VPS Hosting - Bridging the Gap Between Dedicated and Shared Web Hosting

VPS web host divides a single physical server into multiple virtual servers, distributes each of them to a different user and thus, allows a number of websites to run simultaneously by sharing the resources. It offers the advantages of dedicated web hosting, as each user feels like using isolated servers. The advantages of shared hosting are also served as available resources are shared to reduce the overall cost. In addition

Flexible Usage of Resources

Every user associated with a VPS host can experience flexibility in the availability of various resources. Hence, the needs and requirements of each and every user are entertained at any point of time.

Powerful Control

VPS web host allows every single user to have complete control on the administrative tools, including graphical user interface, command line and web support services. As a result, one can feel like hosting the website on his own dedicated server.

Adequate Security

As server isolation is one of the many aspects of VPS hosting, one can expect appropriate level of security for individual websites. Unauthorized access and denial of service attack are two major threats that can be avoided with the help of VPS hosting security support.

Specific Installations

Every user on a virtual server host can use his slice of hosting space to install the operating system and other software tools of his own choice. Thus, there is no need to completely depend upon the available software tools with the administrator.

Easy Migration and Upgrading

With VPS web host, one can experience easy migration from one physical server to another, without experiencing any change in the server configuration. Similarly, one can easily upgrade the requirements in case of expansions at any point of time.

How appropriate the VPS web hosting is in handling the hosting needs of small and medium-sized businesses? How can CPanel web hosting make a virtual private server perform even better? You can visit http://www.webhostgear.com to find the right answers.

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Host Gator Web Hosting Review

Almost every web host out there promises superior hosting services and tools but till you do not experience its services for yourself, you can never tell whether this is the company that perfectly befits your hosting requirements. It therefore becomes important to compare and analyze various web hosts and select a host that would offer all-inclusive benefits and features. We have reviewed one of the most popular web hosts called Host Gator and this company has been around for quite some time and garnered a significant amount of positive feedback.

Host Gator offers hosting services for diverse hosting needs including small and big businesses (shared and dedicated) as well as reseller hosting packages. Furthermore, Host Gator customers get access to 24/7 prompt customer support. The company has to its credit various awards for its superior web hosting services and products. First time Host Gator customer need not worry about risking an investment as the company also offers a 30 day money back guarantee, if not satisfied. This is seemingly a win-win situation as there is actually nothing to lose when the company is providing exceptional hosting services and customer support.

The other most strikingly positive feature is their 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is pretty impressive for e-commerce enabled websites. This implies that e-commerce websites need not worry about their website being down most of the time which could otherwise result in loss on sales.

You could even consider making money with Host Gator by reselling their hosting products and services. Their reseller package starts at only $24.95 per month and the reseller can assign his own prices for individual hosting packages. Specific amount of disk space and bandwidth can also be allocated by the reseller for different hosting accounts.

The cheapest Host Gator plan is the "Hatchling" plan priced at $6.95 per month and the customer is required to an up-front yearly fee for the same. The "Baby Plan" seems to be a wise option as it not only allows you to host unlimited domains but also comes equipped with a disk size of 100,000 MB and a 1000GB bandwidth. These generous features are available for only $9.95 per month which is pretty reasonable given the unlimited tools, features and generous amount of disk space and bandwidth offered.

The third level package is the swamp plan and very much similar to the baby plan except for a few minor benefits and features. This plan is available for $14.95 per month.

Given the right combination of competitive pricing and superior features, Host Gator would be tough to beat.

HostingCoupons.org lists web hosting coupons, deals, discounts, savings and exclusive promotions from the top web hosts. You will find the best of web hosting companies listed there including the most recommended web hosts and domain registrars - godaddy, bluehost and hostgator. It covers blog discussions and topics like web hosting discussions and hosting reviews

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How-To Understand Web Hosting Package Features

The options available with a web hosting package are very wide ranging, and can be a bit confusing to understand - especially since the options are presenting in a large number of ways, and condensed in various ways, while shopping for a package online. Hopefully I can give you a breakdown of the categories these features fall into and help you to focus on the features that are important to you.

I break the features down into 10 categories, and will discuss the categories one by one to give you a firm grasp of the options and make an informed purchasing decision.

10 Categories of Web Hosting Package Features

1. Operating System

2. Web Server

3. Bandwidth

4. Disk Space

5. Domains

6. Email

7. FTP

8. Database

9. Control Panel

10. Applications / Programming

1. Operating System

The operating system is the underlying software that runs on the host. It manages the physical hardware of the server and attempts to optimize the use of RAM, disk space, network, and CPU for the requests coming into the machine. The underlying OS does not have to be the same as your desktop or even the OS you use to develop your website. In fact, due to most of the management functions being driven through a web GUI, you might never know or care what the server operating system is.

The predominant operating systems you will find while shopping for a web hosting service are Windows and UNIX. With Windows you will see versions available such as Server 2003 or Server 2008, and with UNIX you will see many brands of Linux, usually CentOS, Debian, or Redhat. Choosing between UNIX and Windows is an important decision, and involves a lot of variables, but in the end it simply means deciding if you want to build your website with open source technology or with Microsoft technology.

Research the application you want to use or run as your website and check to see if it has any Microsoft technology requirements (MSSQL database, MSAccess database, ASP, ASP.Net). If you find no pressing reason to use Windows, then UNIX will most likely be a better choice for you. UNIX runs the open source scripting languages slightly faster and is also slightly cheaper than Windows.

There are a few specific sub-features of the operating system that may be of importance to you.

Do you need a virtual private server? This gives you a dedicated virtual operating system all to yourself instead of you sharing the OS with others. You still share a machine with others, but there are stricter walls in place to guarantee you bandwidth, CPU, and memory even if a website on the same machine is getting heavily hit. It also gives you great configuration choices with everything since it is your own OS. These packages are more expensive than the shared options, but are worth if as your site grows. The VPS packages mainly vary is the amount of RAM dedicated to you, so I would recommend going with the smallest package and monitoring the RAM usage over time and upgrading into a bigger package as needed.

Do you need a dedicated SSL certificate? Most sites offer a shared SSL certificate, which is fine for some smaller sites, but if you are running a medium or large ecommerce site you will need a dedicated certificate. Some buyers justifiably will not send in their personal and credit card information without a guaranteed valid SSL private certificate. Also some shopping cart applications require the dedicated certificate as well. Be careful when shopping for this - some hosting services say they give a SSL certificate with all their hosting plans but do not explicitly tell you that it is a shared certificate. If the plan does not include a dedicated IP, then it is a shared certificate.

To directly remotely administer your site, you may need to either shell into with UNIX or Remote Desktop in with Windows. The UNIX shell option is sometimes referred to as SSH Shell, Secure Shell, or telnet. These options are only useful to you if you intend to do low level maintenance and tweaking, mainly in the VPS packages. With a good hosting package with a high powered control panel, you will not need either of these.

You may see mention for the ability to schedule cron jobs - this is the UNIX version of scheduled tasks. This ability is only needed if you wish to run scheduled tasks at set times, such as a nightly backup. Most of the good control panels provide an interface for the cron job entry, but they also provide interfaces for performing maintenance tasks such as backups. You will probably never need this feature.

2. Web Server

The web hosting companies usually offer Microsoft IIS or UNIX Apache web servers. Both have their plusses and minuses, and it will only make a difference to you if the website you are developing or the application you are running requires one or the other. Apache, being open source itself, has slightly better hooks in it to run many of the open source content management systems and blog engines based on PHP, PERL, and Python, so go with Apache if that is all you need. The Windows IIS also has quite good open source content management systems and blog engines based on ASP and ASP.Net, but I would suggest not going with a PHP/PERL/Python web application on Windows IIS - see the above discussion of the operating system as to why.

The SSL certificate is hosted by the web server, and the web server has to do extra processing of SSL HTTPS requests - it has to encrypt/decrypt and verify data passing between the client and the server. For this reason, some would argue that you should shy away from web hosting packages that offer free SSL shared certificates to everyone. You might end up sharing a server with 100s of other websites that overtax the server. A well run website will only go into HTTPS SSL mode for the actual entering of credit card data, not for the entire website - but you do not know if the other websites on your server are well run.

3. Bandwidth

This is a measure of the amount of data transmitted in/out of you website, usually on a monthly basis. Keep in mind that a typical website only transmits a very small amount of the content to each user, and even though a package only offers a few gigs of transfer a month, you will most likely not overshoot your allotment. If you do, then your website is really popular with thousands of visitors, and you should be generating a nice revenue stream. Most of the web hosting companies will spell out what the penalty is for overshooting your allotment - it is usually a dollar to two per gig, which makes it cheaper to upgrade to the next highest package of course. If your website is heavy on images or multimedia, you may need a bigger allotment of monthly bandwidth immediately. Fortunately they all offer a monthly meter to watch your bandwidth usage so that you can plan accordingly as your site grows in popularity.

Some hosting companies offer an unlimited bandwidth package - be wary of this. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth, so what they are selling is unmetered bandwidth. Many of them with unmetered offerings will inform you after you purchase an account of what their acceptable use policy is concerning bandwidth and disk space, disallowing you from performing nightly 500gig backups of your personal computer and such activities. In fact, many of these policies also stipulate that you must upgrade to bigger packages if your website begins to infringe on the bandwidth of others on a shared hosted machine. Once again, this is not a bad policy; if you get notified of infringement due to the activity of your website, then it is so popular that your revenue stream covers the additional expense of a bigger package.

4. Disk Space

This is the allotment of bytes on the hard drive given to you for your website. A large website with 100s of pages can easily fit into a gigabyte of space, so you actually do not need that much for a typical website. If you website has a catalog of thousands of items for sale, stored in a database with several images apiece, then you will need a significant upgrade in disk space. Usually as your site grows in popularity and content, you will be upgrading for bandwidth first, and get more disk space along with the upgraded package.

Some of the hosting companies will include your database space and your email space in this disk space allotment, so plan according to how they segregate the space.

As it was with bandwidth, many web hosting providers offer unlimited disk space, and there is no such thing as unlimited disk space. What they are selling is unmetered disk space, with an acceptable use policy. It is difficult to breach their acceptable use policy with a normal website, only by doing something outside the norm, such as hosting and anonymous ftp site of spurious files.

5. Domains

This is the number of web addresses that can point into your web hosting account. Almost all of the providers offer sub domains, where your main site is YourSite.com and you have sub domains of http://www.YourSite.Com and files.YourSite.com. Many will allow you to point externally hosted DNS entries pointed into your account s folder, but some do not. This may be referred to as Add-on domains, and most will offer in one of their packages multiple add-on domains. This allows you to purchase additional domains and point it into separate folders within your hosted account. This way you can run multiple websites, which appear completely unrelated, to be physically located and managed together.

Many of the web hosting providers offer a single or even multiple free domains with their accounts. Some even offer lifetime free domains, saving you the 10 dollars a year for the domain. Be sure and shop for that option if you want to save a few dollars a year.

6. Email

Almost all of the web hosting providers offer email accounts, which gives you an email address of YourName@YourSite.com. Most of them also offer web based email, POP and IMAP access, and spam filtering. Where they will differ is the number of emails accounts they provide, the disk space total or per mailbox, and advanced features such as mail list management. It is up to you as to how important email is to you and your website - there are plenty of free email providers on the internet so this has never been an important set of features for me.

Many of the web hosting providers offer unlimited emails, but again there is no such thing. As your email accounts grow, the bandwidth and disk space used will also grow, and neither of those is unlimited. So you eventually break their acceptable use policies and are forced to upgrade into a bigger package - again, not a bad thing if it is your website that is growing and creating revenue for you.

7. FTP

FTP is the file transfer protocol used to send and receive files back and forth to your website. This feature may or may not be important to you, depending on if you wish to server files up to anonymous people through this protocol. Most websites today deliver files through HTTP through your website, which allows you to manage access and users through your website instead of through the FTP accounts.

8. Database

A database is server package that structures data into an easy to store and retrieve manner. The database is one of the items used to create dynamic websites such as content management systems and blog engines. You will want to take advantage of the database also if you intend to create any sort of ecommerce website to store your user's information, catalogs of items for sale, and orders placed.

MySQL is available on most web hosting packages, whether it is on UNIX or Windows. MySQL is open source and does not require licensing per user, so it usually offers more instances available to your account. This is important so that you can have separation of data within your website. For example, your website may have a database for the content management system, the blog within the CMS, the items for sale catalog, and the shopping cart application. You could push all of those applications to use a single instance within the database, but you may have compatibility problems if one of those applications requires special database connection information, or table name collisions between the applications. Sharing instances between applications is also a security risk, since one part of your website could be hacked exposing all of the data stored, including user's financial information. If you are running multiple websites then these problems, collisions, and security risks will be compounded. Separation of applications into distinct database instances is important.

MSSQL is available on most of the Windows hosting packages, but is usually slightly more expensive due to its commercial licensing restrictions, and usually has lower instances and disk space available. But some website applications are built to take advantage of its feature set, so you may require this as your database. You could still take advantage of MySQL with as many applications as you could, there is not any reason a single website could not use multiple different databases.

MSAccess is the openly available database for Windows that is more of a file level database and not a dedicated server running it. It provides adequate storage for lighter database usage, but would not be sufficient for any larger data storage needs.

Researching the needs of the applications you intend to run on your website, and planning the database requirements needed for each, will drive you to a conclusion of which hosting package to use based on these database needs.

9. Control Panel

The control panel will be the location you will manage all of the details of your web hosting account. All of the providers give you a web based control panel that is easy to use and provide sufficient help to understanding all of its features so that you can avoid calling them for help.

The web hosting providers will vary in the type of control panel they provide, however. The two main control panels are cPanel and Plesk, which are found on about 80% of the providers. The remaining 20% give you a custom built control panel. cPanel and Plesk are so popular because they provide feature rich management utilities right out of the box and both can be branded to appear like the host provider's pages, but they are expensive to license. Both work on UNIX and Windows hosted accounts and allow for complete management of the underlying operating system configuration, web server configuration, web site configuration, email ,ftp, DNS, etc.

If you are new to web hosting then it really does not matter with control panel you choose, but if you are familiar with cPanel or Plesk you may prefer to go with a hosting provider which provides you with the control panel you are comfortable with.

If you are interested in getting into being a hosting reseller, then you will want to ensure you get licenses provided to you for your reseller account through the web hosting provider so that you can brand it and give it to your sub-hosted customers (and not have them call you with configuration needs).

Many on the internet recommend removing cPanel and Plesk from your virtual private server since both can be major bandwidth, CPU, and disk space hogs. One of the great benefits of a virtual private server is being able to login as root or administrator and manage the operating system and web server directly, removing the need to obfuscate into a web GUI those tasks. Of course you would need to be a lot more technically keen on doing those tasks yourself, or you could pay a few dollars more a month and get a managed VPS package.

10. Applications / Programming

No matter the type of website you plan to build, you will most likely use a few pre built packages as the foundation of your site. The pre built packages are built with some sort of programming or scripting language. They may be using PHP, PERL, Python, Java, Ruby, ASP, ASP.Net, or Coldfusion. Most of these languages run on any operating system, except for ASP and ASP.Net, both of which are Microsoft technologies requiring windows (and application probably requires IIS and MSSQL database as well). PHP, PERL, Python, and Java are cross platform, but UNIX runs them slightly faster than Windows and is usually a slightly cheaper package. Ruby is a UNIX only language, and it may be referred to as Ruby on Rails. Not all web hosting providers give access to all of these languages with all of their packages - make sure you shop it carefully to ensure the host and the package you purchase has the language you need.

The applications you decide run will tell you what their requirements are. In fact, the web hosting provider will give you the tools you need to install the applications from the control panel, which makes it a breeze to get up and running with the base installation of whatever application you choose. These days all of the web hosting providers allow you to get up and running with the base installation of the most common blog engines and content management systems within minutes after purchasing.

If you are interested in a blog, read up on WordPress and BlogEngine.Net. If you are interested in a content management system, read up on Joomla, Drupal, DotNetNuke, and mojoPortal. For a message forum, read up on PHPBB and YetAnotherForum applications. There are many more pre built applications to help you get up and running including shopping carts, mail list management, web authoring tools, and catalog databases.

Conclusion:

I hope that this article provides you with enough understanding to make a wise decision when selecting a web hosting package. Happy shopping!

Matthew Thomas, administrator [http://www.HostGraphs.com]

I invite you to come peruse the real top 10 web hosting companies, ranked by actual response time data. Visit [http://www.HostGraphs.com] and see who the fastest web hosting companies are, see graphs of their historical response times, read reviews, search and filter their available hosting packages, and discuss your own experiences with them.

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Where to Find Good Bargain Hosting?

With the rapid advancement that has taken place in the world today, it has not become much difficult for people to obtain the latest technology through communication worldwide. Similarly, providing accurate and appropriate information about one's own company has also become essential these days, for which Hosting is the key!

Web Hosting is a service with the help of the Internet's World Wide Web (WWW) that enables individuals, business entrepreneurs and organizations to build their own independent websites, which is not possible otherwise on your own. There are a number of web hosts (or hosting providers) in the hosting industry who specifically makes this possible for all those seeking to create a website. These providers basically provide a server storage space and the Internet connectivity or a data centre.

However, finding the best or the right hosting company to fulfill your hosting needs is also a big task, in this rapidly changing environment of so many web hosts springing up in the industry. We need to scrutinise the best and economically viable hosting company. A thorough research on the reliability of the web hosting companies should help you in a good bargain on hosting services for your website (s). The web hosting provider should be able to provide you with the round the clock support service and various other options to host your site, apart from room for further expansion, when required. In addition, the web hosts should also offer you a good uptime; companies offering a 99.9% uptime with a money back guarantee are definitely the most reputable ones but are expensive. However, you can always opt for the ones offering not less than 99.5% uptime for your websites, to avoid any loss of business as clients often feel frustrated due to regular downtimes and switch over to other websites.

Money should not always be considered as a important factor because if the website is down then you could loose even the reputation and the hosting providers payment refund cannot be considered as a major advantage. Never signup with a company based on the marketing offers they give you but opt for the same based on the actual features you could get and also based on real customer testimonials.

Availing features like PHP and MySQL database in your web hosting package is a good deal, only if accompanied at a reasonable price and a good technical support staff, to cater to your clients' requirements.

Amit Bhawani is a Professional Full Time Tech Blogger who offers Web Hosting [http://hostingadvices.co.uk/] advices along with different tips for Best UK Hosting [http://hostingadvices.co.uk/the-best-uk-web-hosting-services/] which are useful to consumers before they buy them.

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The Advantages & Disadvantages of Recessed Lighting !!

Recessed lighting is an attractive form of lighting that is installed flush with a surface. However, as with any lighting choice, you should consider the disadvantages of recessed lighting before installation.
5 Advantages of Recessed Lighting

Accent: In the past, if a homeowner wanted to highlight a painting or sculpture, he would most likely install track lighting and point one of the light fixtures directly at the object he wanted to focus on. With recessed lighting, however, you can create a soft glow coming out from the sides of the object, causing the object to draw your eye to it naturally. Also, recessed lights are easily hidden from plain sight and do not draw unwanted attention to themselves.

Space: One of the best things about recessed lighting is that it creates the illusion of more space. Recessed lights give off a soft subtle glow, which blurs the boundaries of the room and the space appears larger than it actually is. For example, recessed ceiling lighting fixtures give the sense of a higher ceiling, while recessed lighting in corners makes the room appear more open. As an added advantage, because recessed lighting is built in and subtle, it goes with nearly all decor styles. Not to mention, it is neat and unobtrusive compared to other lighting fixtures available.

Weight: One of the nicest things about recessed lighting is the lightweight nature of the completed units. Recessed wall and ceiling lights are trivial enough that they do not have to be secured directly to ceiling joists or wall studs, they virtually .float. in recessed spaces with very little supporting them besides the housing canister, baffle and trim contained within the lighting kit.

Aesthetics: Recessed lighting is very versatile in terms of what can be done with the lights themselves. Recessed lights can be adjusted to provide either pleasant ambient lighting or accent or spot lighting as circumstances require. Such benefits cannot be duplicated by other types of lighting fixtures. Also, they can be used for virtually any indoor/outdoor lighting application and come in a variety of shapes, colors and finishes.

Versatile & Efficient: The placement of recessed lights allows you to see what you’re doing more clearly. This added light allows you to work more efficiently without the use of obtrusive light fixtures. Recessed lights also provide dimming effects that are easy to control. You can install these lights in a media room and dim the lights to view movies. Or, you can install the lights in a bedroom, kitchen or bath to provide a large amount of light into a room. Either way, these lights are versatile and highly sought after by many homeowners.
5 Disadvantages of Recessed Lighting

Cost: Depending on the type of recessed lighting you have selected, the cost may be higher than a traditional light fixture. The cost of bulbs and installation of recessed lights may also be more expensive compared to a traditional fixture.

Installation: Recessed lighting is often more difficult to install than a traditional fixture. If the lighting is being installed into a ceiling, you must create holes into the drywall large enough for the light. Also, the housing of the light must fit snugly into the space so you have a proper seal against heat loss.

Permanency: Permanency may be a disadvantage of recessed lighting, because once it has been installed, you cannot move it. If you wish to change the layout of your room, the lighting will remain in the same position, which may not suit your new layout.

Bulbs: Recessed lights use different types of light bulbs than a traditional light. The bulbs are smaller and differently shaped than traditional light bulbs. In other words, changing the light bulb may be troublesome, since there is a small space within the housing to rotate the bulb in and out of the socket.

Safety: You must choose safe recessed lighting, such as Insulation Contact (IC) rated lighting. An IC rated light will not be a safety risk. But, lights that are not IC rated may create heat, which can lead to fires since recessed lighting is installed so that the housing is in contact with home insulation.

Inside the $24 Million Exhibitionist Yacht by Gray Design !!

Batman would like this toy. The Swedish design studio Grey Design has unveiled one of the finest yachts in the world. The futuristic concept with the name exhibitionist is considered as supercar of the seas and convinces with fascinating racing technology, solar panels and landing places for up to three helicopters.


The interior of this concept gives the term decadence a new meaning. The Art Nouveau-inspired styling and a spacious area offer plenty of space for extravagant living. Get inspired.

Best smartwatch 2015: what's the best wearable tech for you !!?

The smartwatch market is relatively new, but it's already fallen into the same pattern as mobile phones.

So there are a large number of watches using Google's Android Wear, up against a choice of two Apple Watches, one large and one small, in a variety of finishes, but all running the same operating system, watchOS.

Then there's an outlier, but as Microsoft only makes this, that role falls to Kickstarter-funded Pebble, with its growing range of versatile smartwatches.

Here at techradar, Smartwatches go through the same intense reviewing processes as our phones and tablets, as we weigh up everything from design and features, to interface and price. That means we can bring you what we believe is THE comprehensive list of the best smartwatches around, telling you which watch offers the best balance of function, performance, style and value for money.

Every Android Wear smartwatch in the world today

Recent improvements to Android Wear, the release of the far more feature-packed Apple watchOS 2 and updates to the Pebble make smartwatches more competitive and appealing than ever. All of them deliver important information, from texts messages to email alerts, without the need to get your phone out. Most also offer fitness tracking, and apps then open up a wide range of additional functions.

The question is, who out of Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola, Asus et al makes the best Android Wear watch, where does Pebble sit, and does that little wearable made by Apple deserve its position as the number one selling watch/Watch?

Meaningful Learning With Technology !!

New technology has allowed educational institutions to take the distance out of distance learning, which has made online degree programs more popular than ever. "Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the US, 2005", a report published last year by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, gives a very positive outlook on the future of online education. The report indicates that online enrollment in the US increased from 1.98m in 2003 to 2.35m a year later, a growth rate more than 10 times that predicted by the National Center for Education Statistics for the general post-secondary student population.

The earliest inception of e-learning closely resembled a classroom on a CD-ROM, and was structured in such a way as to present students with a rigid format that offered little in the way of a flexible learning environment. Most recently, however, e-learning has evolved from a formal presentation of information to a much more fluid and integrated type of learning. As technology has improved by leaps and bounds, demand for high quality online educational programs has steadily increased. The flexibility of current technology now available has allowed many institutions to offer a multitude of ways for students to interact with not only faculty, but with each other as well. The end result has been the creation of a more community inspired experience that leaves students feeling they are part of a greater whole instead of an island unto themselves.

Investing in an integrated learning curriculum is not cheap, though the institutions who have made the effort to stay abreast of the newest technology have certainly reaped rewards from their efforts. With the most current formats available being favored by many students, it is an investment that is likely to yield favorable results for years to come. With each new student that graduates from an online university, the public acceptance of this form of learning will continue to grow. Though it's likely that online degree programs will never surpass traditional university programs, there is a good chance that in the near future, most graduates who enter the workforce will have gained a level of experience with an online learning format within some point along their educational journey.

How To Improve Computer Performance !!

Many computer problems can be solved with free or low-cost products or just by using a few common sense tips to improve performance and keep your PC running for a long time.

Computers often freeze or crash when one needs them the most; in the middle of an important presentation, a term paper that's due the next day, or while updating our financial software. Many computer problems can be solved with free or low-cost products or just by using a few common sense tips to improve performance and keep your PC running for a long time.

1. Registry Scan - The registry cleaner scans the registry to trace the obsolete date, deletes it to enable your computer to run error free and enhance the performance of your computer. Most cleaners have a backup function to help you backup your registry before cleaning it in case you encounter a system failure. You can get a free registry cleaner or trial version. My opinion is to select a licensed registry cleaning software for this purpose like Registry Easy.

2. Virus Scan Program - The most essential thing to have is a virus scan that is run weekly. Most new computers come with a virus scan already installed. If the computer you are using doesn't have a virus scan there are free scans available online, but one really should be installed on your computer if you spend any time at all online. Spend the time learning how to use your virus scanner. Find out how it's updated - most update automatically - and use the options to set it up to run automatically at a set time every week. Most computer problems can be prevented just by having a virus scanner installed.

3. Run the Defragmenter program - Another program that you should run about every two months is called Disk Defragmenter. Defrag will arrange your files better so your PC can access them faster. It's best to run this program after the Scandisk program is finished.

To run Disk Defragmenter go back to the "System Tools" and choose "Disk Defragmenter". It's best to run this program overnight as it takes a long time.

You should not be using these programs while using other programs on your computer. If the Scandisk or Defrag program keeps starting over you may need to run the programs in Safe Mode, a special diagnostic mode. Read the manual for your PC to find out how to put your PC into Safe Mode.

4. Use a Firewall program - For anyone on a DSL or cable connection a personal firewall keeps viruses, hijackers and hackers from your computer. Since you are constantly connected to the internet by using these connections there is a constant threat that others may try to access your computer. There are free firewall programs available for download.

5. Run a Spyware program - Another important program is a spyware search program. When you download something from the internet sometimes other software is included. This software is called "spyware" and it can do many things to harm your computer, including letting someone from another website see what websites you surf in order to send you advertising. Other spyware tries to steal your passwords or other personal information. You should run a spyware checker at least once a month or at any time you are experiencing problems with your connection or computer speed.

6. Run a hi-jacker search program - Another important program to have is a hi-jacker search program. A hi-jacker changes your homepage to a different search engine page and can also block links to common search pages. They are trying to force you to use their homepage. Some of the hi-jacker's homepages are not pages you would like your children to see. You should use a hi-jacker search program at least once a month or whenever you are having a problem with your homepage.

7. Clear your temporary files - Sometimes your PC's virtual memory will become full. When this happens your computer may run slow, give you error messages or freeze during a program. This happens because everything you do on your PC - every picture on every webpage, every document you type, every photo you change - is saved somewhere on your PC, even after you have left that page and closed the document. In order to erase this memory you need to do the following steps:

Open your internet browser. Go to "Tools", "Internet Options". A box will pop open. It should be open to the "General" tab. In the center of the box is a section marked "Temporary Internet Files". Click on "Delete Cookies" and "Delete Files" one at a time. This will delete the temporary files that are clogging the PC's memory.

8. Change your history options - Another way to clean out your computer's memory is to change how many days it saves visited pages. You will find a "history" box in your internet options. It asks how many days you wish to keep pages in history. This is the part of the computer that saves all pages you've visited for as many days as you wish. By saving these pages for a smaller number of days you can clear up more of your PC's memory.

9. Clean out old files - Periodically going through the files in My Documents or other folders you have set up and deleting or archiving them on a CD can also help your computer's memory and performance. Do you really need to keep a saved copy of last semester's English term paper? If not, delete it. You can also go through the programs on your PC from the control panel and delete those you no longer use. Don't delete any of the shared files, though, if it asks, because that can cause more problems.

10. Reboot the PC occasionally - The last thing that is very important to do but seems simple is just to turn your computer off periodically. Your PC needs to be restarted in order to reset itself after new programs or equipment is installed. It also erases the virtual memory from the last session and goes through a self-diagnostic to look for any problems. It sounds like a simple solution, but most problems can be fixed simply by restarting your PC.

Troubleshooting your PC's problems doesn't have to cost a lot of money or require technical expertise. By using just a few software programs and common sense most problems can be stopped and you will find that your PC has better performance and reliability.

Latest News On Immigration !!

A website I came across gives all the latest news of itech, everything that one needs to know about the information and technology world. There are several items in it which gives the top news from everywhere, and it is an ever growing one. People log in, read the news, write their own or leave comments and messages on the website and its contents.

iPhone came up with a horrible and frightening ad during Halloween which was aptly titled horrorscope. It predicted unpleasant things and as it was temporary and free no one took it very seriously. For example people born under the star sign Scorpio were told that if they had survived an attack on October 26 they would certainly fall prey to rabies and to cure rabies it would need twenty horrible injections. There are many such inventions which make people shudder but most forget it soon enough and do not keep it in mind or take it seriously.

This website also gives serious information like security flaws in accessing sites like Google. There was root access via telnet which was immediately looked into by Google as soon as it appeared and was repaired. There are several talented people who find ways and means of hacking and getting into various forbidden territory. They do not like to be told what to do and what not to. But the various sites are taking precautions to look into their security- and succeeding to a great extent. At least till the next security lapse occurs.

Several new launches are mentioned in this website which keeps on including new items. Sprint's new QWERTY smartphone is featured. This phone is available in only a couple of selected retail stores. Two Sony Ericsson products Sony W705 Walkman phone and MBS-900 Bluetooth speaker are also written about.

Australians are delighted that their Channel Ten is launching a new sports channel next year which will throw a challenge to other channels. It is a 24 hour channel which will telecast the topmost sports events like US NBA Basketball, US Major League Baseball and US Open Golf Tournament besides other events.

Cyclists will be happy to know that a new kind of specs has been invented by Billy May called Nike Hindsight which will help them see things which they normally cannot. This spec is like the big sticker found on the rear window of a school bus and which gives the cyclist an unparalleled vision. This is quite a cheap and useful invention and the urban cyclist will definitely benefit from it. This spec is fitted with Fresnel lenses which are special lenses.

The European Union has apparently imposed a new rule which states that wineries cannot use the word 'Port' on their wine labels unless the wine was made in Portugal. To circumvent this rule winemakers, especially the Peltier Station Winery, have found out a loophole. They have been branding their dessert wines as 'USB' in lieu of the word port. They even boldly stated the $25 wine as USB Port.

The above mentioned news items are just tips of an iceberg. There is more news from the world of Motorola, Nokia, Kodak and other such industries dealing with iTech.