Posts Tagged ‘Know’
I often joke with my new client’s that we (mobile phone companies) purposely make mobile phone bills confusing just to make it difficult for them to see exactly what they’re being charged.
If you’re often having difficulty making sense of the fees and charges that appear on your mobile phone bill then perhaps the information I’ve appended below will help you get a better understanding of how to accurately read and decipher your account.
Probably 80% of the clients I meet don’t have a clear understanding of their mobile phone call rates; or what they believe they’re are being charged and what is actually being charged are two completely different things! To calculate your mobile phone call rates follow these steps:
a). FIND A 30 SECOND PHONE CALLb). FIND A 1 MINUTE PHONE CALLc). DEDUCT THE COST OF THE 30 SECOND CALL (a) FROM THE 1 MINUTE CALL (b)
This will generally provide you with your “real” call cost per 30 seconds. You’ll now notice that the new 30 second charge varies from the 30 second phone call cost (a) that you found in your mobile phone bill. This variance is due to an additional fee referred to as “flagfall” or “connection fee”. If you now deduct the new 30 second phone call cost from the original 30 second phone call cost (a) you’ll end up with a figure that is your flagfall cost per phone call. Read the rest of this entry »
For many business owners, computer hardware is something shrouded in mystery. They know they need it, but they aren’t really sure what they’re getting when they buy it.
According to a recent article on alibaba.com, this lack of understanding causes many businesses – especially small to medium enterprises – to buy more than what they need. Overbuying causes more problems than you might think. Fortunately, it is easily avoided by gaining a basic understanding of your computer hardware needs and shopping more wisely.Understanding How Much Computer Power You Need
One of the biggest dangers in overbuying is, obviously, that you are overspending. Do you need the Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 chip, or can you manage with the P8400? Is 2 GB of RAM enough or do you need 4GB? Can you buy a machine with less installed memory and an expansion slot for future upgrades? Are there other features you can live without for now and add on later?
These are all questions you should be asking yourself before you buy any equipment. Take a long hard look at the specs on a machine, and try to gauge whether you really need them. A huge hard drive on a desktop might seem like a good idea, but if you have a network, do you really need it?
If you are uncertain how to read specs, do some research. There are some excellent guides to buying computer hardware, and also some very good glossaries that explain what all those acronyms mean. Some glossaries can be very technical, but about.com has one that informs without confusing.Why Buy Hardware That Will Be Obsolete in Two Years?
As the alibaba.com article notes, obsolescence is another pitfall of overbuying. The hardware life cycle is two years or less. In other words, the manufacturer you buy from today will have a fancy new machine available within two years, if not sooner. Some experts even peg the hardware turnover cycle at 9-12 months.
Buying the latest and greatest often means you will lay out a lot of cash for features you don’t really need that may be obsolete within months. Matt Siegel of Little Tree Networks was quoted in the alibaba article as saying that most new small and medium businesses spend two to three times what they need to on hardware and software. He suggests buying off-lease or refurbished PCs to save money.
Indeed, there are vendors out there who work directly with manufacturers and large companies to secure inventories of off-lease and refurbished computer hardware. IBM, Lenovo, and Toshiba are just a few of the companies that have such an arrangement. These “older” machines are a fraction of the price of new ones, and have specs that meet or often exceed the needs of most small businesses.
Resellers also offer components so businesses that buy older equipment can continue to upgrade it and service it, even when parts aren’t available on the “primary” computer market.
When it comes to computer hardware, overbuying is a costly mistake. To avoid falling into the trap of obtaining too much computing power, do your research, understand your needs and shop smartly on the used computer market
What you need to know about USPS Software.
There was a time when mail was sorted manually and the pigeon was the courier. Now it sounds like a part of a fairy tale. Nowadays advancement in technology has brought about a sea change in the entire system. The USPS is an acronym for United States Postal Service.
USPS is a government owned agency situated in the United States and is responsible for delivery of mail. USPS is one of the oldest government organizations in the USA and holds a kind of monopoly on many aspects of delivering mail. Through the USPS, citizens can send mail and parcels to almost any part of the world at reasonable prices.
The Intelligent Mail Barcode, popularly known as IMB is a new system introduced by USPS. It is a next generation of barcode technology that can be used for sorting and tracking letters and flats. It combines the capabilities of the Planet Code barcode and the POSTNET barcode into one unique form of barcode.
Many software companies design USPS software or USPS shipping software. They create and provide software solutions for direct mail, marketing, document design and data quality. Let us discuss some of its products they offer.
MaxPresort is one of the most comprehensive and powerful product for United States Postal Service bulk mailings. It is ideally suited for business which have direct marketing campaigns, or else who serve others who mail. This software helps in taking advantage of the huge postage discounts that are offered by the USPS. They can presort mail of different types like letters, NFMs, flats and parcels. This sorting is done in USPS classes -Periodicals, First-Class Mail, Package Services and Standard Mail. Apart from presorting mail, the software also has an optimization routine so that you can further maximize your discounts.
MaxPresort also supports the Intelligent Mail Barcodes. It can be used with the Basic as well as the Full Service Options and includes Intelligent Mail Container Label and the Intelligent Mail Tray Label.
Another product is the IMB Manager. This technology allows users to create an Intelligent Mail barcode for files that are generated by any type of presort or Mail.dat product. It also allows users to manage their exclusive Intelligent Mail Serial Numbers either within a single Mailer ID or else across multiple mails for the same Mailer ID. This is how it works. First, it creates all three kinds of Intelligent Mail Serial Numbers. Then it creates a database which can track the 45-day expiration dates for these Serial Numbers. The interface is intuitive and easy to use.
MaxOG is another product that uses functionality from MaxPrint, a great document creation and printing software. It can produce a wide array of documents and labels with the help of pictures, text, ovals, tables, boxes, lines and fill patterns in various font, color or orientation. By using MaxOG you will be able to create letters as well as name-and-address labels using Intelligent Mail Tray, Intelligent Mail barcodes, Container Labels and also Inkjet files.
Thus you can effectively use these products for direct mail and marketing or document designing.
Notebook or Laptop as it is called, is rapidly gaining popularity among people of all age groups because of its easy portability option, ultra user friendly interface, small, smart and slick look, ergonomic keypad and advanced features as compared to desktop computers.
Many might not know that notebooks consume less power and produce less heat as well as less noise than desktop PCs. One can comfortably perform a variety of tasks starting from sending of emails, listening to music, capturing images to other major business operations on a compact notebook PC. The affordable price also acts as catalyst for more and more people to opt for buying notebooks. Different types of notebooks are available like ultra portable, general-purpose, media center, cheap notebook or even gaming notebook. Depending upon one`s need, one can select a notebook.
A general curiosity might arise in a common user`s mind about the components of what constitute a notebook. For starters, a notebook is a compact model and instead of a sizeable case for air circulation, a notebook uses a miniature, flat design in which all the components fit together comfortably. The notebook screen is an integrated built unit and so is its keyboard.
Since in a notebook all the components are arranged in a compact space, to cool the components so that they can give optimum performance, the processors are mounted directly to the motherboard without the use of socket. To reduce the heat generation, some notebooks also use desktop CPUs which usually run at a lower voltage and clock speed, though it reduces the battery life significantly. Notebooks are equipped with small fans, heat spreaders, heat pipes or heat sinks and also the location of CPU near the edge helps to disperse the heat from the CPU. Some expensive models have liquid coolant channels alongside the heat pipe facility to reduce heat.
Memory types used in notebooks can be of four types, namely: Single data rate Synchronous RAM (SDRAM), Dual Data Rate Synchronous RAM (DDR SDRAM), Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module (SODIMM), Proprietary memory modules
The memory of notebook make up for the performance associated with slower processors. Some notebooks have cache memory very near the CPU capacity, so that data can be accessed more quickly while some have larger buses to move data quickly between the processors and motherboard.
The internal hard disk drive of the notebook stores the operating system and data files. Many notebooks allow a variety of drives to fit in the same bay by using the modular design. These drives can be of three types like; cold swappable mode, where the notebook must be switched off during the swap or hot swappable mode in which the notebook can stay on while changing the drive or the warm swappable method in which the bus (the path the drive uses to send data to the CPU) must be inactive while the notebook can stay on while changing the drive.
Unlike some desktops, notebooks display its graphics on a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and the screens measure between 12 and 17 inches. Most notebooks have smaller graphics cards with a Graphics Power Unit (GPU) designed specifically for them and memory is shared between CPU and GPU.
Notebooks have sound cards as well as small, built-in speakers to provide quality sounds. However, external sound controllers can be used to cater to the need of gaming enthusiasts.
Batteries on notebooks can be of Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) type, Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries or of the latest Lilon batteries type which are light and have long life spans. Lilon batteries can last for 5 hours from about 950 up to 1200 charges.
The key components of a notebook are its processor, memory, hard drive, operating system, graphics card and display units. Mind it! While looking at these lists of features, it is very important to know the fact that notebook PC can not as easily upgraded as desktop computers. Therefore, one must choose a notebook which has power-packed features.
