The new way for individuals and businesses to conduct phone conversations and conference calls is with Voip communications. The idea of finding a company that allows you to communicate over the internet has allowed many people to conduct business meetings and to keep in touch with family and friends. You no longer need a landline with a local phone company to talk around the world. When you add the video option to the package, you can conduct conference calls with business partners and associates as well as friends and family while seeing the person or persons you are talking too. This feature is for both phone and computers.
Vonage has gained popularity with people looking for the Voip option. You have a box that that hooks up to your phone line and it has a broadband connection. With this company, you can have unlimited international and local calls for a set amount a month. Many other companies offer the service as well, with different plans and options. The Voice over IP system helps people who need to work at home or you have a need for a lower phone bill other than what their local phone company has to offer.
The only drawback to having the Voip phone system is that you also have to sign up for a 911 service. Since you have the ability to select an area code other than the one you reside in, this can cause problems if you have to use the system. Many people do not realize this and have encountered problems. You are also going to pay an additional charge for the 911 service. This is a great way to save money if you already have a broadband connection. There are other options to the Voip telephony system as well.
One thing to keep in mind about using the Voip calling system is that depending on the type of service you have, you may need a different phone to use with the new phone system, it will have a USB plug, but they are relatively cheap. This is the only downfall to the Voip telephony because if you lose power you will lose your phone service.
Video conferencing is also hitting the top of the hot computer topics list because of the convenience and affordability that it offers. You can do this via computer or through a Voip line. You will more than likely need a software program for the computer, but this also depends on the system, you have to use. If you use the computer software, you can hook up every computer in your business that is connected to the network. This is becoming more popular because employees can remain at their desks and still participate in conferencing meetings.
This is the hottest thing since the computer or the internet. Businesses everywhere are switching to this type of communication within the company as well as outside the company communications. Because of this communication, businesses and individuals have more options for communicating rather than a landline with a local phone company or a cell phone. Look for more upgrades in this type of technology as more and more people start to rely on this as a sole means of communication in the very near future.
The Rebirth Of An Old Email Threat On You Life
Once again, people are being emailed or spammed if you want to call it by someone or persons unknown. The computer has allowed people the ability to swindle money from people, scared them into giving money and just spammed from every part of the world. The latest email threat comes after laying dormant for a year or so and has now resurfaced. The email explains that your life is in danger of ending if you do not pay the person sending the email a huge sum of money. It goes on to explain that someone you know has hired this person to end your life.
This email was a hot computer topic about a year ago, has now resurfaced, and is scaring unknowing computer users to death. They fear for their lives and some have paid the money just to stay alive. The computer is a great communication system for families to stay in touch as well as for business needs. The problem that people like this can spam your email box and get away with it is causes alarm. Even with a spam blocker turned on, these people can fool the spam blockers into accepting the emails as good emails.
Good spam blockers are not able to block the emails and unsuspecting people are falling for frauds such as this particular one. Many people express concern for more effective spam blockers to reduce the number of fraudulent emails. Gmail seems to have a hold on spam as they only allow registered users to invite a guest or you have to have a cell phone to receive an invite from the server. To date, this email account seems to hold out spam emails better than others do such as yahoo and hotmail. Hotmail seems to be the runner up with yahoo coming in third.
Computer hoaxes and fraudulent emails will never stop, people come up with new ways daily if not hourly to hack into email servers and find ways to break the spam blocker code in order to spam your email box. Although government securities try to find the culprits, they cannot keep up with growing alarm of the computing world about such actins. If a hacker or spammer can break through email security, then they can probably break through other security systems that are in place to protect your communication systems. Therefore, one conclusion is formed, security systems and spam blockers need to be revisited daily to protect the public.
If there were a way to track spammers and spam emails, we would then have a safe and secure way to conduct personal and business communications. Most spam emails come through IP addresses that are routed off other servers and cannot be tracked. Many people without technical backgrounds can and do change there IP addresses to make more posts on classified sites and this is another way to spam your email box without being caught. Until someone figures out a way to halt these practices, anyone, anywhere can email you without you knowing where it is coming from.
The important measures that need to be taken against spammers is not as easy to do as most people think it is because of the ability to change or reroute the IP address. One way to protect yourself and your computer from spam emails is to be very careful about who you give your email address to and do not open emails from someone you do not know. Emails that contain viruses can either infect your computer or scan your address book for all your contact information and spam your friends and associates. If you follow these two important steps, you can help protect yourself and associates from receiving threatening emails such as the one that seems to be plaguing everyone around the world. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is a fraud and not a real email.
The Results Of A Hacker Finding Your Personal Information
Everyone has heard of the latest scandal regarding the Monster.com site being hacked and vital information for over one million people being stolen. Now what would a hacker want with the information some would wonder? The though behind a hackers motives in most cases, is to just be able to hack the site that says it is “hack proof”. In other cases involving fraud, it is to obtain your personal information and either uses it for spamming or to sell it to scam artists. In any case, a site that is hacked has legal responsibilities one would think.
The latest Monster.com scare is more than likely just the theft of work history and name along with references. Now if the information also included Social Security information or annual salary requirements as well as cell phone numbers and credit card or bank information, people are going to have major problems. This type of activity happens all the time, but we only hear about the big news companies such as Monster.com or others in the spotlight. Now if a pet product site that is just starting out and is not a well-known name, they are not going to divulge that information and if they do, it will not make the news headlines.
Everyone uses the Internet for one reason or another and if you are like most people, you may shop, look for work, play games or just browse. In any cases, you need to be careful how you supply your information. A secure site to display your information needs to contain encryption to protect your information if it is for buying and gaming as well. Anytime you give out personal information about yourself, you want to know your information is protected. With the latest scare with Monster.com, people have to wonder, what will they do with that information?
As hackers become more devious in their endeavor to hack into websites and steal the information, more IT technicians will work harder to make the sites and products to secure the sites even better. All the scares that we encounter with our Internet experiences are just another form of criminal activity, unfortunately, it can cause problems for the entire world. Protecting yourself and your computer from a hack attack is top priority and every day, businesses are upgrading their systems and infrastructures to protect vital information.
The best way to protect yourself some had said is, never give out personal information. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. If you want to shop, look for work, do some gaming or sign up for important newsletters and promotions, you have to supply the pertinent information. Therefore, using a little caution as to what sites you use is great, but as it was proved with Monster, even the best of sites can endure problems. This however, is no reason to stop using the Internet.
You just need to be aware of the treat and use good judgment when you visit a website. Some day we will see a system to track and stop hackers from stealing vital information. Companies who make the software and other software for security measures work hard every day to find new ways to stop a hacker. As the hacker gains more strength, software developers gain more security knowledge to stop them in their tracks.
The Top Video Cards On The Market
The top video cards that can be used in today’s computers can be easily found in many stores. Many of these cards will have different interfaces that are used and some will have high definition television compatibility. However, not all of the top video cards are going to be the same.
The best of the top video cards on the market these days is the GeForce 8800 GTX. Made by NVIDIA, this features a GDDR3 memory technology chip and is PCI compatible. This is what is also used in Sony’s PlayStation 3 gaming system. This second best video memory chip is available and has a memory clock rate that well expands over one gigahertz in speed.
More of the benefits of the GeForce 8800 GTX is that it is the first video card that features DirectX 10 GPU. This is the latest edition in the Microsoft series of multimedia programming and is used exclusively with the new Windows Vista operating system.
PNY’s GeForce 8800 GTX Overclocked is a variation of this video card and is also one of the top video cards that are available today. In addition, a PCI card, this feature has the ability to create image resolutions as high as 2560×1600 in quality. It also supports DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.0 and high definition television systems. The memory bandwidth of this card is especially high, as it has a bandwidth of 96 GB per second.
BFG’s GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 is one of the top video cards in the PCI Express line. The PCI Express is a unique and easy to use interface for the video card. This specific card will handle more than thirty gigabytes of bandwidth per second and has 256 MB of video memory. OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 10 are also used here.
AGP cards are available for those who have computers whose motherboards can only take in AGP formatted cards. Diamond Multimedia’s S120 Radeon 9550 is one of the top video cards in this category, and it is great for those who are not willing to spend a great amount of money on a video card. This costs around fifty dollars in a typical retail store. This contains a VGA analog output. This Video Graphics Array output is easy to connect. It also features 256 MB of video memory and a maximum resolution of 2560×1600, and it is AGP compatible. This is a great video card for those who are looking for a card that is affordable.
Another good AGP video card is the XFX GeForce 6200. These features VGA connectors and a dual 400 MHz RAM. It contains 256 MB of video memory, which refers to the coordination of depth in three-dimensional images. The CineFX 3.0 engine is one of the most notable parts of this card. It makes it one of the top video cards because it uses unique shader architecture so that images will be displayed at a smoother rate.
Some of the top video cards are SLI ready cards. This refers to Scalable Link Interface, which helps to link multiple video cards to create one output. NVIDIA’s GeForce 7300 GT is one of the top video cards in this range. It features DDR2 memory and is compliant with PCI Express cards. Its unique transmission encoder will help to provide HDTV and composite output signals.
Biostar’s GeForce 7100 GS TurboCache is also popular. This has 256 MB of video memory and a top resolution of 2048×1536. It is also HDTV ready.
Those are some of the top video cards to look for when shopping. These video cards all have different interfaces for PCI, AGP and SLI formats. They all have different resolution qualities and video memory ranges, but some of them will even handle HDTV signals. These cards will not only be great for a computer but they will work well for individual computer users.