k_nitin_r

Hi!Libraries have traditionally been a place where one could visit and find lots and lots of manuscripts and books that were carefully preserved. Every book or periodical in the library had three sets of cards created. Periodicals often had indexes that were published. These indexes contained information that could be used to look up the topic of an article from a journal or other periodical and had a reference to the author name, title of the periodical, the volume and issue number, the start and end page number of the article, and the date of the article. The journal/periodical indexes took up large aisles of the library and were the first place to look when one needed to find any information. Using these details, one would find the section of the library that holds the volumes and issues of that particular periodical, find the book within the section and the article within the book. If you've played Monkey Island (I can't remember which one, but I think it is the second game in the series), you are probably familiar with the concept of a card catalog that we had in libraries for finding books. Books within a library are organization according to either the Dewey decimal classification system, which has the book catalog indicates where a book is located according to the 10-discipline numerical classification system, or the Library of Congress classification system, which is commonly used at universities and follows an alphabetical system of classification). The classification system often helps researchers find related content by looking up other books that are available in the same section of the library as the referenced book.Libraries have come a long way since they were in earlier times. Present day libraries arrange material by subject or departments. This form of arrangement can also be found in large book stores, such as Barnes and Nobles. Often researchers from a particular discipline have to access information from other departments or subject areas due to the interdisciplinary nature of much of the research today. University programs have also been created around interdisciplinary research, such as biomedical engineering, mechatronic engineering, molecular biology, cybernetics, radiology, and bioinformatics.The development of the Internet created a revolution in the field of information organization and library sciences and have enabled individuals to search for books and periodicals from the library using a library database and find the exact aisle and shelf that the book is located on. Books and periodicals that are not stored in the library have electronic versions that can be searched for in online databases or can be loaned from other libraries. Thus, libraries provide access to huge records of information that represent the accumulated knowledge from over the years. Libraries also often carry DVDs/CDs that you can borrow, just as you would borrow a book.The availability of information over the Internet and the reasonably-priced broadband connectivity solutions have enabled individuals to access information without ever having to visit a library. Newspapers and magazines maintain online archives, blogs and social media post content online within a few hours of their occurrence and have searchable content archived and easily accessible. Social bookmarking websites make it easy and simple to discover content.For many people today, privately-run libraries are just a cheaper means of gaining access to novels, comic books, newspapers, and self-development books. Public libraries continue to maintain their collection of books while providing Internet-access kiosks for people who do not have access to computers and the Internet. The reduced role of the library and the focus on providing services similar to that of an Internet cafe may seem like a sign of the death of libraries. After all. what can libraries do to stay competitive other than doubling-up to provide other services - bundling together book lending, book sales, internet cafes, and coffee shops.

Hi StvenWesley!To get started with using Sharepoint, you would have to setup a server edition of Windows - either Microsoft Windows 2003, Windows 2008, or Windows 2008 Release 2. You can obtain an limited time period evaluation version of any of these three operating systems from the Microsoft downloads website. You can have either of them setup within a virtual machine, as many other Sharepoint developers do. You have a choice between Microsoft's own Virtual PC, VMWare Virtual Machine, and Sun's (and, now, Oracle's) Virtual Box. Virtual PC was formerly a part of Connectix and Microsoft acquired the organization as a part of it's strategic expansions into virtualization technologies. VMWare is one of the oldest corporations dealing with virtualization products. Virtual Box is an open source software project. Both VMWare and Virtual Box have free-of-cost offerings. If you are planning to run Sharepoint Server 2010, you would require a 64-bit virtual machine. Both Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare Virtual Machine can provide a 64-bit virtual machine if you are running a 64-bit version of the Microsoft Windows or Linux operating system. However, Virtual Box can provide you with a 64-bit virtual machine irrespective of what you are running on your host machine and is, currently, the only want to get a 64-bit development environment if you are running a 32-bit edition of Windows or Linux.All editions of Microsoft Sharepoint require a database server to run, and can be installed on SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008. If you are installing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 on Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 Release 2, you would get a compatibility warning. You can safely ignore the warning and proceed, though you would have to install the service pack available for SQL Server 2008. The warning is displayed also if you choose to install the freely available SQL Server 2008 Express edition, and you can use the same service pack on the Express edition. If you are installing the Express edition, you might also want to download the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express (SMSE), which is the graphical user interface used for administration of the database server. The express edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express administration utility are both available for free from the Microsoft downloads website.Microsoft Sharepoint includes both a free component and a commercially licensed component. The free component is referred to as Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) and is available with Windows 2003 server. However, Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 is available as a separate download for Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 Release 2 servers. The Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 has been re-branded to Microsoft Sharepoint Services Foundation for the 2010 release, although it is also sometimes referred to as Windows Sharepoint Services 4.0. A beta of Sharepoint Services Foundation 2010 is currently available on the Microsoft website. The Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services 2007 (MOSS 2007) is a commercial add-on component and provides many advanced features and functionalities over Windows Sharepoint Services. Windows Sharepoint Services provides users with basic document sharing, Wiki, blog, and issue tracking capability, in addition to the other free templates included. Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services has been re-branded to Sharepoint Services 2010 (SPS 2010) for the 2010 release.Pages in Sharepoint can be customized by applying cascading style sheets to the layout as themes. However, the actual markup cannot be changed for the Windows Sharepoint Services or the Sharepoint Services Foundation server. You can, however specify a different markup for the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services and for the Sharepoint Services commercial products. Sharepoint pages are composed of layouts, which specify the number of columns that are displayed on a web page, and web parts that fit into those layouts. Several web parts are already included in the default installation and developers can create additional web parts to provide customization and additional functionality. Microsoft also provides the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer that can be used for designing the user interface as well as for creating the workflows for documents and other items within the system. Although Windows Sharepoint Services and Sharepoint Services Foundation provides basic workflow capabilities, complete support for workflows is only available in Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server and Sharepoint Services.An interesting concept illustrated by Sharepoint is the storage of ASPX pages within the SQL Server database and the use of the virtual path provider to access the pages from the database instead of from the file system. As Sharepoint is an ASP.NET based technology, you can browse through the ASPX files containing the layouts and other ASP.NET files located on the file system.Sharepoint provides a document sharing system that is tightly integrated with the Microsoft Office suite.

Hi!When I first got hooked onto broadband Internet, I had a fairly simple ADSL router that provided me with four RJ-45 Ethernet network ports, one RJ-11 socket for connecting the telephone line. It was a lesser-known brand that I don't remember now, but it served it's purpose well without ever dropping packets or requiring a restart.My next router, which had wireless capability, through supporting 802.11g was a Siemens SpeedStream ADSL router - they did want to make the router look pretty so it has no visible antenna... whatever they did use is housed inside the box and it doesn't have the option of attaching an external wireless antenna. It works perfectly well when accessing it through a wired RJ-45 Ethernet network port, however the wireless Ethernet interface would drop connections periodically and would require a hard reset to get the wireless interface working again. I looked up the problem and asked around - all of the Siemens SpeedStream users had the very same issue when using the router for wireless network connectivity. The Siemens SpeedStream router has four RJ-45 Ethernet network port, one USB interface that provides network connectivity for computers and devices that lack an Ethernet interface or do not have an unused Ethernet network port, an RJ-11 socket for connecting a telephone line, and a wireless Ethernet 802.11g network interface. The router provides network address and port translation, in addition to the DMZ routing, can support four MAC address-mapped DHCP IP addresses, and supports WEP and WPA encryption of traffic. One other problem that the Siemens SpeedStream router suffers from is that the DNS gateway service often stops responding, however this problem can be easily worked around by configuring the DHCP service to provide clients with the Internet service provider's DNS server's IP address instead of the router's IP address. The Siemens SpeedStream router also supports the creation of multiple user accounts for user profiling - it can tell which port a user is logged into, when the user last logged in, and which the last URL that the user accessed was. Although the router has a lot of features, the unstable wireless network interface is a pretty good reason to make a switch to another router in the near future, but the problem seems to be almost universal among broadband ADSL routers with wireless capability.While I had the Siemens SpeedStream router at home, I worked with a 3COM wireless ADSL router with one antenna as well as a D-Link wireless ADSL router that had three antennas at the office. The 3COM router required frequent restarts, but we did not use the D-Link router enough to be able to tell much about it's stability, though it did have a lot of configuration options from DMZ to network address and port translation and port forwarding.There are NetGear/LinkSys (one of the two, I'm not really sure of which brand it was) routers out there that have a built-in display for status information and, possibly, for making configuration settings and are pretty much the ultimate in home broadband routers. Why anyone would want to spend so much on one of those is a hard question to answer since they really aren't worth the price paying for just to get a display on the router - a web-based configuration application does pretty much the same job and can be accessed from a computer.@Bobo CatYou might need the drivers for Windows 7, which you can find on the manufacturer's website. Look it up and you should find a driver to download for either 32-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 7, depending on which edition of Windows 7 you are running.

Hi!Pretty much every major operating system can share files with and can access files from a Windows based PC. Ubuntu, or just about any other Linux distribution, still uses Samba as have their older counterparts, for sharing files and folders with Windows. Linux, when equipped with the Samba server, can even act as a domain controller so you can use it for running scripts or installing software on the Windows PC without having to physically go over to and install software on the computer.One of the problems with sharing files from a Microsoft Windows desktop/laptop to access them on Linux or another Windows computer is that the firewall prevents access. Windows 7 enables you to identify different zones, such as home networks, work networks, and other public networks to automatically enable or disable the firewall depending on the network that you are connected to. This is a pretty neat feature because you can disable the firewall while you are at home to be able to share files with other computers and devices on your home network, and can enable the firewall while you are at work or on a public network (such as when accessing the Internet while you are at the airport, a coffee shop, Internet cafe etc.). Think of it as a StarTrek episode where you have the shield up when you are around hostile space crafts and keep your shields down to indicate to the other party that you are a friendly space craft.Perhaps a simple means of sharing files is to use a peer-to-peer file sharing client. I believe the professional/commercial version of Trillian (available at Trillian.cc) supports peer-to-peer file sharing and communication without requiring you to be connected to the Internet and without requiring any configuration or server setup. You might be able to build your own peer-to-peer communication and file sharing application with the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, with the new peer-to-peer protocol and API that has been included in the framework.You can also share files by setting up an FTP server, or using Apache/IIS/nginx to share your entire folder for access within a web browser. Both of these approaches will require you to use a web browser on the other computer, disable the proxy server (i.e. select the option to connect without using a proxy), if you have one configured, and access the computer that is sharing the files by typing in the IP address or host name (Internet Explorer attempts to search for a computer with the host name that you have specified in the address bar if it is unable to resolve the name by a DNS server, so it does have the capability to discover other Windows hosts on the network; Firefox would require you to either use an IP address or setup a DNS server and configure the host name to point to an IP address with an 'A' host entry or a 'CNAME' alias entry) in the address bar. The annoyance with this approach is that when transferring large files, you would have a file created on your disk as either a copy or a temporary file name and the browser keeps track of all of the files that you have downloaded. Apart from that, if you are sharing your files over HTTP through IIS/Apache/nginx, you cannot select multiples files for download at the same time but would, instead, have to click on the link for each of the files that you are sharing. One way to get around this issue is to create a ZIP, RAR, or other archive file to be able to transfer multiple files within a single 'package' file.The NFS protocol, which probably is expanded as the Network File Sharing protocol (?), for sharing files is pretty common on Linux and still is used for file sharing between Linux systems. It is still used on Linux servers, such as on the Linux web servers setup within web farms.

Hi!I had a Compaq Presario that started off fine when I got it but later started overheating and had the fan running all the time. I assumed that it may have been a hardware fault or perhaps something was blocking the fan in the notebook PC, but apparently, when the customer service support staff had a look at it, they determined that the notebook PC needed a BIOS update and that the hardware was perfectly okay. After a month of leaving the notebook PC with the service center, they had the BIOS updated and after the replacement, which I believe fixed the power management software, had the fan automatically throttling depending on the temperature of the system, and the overall temperature of the system was much lower, and was comparable to when it was first new.The Compaq Presario notebook PC isn't something I bought willfully, but was rather forced into the deal by the staff at the store at which I bought it. The way it turned out is that I bought an IBM Thinkpad that I brought home, which was wayyy back when the Thinkpad brand and the hardware manufacturing business was still owned and operated by IBM, and after taking off all of the packaging, and switching it on, the notebook PC booted up with an Arabic version of Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. I took the IBM Thinkpad notebook PC back to the store and they offered to replace it but since it was paid for by a credit card, they refused to issue a refund and instead requested that I exchange the Thinkpad for goods of equal or greater value. As the store did not have any notebook PCs of an equal or greater value, I had to trade it in for the next best thing, which was the Compaq Presario notebook PC, along with a couple of accessories, including a cordless optical mouse and a licensed copy of Microsoft Office.I later got another Compaq Presario notebook PC, to replace the previous Compaq Presario when the screen hinge was damaged and would no longer keep the LCD display panel upright, as it was one of the few notebook PCs that still had a floppy disk drive. When running Microsoft Windows XP Professional, the system runs as cool as ever, however when running Ubuntu 9.04, the processor runs hot and the cooling processor fan keeps running all the time, so I upgraded the operating system to Ubuntu 9.10 and that had the processor running as cool as ever again. I used the notebook PC for about two years before it had to be replaced again due to a power connector that developed a loose connection, and since the power connector is on the motherboard, the only way to fix the problem is to replace the motherboard, which is no longer manufactured. It could run off a battery that I had a classmate charge for me while I backed up all of my data and that's when I finally got an IBM Thinkpad again. The Thinkpad has been running fine for the past few years and apart from a memory upgrade, to move from Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2007, and hooking it up to two external USB hard disk drives to increase the storage capacity, I haven't had any issues with it.BTW, there are a couple of step-by-step tutorials on YouTube and a couple of other websites that have different 'hacks' that can be performed to get the computers to run cooler, such as by attaching additional fans run by the power drawn from the USB port, or by attaching commercially available solutions, which range from a cooling mat that simply elevates the laptop by a few millimeters to improve the flow of air to an active cooling base that can be attached to a laptop for cooling it with four small fans - two to blow cool air into the base and the other two to push the heated air out of the base. The active cooling solution costed more than what most people would be willing to spend or could afford to shell out on something that offers no real functionality to the laptop and therefore wasn't really recommended but just as long as there's someone out there selling it, there are geeks out there wanting to buy it for the sheer geekiness factor or style that it has to offer them. I guess that can be said about a lot of different PC mods that are out there for both desktops and notebook PCs. Alienware offers a backlit keyboard with a glowing logo on the back of the LCD panel and an engraved metal plate with the name of the laptop's owner. Desktop case manufacturers provide glowing LEDs, transparent sides, liquid cooling, and even coffee makers!For people who live in sub-zero temperatures, the additional heat from the laptop must make it work as an personal heater. Apparently, ASUS does a good job of ensuring that their laptops run cooler by ensuring proper air flow when designing the structure of the laptops. I haven't bought any ASUS laptops myself, but have read good reviews about their products on computer hardware websites and blogs. All of the Compaq desktops that I've bought have always had points at which to attach additional cooling fans - they probably assume that I would need four cooling fans after attaching additional graphics adapter cards!

Hi!I may not have worked with Drupal extensively, or at least not as extensively as I have worked with WordPress, but I have grown pretty accustomed to the interface that it right out of the box. I hope to do some Drupal module development beyond the simple retrieval of data from the database and displaying it within a module i.e. working with the Drupal source code and using the API.Drupal is a pretty good content management system (CMS), and it is pretty much at par with Joomla, if you count all of the modules that exist for extending the core functionality of the system. Having said that, I would also add that the community support for Drupal is pretty good but I have yet to find a community that matches that of WordPress (Xisto doesn't count - it is a general purpose forum and not built around a specific open-source product or project).Xisto provides a software installation service, which I think is called softaculous (or something equally funky), so you don't really have to go through the complexity of dealing with filesystem permissions, database locations, and the rest of the configuration that is associated with installing Drupal.Drupal provides a pretty neat interface for running multilingual websites and can automatically hide the links to articles that are in a different language. It provides a pretty neat interface to manage translations for existing articles by indicating which languages have available translations and which ones don't. I would imagine it's a pretty neat solution for maintaining documentation for an open-source project with translations as contributors can see which pages have translations and which pages don't.During the installation, you have to create a settings file by copying the default settings file and the file needs to be granted write permissions for the installer to be able to add in the configuration settings that you set through the installer. An alternative to this approach is to manually make the installation settings, which would require a more in-depth knowledge of Drupal.I've got Drupal setup on an Internet Information Server (IIS) running on a Microsoft Windows 2008 Release 2 box, and it uses a MySQL database as the backend interface. I have not setup the search engine friendly URLs yet, as I'll have to install an additional IIS module and configure it using Web.Config (the Microsoft equivalent of the Apache web server that runs solely on Windows).The Drupal installer sets up the configuration or settings file for you and so if you change the database location, username, password or database name, or if you move the files around, you will need to update the settings file, in addition to making changes to any references that Drupal stores within the MySQL database that you initally provided during the Drupal installation (I'm assuming you didn't configure it for a different database yet).You can get plenty of Drupal themes and can also get some of the kind folks here to make you one. I've seen some pretty impressive work in the form of signature images of some of the members and I must say that you've got a good one yourself. Perhaps you can post a tutorial on how you made your current signature image.BTW, when running Drupal or any other PHP application on Windows, all I get is a 503 error page instead of the warning messages that we see when running on Apache, nginx, or any other web server. Does anybody have any pointers on how I can get IIS to display the error messages instead of a simply mysterious 503 error page? For ASP.NET based applications, I'd just modify the Web.Config file to indicate that the custom errors should not be displayed, irrespective of whether the request came from a remote system or is being made from the local system.Just to clarify the setting of permissions, CHMOD (and not CHMON) stands for change mode and is used to set permissions and other special attributes for a file, folder, or other device that can be accessed as a file (in UNIX/Linux pretty much everything is represented as a file, including your printer, scanner, camera, processor, memory etc.). You do not have to use the CHMOD command directly but can, instead, use an FTP client to set permissions on files or folders - CuteFTP Professional (commercial software), CoreFTP (freeware software), or FileZilla FTP client (open-source software) can do this for you with a graphical interface. BTW, FileZilla also has an FTP/SFTP server that goes by the same name as the FTP client so when you do Google it for a download, make sure that you are downloading the client application and not the server software.

Hi!In most cases, if you want to do something that has already been done before, you can get it off an open-source project rather than use a script that has been posted online because most well-established open-source projects have a pretty stringent quality control process - the code goes through a code review, a testing cycle, and any bugs reported are promptly fixed if they are of high enough severity.I borrowed some code from a WordPress plugin to put together a web-based slideshow and it worked perfectly well. The source code documentation helped configure the various parameters that the plugin had to customize its appearance and I simply replaced the WordPress-specific code to what was needed for it to run on my application (it's more of a one-off script than a real application).Some folks out there write PHP scripts and post to forums on the first error that they find and, quite honestly, I think the questions belong in a chatroom or IRC channel rather than a forum. Or better yet, commercial support (perhaps through a subscription or free support with a product purchase) can be availed for a pretty reasonable fee.I find viruses or malicious code in open-source projects very unlikely, primarily because there are so many eyes observing the code and raising the red flag whenever anything of concern pops up. The open-source software development process rivals some of the best software development processes and a lot of work has been put into understanding it and applying the concepts to an organizational setting.I have always had my source code tested on my computer to ensure that the basic functionality works, but performing a comprehensive test to make sure that just about everything in the software works perfectly requires setting up automated testing tools and may even require me to charge for the software produced as a result, to pass on licensing costs and for hiring support staff. Many open-source projects have commercial 'branches' that undertake the responsibility for support and bug fixes, which is how open-source organizations stay competitive with the down-turn of the economy.There are software firms that are entirely dedicated to providing quality control tests and offer the works - automated testing, manual tests, web application testing, performance and load testing, and soak testing. PHP scripts are often run within a sandbox environment on servers, with the account that Apache uses having strict permissions to access on the web root directory (often, /var/www) and with frequent file and database backups, the effect of any malware within a PHP script can be minimized. Besides, any malware in a PHP script can be easily detected as most PHP code is distributed in an un-compiled form. Finding compiled PHP scripts is quite rare and is limited to certain esoteric groups, such as those who use Phalanger or HipHop for executing their code.Interestingly enough, you can also develop graphical and command-line applications with PHP, though most people tend to associate PHP with web based applications. The PHP-GTK library makes graphical development possible. Command-line scripts are pretty much the same as web development scripts except that they are invoked from the command line and they accept user input differently. The lack of compilation to source code helps users read the source code before they execute it ensuring that malware does not find its way into their computers.

Hi!I'm still glued to Need For Speed: Undercover since I got it last month. I'm not sure if my hardware can take any of the stuff that Need For Speed: Shift can throw at it, as Undercover feels a little sluggish too.After playing Undercover, I can tell that the first person view of racing games is overrated. Unless you can see around, you can't really play well and Need For Speed seems to think I need the first person view for the Highway Pursuit and I have to switch camera views to be able to get through the traffic. A screenshot posted for Need For Speed: Shift shows a first person view and although the dashboard and the drivers' hands add some realism to the view, it isn't more playable than the third person camera view.Although Need For Speed is a really neat gaming series, I still have a preference for Grand Theft Auto. I got hooked onto Grand Theft Auto III, and then moving up to Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was the next logical step. However, Grand Theft Auto 4 hasn't seen much adoption although it is the first version to officially support multiplayer game play, including LAN gaming.

Hi martvefun!I've heard quite a bit about the AIESEC - I'm assuming that you are referring to the "Association Internationale des ?tudiants en Sciences ?conomiques et Commerciales". I had an acquaintance who worked with the organization while they were setting up an office in the UAE.On just about any web development platform, including PHP, if you are building in custom functionality, such as a web-based application, to do something, you would need a web development framework, else a content management system (CMS) would suffice. Managing code on your own would have to be carefully planned and structured for future extensibility, but if you would like to build web applications like most of the web developers all over the world, pick a framework such as Code Igniter, Symphony, or CakePHP, or one among the many others that are out there. Using a web development framework is a no-brainer approach to structuring source code.Drupal is a pretty neat content management system and it handles multi-lingual websites with relative ease. For an international organization, such as the AIESEC, with visitors from all across the globe, you would probably have each page in a different language depending on where the user is from. All you need to do is create a web page in one language, and use the Translate option to get the content management system to remind you to create pages for other languages. If you do not wish to create a page in multiple languages, such as when all you have is a set of images, you can define the page as a language neutral page. Theming Drupal is one of the easier things that you can accomplish and Drupal has quite a large community to support individuals or organizations who adopt it to meet their needs. Drupal also has an add-on forum that can provide you with basic message board functionality.If you would like to try a simple content management system, you can have a go at using WordPress. It is a rather simple blogging engine but you can use it as a content management system. Just as Drupal does, it supports two kinds of articles - posts (the equivalent of Drupal's story articles) and pages (the equivalent of Drupal's pages, as the name suggests). WordPress comes in different flavors, such as the WordPress Multi User edition that can host multiple blogs or websites, while the regular version of WordPress can host a single blog or a website and would have to be installed for each additional blog or website that you would like to host. Drupal and Joomla support multiple blogs/websites and do not have single-website/blog editions.Joomla is yet another alternative to Drupal and provides you with a lot of customization right out of the box. Before you even begin to hire a web designer to re-do the layout for you, you might want to take a look at the settings that Joomla provides for configuring the different blocks - the home page layout has the main content area divided into two columns and a configuration setting enables you to set a certain number of articles as featured articles that are displayed across two columns while other articles are displayed in a single column. You can configure the display of the print/PDF icons on the article previews too. Joomla has the backing of a lot of commercial organizations and therefore you would find many commercial components that you can add into Joomla for additional functionality, such as for setting up e-commerce web store fronts and for multi-lingual website support.BTW, if you would like to have help with the website, there are a bunch of do-gooders active on the forum and can help you out with your pursuit. Have PC, will code seems to be the motto for most people, though there may be a couple of Mac users on the forum too.@StvenWesleyHey Steven!I'm actually quite surprised that you decided to go with Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server as the database for your PHP-based web applications. Most of the open-source PHP applications that I use primarily support MySQL and Postgresql and the community around those projects is very hostile to the use of either Access or SQL Server, primarily because they are Microsoft-owned. It's probably one of the 'evils' of the open-source community in that we initally set out to seek open-ness but that eventually turned into an open-for-everybody-except-Microsoft community. The anti-Microsoft sentiment is pretty common in the open-source development communities though many of the open-source developers I know are Microsoft developers... it helps put food on the table, and that's all that I can say for myself and for those other developers, because when the night falls, we write code, check it into subversion or git, and drive the open-source software projects that we contribute to.The firm I work at would kill to have an equivalent of the open-source applications that would run in ASP.NET, preferably with C# source code, and with a Microsoft SQL Server database because the infrastructure folk are point-and-click trained and can't manage a Linux box. Perhaps there are a couple of Linux distributions out there that provide a comprehensive graphical user interface to cover all of the configuration settings that can be made for Apache, PHP, and MySQL, but the licensing and subscription cost for those commercially supported distributions is comparable to that of a Microsoft Windows Server license, so using Windows on the servers is a no-brainer for them. Besides, it's easier and cheaper to hire folk to run the Windows servers than it is to hire Linux/UNIX server administrators.

Hi!That was most definitely one of the shortest tutorials that I have come across, seconded only by a tutorial that mentioned about how to clear the screen in MS-DOS with the CLS command :-)Running an application as a service has many advantages. Let me begin to explain - an application residing in the computer is only useful when it is running, with the exception of scheduled maintenance programs that are more useful when they have run because they are such resource hogs when they are running. Applications can either be launched by the user, they can be scheduled to launch at a particular time, they can be triggered to launch by other applications when certain events occur, or they can automatically start when the computer is started up or when the user has logged into the system.When an operation should be performed when the user logs in, such as starting up an Internet security software that monitors browser clicks, the application can launch itself by placing a shortcut within the startup icons or by making a registry entry to enable to application to run whenever the profile of a user has been loaded or when a user has logged into the system. However, there are other times when one would want an application or software to run all the time - such software can run right after the system starts up, even before the user has had a chance to log into the computer. Examples of such software is the web server, such as Apache, nginx, fasthttpd, or even Microsoft's Internet Information Service (which, BTW, is bundled with Microsoft Windows). Remote login software can be installed as a service to enable a user to log in to the computer remotely, just as Symantec's pcAnywhere does when configured to start up the host as a service.Running an application as a service has the added advantage that it is monitored by Microsoft Windows. If the service crashes, Windows can automatically attempt to start it up again, can report the error, can send an email to the system administrator, and can even launch an external program that can do something like play a sound on the computer's speaker to alert the I.T. staff about the problem. Different behavior can be configured for Windows' handling of the error, depending on whether the error was of first occurrence, second occurrence or a subsequent occurrence.Window services can be run with the credentials of any of the users that exist on the system or on a Windows domain that the computer is a part of or trusts. Ignore the concept of the Windows domain if you are not familiar with it - it has only been included for completeness. Generally, you would either run a Windows service as the SYSTEM user, the NETWORK SERVICE user, or another user account with reduced privileges. The advantage of using one of these accounts instead of one that you are logged in is that you can specify a local system policy or a group policy that prevents these user accounts from being used to log into the system. In other words, if these user accounts did get hacked for some reason, the accounts cannot be used by malicious users to log into the system directly - they would have to create run another application with the credentials of the user, before which they would have to gain access to the system first.... think of it as a chicken-and-the-egg precedence - they can't use the user credentials without logging in, and they can't login without user credentials!

Hi web_designer!As some of the others on this thread have suggested, we cannot really solve the mystery of how or why all of the programs start appearing unless we have corralled all of the facts related to the case. You make us feel like Sherlock Holmes already!One of the most common sources of un-explained programs is that of other programs. When you install Yahoo! Messenger and use the standard installation method, the installer automatically installs the Yahoo! browser toolbar for you. Instead, if you choose the custom installation method, the installer provides you with a checkbox to indicate that you do not want to have the toolbar installed. As a general rule of thumb, always use the custom installation mode, especially if the software that you are installing is freeware and not something that you had to pay for.Software can also get installed on your computer if you have been browsing websites. Some websites use ActiveX controls to install software that is necessary for the website to work correctly, although some rogue websites can install software to promote other vendors. Ideally, a website should ask you if you would like to have any additional software installed, even if it really is necessary for the website to run correctly. As knoppixusr suggests, do not use Microsoft Internet Explorer for browsing the Internet unless you are visiting a trusted website. If you use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera, you have an option of disabling Javascript that you can use when visiting websites that you do not trust (although I am not too sure if Google Chrome provides you with that option).If you have a computer that was provided by the office, and if Microsoft Windows was installed and configured by the office I.T. staff, chances are that they have added you to the corporate domain, which can enable the I.T. staff to install software for you remotely without your knowledge; the only indication that you would have about the software being installed is the presence of new icons in the system tray, the presence of icons on the desktop, new shortcuts appearing in the program files menu, or new items appearing in the Task Manager's Process tab (not all of the running program are visible in the Applications tab, and when you do switch to the Process tab, ensure that you check the checkbox that says, "Show processes from all users"). It is possible for programs to evade all of these means, and sometimes the only want to tell if you have certain programs running on your computer is by the effect that they have on the performance of your computer, or by unexpected behavior occurring at certain times.By the way, when you were re-installing software on your computer, did you use original software? Sometimes, software cracks can carry with them malware that an attacker could use to take over your computer. Using installation DVDs or CDs from the original vendor are your best bet in dealing with tampered software. Just because the software installs with an installer instead of running an executable directly does not mean that it came from an authentic source - malware developers can create installers that look exactly like those that came from the original vendor. When running the software, if you experience unexpected crashes and all other software seems fine, then the software could be the suspect - just as cracks prevent the software from detecting that a trial period has expired or that the software has not been registered, the software can also be altered to seem as though it were legitimate while performing malicious operations in the background.Other than watching what you install, you might want to make sure that you have a firewall up and running. Microsoft Windows enables you to select different levels of security for the firewall depending on whether you are accessing the network at home, the network at your office, or a public wireless network. You may be able to disable your firewall at home if you do not have other computers that could be affected by viruses or other malware - the most common case when you would want to do this is when you have a media player that you want to synchronize with your computer and you do not have any other computers (read as no other Windows-based devices on your network) on your network. You should also avoid plugging in USB devices or using DVDs or CDs from other users because they could auto-run executable software without prompting you to perform an action. This behavior can be disabled from the Windows registry, but it may (unlikely, yet possible) cause some software installations to fail, especially those that require multiple discs to install.

Hi web_designer! I was hoping we would get to know you with a name rather than your occupation, but you have the choice to remain anonymous, nevertheless.I don't speak French beyond the simple, "Vous parlez Francais," "Merci bohkoo," and "Pass zee French fries, messieur. My beret is preventing me from reaching out to zee fries in zee cafe." Okay, okay, so the last one isn't French and is a statement based on stereotypes formed about the French.While I would love to learn French, I haven't seem to have had the determination to go on beyond a few minutes of looking at the phrases. The romantic language of love and sweetness is beyond my reach and would take a leviathan effort on my part to reach out and be touched by the language.Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that knowing another language is like knowing another world. Wittgenstein was popular for his philosophy and was often criticized for his statement that there are no philosophical problems and that all of the problems in philosophy arise from language. An example that Wittgenstein uses is that we, as humans, cannot understand the language of a lion. Even if we did get an interpreter to translate the language of a lion, we would have no idea what it means because we do not understand the life of a lion enough to be able to make sense of its language.Language is a means to think and to express meaning. Jacques Lacan, a popular psychoanalyst, mentions that language is what gives structure to our thoughts. If it weren't for language, our behavior would have been no less predictable than that of animals. It is because of language that we are able to reason, think, and act in the manner that we, humans, do. If an animal had language beyond simple communication by sounds and gestures, they would perhaps have been just as capable of telling that the delivery truck arrives every Wednesday to deliver the mail or that there are nine more months to Christmas.Philosophers have tried to what it is about language that makes us all so confused. It is because the statement, "Mary had a little lamb," can mean one of several different things. It can either mean that Mary conned an innocent person and has cheated him or her of something, with the understanding that "had" represented "cheated" in this case, or it could be taken in the common sense that Mary possessed or owned a small lamb. The word "had" can also be used to say "gave birth to", so if Mary was the name of an older lamb, the statement could mean that Mary gave birth to a baby lamb. Now, if Mary was hungry, she could have cooked and eaten the lamb and thus "had" can be used to express "eaten", as in, "Did you have lunch?" With a single statement that has at least four different meaning, how are we to understand theories that were expressed by philosophers and scientists of the past and therefore how can we even make any sense of the many scientific theories that are stated in our schools' text books and the universities' libraries? How do we ensure that we correctly interpret a newspaper headline, especially when the journalists try to play upon the words to make the headlines sound more attention-getting in an attempt to increase the newspaper's viewership?A language is also an embodiment of another society's beliefs and assumptions. If I were to say in English the statement, "pardon my French," it does not indicate that I speak any French at all, and it does not mean that I have attempted to state anything in French, but rather is a means of conveying an apology for the use of impolite language within an English sentence. The phrase, or rather the expression, conveys a discontentment that the English (I am not referring to the language, but rather am referring to the people of England or Great Britain) historically had for the French (I am referring to the people of France and not the language spoken in France). Learning the English language would give one the perceptions, emotions, feelings, and expressions that are incorporated into the language.Finally, learning another language enables one to read and comprehend a whole different body of literature that lies in libraries that we hardly ever go to for the simple reason that we do not understand the language. Think of all of the movie torrents that are on the Internet. Have you ever wished that you spoke Swedish, French, or Spanish so you could download a torrent of a new and overly-hyped film but the only language that the film was available in was a language that you did not speak or understand? Understanding another language can also help one to understand the literary expressions, the poetic stanzas that lose their meaning when translated to another language - hence the phrase, "lost in translation".I definitely will make an effort to learn the French language again, but in another time and perhaps in another place for my circumstances do not permit me to take the time and effort out of my daily life to dedicate to learning French at the moment with a full time job and courses at school.

Pretty much a large part of the world has no real idea what research is. When Toyota comes up with a hybrid car, and Honda creates its own version, can we really say that Honda did not perform research as it simply produced something that already existed? Some people think a research paper is a survey of existing methodologies or a paper that puts together information that has been created over the years. Others think research involves spending time in laboratories trying to build better products, such as consumer electronics. Neither of these views are accurate as each of these views about what research is has its own pitfalls.First of all, research is not simple information gathering, though research does include gathering information. Research requires the formulation of a problem, setting of specific attainable goals, assumptions that a hypothesis adopts about a particular situation, and an interpretation of the results. Unless all of these criteria are met, an activity cannot be called research. Consider all of the information that the newspaper gathers - the journalists meticulously craft their words to state the details of each event, but that is called journalism and not research. Similarly, a student writing a paper summarizing the different methodologies that are out there to perform an estimate or a calculation is doing just that - summarizing information.Another misconception that some individuals have is that when one discovers some phenomenon by accident, it was an act of research. While it is true that some unexpected phenomena led to the discovery of certain facts in the historical development of science, none of these discoveries were purely the result of accidental happenings. They were all the result of carefully planned experiments from which the experimenter noticed a deviation in the norm or an unexpected occurrence. This unexpected occurrence evoked the need for further research in the area and after a hypothesis was formed, a methodology for performing the research activity was determined, and the observations were interpreted, we arrived at a theory that was the result of a research activity.Finally, most research does not guarantee with certainty that a particular fact is really true. For example, in the past people believed that the world was flat and proved - they could have done so in many ways, such as by placing a ball on the ground and noting that it does not move, or by laying a flat piece of wood on the ground and noting that it does not wobble. However, many many years later, someone had a doubt that the would may be round and with this hypothesis, went on by performing research. We are all familiar with the most simple method of proving this hypothesis - looking at a ship sail into the distance, one would observe that first the hull disappears leaving the observer with only the sight of the mast and the flag. Eventually, the mast disappears, finally followed by the flag. In other words, a particular research activity does not necessary prove a hypothesis to be true or false, but simply indicates that data exists to support a particular view.Let us take an example here on Trap 17 to indicate how research works. An initial observation by a web master would indicate that the members are not satisfied with the shoutbox interface. This becomes the hypothesis and the methodology to prove this statement would be to conduct a poll. The assumption is that members have not voted multiple times, have not hacked into the accounts of other members to cast a vote, or have not influenced other members in any way during the voting process. As a result, when the information about the votes has been gathered, an inference is formed determining the characteristics that members do or do not like about the shoutbox and corrective action can be suggested, if needed.

Microsoft's new Sharepoint Services (SPS) 2010, which is currently in beta, takes serverside computing to go 64-bit only as it is available exclusively as a 64-bit version, runs only on 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windos 2008 Server or Microsoft Windows 2008 Server Release 2, and requires the use of the 64-bit edition of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 database or the 64-bit edition of the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. The hardware requirements are high, specifying a quad-core processor, four gigabytes of memory for a developer installation and eight gigabytes of memory for a single server installation.Sharepoint Services 2010 bring few new features over the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services 2007, such as the ability to write to external data sources, support for rich media content, and support for binary large object data. The Sharepoint Workspace client enables users to work in offline mode, and supports working with either the Sharepoint server or in peer-to-peer mode.Sharepoint Services 2010 can be run on a client operating system, such as Microsoft Windows 7, and is one of the key benefits for Sharepoint developers, who currently have to setup a virtual machine, use a server operating system, or run a server operating system on a separate machine. The high system requirements will be a road block for some developers who would have to upgrade or replace their development machines to be able to develop software for the new platform.Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) 3.0, which is a free addition and is a part of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system, is no longer included with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and has to be downloaded separately. The download, however, is free and does not require registration. Windows Sharepoint Services is undergoing a re-branding and will be called Microsoft Sharepoint Services 2010 Foundation, although some sources currently refer to it as Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) 4.0.Sharepoint Services 2010, currently in beta, is available from the Microsoft website, although currently a free registration is required to initiate the download.

Hi QueenBea (was that supposed to be Queen Bee, or are you referring to BEA systems, a Java technology provider?)!Advertising in the local newspapers really does help if you are selling or providing a service that targets the local populace. A tiny advertisement in the classifieds is not an attention-getter unless you are advertising used automobiles or job vacancies. You would probably want to install tools that will help you track the effectiveness of an advertisement in different sections of the paper though, for a more accurate judgment.A quarter-page advertisement on any of the inner pages of the newspaper is the best value that you can get, though if you have the budget, you ought to consider a front-page advertisement. Sony Ericsson ran a double-page advertisement as a wrap around the newspaper and that was probably overkill, but with an advertising budget as big as theirs, they were willing to pay just about anything to make their cell phone the talk of the town.You could also get a newspaper insert, which is a flyer, poster or a brochure that the newspaper can include with their paper as a supplement. This is essentially just a delivery service in that they bundle your flyers, posters, or brochures with their newspapers.

Hi!Microsoft Sharepoint Server is a powerful and extensible document management system. Sharepoint has a very tight integration with the Microsoft Office suite and support for workflows. You can use Sharepoint to setup a Wiki based on Microsoft technologies and can build portals that can search through documents, including those that are not stored within Sharepoint. If you are an ASP.NET Web Part developer, you can carry over those skills to Sharepoint and extend Sharepoint further. You can also find several websites that are based upon Sharepoint and use it as a content management system.

Hi!As soon as I get one of the infrastructure guys to setup a virtual machine for me, the only web browser that I have available is the Microsoft Internet Explorer.Now, ordinarily, I would stick with Microsoft Internet Explorer for the duration of my session on the server, but the Internet Explorer Security Enhanced Configuration drives me nuts, asking me to add every site that I visit into the safe websites list. That's the point at which I download Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome and continue to work with the alternate browser.If Microsoft hadn't made Internet Explorer so unusable on the server editions of its platform, I would've actually used it, but alas!BTW, I have tried unsuccessfully in disabling the Security Enhanced Configuration on Windows 2008 based servers - disabling the feature doesn't work, and neither does turning off protected mode and manually reducing the security settings to the minimum for all of the zones.

Hi!Many of the Microsoft Windows media files were created by third parties that provided them to Microsoft. You can find regional theme packs that were created by local firms, and they include audio files, graphics, icons, screen savers, and animated cursors. If Microsoft fails to perform a check on them, which they might since they have always been running behind on their schedules, they end up with media files that point back to the pirated software that was used to create them.@bjrnAdobe Acrobat was quite innovative in its strategy with fonts and handling text. Adobe Photoshop is a tool used for graphic editing and graphic design.@Tran-GatePerhaps one curious user used audio editing software to compose his/her creations and wanted to know what Microsoft used to create their audio files, and that's probably how the tale unfolded.

Microsoft's .NET platform may not be the best when it comes to building web applications, but the ability to create background Windows services (the equivalent of Linux daemons) is definitely top-notch. The API provided by Microsoft could use a lot of improvement to simplify the process of creating a web service, but it is currently the simplest that web service development ever has been.The Microsoft .NET platform is able to provide the best environment for Windows services because it exclusively targets the Microsoft Windows environment. I know a lot of other programmers would differ from this remark claiming that the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) does for .NET what the Java byte code does for Java, and that it can be run across multiple platforms, including the Mono framework developed by Novell, but is that truly multi-platform? The Microsoft Intermediate Language achieves the ability to run .NET programs on both 32-bit and 64-bit execution environments as long as they do not have any references to dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that specifically target these environments. You cannot expect every .NET program to run on Linux over the Mono framework simply because they differ in the functionality that they provide, although they do have a lot in common. Windows Forms applications and Windows Services are Windows-specific and cannot run on Mono for Linux.Take the Java platform and the Java programming language with the set of frameworks and libraries that it provides. Java offers a true write-once run-anywhere functionality whereby you can create an application that uses the Swing or the AWT framework and you can expect it to function exactly the same on another platform. Whatever is platform-specific is not a part of the Java framework but is available as an add-on library. The requirement of the add-on library discourages software developers from wanting to use a particular feature though the platform does not strictly forbid it. As is the case with Microsoft .NET based applications, Java applications that make specific calls to dynamic link libraries would not be portable across operating systems or hardware platforms due to the presence of native or machine-specific code. However, as long as you have a virtual machine available for a particular environment, which is the case with pretty much every major operating system or hardware platform, you can write and run Java code on that platform.

Hi!@anwiiSearch result listings do vary by region - have you ever had somebody post a screenshot of the top 'n' results on a Google search result page and when you actually decided to try out the search, you had a different set of search results? Google does it as I've noticed the different in the Google search results. I can't really tell if Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo follow the same approach too.@BuffaloHelpYou've mentioned MSN and Bing separately, so I was curious and I went to MSN.com just to check if Bing and MSN were really separate. I mean why would a single corporation run two different search engines under the same name? While the homepage at MSN.com used the trademark MSN all over and had absolutely no reference to the Bing search engine, clicking the search button immediately redirected me to the Bing search result page.@SpydaThe Google Page Rank for a website does influence its position within the Google search results. However, if a website were to get a lot of repeat-visitors and did not depend on search results from a search engine for viewership, that would definitely count for something and it would make page rank, back links, search engine optimization, and all of the other stuff that the search engine optimization consultants keep pitching at you, less relevant but that would not stop websites from capitalizing on traffic that the receive from search engine results. Take SlashDot, for instance, which gets a huge number of repeat visitors, or even the Apple.com website. They still focus quite a bit on search engine optimization to try to get new viewership, not because they don't already have a huge number of visitors already arriving on their websites and linking to them, but because they seek to grow their user base even further. Having a good Google Page Rank affects users' view of a website and is more like a badge or a certificate on the Google Toolbar (for the toolbar users) that web masters get to showcase with pride without having to put in any effort.

Hi!@mahesh2k (also see next note below)An SEO consultant mentions that page titles, heading tags, and URLs are the quickest way to make your website more favorable to Google. I agree with the usage of the H1/H2/H3 heading tags too - it's the best chance that the web page has to tell Google about its relevance, apart from having a hyperlink from another website.@anwiiYes, "a link is a link is a link", but a single hyperlink pointing to your website from a high page rank website would count for much much more than a multiple hyperlinks pointing to your website from a low page rank website, or even one without a pagerank. Google doesn't penalize websites for the presence of a link on a website that posts nothing more than spam but that doesn't count for anything either. Relevancy, as you've suggested, is something that Google's engineer spend a lot of effort on to determine what the context of a hyperlink to your website indicates. If your website links to a spam site, you might be penalized, though incoming links don't affect you negatively. A couple of web masters have mentioned about their discovery of spam links that were inserted onto their pages by means of a hack by the drop in their page rank or by finding their web pages de-listed from Google.@mahesh2kNofollow was supposed to be a pretty big blow to link spammers, but apparently that hasn't stopped them from trying. They continue to roll out spam bots that can spam lots of different kinds of blog engines and they're getting smart enough to extract a captcha to have the captcha challenge answered by a human while the bot continues its job of tossing out spam. Data entry staff in third world countries often spend their entire day using a data entry form with a captcha image on one side of the screen and a text box on the other side, with a button to submit the response to the captcha challenge.As you've mentioned, URL shorteners make it difficult for search engines to determine that the web page indicated in the URL is the same as your actual URL but the search engines just might get smart enough to send a request to the short URL provider to determine the actual URL as computing power and bandwidth becomes cheaper and easier to get.

Hi @psw!A lot of web designers take an existing theme from the WordPress theme directory (you can find the themes under Extend on the WordPress.org development website, not to be confused with the WordPress.com blog hosting website). Apparently, the most popular theme for developers to build upon is the Thesis theme, but the only time I have built upon an existing theme was when I used the Autumn Almanac theme, as work was being handed over by another web designer who built a website-blog and had to abandon the project half-way due to other commitments.Some web designers, like myself, like to build WordPress themes from scratch. This is primarily for producing cleaner markup and minimal Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) such that the website loads much quicker. This approach is more time consuming so you would have to set your priorities and achieve a balance between the various quality attributes.You might have to use additional plugins to achieve Paypal integration. Plugins are also available on the WordPress.org website (did I mention that I'm not referring to the WordPress-dot-COM website?). Click on Extend and go to plugins (right next to the Themes option). I've built a couple of WordPress themes but I didn't provide payment gateway integration in any of my projects so I cannot guide you on the best approach to take here but perhaps one of the other members on the forum can help you with it. I am a bit curious about why your friends would want to have Paypal integration for a personal blog or a personal website though.You can also buy premium themes from various web designers' websites or theme directories, and can also get theme customization for premium themes that are listed on the WordPress.org (you know the drill, you know what I'm going to say here, so let's just skip it) website under Extend.

.Hi Blue Dragon!A lot of firms market gaming monitors and high-end monitors for graphic designers, but for the average Joe Schmoe, as long as it look cool and is slim enough to fit on a desk, it turns into an object of desire. Apparently, the touch interface is the most hot and happening thing right now so notebook PC manufacturers are implementing the touch interface in the volume control and the wireless network on/off switch.I know exactly what you mean when you mention about the frustration of being unable to adjust the monitor brightness. I have a hard time getting my HP Compaq 6710b laptop to register a touch against the volume control to get it to increase or decrease the volume by more than one notch at a time. It is supposed to detect swiping motion, but it doesn't seem to be working for me.A possible solution to your problem would be to use software to control the brightness of the monitor. If you have Microsoft Windows 7 installed, you can click the Start button, go to the Control Panel, double-click on the Power options icon to open the control panel applet for power setting adjustment. While on this applet page, the bottom of the screen should display a slider that you can use for adjusting the brightness of your screen - sliding it should set the brightness of your monitor. If you don't have the slider or if the slider does not work, you might have to install device driver software for your monitor... this can either be from a disc supplied by the manufacturer/store when you bought the monitor, or can be downloaded online from the Samsung support website.Some keyboards have a button that controls the brightness of your monitor, the volume level, launchers for pretty much every kind of Internet application under the sun, and have a set of power off, standby, and sleep keys. iBall sells one of these - a cousin has one of these and the little ones, my niece and my nephew, keep turning off the computer while pushing the shiny silver buttons for power off or standby.I often accidentally tap on the wireless network adapter on/off switch, which is conveniently located above the F4 key on the keyboard. Folks who use the Alt and F4 shortcut to close windows, or the Control and F4 shortcut for closing tabs would probably feel the frustration, especially while in the middle of a download.

Hi!Domain names can be stolen, but it is just as easy to think of another domain name to use instead of having to pay the premium for a stolen or lost domain name. There are exceptions - you wouldn't except WalMart to have a website URL like gotowalmart.com and would expect to simply have the name followed by a .com for most organizations. Some folks try to create confusingly similar domain names so when you do type in a URL, you might make a mistake and, for example, would go to googe.com instead of google.com. We would probably expect Google to purchase all of the similar domain names and have them all point back to google.com, but with the browser auto-complete, search toolbars and bookmarks, we don't really type in the URL most of the time and so would get to Google without having typos.BTW, did anyone else notice that the myCENTs haven't been updating recently? I seem to have my myCENT counter stuck for the last 4-5 posts, and all of them were substantial (not one liners, definitely enough to at least make a small difference to the accumulated myCENTs). I'm guessing it will update itself in a couple of hours, but it has always been quick for me so I think there's a problem.

Hello!One of the many problems with trying to determine how a search engine works is that you never really know what happens under the hood. Except for the employees of Google, who sign non-disclosure agreements for all of what goes on within Google, no body really knows how Google works and cannot tell you more than something vague about how search engines work, in general.There are web masters and SEO experts who have observed a pattern among web sites that appear at the top of the search results, and they attempt to try these on their own web sites to see a difference.A search engine, like any other software, rarely remains the same as the engineers building it keep tweaking the various parameters that control the ranking of the website. This can include something like the size of the keywords on the page, the position of the keywords, or even the form in which the keywords appear. However, the most important factor in the ranking of web pages is the existence of back links. If you have a few hundred hyperlinks from other websites that link to your website, you would have a higher ranking in search engines. However, this does not mean that you can expect to get a higher rank by posting a hyperlink to your website on Internet forums and blog comments because they are treated as possible spam links and are therefore ignored by the search engines. The link juice could come from genuine bloggers or web masters who link to something specific on your website because they want to direct users your way - this can either happen as a result of them linking something on your site, or as a mutually agreed upon condition so you can get emailing all of your buddies who can do you a favor by posting a link to you on their websites in exchange for a link back to them.From a repeat-reader's perspective, however, search engine optimization makes no difference as he or she would be visiting your site regularly anyway to catch up with the latest occurences and happenings, so the content would matter more than the search engine's ranking of the website, so content really is the most important part of the website. Xisto has a pretty strong focus on content and there's really no disputing to that - if we didn't have content and if we didn't have so many different members posting to the forum, we wouldn't be getting all of the Google organic search traffic.Finally, you might have seen the number of changes that we all observe of GMail, Google Buzz, Orkut, and all of the other Google websites over the period of one month so you can imagine the number of changes that are made to Google but take effect under the sheets so we don't really know that there has been a change, although the search engine has been tweaked to provide better search results and to keep Google ahead of the pack. Rules of search engine optimization keep changing, and as algorithms grow more advanced and complex, they are better able to index data that was not previously possible, such as the ability to index content withing Adobe PDF documents, Postscript documents, Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and Microsoft Powerpoint presentation slides.