are facing is that people are creatures of habit and it is hard to get others to change their ways. Educating the people about the solar lights might be a solution but it can only go so far. What are your thoughts on bringing the lights into third world countries?

Always Trying to Be Thinner

2011-08-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

As I read these stories about ten year olds trying to lose weight because they feel like they are too fat, I almost want to pull my hair out. I realize that there are counselors available and toll free numbers that can be called but it when these eating disorders get so out of hand, push needs to become shove. The adults in the kids' lives need to take action no matter how painful it might be. The first step is to become aware of the situation and make the child more aware of the disorder of the situation and the repercussions without blame or making fun of them. The second thing that parents need to do is to take their child to the doctor to have the professional explain it in depth. Another thing to do is to realize that there are other kids out there who are going through the same problems. Here are some frightening stats from the National Eating Disorders Association:

-- 42% of kids in first through third grades wish they were thinner
-- 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of becoming fat
-- 51% of 9- and 10-year-old girls say they feel better about themselves when they are on a diet

Pay Attention

2011-08-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

A least a couple times a day between answering all those internet fax and emails, we tend to just blank out. Everyone does it so do not go jumping to conclusions of ADHD. For a couple seconds our brain just goes offline so to speak and we are virtually not aware of what is going on the world around us. One of the advantages to our brains taking this break is that it helps in the creativity and imaginative thinking. The brain does not react to external stimuli and is completely in the internal world. Through research, it was found that we spend about 13% of the time in this la-la land. Although, I get the impression that some people spend way more time there. I think another good thing about zoning out is that it lets us puts things in perspective and "unwind" if only for a couple seconds. We can only take so much stimuli at a clip, which is why we need sleep, to recharge. Some researchers believe that the reason that we dream is to make sense of the stimuli throughout the day and to reorganize thoughts. How often do you zone out?

Online Account Management

2011-07-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Managing a phone service has never been easier. If you are running a business, it is necessary to be able to manage the calls, billing, and even contact technical support. You can also use the account to easily change the settings of the calls or the automated answering service. All this can be done in any browser without any addition software just as long as there is internet access. Some of the other things that can be done through the account are adding extra lines, changing phone plans, and update billing, shipping and payment information. These account management features will take one things off your mind while running a business because time is important. The time saved from not having to run around and worry about the phone service can be used more productively.

Phone Service For Ordering Food

2011-07-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

In the technological age that we live in, human contact is so last century. There are apps that enable you to order your food without even talking to anyone. Considering that our backsides are becoming more and more attached to the couch and it would be an abomination if anyone actually stepped outside to go eat out, out being the key word there, these phone services make it easy to essential live our lives in one place. Is this really where we are headed? Here is an excerpt from the article I found and tell me what you think of it:

Placing an order through either service is simple. Once you find a restaurant, it is easy to browse through the menu, checking off the items you want and telling the restaurants where to send them. The charges usually go to the credit card on your account. GrubHub claims to have more New York restaurants in its system — over 4,600 in the city — than Seamless,. But only about one-third of the restaurants that GrubHub lists allow online ordering. For the rest, the app shows a scanned version of the menu and allows users to call directly from the app.

Both services are focused primarily in Manhattan, and each has several hundred restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens. GrubHub also has about 50 restaurants in the Bronx offering online ordering. There are minor differences in the way each app helps you find food to order. GrubHub, for instance, lets you read user reviews of restaurants, while Seamless does not. But perhaps the biggest difference is that the Seamless app allows you to reorder favorite meals. Unfortunately, you cannot designate a meal as a favorite straight from the app; you have to go to the Web site.

But once that has been done, it’s great to be able to reorder that eggplant dish from the Indian place on 58th in three clicks, without remembering that the restaurant’s name is Chola or that the dish is called Aloo Baigan. Another difference is that only GrubHub offers the option of paying in cash. On Seamless, not only is paying by credit card the only option, but the default is also to add a tip at the time of your order.

Computers Are Great But Not Magic

2011-07-21T05:48:00.000-07:00

Alright, I admit that the internet can do wonderful things and is the leader in communication services fro the public and businesses such as VoIP systems and internet fax service, but it is not magical as some people like to believe. Movies are some of the reasons that people tend to believe that the internet can do things that it really cannot. One example is that just by hacking into a system, you can remotely blow things up. Truth of the matter is that hacking and making thing do what you want is slightly harder than you think. Another example is that the internet can completely destroy your personal and social life. To some extend this might be true but only if your bank password is something along the lines of "password" or "12345". I hope that no one is really that dumb to make their password that easy to guess. And my personal favorite thing about computers and the internet that is pretty much hokum is the idea that computers can communicate with aliens while being self-aware. The movie that pushed this idea is Independence Day. The computers used in the movies are about 100 times slower than our current run of the mill ones. Just something to think about.

Kinect Helping in Complex Surgeries

2011-07-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

With all the new technology that is coming to light, you would never think of just how much it would be crossing boundaries between different industries. The communication technologies such as internet fax are being used for businesses as well as EMS teams when they send medical information that is gathered in the ambulance to the doctors that are receiving so that they know what to expect and to prepare. The game console addition, Kinect, is not just for gaming but also for helping surgeons map out the areas that are being operated on. Up until now, that meant leaving the sterile environment of the operating room to use a mouse and keyboard, requiring them to wash up each and every time. Now, using the motion technology of the Kinect, the doctors can review and study these scans right from the surgery room, and since their hands never touch a piece of equipment, they can remain sterile the entire time.

Virtual Bridges

2011-07-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Peace. It looks wonderful written down but there is a whole world packed into that one word. The question is how do we get there? And what will that mean for the people involved? There is a Mideast Facebook page that lets Israelis and Palestinians come together and just talk about strategies for peace, sports, music, movies, and anything else. It seems like communication is really the first step. Internet phone services can help in this area since Facebook partnered with Skype. What do you think?

"It has been nearly two years since Israeli and Palestinian leaders have negotiated their peoples’ future and, with the region in turmoil and prospects for peace dim, interaction between Israelis and Palestinians is increasingly limited to Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank. But over the past month, the Facebook page has surprised those involved by the enthusiasm it has generated, suggesting that the Facebook-driven revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt may offer guidance for coexistence efforts as well. But most interesting so far have been the interactions online. At a time when Arabs generally shun contact with Israelis, those on the site speak openly about their desire to learn more about one another."

Perks of the iPad

2011-07-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

The iPad has many uses such as for watching movies and shows or catching up with your friends and family over the internet phone services but the real reason that it exists is for parents and siblings of little kids. Take my word for it. Here is an article I found about it:

Reason #1: Your kids are going to get on your nerves
Every parent has been there. You're in a restaurant, out shopping or even chillin' at home when your kid has a breakdown of sorts. They are uncontrollable. They won't zip it up no matter what the heck you do or say. Just when you're about to flip your lid, bust out the iPad. It's like using duct tape to cover their mouths -- but legal of course.

Reason #2: They are bound to ask, "Are we there yet?"
Epic car drives are the death of any parent's sanity. If you're lucky enough, your kids will pass out from the humming of the tires against the asphalt. However, when (and I really mean when), your kid flies off the handle because they can't take another three hours before you get to Grandma's house, bust out the iPad and get back to the tranquility of wheels on asphalt.

Reason #3: They always want you to read them a book at the most inopportune time
Kids love books. That's all good. What's not cool is when it's your time to put the little rascals to bed and they want you to read a book as you're watching the game. Of course, when you say, "go pick out a book," they pick our the "War and Peace" of bedtime stories. In this situation, there are a slew of kids books for the iPad that are animated, do voiceovers, etc. You can slap on the game, put it on mute and let bedtime stories get autopiloted.

Managing Anger

2011-06-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

We all get really pissed off, it happens to everyone. The worst thing to do in that situation is get online and take it out on other people through emails or internet phone services. Managing this anger does not have to be grueling, all one has to do is take some deep breaths and read these following suggestions.

1. Play some games. Seriously, if something is really getting you riled up play Angry Birds or I always find Tetris to be rather relaxing.

2. What would your mother say? Before doing anything, well, stupid, think about what your mother would say to your actions?

3. Leave that computer. Have you ever considered getting up off of that backside and going outside? It can do wonders.

Personal Backseat Driver

2011-06-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Volkswagen is coming out with new technology that promises to reduce the number of accidents on the road by correcting driver mistakes. It is like that watchful eye on the road. When in “pilot mode,” TAP will keep a safe distance to vehicles ahead, drive at a speed selected by the driver and reduce as necessary before curves and bends. It will also maintain the vehicle’s central position between lanes, according to Volkswagen, and observe the speed limit. This is an interesting in-car technology but I wonder if it will actually hinder some drivers. This program can be deactivated and overridden at any time so the driver is always in control. Other technologies that are coming out in different cars are internet phone services and other cameras placed all around the exterior of the car. What do you think of this Temporary Auto Pilot system?

Open Internet Access

2011-06-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article that is the opposite of what has been in the news lately. Some countries like to ban internet but this one is making sure that there is open internet access. Tell me what you think of the article I found:

The Dutch parliament on Wednesday passed a law banning telecommunications providers from charging their subscribers extra fees for Internet services such as the Skype internet phone and instant messaging.

The law is intended to preserve open access to the Internet at a time when some mobile operators in Europe are blocking or charging extra for specific voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) services including Skype and instant messaging such as WhatsApp, used on Apple's iPhone. "Blocking these types of services or placing an extra charge on them curbs innovation. That is not good for the economy. We are now going to regulate that with the Parliament. That way we'll guarantee an open Internet," Economy Minister Maxime Verhagen said.

The Netherlands would be one of the first countries in the world to legislate open access to the Internet if the law is also enacted by the Dutch Senate or upper house. The legislation also imposes stricter regulations on the use by websites of so-called cookies, which collect data about a consumer's Internet use and personal preferences. The data can be used for more focused online advertising.

Dutch telecoms company KPN, which is struggling to reverse a decline in its domestic business, is likely to be affected, analysts said. KPN has lost market share in its mobile business, largely because smartphone users are increasingly turning to free forms of communication such as Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging, at the expense of traditional mobile services. In May, KPN flagged that it plans to raise data prices for consumers as it tries to offset revenue losses -- for example, following the example of France Telecom, which charges customers for using Skype. KPN declined to say previously how the law will affect the pricing of its new data and voice packages, due to be released this summer, adding it has not yet quantified the impact.

"It means that no mobile operator in the Netherlands can block access to mobile VoIP services, or indeed charge for its use. For KPN and others, it means they must now kiss goodbye to any revenue that they currently generate from charging for access to mobile VoIP services," RBS analyst Giles Thorne told Reuters. He added that they would also have to drop "any plans they had to insulate their legacy voice and text businesses by launching mobile VoIP tariffs. The latter is something that KPN had explicitly said they wanted to do."

Thorne said that given EU policy harmonization, it was likely that similar laws would follow in other countries, either led by the parliaments in the member states (as in the Dutch case) or driven by the EU in the center. "Whichever way you cut it though, the powers that be are falling clearly down on the side of having an open and neutral Internet. Pro-consumer, pro-competition, pro-harmonization. The EU way!"

KPN's 47 percent share of its home market is under threat as it competes with Vodafone Group and Deutsche Telekom AG and increasingly with cable firms wooing customers with bundled packages of super-fast broadband, television and telephone services.

New Laws For Virus Makers

2011-06-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

With all the hackings going, Japan is coming up with new laws concerning both spam and viruses, namely jail time. The punishment includes either jail time or a fine or both. Many countries have laws about certain viruses and even spam but it is not nearly as strict. When it comes to internet fax, there are laws about sending spam that includes jail. This is a new age where people are actually being trained for a cyber war and even how to create viruses in order to be able to destroy them. This is not the first time that Japan has tried to pass these laws because earlier there were certain clauses in the bill that were grey areas. The new laws will allow data to be seized or copied from computer servers connected to any computer seized during an investigation, as well as giving authorities the right to request that ISPs retain communication logs of parties under investigation for up to 60 days. Some might argue that this invades certain rights but the trade off here is safety of sensitive material. How much privacy are you willing to give up for more security?

Using Twitter

2011-06-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Like so many people have been caught doing stupid things, this might take the cake. I am sure that you guys have probably come across the whole scandal with the mayor sending pictures over Twitter. What I want to know is are people really that dense to be using public thing such as Twitter or a social networking or even email and internet fax to send things that they will regret later on. Here are some professional tips I found on actually using the site correctly:

Public:

Tweets: When you post an answer in the "What's happening?" box and press "Tweet," whatever you have posted will appear on your Twitter home timeline as well as on the home timelines of all Twitter account holders who follow you.

Retweets: Hover your mouse over a Tweet in your timeline and the option to "retweet" will appear. Think of it as an endorsement. The retweet will then appear in the timelines of all who follow you.

Replies: "Reply" gives you the opportunity to send a comment to the person who posted a Tweet that appears in your timeline. When you hit the reply button, type in your comment and then click "Tweet," your reply will be posted on that person's timeline.

Private:

Message, Direct Message or DM: Now simply referred to as "message" on Twitter, this is a way to send a private message to a Twitter follower. Just like Tweets, messages are limited to 140 characters. Here's how to send them:

1. Click the "Messages" button on the top menu bar of your page.

2. You'll land on a page showing your private messages history. Click the "New Message" button.

3. In the pop-up box, type the name or user name of the person you wish to send to.

4. Enter the message you wish to convey privately, and click "Send."

Your account: Yes, it may seem to defeat Twitter's purpose of discovering news from fresh sources, but Twitter users can make their accounts private.

Under your account name and photo in the upper right-hand corner of your page, simply select "Settings" and then check the box "Protect my Tweets."

With a protected account, you will be asked to grant specific approval to each Twitter user whom you wish to view your timeline. That means people will have to request to follow you; your profile and Tweets will be visible only to approved users; your Tweets will not appear in Twitter search results.

Who is the Real Culprit in the Internet War?

2011-06-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

In the past couple week, after it has been discovered that China has been training people specifically for internet combat and hacking skills, it has been debated who really started an internet war. Here is the excerpt from the article:

The Chinese military accused the U.S. on Friday of launching a global "Internet war" to bring down Arab and other governments, redirecting the spotlight away from allegations of major online attacks on Western targets originating in China. The accusations Friday by Chinese military academy scholars, and their urging of tougher policing of the Internet, followed allegations this week that computer hackers in China had compromised the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including government officials, military personnel and political activists.

Google traced the origin of the attacks to the city of Jinan that is home to a military vocational school whose computers were linked to a more sophisticated assault on Google's systems 17 months ago. China has denied responsibility for the two attacks. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States had raised its concerns with China over the latest allegations. He said the allegations were serious but made no comment on reports of China's involvement.

Writing in the Communist Party-controlled China Youth Daily newspaper, the scholars did not mention Google's claims, but said recent computer attacks and incidents employing the Internet to promote regime change in Arab nations appeared to have originated with the U.S. government. "Of late, an Internet tornado has swept across the world ... massively impacting and shocking the globe. Behind all this lies the shadow of America," said the article, signed by Ye Zheng and Zhao Baoxian, identified as scholars with the Academy of Military Sciences. It is also important to remember that the "internet war" would affect many industries, include internet phone services.

"Faced with this warmup for an Internet war, every nation and military can't be passive but is making preparations to fight the Internet war," it said. While nuclear war was a strategy of the industrial era, Internet war is a product of the information age, the article said. Such conflicts stand to be hugely destructive, threatening national security and the very existence of the state, it said.

Sharing Your Netflix Password

2011-06-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

There are new laws that state that if you share your Netflix password, either intentionally or unintentionally, you can be fined and even get jail time. This applies to all the ways that you use the media, whether you get it through a phones service or television. The law goes into effect July 1st in Tennessee and makes stealing $500 or less a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500. Slip past the $500 threshold in purloined media and it's an automatic felony, which means serious jail time and much heavier fines. The bill, supported by the recording industry, seeks primarily to penalize hackers and illegal music traffickers, but it'll also be wieldable as a way to go after anyone who's sharing streaming subscription login info with members outside their household. That info's tagged to IP data, which indicates where each user's logging on from, making it a snap for companies like Netflix or Rhapsody to determine if someone's routinely using login info from multiple locations. Whether you are allowed to login to a friend's PC to watch may be up to your contract terms with Netflix. Just something to mull over for the weekend.

Handwritten Notes

2011-05-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Running a business takes more than just getting an internet phone service and internet fax. Although those phone services enable you to provide great customer service, there needs to be a personally touch such as handwritten notes. The study also showed a need for technology that brings handwritten and spoken communication into the digital domain; 75 percent of the respondents said they saw value in the ability to computerize, index and search, as well as to share handwritten notes and associated audio. And 47 percent felt that better note-taking would improve both their personal job performance and decision-making within their organizations. Handwritten notes also help make the world go round, the study found: 37 percent of all workers use handwritten notes to organize their priorities through to-do lists. How do you write your notes? Do the handwritten ones play an important role when running your business?

Application Integration in Internet Fax

2011-05-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

One of the most overlooked features of internet fax is the fact that the program can be used with any application. You can type up a document in as a Word document or even in Outlook and then send it like a fax. The person that receives the internet fax can either have it come in through the internet, or if they still have the old fashion fax machines, it will just print out. Another great things about internet fax is that you will never miss another important fax because of the alerts that come through either as a text or through a PDA device. The fax logs keep everything very organized so I am better able to manage the documents and keep accurate records. I can manage everything from the online account which is password protected so I do not have to worry about the security of my documents. To top it all off, they have great support staff which can help out with any problems or questions that I may come across.

Boiling Everything Down to Math Equations

2011-03-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Deep understanding of biological learning and intelligence will help engineers design truly intelligent machines and systems, which in turn could improve the performance of things ranging from cars and aerospace vehicles to the electric power grid. Paul Werbos, a program director for engineering at the National Science Foundation, has spent much of his life using mathematics to describe and understand what the mind and brain do and how they work.

In the journal Neural Nets in 2009, Werbos summarized his ideas on how intelligence works in the brain and how to build technology that captures this intelligence. He provided a roadmap for building systems that can learn, imagine, and create as well as the mammal brain does, and for understanding better how the more powerful intelligence we see in the human mind is embodied in a larger society.

These findings can also be applied to communication studies and technologies. It can be used to improve internet phone technologies and even the way businesses communicate with clients and customers.

Scams Using Facebook

2011-03-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Scams come in all different flavors and textures. They can either be done through email, internet fax, phone services and now through social networking sites. As of late, there was an extra search box that appeared on people's accounts. It was probably a result of some type of spyware that was targeting the browser. The social networking site said in a release that they were not the ones that put it there or were testing anything. Another scam that was going on through Facebook was targeting the elderly where the scammer claims to be a grandchild in distress and needs money. This is one of the lowest scams that are happening in the world. It is horrible that they would actually exploit the generosity of older people and take their money, which is more often than not the only money they have. The site is being used to get information about the old people and then the person calls them and sounds believable. It must take a person with no moral standards to do this type of scam. What are your thoughts?

Scams Over Internet Phones

2011-03-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

Now the scammers are using internet phones such as Skype to make their living. Skype has more than 600 million users and, like other VoIP services, is very inexpensive, giving criminals an enticing new pool from which to draw. Skype can also be used to call landlines or mobile phones, meaning no matter where you are, a fake bank could put you in real danger. Several recent reports have highlighted the dangers of “smishing” scams, which send unsolicited text messages telling recipients they need to contact their bank immediately. The victim is asked to call a toll-free number included in the text and provide their account information and password to an automated voice-response system. The problem is that neither the SMS nor the number to be called have anything to do with the bank. A variant called "vishing" is even sneakier — it uses pre-recorded "robocalls" instead of SMS to contact victims. To the security-conscious, these ploys are easily thwarted by simply deleting the message and calling or visiting your bank branch to see if there is indeed a problem. “If people fall for these scams, it is because they haven't learned to be as suspicious of strange texts as they may be of random phone calls or e-mails asking for information,” Krebs told SecurityNewsDaily.

Universal Inbox

2011-03-12T18:16:00.000-08:00

With technology constantly increasing, the way we communicate has taken many different forms from texting, emails, and internet fax. The developers are always aiming to simplify our lives but with the growing mess, it is becoming harder and harder to deal with. The researchers are working on a smart universal inbox that is custom designed for each user. One of the reasons that it is not out on the market is because "human nature" is holding it back. I do not think that it would be very efficient because different ways of communication have different purposes. For example, texts are supposed to be short and be able to get the message across while emails and internet fax are much more professional and formal. Where do you stand on the whole communication deal?

Best Buy: Your Next Car Dealer

2011-03-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

I bet you thought that the day would never come when you would go into a store browsing for movies, internet fax software, or other electronics and happen to find a car that you like and have been looking for and then take it home. Well people, the day may be closer than you think. With the gas prices astronomically high, people have made a push for making electric cars and mass producing it more quickly. Some might also argue that the further along we move towards creating that "holy grail" alternative energy, the better security there will be in the country. One of the reasons that might be a good idea, besides the fact that this might help with the gas prices is that the store will also be able to sell the hardware that would need to come with the car in order to charge it. Also these store get some much more traffic than car dealerships so they would have more people seeing these cars. They might eventually be even more affordable than ever before.

The White House in the Cloud

2011-02-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

Every since phone services and internet fax started using cloud technology, it has become a great hit with the rest of the world. Now even the White House is putting its data and other information in the cloud. It is a great idea because it is so secure and there is also a lot more space. Here is an excerpt from an article on TechNewsDaily:

“We spend too much time and money dealing with computer issues,” Kundra told the audience. “Instead, we need to make the U.S. infrastructure better.” He pointed out that over the past decade, as many businesses eliminated the majority of their data centers, the government instead added approximately 1,500 centers.

A data center is a physical facility that houses computer systems and components such as backup systems. Today, much of that data can be stored more efficiently by cloud-computing services. The goal, said Kundra, is to shut down 800 data centers by 2015, which will create a fundamental shift in spending related to information technology, shaving billions from the current $80 billion spent on IT.

The move should make government agencies more efficient, with resources going toward improving services, Kundra said. All agencies will be evaluating their technology strategies, looking to improve efficiency, agility and innovation. For instance, the General Services Administration consolidated the multiple e-mail services used within the agency to a single cloud-based platform. The move is expected to save $15 million over the next five years.

The Cloud Security Alliance is a not-for-profit organization promoting best practices for security assurance within cloud computing. Among its approximately 90 members are AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novell and Symantec.

Running Out of IP Addresses

2011-02-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Ever since 1981, the Web pages we use today run on what’s called IPv4 — the fourth version of the Internet Protocol, where data from a computer connects to the Internet network based on the address. The company that allocates and delegates these blocks of IP addresses to five regional registries — the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority — has given out its last block. Although the IPv4 — which is made up of more than 4 billion addresses — was initially thought to be very large when it was first developed, the times have changed. I wonder what this will do to the internet phone service companies. Since the internet phone business is expanding rapidly, this may mean that there would be some problems developing. But the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed a new protocol back in 1999 called IPv6, which allows for roughly 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique IP addresses. Instead of just numbers, the protocol also incorporates letters. Do you think that there might be a point where they will run out of addresses?

Tech From Space in Your Car

2011-01-23T12:56:00.000-08:00

These days, cars seem to have everything in them from some sort of phone service to different types of entertainment. They also have some newer technologies that were only used on space ships before.

1. Solar panels. These are the newest thing when it comes to being more green. Given the limited amount of surface area available on a typical passenger vehicle, solar panels are not yet — and might not ever be — efficient enough to energize an entire car. But think of them as a nice way for your car to soak up some rays, kind of like how humans do via sunroofs and convertible tops.

2. GPS. Originally planned by the United States' Department of Defense for military purposes, became available for civilian use as it blossomed in the 1990s.

3.GM's 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco features an innovative "aero shutter" behind its front grill that actively opens or closes in order to boost fuel efficiency. At low speeds, the shutters remain open to allow for engine-cooling air flow. At highway speeds, the shutters automatically seal up to improve aerodynamics. GM said that the air shutter system adds almost half a mile (0.8 km) per gallon of fuel efficiency in combined city and highway driving.

Phone Tag - A Thing of the Past

2011-01-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest clients of internet phone systems are people in sales. With the VoIP services, people are able to be in the field and still in contact with their business. Some of the more prominent features which are call forwarding ensure that the phone call of the client always gets through or is at least redirected to another person that can take the call. The system for voice mail is even better than the original versions of it. Everything is right there on the screen of the one account. Visual voice mail can be extremely useful when keep records of the messages for easy recovery. RingCentral is just one of the many competitors in the the phone systems business but they offer some of the best prices and package deal which include internet fax. If you are not sure which one to try, it would be a good thing to try the free trials of the different internet phone companies.

PlayStation Phone

2011-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

These are just rumors that were leaked out by a Chinese company that a hold of the video footage. This is a smart phone that goes past even all the features of having internet phone and internet fax services. When the bottom of the phone slides out, it is a game controller. It has apps that have to be bought and even has sensors so it can be controlled by tilting. The phone is an idea by Sony and there's a D-pad, standard 4-button layout on the right and flat touch panels in the middle that must act as thumbsticks. It is not clear yet when it will be out and what kinds of games will be on it. What do you think of this concept? Now it seems like there is nothing that a phone cannot do. Maybe they should not even be called phones because they do so much more than that. Calling is just one of the many capabilities.

Technologies That Are Going Extinct

2010-12-30T19:40:00.000-08:00

The times are constantly changing, especially in the sense of technology. Newer and better things are always replacing the existing tech we have. Here are a couple technologies that were innovation in their time that are going to be practically gone by this time next year:

1. Cable TV. Everything is going to digital now and through the internet. Pretty soon there will be providers such as Apple in the television market and many others. This will help to make the television provider business less of a monopoly and people will have more choice as to the type of service they want and the money that they want to pay.

2. Landlines. Since everything is converging into the internet, the phone service providers might as well jump on board. About one fourth of people are on their cell phones or use an internet phone service. The only justification to still having landlines is that they will still work if the power goes our but power outages are so infrequent that it shouldn't even be an excuse.

3. Hard Drives. Laptops won’t be the only casualty if the cloud establishes data storage and processing dominance. The whole idea of cloud computing drives a stake through the heart of the concept of keeping your information stored locally on a failure-prone device such as a hard drive.

The Internet and the Chinese Government

2010-12-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

It seems as though there is a rather thin line between control and motivation. The Chinese government is scared of the internet because of the possible ways it can destroy their government through knowledge. The government is trying to control the way that people use the internet through consequences such as prison terms. This leads to the question what is exactly misusing the internet? I grew up in a world where knowledge is encouraged and fought over and here is a country that is monitoring the type of knowledge that its people can get. Ignorance never seems like the right solution in any political or economical problem. The government is even struggling with its views on communication devices such as email and internet fax along with social networking and Twitter. Can someone explain to me the benefit of ignorance?

Future Friends: Not All Human

2010-12-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

In the future, we will be using our phone services to communicate with friends, 10% of whom will be robots. Don't believe me? Check the friends list on any social network and you will see that many of them have bots that can be interacted with just like humans. Those fake, ad-spewing social accounts will get more sophisticated, so much so that companies will actually start using them to interact with customers. Gartner says these "social bots" will be able to engage convincingly with customers and have two-way interactions, and in turn customers will possibly interact with these bots as much as they do with real friends. This is a significant leap from current social network marketing campaigns, which are very one-sided. Companies mostly just send out announcements to customers interspersed with a few wry jokes, depending on the courage of the marketing department. But these social bots will interact on a more personal level, which will benefit companies because their customers feel they are being catered to as an individual. You can bet there will still be ads, though, regardless of how interested the bot is in what happened to you at work.

What If It Is Too Late?

2010-11-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

Since the holidays are coming soon and people are off work, we have plenty of more time to spend with each other. Although some people do not take the chance to be together because of some petty problems. Even though that aunt or brother might be the most obnoxious, annoying or mean person, does not mean that you have to be. Maybe setting an example of letting go would get them to lighten up as well. When we look back on our lives, it should not be full of regret. If we do not talk to these people that we call family, it might be too late. No matter how much you may hate your mother or father, they were still the ones there in the beginning. Also, distance should not be a factor in today's world anymore. If some of your family lives far away in a different country, you could still use internet phone services that many companies offer free of charge. They are so easy to use that even your grandmother can use it. Make an effort, before it is too late.

The Holidays

2010-11-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

With the holidays approaching rather quickly, people are on the hunt for all the most popular and sought after gadgets. Many stores are even doing huge sales before Black Friday. With the economy in the shape that it is in today, consumers are more cautious when they spend. According to experts, things are starting to look better but many people of still feeling the effects of the falling economy. This will definitely be a factor in the Christmas shopping season this year. A lot of the same things are on sale season to season. The necessities such as phone services and entertainment devices are usually marked down to a reasonable price. Over the years, I seen that the spirit of Christmas or the other holidays is diminishing and people only seem to care about the number of presents that are under the tree. What about the meaning behind these things? One of the best holiday seasons that I remember was when I felt wanted for the first time. To be honest, I do not even remember the gifts that I received. Please remember to appreciate what you have this holiday season.

Protecting Your Documents

2010-11-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

It is very important to protect your data such as emails, internet fax, and even voice mail that is stored on your computer through the use of encryption. If you store important data on your computer such as sensitive financial records, encrypt the files. Microsoft offers easy to follow directions for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 users at Microsoft.com. Encrypted files can only be read by a user who has logged on with a designated password. If you leave the computer for a specified amount of time, Windows will log you off and you'll have to retype the password to resume your work. A thief would only be able to access encrypted files if the laptop was stolen while you were logged on and your session had not timed out. This can be a very useful tool because too many people are not very computer literate and the information that is sensitive can be stolen and used either for malicious purposes or against the person it was stone from.

What Pushes You Buttons?

2010-10-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

A friend had asked what specific thing really pushes my buttons and what is the one thing that I won't stand for. Without answering, I asked the same question back. He said when a guy hits a girl. I promptly replied that the thing I cannot stand is when the girl cannot fight back. Sure it is one thing to say that women have rights and there is equality but what about those primitive people that still believe that there are specific roles? There are women who believe in equality yet when it comes down to it, they will submit and listen when they are told that they are inferior and cannot do what men can do in the way of physical strength or even intelligence. The other day I heard someone joking around that there is no such thing as a female programmer and that they should keep their nose out of phone services and other computer building professions. These claims that men are superior are rather interesting because these imbeciles don't even know that it has been well documented that there is really no difference between the intelligences of men and women. In fact, in the different industries it is to the company's advantage to have women because they see things from a different perspective which can be crucial to solving different problems. Think about it.

New Types of Malware

2010-10-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

People that use the internet either for entertainment or business professional that are constantly sending and receiving internet fax and email and that have some sort of a profile online should be a little bit more cautious and use common sense. A new virus is predicted to arise that will target personal information through the use of social networking sites. This program will lie in wait and observe the users actions and then copy the common patterns in order to spread it. The program is mostly likely still in the beginning stages because it is actually rather complex. One of the advantages that the virus has is that it can go undetected while spread it. Computer science researchers are working on being on step ahead of anyone who might be trying to utilize the connectivity of the social networking sites and quite possibly the unsuspecting nature of the user.

An App Tells You Where That Plane is Headed

2010-09-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Now here is an interesting concept, an app that is so noisy it will tell you where a particular airplane in the sky is going. I guess this is a good app if you have nothing better to do than to nose in other people's business. Maybe there will be an app or some type of phone service where you can actually ask the pilots where they are headed. I have to wonder just many more of these useless apps the people are coming out with and exactly who are the people that are using the space on their smartphones or iPads for these toys. Although it only costs $2.99, it seems like a waste of money. Then again, the purpose of some of these apps is to entertain.

911 Phone Services

2010-09-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

The 911 emergency phone service might need to come with a couple disclaimers. First of all, the system was created some time ago which means that it was not made for cell phones. Using a home phone, the dispatcher was able to correctly identify the location of the caller. Now, if you were to call 911 in Oakland, California, for example, you would reach the Highway Patrol which is great if there had been an accident but slightly useless if there is a burglar in your house. They would have to use call forwarding to get your call to the dispatcher at 911, losing very important time. It is still not entirely useless though if you have to call 911 from your cell phone. You will always be able to get to the Safety Services that you need.

Is Email Addictive?

2010-09-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

In a recent survey, it was found that more than half the people check their business email outside of the office. The definition of the 9-to-5 is constantly changing and these days adults are extending their days by checking emails and internet fax, and getting caught up on computer work just to make the workload lighter. About 20% of people check their emails right before they go to sleep or right after they wake up in bed. Many others go to such lengths as to check it while on vacation. This obviously will lead to loads of stress that even a vacation will have a hard time taking care of. It is recommended that people send reminders to their contacts that they will be away and then to actually go on vacation and focus only on the relaxing. Are you addicted to email and constantly checking if there are any new messages? How do you deal with the stress?

Paper Thin Batteries

2010-08-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

This new innovation is literally green. We have been looking for ways to save the planet and not use so much precious energy and resources. We have gone to such lengths as enforcing recycling and even huge companies switch over to more efficient use of technology such as internet fax and internet phones. Enter battery made from algae, yes algae.

Imagine wrapping paper that could be a gift in and of itself because it lights up with words like "Happy Birthday." That is one potential application of a new biodegradable battery made of cellulose, the stuff of paper. Scientists worldwide are striving to develop thin, flexible, lightweight, inexpensive, environmentally friendly batteries made entirely from nonmetal parts. Among the most promising materials for these batteries are conducting polymers. However, until now these have impractical for use in batteries — for instance, their ability to hold a charge often degrades over use.

The key to this new battery turned out to be an often bothersome green algae known as Cladophora. Rotting heaps of this hairlike freshwater plant throughout the world can lead to unsightly, foul-smelling beaches.

This algae makes an unusual kind of cellulose typified by a very large surface area, 100 times that of the cellulose found in paper. This allowed researchers to dramatically increase the amount of conducting polymer available for use in the new device, enabling it to better recharge, hold and discharge electricity. "We have long hoped to find some sort of constructive use for the material from algae blooms and have now been shown this to be possible," said researcher Maria Strømme, a nanotechnologist at Uppsala University in Sweden. "This creates new possibilities for large-scale production of environmentally friendly, cost-effective, lightweight energy storage systems."

The new batteries consisted of extremely thin layers of conducting polymer just 40 to 50 nanometers or billionths of a meter wide coating algae cellulose fibers only 20 to 30 nanometers wide that were collected into paper sheets. "They're very easy to make," Strømme said.

They could hold 50 to 200 percent more charge than similar conducting polymer batteries, and once better optimized, they might even be competitive with commercial lithium batteries, the researchers noted. They also recharged much faster than conventional rechargeable batteries — while a regular battery takes at least an hour to recharge, the new batteries could recharge in anywhere from eight minutes to just 11 seconds. The new battery also showed a dramatic boost in the ability to hold a charge over use. While a comparable polymer battery showed a 50 percent drop in the amount of charge it could hold after 60 cycles of discharging and recharging, the new battery showed just a 6 percent loss through 100 charging cycles. "When you have thick polymer layers, it's hard to get all the material to recharge properly, and it turns into an insulator, so you lose capacity," said researcher Gustav Nyström, an electrochemist at Uppsala University. "When you have thin layers, you can get it fully discharged and recharged."

The researchers suggest their batteries appear well-suited for applications involving flexible electronics, such as clothing and packaging. "We're not focused on replacing lithium ion batteries — we want to find new applications where batteries are not used today," Strømme told LiveScience. "What if you could put batteries inside wallpaper to charge sensors in your home? If you could put this into clothes, can you couple that with detectors to analyze sweat from your body to tell if there's anything wrong?"

Future directions of research include seeing how much charge these batteries lose over time, a problem with polymer batteries and all batteries in general. They also want to see how much they can scale up these batteries, "see if we can make them much, much larger," Strømme said.

Variety on Facebook

2010-08-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a trend for the over-50 crowd. They are now on Facebook. Even though the younger generation is the one that is mostly using the social networking site, there are also a lot of older people that are using it as well. According to surveys, they are interested in either reconnecting with old friends or to keep in touch with family and colleagues. Other ways of communication over the internet, such as internet phone services and video conferencing, have also grown. Since a growing number of online calling is now possible for free use, a lot more people are signing up for it. People are now able to connect with their families and friends in other countries without the high and outrageous price of long distance calling.

Staying Alive

2010-07-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

You would think that by now you have mastered how to stay alive, being able to read this and all. Internet phones keep you connected, internet fax keeps you organized, and the iPhone keeps you entertained. Great. Now what? Here are a couple thing to keep you going when someone de-friends you and the world feels like its coming to an end.

1. Brush and floss. There have been numerous studies that point to a link between good dental hygiene and good heart health.

2. Too tan can be ugly, not to mention deadly. Too much sun can cause skin cancer. Duh.

3. Drink less. Do I really have to go through all the negative side effects of alcohol?

4. Wash your hands. It will also reduce your chances of getting the cold.

5. Get some sleep! Naps not only feel good, they are also good for your physical and mental health. Plus they reduce stress.

Bonding

2010-07-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently bonding has more to do with chemicals in the brain than with the "Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own" thinking. The hormone oxytocin causes lactation and induces labor, but it also plays a vital role in creating a bond with the child. Unfortunately, as our children get older, they do not seem to have the same intensity of bond as their mothers do, chemically speaking. So don't worry if your baby, a couple years from now, doesn't just hop on that internet phone and give you a call just to see how you are doing. That bond has to be build. Oxytocin might have helped women to get the baby out and fed but the rest is up to the parents. Sometimes you will also find that family and sharing that bond has nothing to do with blood.

Voice Mail From God?

2010-07-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

We have all seen just how the press has changed religion by enabling the spoken word to be written down. Now with the evolving technology in communication, it is changing again. Internet fax and internet phones let people connect with each other easier and faster. Also, there are apps for the iPhone that enable people to have their holy text with them where ever they go. People are able to practice their religion on the go and on their terms in new places and times. There are also such things as virtual congregations. I have to wonder though if this is really the way that religion should be going. It is the 21st century and things we do should keep up with the times but what about something as timeless as belief? Can we really meditate through our iPhones and all the other ways that we are constantly connected?

Microsoft Office 2010

2010-07-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

It has been released in June and will probably be part of the new computer that you will purchase either this year or in the future. It is not that much different from Office 2007 except that it has better integration with the internet. This might be especially important if you want to be able to access your documents from anywhere. Another great thing about the new release is that it seamlessly integrates with internet fax and any internet phone provider that you may have. Some concerns that have been voiced are that the documents might not be safe since they are online. The truth is that internet fax and the storage of documents is one of the safest places you can put your information. It is as good as if they were stored on your computer.

Useful Video Games

2010-06-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

Video games are not just used for fun and entertainment anymore. Over the years technology has evolved and the place it is most evident is in gaming and the visual aspect of technology. It has also been seen in communication, such as internet phones and internet fax. Video games are used to help with the simulation for the preparation of astronauts. The simulations use real measurements and times. It is one of the best ways to get those people ready for the real thing. Research has shown that it is even better than the underwater simulations. During the video games, the astronauts also get to rate their feelings and opinion about it which helps with improvements. Obviously, these flights are no longer largely sponsored by NASA. I can just imagine where this is going to go.

Minds Adapting to the Internet

2010-06-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Our minds are changing and constantly adapting to the technology that we have now. The internet being one of the most used mediums is what keeps people connected and informed. Some people believe that the internet will diminish the population's ability to concentrate on one thing and think critically. I think that the internet is making us more well rounded people. We have the ability to use internet phones and read internet fax. The internet is what connects people with each other for an affordable price. In the world today, we have to be about to absorb lots of information quickly and be able to concentrate on one thing. Unfortunately we still have to overcome the fact that multitasking will almost always diminish the productivity. The internet can help with that, not hurt that concentration.

Decreasing the Spread of Germs

2010-06-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

Most hospitals have started using internet fax to decrease the use of paper and help the environment. With the economy being really tight right now, it also helped save much needed money. But there are other ways that technology has affected the medical field recently. To reduce the amount of germs there are on keyboards on computers that are in places where hands are not washed as often, there are now washable keyboards. The decrease in germs will help to stop the spread of hospital borne diseases. There still needs to be some research done on the subject to see which is the best way to prevent germs.

Materials in Innovation

2010-05-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Some of the devices that we use now are available thanks to the new materials discovered. Whether it is internet fax and the computer where all the records are stored or the new technology in medicine, new materials are always coming into play when they are discovered. Unfortunately, these earth elements are rare and we are running short. It seems like researchers will have to figure out ways to make some of the innovations such as hybrid cars and the HD TVs work with different elements. The elements that are abundant are still very valuable to the building of infrastructures.

All This Data and Nowhere to Put It

2010-05-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

As your computer might be piling up with data such as internet fax and other internet phone services, so is the data in the world getting larger. Now the problem is where to put all this information. There are super computers but the the problem is that they can get awfully hot and that will lead to crashing and melting of the hard drive...bad news. There are supercomputers that use either water or air conditioning to power those big machines. So the plan is to set up data centers in places like Iceland. Unfortunately, not a lot of people, who are capable with the computers want to move there. There are other places such as Scotland and Canada which have people who have the knowledge to run these things.

Blippy Users Need Not to Worry

2010-04-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

If you are someone that uses the social networking site, Blippy, you might have heard about the incident where some user's credit card numbers were being posted on the internet. According to the CEO of the site, it was an isolated incident and there were only four people who's security was compromised. Here are the rest of the details of the news story. Please leave your comments!

Blippy quickly released a press release explaining that only four user accounts were compromised, and not from a leak or a glitch in the system. The data leak was actually from an isolated incident months ago during the service's beta period.
"We addressed the problem and scrubbed the data clean months ago. But the information was still available in Google's cache, which we didn't know about," said Ashvin Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, in an interview with TechNewsDaily.
The problem has since been fixed, but a Google cache of four users' information remained on Google's servers, unknown to Blippy. The cache gained mainstream attention when someone posted a tweet with an image of Google search results containing the sensitive information.
"We reached out to Google, immediately," Kumar said. "This is one of the most important things to us, making sure data is safe and consumers feel comfortable using our service."
Google has since cleared the cached data from Blippy, eliminating the problem, and Blippy is contacting those whose data was displayed in the search results. Blippy is also reviewing ways to increase site security.
Mostly, the company wants users to know the incident was not a result of hacking or a site-wide security breach.

As a side note on the topic of this article, social networking seems to be creating more problems as the number of people that misuse it increase. People and their children should be aware of the types of things that can happen in relation to these sites. Also business professionals should maintain that professionalism and not post anything that they would later regret. The most secure way of sharing information would be through internet fax and a secure email account. Just some things to think about.

Automated Journalism

2010-04-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

The robots are putting even the journalists out of business. In Tokyo, researchers have developed a robot that assesses its environment and even asks people that it meets questions. Then after putting together a report, it publishes it on the internet or uses internet fax to send the information to a database. This can come in useful in dangerous places or in terrain that is hard for people to get through. By being able to see and know what it is like in remote areas, people will be able to better understand their surroundings and use them more wisely. Even though this might put some journalists out of work, it will not eliminate them because the human element is still needed in the media.

What Separates Humans and Computers?

2010-04-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

The distinction between humans and computers is pretty clear and obvious, for now. I believe there will be a time where we will be able to interact with computers the way we do with other people. Computers will be able to do things just by the sound of our voices. Business will take advantage of different features that will pervade into that area. Internet faxing will be done just by talking and the computer writing it down because they will be able to keep up with the speakers. This feature could come in handy to the many students that never get a chance to hear the professor and write notes down at the same time, trust me, I've been there. One of the key hurdles that researchers will need to overcome is the problem of getting the computers to multitask, just like human brains. This will lead to more advanced problem solving and memory. Eventually this will benefit the public to a great extent. I will keep you posted how it is going to affect internet phone providers such as RingCentral, also.

Cat Brain Inspires Future Developments in the Quest for Artificial Intelligence

2010-04-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

With the advancing technology, there are computers being developed that will enable the device to mimic and recognize information like human brains do. The first step is understanding how it works and a cat brain was a great model. The researchers are building the transistors, creatively called memristors, in the same way that nature builds a brain. These "synapses" link pathways in the device, all the while remembering the pathways based on the strength and length of the signal that went through them. Regular computers are able to process very linear information that does not have many variables. Maybe somewhere down the road, these computers will be mass marketed and even utilized by business to get things down as soon as someone thinks of it. For example, internet faxing will not only be done on the computer but there interface will be so much more than a key board and a mouse. I have to wonder though, if there will ever be a substitute for human interaction and what defines "human".

NASA's Steps Forward

2010-04-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent news about NASA. Comment and tell me what you make of it.

"This budget provides an increase to NASA at a time when funding is scarce," he said. "It will enable us to accomplish inspiring exploration, science and R and D, the kinds of things the agency has been known for throughout its history."
While deep space targets are not specified, the budget "enables NASA to set its sights on destinations beyond Earth orbit and develop the technologies that will be required to get us there, both with humans and robots," Bolden said.
"We're talking about technologies that the field has long wished we had but for which we did not have the resources," he said. "These are things that don't exist today but we'll make real in the coming years. This budget enables us to plan for a real future in exploration with capabilities that will make amazing things not only possible, but affordable and sustainable."

Now the question I want to ask is how exactly do they plan to do what they "are known for" with the budget cuts and having manned flights done by commercial companies? Seriously, in my experience NASA stood for the "world out there" and exploring and coming up with new ideas and things. The staple to that exploration were the manned flights out into space. This is what people dreamed of and strove to accomplish. NASA is the reason we are able to do some many things through the internet and satellite at incredible speeds, such as internet phones, internet faxing, GPS, just to name a few. Since they are doing away with that, the motivation and the excitement of the possibility to go to space will be decreased if the rights belong to private company. People will not look to the stars and dream of being there because it will be decided by a private company if they go there.

More Apple Innovations

2010-04-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

I found a great article for you guys! It is about the constantly changing technology of Apple's company. Multi-tasking might be a good idea in theory but in practice no one can truly master doing many things at one time. One of the reasons for this is that there can only be a certain number of electrical impulses in the brain and at a certain pace. A faster pace is called a seizure. Even if doing simple things like reading email or internet fax while listening to music at the same time can be unproductive. A lot of business people are the ones using these smartphones in order to accomplish a lot of task from one location at the same time but the reality of this is that they are being less efficient. Smart phones and internet phone services should be kept separate anyway to increase the ability to get something done faster without distractions. Read the article and comment away!

Apple unveiled details of its next-generation iPhone operating system Thursday in a press event at the company's headquarters here.
The new operating system, iPhone OS 4, will be released to developers this week and to consumers this summer. It will give developers access to calendar, photo library, still image and video data, and includes features aimed at helping apps run faster.
As expected, the new OS will support multitasking of apps.
"We weren't the first to this party but we're going to be the best, just like cut and paste," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, alluding to the fact that cut-and-paste hadn't been available until a year after the first iPhone launched.
"It's really easy to implement multitasking in a way that drains battery life. If you don't do it just right your phone's going to feel sluggish and your battery life is going to go way down. We've figured out how to implement multitasking of third-party apps and avoid those things."
With the new OS, users will be able to press the home button twice to see a menu of all the currently active apps, which appears as a bar along the bottom of the screen. Tapping one of the apps takes you directly into that app. Apps can remain running in the background.
Apple demonstrated how you can keep listening to music in Pandora while doing other things on the phone, and how the phone could deliver push notifications to alert users to an incoming Skype call.
"It was really simple to implement. Just a dozen lines of code," said Skype's head of product development David Ponsford.
To address privacy concerns, the OS will also let you know (via a notification on the app's icon) when an app running in the background has requested your location from the device's GPS.
The announcement comes less than a week after Apple's launch of its tablet computer, the iPad. Jobs said the company had sold 450,000 iPads to date, and that users have downloaded more than 1 million iPad applications and over 650,000 digital books from the iBooks store.
Jobs also added that the company has sold more than 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod Touches.
The iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad all run iPhone OS 3.0. The operating system is based on an OS X core, but with a touch-centric interface and optimizations aimed at increasing screen responsiveness and maximizing battery life.
The current iPhone OS has been widely criticized for its lack of support for full multitasking: It only allows a few core apps, such as iPod and Mail, to run in the background while another app is active. The OS also restricts add-on software to apps available through Apple's App Store.
The App Store currently contains 185,000 apps, Jobs said, adding than users have downloaded more than 4 billion apps from it to date. About 3,500 of those apps are optimized for the iPad.
The new OS also gives users the ability to group apps in folders, instead of just laying them out on the home screens.

Other features planned for iPhone OS 4 include a 5x digital zoom feature in the camera, and the ability to tap to focus in video. (Tap to focus was already available for still images in iPhone OS 3.).

Dangers of a Home Business

2010-04-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

Most people that start their own business at home only see the great parts of it. You know, the fact that you don't have to shower, put on a nice suit, and the only traffic jam that you might run into is that laundry basket. Some of things that those people see to miss is the fact that there are no colleagues to interact with and no technical support. Another very important aspect of working at home is the load of all the electrical devices. According to the data from the National Fire Incident Reporting System there are thousands of house fires that are started because of things like the computer, printer, fax machine, and telephone being connected and turned on all at once. This is another reason why internet fax is such a great innovation. It saves on space and it is done entirely through the computer, because there is no fax machine to contend with. Employers are wanting people to work at home these days because that would save on office space and they use telecommunication services such as call forwarding so that the business still appears to be in one place.

Konica Minolta evolves enterprise document solutions

2010-03-30T03:49:00.000-07:00

Another interesting and useful article, enjoy!

Combining breakthrough styling with fast colour and cost-effective black and white output, Konica Minolta's bizhubs C452, C552 and C652 provide all-in-one functionality (print, copy, scan, fax) for high-end office workgroups and applications that require 45 to 50 pages per minute (ppm) colour and 45 to 65ppm black and white document production.

These new top-of-the-line models were redesigned and reengineered, with the end-user in mind - to better accommodate the way in which each person works. Primarily used as the central MFPs in large and mid-sized offices, these machines are now easier to use, produce higher quality documents, boast high reliability and productivity, as well as lower TCO and are compatible with a variety of network environments.

"From features that enable users to communicate and collaborate better, to management and security features that ensure accountability, the new bizhubs provide the technology needed for success," says Andrew Griffith, product manager for office products at Bidvest company, Konica Minolta South Africa.

The new bizhub solutions feature a hard disk drive Box function that allows users to save scan, copy, print or fax data to the Box. It also permits boxes to be assigned to individuals, project teams, departments or themes for more reliable storage (up to 3 000 documents or 10 000 pages), seamless distribution and easier sharing of knowledge. Now, the Box also includes functionality that allows users to change print and send settings for files residing in the Box, switch from colour to black and white, change resolution, combine documents and more.

The standard Colour Internet Fax means companies can cost-efficiently send a colour or black and white fax to any MFP that supports the Profile C standard, even machines outside the intranet. Because this method uses the Internet, there are no additional associated costs.

"Normally, the text of a scanned document cannot be searched," Griffith adds. "Our Searchable PDF feature uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn any scanned document into a searchable one, ideal for quickly finding text in large documents, or to cut and paste text from a Searchable PDF to create new documents."

The i-Option function assists in enhancing a bizhub's capabilities by offering greater convenience and customisation. Utilise the bizhub's control panel as a general purpose Web browser that enables PDF files to be previewed, downloaded and printed without a PC. The Image Panel function divides the control panel into three areas - input, edit and output and allows each to be customised based on the user's needs, thus improving workflow.

"Scanning to yourself is now easier than ever with Scan to Me," he explains. "If user authentication is set, selecting the 'Me' one-touch key in the address book allows scan data to be sent to the user's own e-mail address. Use the Scan to Home feature to send the data to a registered PC.
These simple but useful security features allow administrators to limit or disable any scan and send traffic outside of these ranges, effectively restricting where scans can be sent.
"In addition, our new log management features help to better manage usage and costs for an office's new bizhub. The log has been expanded to allow logs to be compiled for counts and accounts, as well as the existing capability for audits. This means the bizhub doesn't just record which users have performed which jobs. It also records paper size, number of copies made and other useful cost and resource management information."

By copying or printing documents with a special security pattern, the C652/C552/C452's Copy Guard prevents unauthorised copies from being made on the bizhub. The Password Copy feature allows this protection to be cancelled by entering a password before attempting to re-copy the document.

Furthermore, the bizhub's finger vein authentication uses images of finger vein patterns captured by scanning the finger. This biometric measurement uses an internal characteristic as identification, and is nearly impossible to falsify. The unit is remarkably easy to install as an option and now offers improved authentication accuracy and a more ergonomic and efficient shape that blends in with the design of the MFP.

"Working in conjunction with finger-vein and IC card authentication, the easy-to-use ID & Print feature provides users with a secure printing environment. After sending a document from a PC to the bizhub, simply touch the bizhub with your finger or IC card to automatically begin printing - there's no need to enter a password," Griffith concludes.

A perfect condominium setting

2010-03-23T02:58:00.000-07:00

If you are searching for the perfect condominium suite in downtown Toronto, you can buy with confidence at Bohemian Embassy Flats and Lofts. Now well under construction, this highly successful condominium is situated in one of the city's most vibrant and exciting areas.

Discover spectacular designs and incredible value from Pemberton Group, one of the Greater Toronto Area's most trusted builders. Buy any suite at Bohemian Embassy now, and you can take advantage of Pemberton's limited-time-only special — receive $10,000 off the purchase price.

Situated in Toronto's artistic and avant-garde Queen Street neighbourhood, this condominium places owners in the midst of a wealth of amenities. There are plentiful restaurants close by, as well as galleries, shops, bistros, and fashion boutiques. Named for its industry-chic architecture, Bohemian Embassy fits seamlessly into its surroundings. Life here will be as funky and fun as it is functional, with public transit easily accessible. At the heart of Pemberton Group's condominium community, a landscaped courtyard offers a natural oasis where suite owners can enjoy a morning coffee and the newspaper in the sunshine. Concierge service will be provided from the stunning lobby. Topping off the array of building amenities is the fabulous rooftop Sky Lounge that features a catering kitchen and opens onto a landscaped terrace with barbecue areas. There is a multi-media lounge for relaxing, a professionally decorated guest suite for overnight company, and an equipped fitness centre with steam room and change rooms for those who like to keep active and fit. Superb suite finishes include (all as per plan) a private balcony and/or patio, engineered hardwood flooring and porcelain tiles.

Contemporary kitchens have an upgraded stainless steel finish kitchen appliance package, designer quartz stone solid surface countertops, under-mount stainless steel sink with single lever pull out chrome finished faucet, custom designed European-style "flat panel" cabinetry and valance task lighting. Luxurious ensuite bathrooms have a modern white ceramic raised vessel sink, five-foot soaker tub and separate shower. Suites are pre-wired for cable TV and telephone, have internet, fax and email connection, stacked white full-size washer and dryer, and much more. The layouts at Bohemian Embassy have beautiful open-concept kitchen/living/dining areas that are flooded with natural light from oversized windows. This is the perfect space for entertaining, especially with the featured kitchen island or breakfast counter. Available suites include one-bedroom + balcony, one-bedroom + den + balcony, one-bedroom + den + balcony + terrace, two-bedroom + balcony designs, plus penthouses in two-bedroom + den + terrace and three-bedroom + terrace layouts.

Sizes range from 540 to 1,640 sq. ft., and prices start from the low $300,000s. Occupancy is slated to commence in Fall 2010. With over 50 years of experience in creating successful residential and commercial developments, Pemberton Group has earned a reputation for building outstanding condominium communities.

Hotel ploy in clone-card plotHotel ploy in clone-card plot

2010-03-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

Some news for today! Hope you will enjoy it!

Peter Orenubi Oluwagbenga, the mastermind of the million-dollar credit card fraud busted in Calcutta, would not only swipe his cloned cards for jewellery and gizmos to sell later but also make bookings in star hotels, only to cancel these for cash refunds.

Police said on Tuesday that Nigerian Peter, whose Facebook profile proclaims "All I know is that Jesus is with me", had a long history of fraud and played his cards with cunning.

"Apart from cloning credit cards issued in the US and using these in India to purchase expensive jewellery and electronic items, Peter made huge amounts of money through fraudulent hotel bookings," said a senior officer involved in the probe.

The Lagos resident's modus operandi was to book an expensive room for a week or so with one of the cloned cards and cancel it days before his scheduled arrival, saying he was willing to forego a percentage of the tariff if the hotel gave him a cash refund.

"He would tell the booking executive over phone that he would send an associate with a bona fide identity card to collect the refund. The designated contact would be one of his recruits in the city where the hotel was located," the officer said.

The loser would, of course, be the bank customer whose credit card was cloned and used in that transaction.

The investigation team has also found out that Peter’s alleged accomplices in Calcutta would fly to Chennai, Mumbai or Patna to make credit card purchases and return to base the same day. "That was meant to throw the police off their trail in the event of a complaint being lodged and investigated," said the officer.

Bank officials said there was no way of identifying a credit card fraud, or preventing one, unless customers became more vigilant. "Banks don’t get to know about fraudulent transactions or cloning of customers' credit/debit cards until such a crime is reported," said a senior official of ICICI Bank, the market leader in India with 8.5-million credit card subscribers.

"Cardholders are the first interface when a card-based financial transaction takes place. They can prevent any fraud by being extra vigilant about their cards," he added.

According to credit card advisories, not losing sight of your card at a restaurant, a retail outlet or a petrol pump is the first step in card safety.

Metro had reported on Tuesday how a credit or debit card can be cloned if someone copies the encrypted data with a small card reader and transfers the data to another through special software and a card writer, which can be illegally bought online.

For online purchases, fraud-prevention measures are already in place. The Reserve Bank of India made it mandatory last year — with effect from August 1 — for all credit and debit card holders to get these registered for "3-Domain Secure", an extra level of authentication for all online transactions.

The Card Security Code (CSC), sometimes called Card Verification Value or Code (CVV or CVC), is a security feature for credit or debit card transactions that gives increased protection against fraud. There are two security codes. The first code, called CVC1 or CVV1, is encrypted on the magnetic strip of the card and used for transactions "done in person" at merchant establishments through swiping.

The second code, CVV2 or CVC2, is required for online transactions where the "card is not present", such as those done via the Internet fax, phone or email. Online transactions should be done through sites that use encryption technologies. Any website that uses encryption technology has "https" instead of "http" in its URL.

Banks also advise their customers to make use of helplines to verify or confirm transactions and update their personal records. "It is very important for credit/debit card customers to always update changes in their telephone numbers so that the bank can contact them and confirm as soon as it notices an unusual transaction on the card of the customer," said a representative of ICICI Bank, whose complaint led to Peter's gang being busted.

On whether high-value transactions are randomly verified to curb misuse, the official said: "For transactions on international cards, we generally hold back the payment against an unusually high-value transaction for 120 days, called the charge-back period, so that any complaint regarding the transaction can be addressed."

Resources In Demand For Job Hunters

2010-03-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

One more very actuall theme for today. Read and comment.

After nearly 20 years on the job, Tina Lopez was just laid off. Where she lacks experience: looking for work.

"You do feel lost," she said.

Lopez is now among the swelling crowds finding help and resources at the state's workforce career center on Hillcrest. It's one of five located throughout San Antonio. As the recession has claimed a growing number of jobs, the numbers of people using the centers has grown, too.

"A comprehensive job search means knowing where all the jobs are," explained Eva Esquivel, with Workforce Solutions Alamo. A good starting point, Esquivel advised, is to log on to WorkInTexas, or just walk into a career center. Lopez attended a re-employment class Friday morning.

"I was assigned a case manager who will assist me setting up my portfolio and to find a job match for me," she said. Lopez is looking for a position in medical billing or collections. Jesse Zamarripa said he lost his job as a certified air conditioner technician two week ago, too.

"You start to have stress," he explained. "The bills are there; they don't go away, and you have to provide for your family."

He came to the career center to search job postings and use the Internet. Fax machines, printers, computers are all available to use for free. Job hunters can also get instruction on how to create an effective resume and cover letter. Computer software is available to make resumes, too. Companies frequently stage job fairs or recruit at the centers. Lists of times and places can be found at workforcesolutionsalamo. Lopez said the chance to network lifts her spirits and she's optimistic about finding a job.

"I want to get right back into the workforce," she said. As for Zamarripa, he was hopeful as well. He had lined up an interview for a promising job.

New Web Site Compares Top Email Fax Services and Top Fax Machines

2010-03-02T03:31:00.000-08:00

Hey! One more useful site for you! Try and enjoy!

Fax-Fax.com, a new site comparing top internet fax services and fax machines has been launched. The site compares the top email fax services and top fax machine brands, as well as offers information on internet fax trends, fax machine history and how to send a fax over the Internet.

Fax-Fax.com, a new resource for fax information, has recently been launched with information about top email fax brands, such as MyFax, MetroFax and Ring Central, and top fax machines from brands like Brother/IntelliFax and HP. The site also compares the advantages of using email fax services with the advantages of using a traditional fax machine.

Advantages of email fax include a low monthly cost, mobility, convenience, reducing paper consumption and ability to easily convert a paper fax to PDF. Conversely, advantages of traditional fax machines include the fact that it is not dependent on the internet (i.e. uses a phone line) and that your fax number will typically not be subject to change.

Email fax, a bridge technology, was created to connect people who use email with people who still use their fax machines. The number of people using email fax services is rapidly growing, as evidenced by research from Davidson Consulting, a firm that predicts a $440 million market for email fax this year and a rise to $690 million by 2013. However, some businesses have yet to switch completely to email fax, in place of traditional faxing.

Recognizing that some businesses still heavily rely on paper fax machines, Fax-Fax.com offers information on both traditional faxing and virtual fax options. The website also provides links to free fax services on GotFreeFax.com, MyFax.com and FaxZero.com, so that site users and people new to email faxing can test the services before they buy. In addition to the links, Fax-Fax provides a brief guide to converting your fax to PDFs by using a free PDF converter, as well as other useful information for first-time email faxers.

About Fax-Fax.com

Fax-Fax.com was created to help consumers compare email fax services to traditional fax machines. By using Fax-Fax.com visitors can quickly determine whether or not email faxing is right for their situation. If it is, visitors can compare three service providers and sign up for the one that best meets their needs.

RingCentral: Instant VoIP service for SMBs.

2010-02-17T04:34:00.000-08:00

Have found this. And what do you think of it?

RingCentral, Inc., headquartered in San Mateo, California, is a venture capital-funded firm founded in 1999 that claims to have developed the first virtual phone system designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses and mobile professionals.

The company's objective is to be the market leader in cloud computing-based telephony, and help small businesses manage their mobile, fax, and e-mail communications.

The company has garnered numerous industry accolades, including a 2010 Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum, a 2009 Webware 100 Award from CNET, and a Red Herring Top 100 Finalist in 2008.

In the decade since inception, the firm has grown to a staff of over 300 employees worldwide, with additional offices in Manila, Philippines, Odessa, Ukraine, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

RingCentral presently provides service throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and claims a customer list that numbers over 40,000 organizations.

RingCentral serves customers with 5 to 50 phone users, and combines a toll-free or local number with advanced call management, PBX, voicemail and Internet fax, enabling customers to set up multiple extensions with voicemail, automatically screen, forward, and place calls, take voicemail, send and receive faxes, and receive message alerts. In addition, a number of user devices are supported, including all SIP-enabled phones, standard phone with an ATA (analog telephone adapter), plus softphone and iPhone applications that are available as free downloads.

RingCentral's service offerings include RingCentral Mobile, RingCentral Fax, and RingCentral Office.

RingCentral Mobile is designed for small business to allow calls to be answered on an existing mobile, home, or office phone—or the user's PC. The system also allows outgoing and incoming faxes, automatically routes calls to any member of the team regardless of location, and provides callers with an auto attendant and a dial-by-name directory.

RingCentral Fax is an Internet faxing service that allows faxes to be sent by e-mail, Microsoft applications, and by phone. From e-mail, a fax is sent simply by entering the destination fax number in the e-mail address field, and then adding "@rcfax.com" to that number. Any text to appear on the cover page is then entered in the e-mail Subject field, and any documents to be sent are then attached.

Desktop applications can also be redirected to fax by opening any printable document, and invoking the RingCentral InternetFax tool. Road warriors can also use the service by logging into their RingCentral account, and opening the InternetFax tool. Incoming faxes can be sent to either a toll-free or local number, and then delivered to the users online account, where they are stored for 30 days, or can be downloaded to the user's PC for permanent storage.

RingCentral Office delivers a virtual PBX, VoIP phone service, and full-featured IP phones as one complete system, but without the bulky hardware. Service can be activated instantly, with customers given the option to set up their service online, and then plug in pre-configured, ready-to-use IP phones.

The system has an impressive list of features, including: multiple extensions for both local and satellite offices, with individually configurable answering rules; auto-receptionist, which can locate team members based on extensions, departments, business hours, or user-defined routing; voicemail with e-mail delivery, that allows voicemails to be retrieved online; music and messages on hold; advanced call management and answering rules, with hunt groups, call queues with virtual departments, routing and answering rules, call screening and blocking, and click-to-call out; and calling features that include advanced call forwarding, multi-way calling and call conferencing.

RingCentral pricing is extremely straightforward. Each Office plan comes with unlimited calling and faxing anywhere in the United States and Canada, unlimited calls and faxes to the local number, one toll-free or local main company number, one toll-free or local fax number, plus one local number per user. Three plans are available: a one-line plan for $49.95 per month, a four-line plan for $99.99 per month, and an eight-line plan for $179.99 per month. Additional lines are $24.99 per month. (There are also metered plans starting at $9.99 per month.)

In summary, RingCentral's service has the advanced features that would be expected from a company that has been in the VoIP business for over a decade: the ability to purchase and set up an account online in minutes; integrate mobile devices and existing phones into the system; connect teams in multiple locations with one system; manage and access calls, voice, and fax messages from a mobile phone; direct calls and faxes to any number, at any time, eliminating the worry of missing important communication.

One Ringy Dingy... When Vonage Isn't Enough

2010-02-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

Have found this page. There are many articles about RingCentral. So, if you are interested, you may read it. As for our theme I have found this:

Nonprofits are increasingly looking to cut their phone budgets by turning to VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). These services, provided by companies such as Vonage, cable companies, and even traditional phone companies, are usually much more affordable than traditional phone services. But, things get complicated when you need more than a single number, or the ability to add services that traditionally called for an in-house PBX phone system.

RingCentral is a VoIP service that provides many high-end services formerly available only with a heavy investment in equipment, but is almost entirely Internet based. To use RingCentral, all you need is a SIP (session initiation protocol) phone. SIP phones are available from Linksys, D-Link and other vendors for about $120 each (RingCentral can supply you with Linksys phones), or you can use a standard telephone set with an adapter. These SIP phones or adapters plug into your network using a standard Ethernet patch cable. Once RingCentral is configured, the physical handset can be anywhere in the world where a broadband Internet connection is available. Extensions can even be assigned to "SoftPhones" which run on a PC or laptop. This makes RingCentral perfect for an organization with telecommuters who require the ability to answer your entity’s phone.

RingCentral has wizards that walk you through the setup and configuration. Depending on the plan you select, you can have 10 or more extensions, each of which can make or receive calls simultaneously, depending on your Internet connection’s bandwidth. Included in your plan is a toll-free number, if you wish, Internet fax, an auto-attendant which can forward calls to a cell phone or other landline, and extensive routing and messaging services including the PBX-like ability to set call handling rules that are dependent on the time and day of the week. Other services, including a vanity number and extra virtual lines, are available for a reasonable additional fee.

Perhaps the most compelling RingCentral feature is the cost. A 10-extension plan with digital line service runs starts at about $36 a month.

Bio: Ted Needleman is Sr. Director of Technical Services for Industry Analysts, Inc., an independent testing and market research company. He has written extensively on technology for the past 30 years.

RingCentral's Online Communications Suite Wins Communications Solutions 2006 Product of the Year Award

2010-02-01T03:09:00.000-08:00

Have found an interesting article, written by Mae Kowalke. Hope, you will like it!

RingCentral, a company that specializes in online fax and other communications services, recently announced that it won a Communications Solutions 2006 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation. The company was recognized for its RingCentral Online suite of on-demand telecommunications services.

RingCentral Online was designed specifically for small businesses and mobile professionals. The suite of services includes RingCentral’s suite of services includes customized voicemail greetings with auto-attendants, toll free numbers, and Internet fax. This allows businesses owners to present a professional front, and to offer customers a personalized and informative experience.
Each year, editors at TMC bestow Communications Solutions Product of the Year awards on companies that have demonstrated vision, leadership and attention to detail.

"The winning companies have demonstrated a commitment to quality and the further development of the communications industry through their products or services," said TMCnet assignment editor (and head of the judging committee) Patrick Barnard, in a statement.

Barnard added: "High honors are deserving of these winners. My congratulations to them and I look forward to seeing more innovative solutions from them as they continue to contribute to the future of the communications industry."

Migrating from Fax Servers to the Cloud

2010-01-25T03:01:00.000-08:00

There was a time when the corporate world believed that the fax technology was a technology of past. As modern technologies such as email and VoIP entered the corporate domains, few gave any chance for the survival of fax technology. But to the surprise of many pundits, the technology has survived the onslaught of many modern technologies and is thriving like never before. Experts suggest that there are more than 200 million fax machines in existence in the world today and the number is only expected to grow in the near future.

The faxing is nowadays done with the help of internet where Internet servers are used to send and receive the faxes rather than using only phone networks. It has got many advantages as it requires no extra telephone line and it is a paperless communication, integrated with email. This will provide users with the ability to receive and send faxes from any location that has Internet access. Internet Fax is useful especially when long faxes are frequently exchanged with overseas or distant offices as it reduces the cost of communication considerably. The cost of sending faxes is covered entirely by the fixed line Internet connection fee as there is no telephone connection charge when sending a fax over the Internet.

But owning and managing fax servers can be both tricky and expensive. MyFax, a company that offers Internet fax services for by individuals, small, medium and large businesses claims to provide well-defined, easy to calculate costs, with none of the infrastructure planning or costs associated with building a dedicated fax environment. The company also offers wireless faxing functionality allowing users to send and receive faxes from most handhelds, including Blackberry and Palm Treo.

The company has released a white paper detailing the process of migrating your communications system from fax servers to the cloud to reduce costs and improve communication. You can have a look at the white paper here.

Internet Fax Provider RingCentral Delivers Streamlined Communications for SMB

2010-01-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

One more interesting article about RingCentral. Enjoy!

When strong growth occurs for a company, a lack of robust communications should never be an obstacle for that growth. For Spencer, Stevens; Associates, an SMB operating in the mortgage loan officer recruitment industry, a powerful phone system was needed to support growing needs.

Spencer Schmerling, founder of Spencer, Stevens; Associates, set out to find a company-wide, scalable solution that would properly support a growing company. While his previous system provided a virtual number, it did not include the airtime, scalable Internet fax or outbound calling capabilities RingCentral can provide. When a friend suggested he consider RingCentral, he decided to take a look.

“I compared RingCentral with the other company, and I was just taken with how much more RingCentral offered,” Schmerling said. “The voice quality is absolutely crystal clear. But what really blew me away was the tech support. It is phenomenal.”

“Right away, I had an idea for a new feature that would work for my business,” he said. “I went to my online account, clicked ‘Feedback’ and typed in my idea. Two hours later, RingCentral’s VP of Customer Support called me and said ‘we’re working on it and until then, here’s a work around.’ It was amazing.”

Schmerling initially selected the RingCentral Online Business Power plan, but quickly determined the Business Premium plan offered the minutes and extensions he needed to support his company’s activity. Operating 18 extensions now, Schmerling expects to need many more as his business continues to grow.

With his new RingCentral system, Schmerling now appreciates the ability to add, change and program extensions in a matter of minutes. With extended capabilities such as the Internet fax, Schmerling and employees can streamline productivity. In addition, the phone system also offers the flexibility and scalability the company needs in this time of growth.

In looking ahead to continued growth and expanding opportunities, Schmerling is convinced he made the right choice. His business now has freed up capital needed to focus on healthy growth. “RingCentral is definitely going to save me some serious money,” he said. “That’s a really nice thing.”

In addition to all the benefits Schmerling has mentioned, perhaps the most important is the fact that all employees are now on one system. By relying on the quality of sound and the richness of features that RingCentral provides to all customers, Spencer, Stevens; Associates now has a professional image equal to the nature of its work.

Local Virtual Assistant Celebrates National 'Get Organized' Month

2010-01-04T04:31:00.000-08:00

Waiting for your comments!

Every new year, getting organized is one of the top five resolutions set by Americans. Yet, within just weeks many find their goal tossed by the wayside. According to one virtual assistant, it doesn’t have to be that way. Creating a system and getting help to stick to it is the key.

“With January National Get Organized Month, it is the perfect month to get organized and start your new year off right,” says Staci Jansma, owner of Your Online 24/7 Virtual Assistant. “Just about every organization - whether it's a business office, a school, or even a home - could benefit from better organization and a virtual assistant can help to keep a lot of the typical clutter away.”

Virtual assistants (VAs) are professional office assistants who provide office services and support without being physically present by using the Internet fax and telephone. Since much of their work is done online, they can work locally or globally. Founded in May 2009, Staci offers a variety of services including e-commerce solutions for your shopping cart setup including autoresponders and affiliate programs, promotional marketing through articles and press releases, transcription for audio and video, setup of social media community, and administrative services.

According to Jansma, technology has actually made the problem worse. She points to a recent survey done by National Public Radio that showed 75% of respondents say that since the advent of e-mail and electronic data and document storage, their family and personal paper and filing has increased (19%) or stayed the same (56%). “What people need is help building systems to offload certain tasks that are causing the chaos,” she says. “By optimizing workflow, you can increase productivity, reduce stress, and heighten profitability.”

She offers the following tips to help business people organize better:

• Keep all your information in one place. Many people who use a computer for work have a to-do manager, a contact manager, a project management service, a wiki, multiple email accounts, lists, multiple online documents, or one of the many other services available for managing our information. “The trouble is that all those systems can make things a bit disorganized,” says Jansma. “You can simplify this and keep yourself organized in one simple step: keep all your information in one place, start with a Gmail account for email and then, add a Google Friend Connect widget to your website – to keep in touch with your future connections.”

• Stop the interruptions. “Even the best intentions to get organized can go awry if you are continually interrupted by clients and colleagues wishing to talk to you either by telephone or in person,” says the virtual assistant. “The best way around this is to schedule your organizing during off hours, if possible. If not, schedule an appointment with yourself to focus on this activity, and during this time, let your calls go to voice mail and close your door to unscheduled visitors, if necessary.”

• Use rules to tame your email inbox. “Does it take you nearly all day just to sift through them to find out which ones you need to deal with now, which ones can be dealt with later, or which ones are just junk?,” she says. “Then create rules that filter important emails, such as from customers or clients from newsletter subscriptions. Or begin to unsubscribe, if you are not reading the email and think you will get to it and you don’t – then just unsubscribe.”

• Think delegation for elimination. Business owners should be focused on the big picture items that grow your business. “What you should not be doing is worrying about getting your invoices out, mailing products, providing troubleshooting help, scheduling your time, and all those other administrative duties,” says Jansma. “In fact, the more time you spend on all the minutia of running a business, the less time you'll spend on tasks that can actually grow your business. That’s why delegation to others, including a virtual assistant is vital.”

Marriott opens Fairfield Inn & Suites in Columbus, Ohio

2009-12-28T02:49:00.000-08:00

Found these news and decided to share it with you! I also would like to wish you a Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to meeting you in the new year!

Marriott International opened the 125-room Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, December 18, 2009. Located at 9000 Worthington Road, the Fairfield Inn & Suites Columbus Polaris will operate as a Marriott franchise, owned by Polaris Innkeepers, LLC and managed by Middletown Hotel Management Inc. of Centerville, Ohio.

Located in the heart of the Polaris business district and the Polaris Fashion Mall only 15 miles from the Port Columbus International Airport and 20 minutes from downtown, the hotel offers guests convenient access to I-71, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Zoombezi Bay and Ohio State Fairgrounds. Weekend rates begin at $89 per night and weekday rates begin at $109.

“We are pleased to introduce Fairfield Inn hotels in the Polaris area,” said Shruti Buckley, brand vice president, Fairfield Inn and Fairfield Inn & Suites, Marriott International, Inc. “This hotel offers business and leisure travelers convenient, quality accommodations at an affordable price. We look forward to welcoming guests and providing the friendly service that sets Fairfield Inn apart.”

The new Fairfield Inn & Suites public space features an innovative and contemporary design that is both flexible and functional. The open and bright new lobby welcomes guests with a vibrant color palette of greens, blues, and oranges. Thoughtfully designed suite rooms offer separate living, working and sleeping areas. The sleeping area features plush mattresses, downy blankets and crisp linens to create a truly revitalized bedroom experience. The bright, spacious living area provides a well-lit work area, ergonomic chair, microwave, refrigerator and entertainment area with a second 32” LCD television and stylish iHome alarm clock radio to fill the room with your own music playlists. Additional in-room amenities include a hairdryer, iron and ironing board, two-line speakerphones and complimentary local calls.

A complimentary continental breakfast featuring Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches, waffle station, Bold Beginnings coffee, cereals and fresh fruit is available each morning in the lobby area. Other hotel amenities include The Market, a 24/7 food & beverage pantry, a complimentary 24-hour business center, an indoor swimming pool with whirlpool spa. The hotel also offers an exercise room with state of the art fitness equipment featuring LCD TV’s on each piece of cardio equipment, daily valet laundry service, complimentary high-speed Internet, fax, and copy service. For meetings and social events the hotel also offers 1,623 square feet of divisible space to accommodate up to 100 people with personalized catering service to take care of your every need.

FAXAGE Internet FAX adds local service in Greensboro, NC

2009-12-23T03:12:00.001-08:00

Found this and decided to post it here for you could leave your opinion about this! Enjoy!

FAXAGE, the value-leader in Internet FAX services, has recently reported the addition of Greensboro, NC for local number inbound FAX services. With this expansion, FAXAGE now serves nearly 64,000 exchanges in the United States with local fax numbers. Local number portability is also offered in all exchanges served. FAXAGE additionally offers Toll-Free numbers that are accessible from all of the United States and Canada and flat-rate outbound faxing to the Continental United States, Canada and Hawaii.

In terms of network presence, FAXAGE covers 46 major metropolitan markets and surrounding areas.

"We're very pleased to be able to continue to roll out our local number presence to an increasing number of markets." says Christian Watts of EC Data Systems - the owner and operator of the FAXAGE service, "The ability to obtain local FAX numbers is a key factor for our business clients in selecting a provider, as well as the capability to maintain their existing numbers when moving from traditional FAX to electronic solutions, such as ours."

About EC Data Systems / FAXAGE
EC Data Systems is an Application Service Provider located in Denver, CO. Founded in 2002, the company focuses on providing value-added services to clients in the small and medium business (SMB) segment through its in-house designed and operated application portfolio. FAXAGE is EC Data Systems' flagship platform and has been providing Internet FAX services since 2004.

FAXAGE provides unique value to SMB's through its fully multi-user design, competitive pricing, and multiple integration methods including Web site, email and API. The service strives to be the recognized value leader by offering the best balance of price, quality, performance and features in its space.

RingCentral changes their site design!

2009-12-08T04:35:00.001-08:00

Hi guys!

Got some news for you! Today I found that RingCentral have changed their homepage design!
It is more comfortable and easy to use than the previous one, I think.
Now it is easy to find necessary services and it seems to me that many useless info is gone from the homepage, but maybe it is just correctly placed now?
Due to the new color pallette of the page it became more comfortable to read and orient.
As for the main menu, it was also optimized and made like a dropdown menu, everything was sorted by categories, it allows to find necessary info by simply choosing right category tabs.
Fonts, keys and distance between headers were increased and it also makes the homepage more comfortable to use!
Sign up forms are united now and the sign up button was moved to the right part of the page and increased and is more noticeable now.
Also, I would like to note that the new design is modern and trendy, and it is so important in nowadays due to a huge number of sites.
It is clear that the site design change is the correct and necessary company step, because of the specificity of the product, many potential and existing clients come to the site to find information about the offered services and it is necessary to make the homepage maximally informative and comfortable. I think they achieved it!

You can find new design here. I hope this article will be interesting for you. I will be glad to receive your comments!

Fax Feature: RingCentral Helps Growing Limousine Company Expand Nationally

2009-12-01T02:00:00.000-08:00

Today news for you! Enjoy!

A growing business bent on delivering the best possible customer experience must be able to rely on something other than a cell phone for incoming calls. For Octavio Carillo, owner of Platinum Express Limousines, the most obvious solution to this problem was implementing an 800 number.

Carillo understood that a cell phone number posted on a Web site gave the impression that his company was too small and didn’t have the technology to serve its customer base. With an 800 number from RingCentral, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of Internet phone systems for small businesses, Platinum Express realized a 33 percent increase in calls, while creating the perception that the company was as big as its competitors.

It wasn’t just any 800 number that interested Carillo. He wanted to implement a solution that made the most sense for his business. Carillo needed to control and monitor the flow of the call so that each and every call was answered and a customer was never left hanging on the line.

After examining RingCentral’s 800 number solution, Carillo knew he had found a robust offering that would eventually far exceed his expectations. Not only was he able to implement a toll free number, RingCentral also provided a faxing service and a complete phone system.

When a call is received in-house, Carillo can monitor and answer calls on his Call Controller SoftPhone or allow the calls to go to four phones in the office. If no one in the office is available to answer the call, it routes to two cell phones. If the call continues unanswered past this point, the caller is able to leave a voicemail message, ensuring a call is never truly missed.

With RingCentral faxing service, Carillo and his employees can create and send professional faxes and broadcast them to multiple people in the United States or overseas using an online account, e-mail, Microsoft applications or by phone. Outgoing faxes through RingCentral go out via the Internet and never tie up the computer or the phone line.

Carillo noticed that the implementation of the RingCentral 800 number immediately helped the business to grow. Platinum Express has become a nationwide service and now even receives calls from outside of the country. The RingCentral service ensures he can deliver the same level of service to each and every customer.

In addition to the phone number, fax minutes and complete phone system, Carillo also enjoys others features that came with his RingCentral 800 number. He uses the call logs to check statistics, how calls came into the business line, who called and the number of calls that went to voicemail. Carillo has also added RingCentral’s DigitalLine, the new VoIP outbound dialing option.

“Literally, you can run your business from your DigitalLine; you could be at the beach,” Carillo said. “It’s got everything built in to it. Businesses need to have RingCentral. I can’t live without. It’s the best thing I ran into since I started the business.”

Comparison between Ring central and Google voice

2009-11-17T01:08:00.000-08:00

Found this comparison and decided you will be interested in it! Enjoy!

It offers virtual PBX package which includes toll free and local number, internet fax, voicemail, call forwarding and call management

Google Voice:

1. Subscribes a single number
2. User can manage their calls, messages and voicemail by connecting to the existing number
3. It offers features like call forwarding and routine features and online management through Google.
4. Ideal for mobile professionals

Ringcentral:

1. Provides with a phone system
2. With ring central user can manage with his official and residential communications and also fax, voicemail and email.
3. It offers virtual PBX package which includes toll free and local number, internet fax, voicemail, call forwarding and call management
4. Ideal for small business and home offices

The Ring Central voicemail system let you to direct calls from all of your mobile phones, landlines, and other devices into single voicemail box. This does away with the requirement to check several message lines and frees up your time. Get your messages from anyplace in the world via email or phone. You can also forward the voicemail you received to your colleagues.

Fax Feature: Former WebEx Exec Joins RingCentral

2009-11-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

Found that! Enjoy!

RingCentral, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of Internet phone systems for small businesses, has appointed Ryan Azus as its new vice president of worldwide sales. In his new role, Azus will be in charge of managing and building the company’s worldwide sales efforts.

Azus, pictured below, has more than 10 years of sales management and operations experience in the Internet and Software-as-a-Service industries. Recently, he worked as vice president of sales at WebEx where he ran U.S. small business sales atCisco ( News - Alert)-WebEx. There, he built sales regions nationwide. Azus also received recognition for surpassing sales objectives and achieving significant revenue growth, company officials said.

While at WebEx, Azus helped the company grow from early stage startup to nearly $500 million in annual sales. He served as a key member in WebEx’s success from a pre-IPO company in 2000 throughCisco Systems’ ( News - Alert) $3.2 billion acquisition.

“Businesses are looking for revolutionary cloud based phone systems like RingCentral (News - Alert) to meet the needs of today’s mobile and distributed business models,” Azus said in a statement. “I am excited to join RingCentral and build on the momentum that RingCentral already has.”

The addition of Azus to the RingCentral team will help the company enhance its visibility among businesses looking to deploy Internet fax and other cloud computing-based business phone system services. RingCentral offers a number of products and services that make everyday tasks easier, company officials said.

Recently, TMCnet caught up with Praful Shah, RingCentral’s vice president of strategy, about how small businesses can create more of a professional image with the technology. In the exchange, Shah spoke about the rise of mobile offices and how various RingCentral’s solutions help small businesses be more efficient.

Internet Fax Takes Center Stage for Small Businesses, Mobile Offices

2009-10-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

Hey! Found this! Read and enjoy!

These days, small- and medium-sized businesses are constantly on the hunt for solutions to make everyday tasks easier, less costly and more efficient. And one of the tools enterprises are using to help accomplish that goal is Internet fax.

TMCnet caught up with Praful Shah, vice president of strategy, for RingCentral, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of Internet phone systems for small businesses, to talk about how small businesses can create more of a professional image with the technology.

In the interview, printed in full below, Shah talked to TMCnet about the rise of mobile offices and how various RingCentral’s solutions, including Internet fax, can help small businesses be more efficient.

Our exchange follows:

TMCnet: How can RingCentral help small businesses create a larger presence with its services?

Praful Shah: A business phone system is normally a frequent point of contact by prospects and customers with an organization. This point of customer interaction needs to project an established company image, rather than a few individuals running around with their mobile phones, who are difficult to reach. A cloud-based phone system that includes some of business basics like auto-receptionist, multiple extensions and multiple voice mail boxes is essential for small companies to project that larger company image.

TMCnet: What tips do you have to offer small businesses to create a more professional image?

PS: Most of the time, when you start a business your initial prospects will reach you by phone. It is critical to focus on how your prospect will view you when they reach out. You have to sound like an established business with a business class phone system to help project that professional image.

TMCnet.com: How can a distributed office maintain a more uniform standard in communicating both with customers and within the office?

PS: These days it is normal for small businesses not have a physical office, be comprised of few people working from home offices, or being mobile and using their mobile phones. It is important to tie these distributed and mobile people inside the company with single business phone system with multiple extensions. These phone extensions can then reach employees any phone numbers of their choice. This establishes a very uniform and professional way to communicate rather that distributed to prospects employee mobile phone numbers.

TMCnet.com: How can Internet fax help organizations working with virtual offices?

PS: In the past, folks waited in front of the office fax machines when they were told that they had a fax coming. When people in an organization work from distributed locations, the concept of an office machine does not serve their needs. The only way people can efficiently receive and send faxes is via the Internet Fax services that directly delivers faxes to the persons e-mail and eliminates the space consuming archaic fax machine.

New Updates of Eight Internet Fax Reviews on FaxCompare.com

2009-10-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

Great news! New service available at FaxCompare.com. Leave your comments to this article below!

The research team behind FaxCompare.com has updated eight of 33 internet fax reviews on the website, for the following vendors: RingCentral, AirComUSA, TrustFax, OneSuite, MaxEmail, Send2Fax, RapidFax, and eFax. The reviews pertain to the latest services offerings of the internet fax vendors and allow site users to easily compare the services.

Continuing efforts to maintain accurate, up-to-date reviews, the team behind FaxCompare.com has now updated another eight reviews of internet fax services in addition to the nine internet fax reviews that were updated this past August.

“Since the internet fax industry is constantly changing, it’s natural for internet service product offerings to change as well,” says FaxCompare.com developer Koby Wong. “Changes can be as specific and limited as listing a new feature offered, or they can be about a dramatic shift in overall quality of the service.”

In order to stay updated on the changes, FaxCompare.com regularly audits the websites and products from the internet fax service providers listed on the website, as well as soliciting feedback from the providers themselves. After learning of the changes to the website or product, the FaxCompare.com research team will re-test the service(s) and perform a re-review.

“The recent updates to eight internet fax reviews on the website are a direct result of our request to all of our vendors to keep us up-to-date on their services,” says Wong.

New internet fax providers or those who have not yet been reviewed on FaxCompare.com are also encouraged to contact the website to request a review. This past August, reviews for Callwave, Fax.com, Fax2Mail, FaxFreedom, Send2Fax, SimplifyFax, SaveonFaxes, OneSuite and Unity Fax were updated on FaxCompare.com.

In addition to its internet fax comparison chart and reviews, FaxCompare.com offers Email Fax Buying Tips as well as a thorough FAQ section that helps people overcome common faxing issues and become more effective, informed internet fax users. The commonly asked questions include porting numbers, faxing electronic signatures, setting up your internet fax account, and adding new users, among others.

FaxCompare.com has helped nearly 200,000 people select and sign up for an internet fax service, and the website continues to receive a growing amount of monthly traffic. The FaxCompare.com research team has spent 100’s of hours researching all the different online fax services and organizing the data so users can make a simple "apples to apples" comparison of the different services and select a reliable internet fax provider.

RingCentral's Internet Fax Technology Boosts Productivity on the Road

2009-10-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

Hey! Found this article and hope it will interest you! Read and enjoy!

Staying in touch with clients is paramount for any business. But distributed companies with employees that often work from the road, such as realtors, often find the task challenging. That’s why more companies like Urban Real Estate are deploying Internet phone and fax solutions to better manage it phone communications and stay productive. As the economic slowdown took hold, the Chicago-based company, which works with individuals and corporate investors to buy real estate, sought out new tools to boost sales and reduced overhead costs, while it differentiated itself from competitors. It found the solution with RingCentral, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of Internet phone systems for small businesses. Already leveraging the Internet for lead generation and business productivity, Urban Real Estate wanted to complement its Internet-centric business model with a Web-based communications platform replace its traditional premise-based office phone system. So, the company replaced its service with RingCentral's cloud based business phone system to manage its wide phone communications and link brokers with customers, prospects and colleagues. With RingCentral’s Internet phone system, Urban Real Estate can better manage its company-wide phone communications and connect on-the-go brokers with customers, prospects and colleagues. Each broker now has their own phone number no matter where they are located. Customers can easily reach any Urban Real Estate employees whether they are in the office or not, making is appearthat the entire team is working from one location, company officials said. “Phone calls are critical in the real estate industry, but far too many brokers rely solely on their mobile phones,” Matt Farrell, Managing Partner, said. “They miss calls and sound unprofessional. “By using RingCentral's Internet phone system, we have a competitive advantage—our team relies on RingCentral to manage communications no matter where our busy brokers are located at any given time.” The service also features Internet Fax, a crucial communications tool for the real estate industry. With Internet Fax, brokers can send and receive faxes over the Internet through an online interface or e-mail. RingCentral offers cloud computing based phone systems for small businesses. The solution helps enterprises buy, set up and activate a complete business phone system for a small cost compared to on-premise phone systems. The company has more than 50,000 customers worldwide. Last month, RingCentral made news when KX Technologies, a global filtration company, announced it selected RingCentral Office, a business phone system from RingCentral to help businesses reach clients effectively and manage calls from multiple locations.