What is Cloud Computing

You may have heard the term “Cloud computing” and wondered what it meant. Savvy IT professionals are aware that cloud computing refers to a system of servers that gives people access to computer services over a network, such as the Internet.

Cloud computing is taking off because organizations are realizing the many benefits it provides, including saving money on hardware and software, lowering the burden on IT department personnel and enabling companies to back up their vital data safely and securely.

In fact, cloud computing services are expected to generate almost 14 million jobs across the world by 2015, with many of these jobs coming from small-to-medium sized businesses, according to the IDC report “Cloud Computing’s Role in Job Creation.” What’s more, cloud computing could produce up to $1.1 trillion in revenue every year by 2015.

Remote Backups and Disaster Recovery:

If your company does not routinely make offsite backups of its vital data, what will you do in the face of a catastrophic hard drive crash? While prudent managers will at least set up extra servers to back up data locally, it’s important to maintain offsite backups as well, in case of a natural disaster, extended power failure, theft or other problems.

Cloud computing makes it easy to make multiple backup copies of your data, which you can then access via the Internet to recover information during a disaster.

While your competitors are struggling to regain power and reconstruct their databases, you can quickly restore your important files by accessing them via the cloud. Even if you have to evacuate the premises, such as during a severe weather event, your employees can use laptops or smart phones to access data via the cloud from a hotel, coffee shop or their office at home, thanks to cloud computing.

Save Money on Software and IT Services:

Organizations find that they can save money on software and IT services by taking advantage of cloud computing services. For example, instead of purchasing expensive licenses for a suite of office applications or a particular database program for your entire workforce, you can use software as a service (SaaS) on an as-needed basis. The software is always available via the cloud, and your employees access it through a standard web browser.

Your IT department won’t have to worry about updating software or applying security patches, as the cloud computing service provider’s IT department will take care of this task for you.

You can also purchase access to encrypted server storage space from a cloud services provider whenever you need it. Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting helps companies save money, as they don’t need to try to plan ahead and purchase additional server space for local use.

Access Data While on the Go:

Does your organization rely on travelling sales people and marketing specialists to drum up new business? If so, these employees are going to be on the road quite frequently. Instead of trying to bring copies of all necessary files with them on their laptops, they can access your company’s data securely via cloud computing.

When a salesperson develops a lead, he can input the data on his device while out in the field, and the information will be instantly accessible to everyone in your organization’s headquarters via the cloud.

Imagine updating important documents that everyone in your company needs to access quickly and reliably. For example, have you changed the terms of your standard contracts? Your legal department can put the updated files in the cloud so that employee will always be able to access the latest versions.

After examining the benefits of cloud computing, many people will want to consider implementing it for their own organizations. Whether you use cloud computing just to keep safe backups in an offsite location or rely on it for fast and reliable access to inexpensive software as a service, this technology is designed to make your organization work more efficiently and save your money. Cloud computing can give you a boost over your competitors, and that’s reason enough to begin implementing it to some degree at your firm.

Author Bio:

Matt Smith is a Dell employee who writes to help raise awareness on the topic of Cloud Computing and other network management subjects.

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Do You Really Know How Far Your Goods Will Travel When You Order Online?

License: Creative Commons image source

The Age of the Internet:

The internet has had a dramatic effect on the way most of us choose and buy a wide variety of products. Just a few years ago, our preferred method of shopping is likely to have been to pay a visit to our local shops, or, if we were looking to make a special purchase, probably to venture into a nearby city, or to an out-of-town shopping centre, where the biggest outlets with the widest choice of products could be found.

That idea has been strongly challenged in recent times, as most of us become ever-more accustomed to looking for what we want to buy online. For major purchases especially, we are happy to scour the internet to find the cheapest prices available.

But how many people, when they do this, give much thought to where the websites on which they find the best prices are run from, and therefore, how far their goods will have to travel to reach them when they finally click on that 'Buy Now' button.

My guess would be very few. We have become so intent on tracking down the best possible price for the precise product we want, that little thought is given to how it will eventually reach us after we take that split-second decision to make a purchase from a particular website.

Buying Online creates convenience:

From the buyer's point of view, shopping online breaks new boundaries in convenience, because it means we can compare products for all the criteria which we can possibly consider when we buy, and then look for the outlet which offers the product we find best meets our needs at the lowest possible price. And yet, when we do this, apart from exceptional occasions when a website will publish its full registered address, most of us will give little or no thought to where our goods will be shipped from, and therefore the task which lies ahead for the delivery company which will ensure that those goods, ordered in a fraction of a second, in turn reach us safely and in the shortest time possible.

This convenience is, of course, a compelling reason why so many of us now choose to shop for many of the things we buy online. But conversely, businesses of course are always looking out for locations from where they can operate while incurring the lowest possible overheads.

As a result, a company can have as many 'shop fronts' as possible, yet its online operation could equally be run from relatively unassuming premises, well away from the locations of these prestigious shop windows. Companies which already have large-scale premises which are used for storage of their products before they are sent out to their stores may, therefore, have a strong advantage over purely web-based companies when it comes to operating the online arm of their business.

But in truth, the motivation for shopping online is so strongly skewed towards seeking out the lowest possible price for the products that we want to buy, that the vast majority of shoppers won't care whether their goods are picked off the shelves of a posh flagship store, or come from a dingy warehouse operated from an industrial estate – provided they reach them safely, and in a reasonable time-frame.

Author Bio:

Guest blog contributed by Lauren Belfield, a parcel delivery expert working for MyHermes.

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How To Identify Legitimate Home Based Business Opportunities?

Home based business opportunities and franchise opportunities are at a hike.  The increasing demand of work for less pay is making more and more to opt for independent sources of income that would allow them to learn while on the job or out of job. As there are many options of home based businesses it is important to identify a valid and trust worthy source that would be 100% risk free.

Here are Few tips to help identify a legitimate home based business opportunity:

• Businesses that are started through experiential learning are certainly worth listening to.  As they are real life people who have faced real time situations, they would be able to provide a platform that is not overwhelming and is definitely promising.
• Sharing of information that would help a person focus on home based business in a general sense is another way of assessing the validity of the business. If a particular business is focused on only promoting themselves the results would remain the same. Some businesses however link their service with an aim to empower people with knowledge on finding the right resources.
• Provide flexible options of working part-time or offer trail opportunities can be trusted.  As they are confident about their services they provide a time for the new entrant without overpowering their idea of being a part of this highly rewarding business line.
• Businesses that extend support in terms of helping through the start up process and providing constant guidance would be a legitimate source of a home based business opportunity.
• Social presence of the business is another aspect that can help to understand their stance in the market and their ranking among the competitors. The higher they are ranked the better are the prospects of earning. 
• Reviews and testimonials are other sources of information that not only inspire but also provide an insight into the way the entire business operates. As most that have become successful do leave a note behind, it helps as a great boost for those who are contemplating about choosing the home based business opportunity.
• Discussion forums, video lectures and data sharing are a few other facilities that home based business providers extend for the benefit of the entrant.
• A website is also a way of analyzing the impact the business has when compared to other opportunities. The website should have constant updates with valid information that would support the business that is being promoted.
• Discussing various options to choose from that have a higher pay out through forums and blogs would also help in analyzing the best home based business opportunities.
• Training material in support to the product or service is another way of checking the validity of the business opportunity.  If the business is investing in training someone they aim to experience a result oriented business.
• There are many helpful websites that provide a review on each of the legitimate home based business opportunities and their success ratio.  This would also provide an insight into the benefit that one can make if a particular online opportunity is taken up.

Author Bio:

Claudia Martinez is an expert content writer who writes for several blogs and websites including business and home based business blogs.

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Identifying Your Target Audience

Before I begin creating a content strategy or analysing the existing content in a website, I try to get as clear as I can about who is in my target audience. If you're thinking that your website should appeal to everyone in the entire world, you haven't narrowed things down enough yet. Trying to reach everyone is not only impossible, it can make it a lot harder to reach the people who matter most.

If you work for a big company or an organisation, you probably want to start this process by talking with people in the marketing department, the sales team, customer support; these folks have thought a lot about the audience. But if you are working with a smaller company, you may need to do some of this research yourself and help identify the best audience to target with the content you are going to create.

Either way, the tips and suggestions in this article are designed to help you appreciate why getting as specific as you can about your audience, can help ensure that your content is effective and well received by the right people. Here are a few of the characteristics to consider as you define your target audience. The first one is demographics. That's a big word that represents many things to many people, but it's generally used to mean things like gender, race, age, mobility--whether somebody is in a wheelchair or they are a marathon runner--economic status, employment status, location--meaning where they live, if it's an urban or rural setting-- those kinds of things.

As you identify your target audience, you may also want to consider some more specific elements, like language requirements, what education level or reading level they are likely to have, whether they've ever used a computer before or they are very experienced with computers. If you are developing a website for people who are gamers, for example, you can probably assume a high level of experience-- other audiences, maybe not so much. Similarly, computer equipment and bandwidth can affect not only usability issues, but what kind of content you create, whether you can have multimedia and other formats. So all of that comes into identifying how you decide what kind of content, things like what reading level you're going to write for, what formats to use, again, whether you are going to use video or animations.

Does your audience have the bandwidth to support that? And again what languages to use, what cultural references and things like that. So the more specific you get on that demographic information, the more you identify what kind of audience, the more informed you are as you start to make decisions like these. For example, if I'm designing a website for veterinarians I would probably use far more sophisticated vocabulary than I would use for pet owners. I will give you an example of that at the end.

But before I do, the more specific you can get about your audience, the better. So what else can we learn about our example pet owners? Again, much of it comes down to asking the right questions. Are the customers of big commercial ranchers with herds and pigs and cows, or are they city dwellers, more likely to have companion pets such as cats, dogs, fish and birds? Also consider what you might know about your own community and do some research on what other people know about your community. If our example was in Silicon Valley, California, you'd probably know you are in the heart of the dotcom world, and you could probably assume that most of your audience was computer savvy and had relatively high bandwidth.

If you were on Miami Beach in South Florida, a little research might reveal that most people who live on South Beach live in high-rise condos, and most of those condos restrict their residents to pets that weigh no more than thirty pounds. That kind of detail can help you determine, for example, that you might want more content about small dogs than big ones. As you research your audience keep asking yourself, what makes my visitors different from everyone else in the world? Some designers go so far as to create what they call user personas. User personas give specific examples of what key customer types might be like. Having a specific user persona with a name and a back story can help you humanise demographics.

So for example, we might create Michaela, a 10-year-old girl who has her first puppy and can't wait to train it to do tricks. But even then, remember that we might be marketing to her parents more than to her. Other user personas might be someone like George, a small business owner who dotes on his white cockatoo that he keeps in his office. Creating user personas can be fun, but I have to warn you: as helpful as it can be to personify your audience, creating user personas can become a distraction all by itself. If you are working on a pet site and you find yourself imagining what paint colours your customers might choose for their dining room, you're probably getting a little too specific with your user personas.

As a content strategist, you should know that lots of marketing people, user interface designers, and others love creating user personas. And many writers find it extremely helpful to have a specific person in mind as they write. Just don't get too bogged down at this stage in the process. Ultimately, I recommend you define at least the basic characteristics of your audience and you use those to guide the content development. For our pet site example, let's assume we've done some research. We've interviewed a few people, we've studied the demographics of our neighbourhood, and we've come up with the following.

Our audience is made up of urban professionals. We don't have to get more specific than that, but we could. Our target language is going to be English. We may want to change that in the future, but for now, that's what we've identified. We are going to assume most of them have at least some college education, based on where they live, that they are relatively computer savvy, and that they are most likely visiting our website on a desktop computer, although increasingly we're seeing traffic on smart phones and tablets, and that will also influence some of our content development.

Sometimes you need to target very specific content to something like a smart phone. Once we agree that our website is for urban pet owners and not veterinarians for example, then we can start to agree that we should use simpler vocabulary, not big fancy scientific terms.

Author Bio:

Sadhiv Mahandru has been involved in online marketing for over a decade covering PPC, Affiliate Marketing, SEO, Content Creation and also creating effective websites. Providing SEO & Web Design and offering these services throughout the UK. You can also learn more about Internet Marketing and SEO by reading my own blog which is updated frequently.

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How To Extract Words From Pictures And Pdf Files [Freeware]

Hai guys, I found an amazing software online named Free OCR(Optical Character Recognition) to extract words on the Pictures and uneditable Pdf documents.
This software supports all type of image formats and allows you to do this extraction process without converting them to a specific format.
The quality of the Extracted Text depends upon the Quality of the printed texts on the source files.

Description by the Developer:

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the process of converting a bitmap image of text into text that can be selected, copied and searched by some text editing software. Free OCR helps extract text from scanned documents (including multipage files), photographs and digital camera captured images that cannot be copied or printed easily to TXT/MS Word for editing with OCR technology. Saving time on retyping any text and finding back the documents you archived!

Features:

• Extract text from all images.
• Extract text from scanned paper documents.
• Superior OCR accuracy.
• Zoom in & Zoom out for better OCR.
• Built-in text editor to edit extracted text.
• Tons of image formats supported.
• Preview PDF documents & images.
• Apply password and digital signature.
• And soo on.

How To Install: (Not necessary if you know the actual installation process)

• Use the below Download button to download The Downloader(About 1.23MB).
• After downloading, Open it.
• Then you will be made to download the original software.
• Important: Read every steps while installing this software, because clicking Next Next Next without looking on the installation screen will result in the download & installation of additional softwares that are not necessary. I used to do this once and added many useless software to my PC.
• Skip those unnecessary tools while proceeding to the actual download.
• The download of this software takes place in various steps(Don't Panic) Just minimize it and carryon with your work.
• Then after downloading and installing you will be informed that the software is successfully installed on your PC.
• Open it from your desktop and start converting pics & Pdf documents with texts to text documents.
• That's it. :)

Version: 4.2.6

Supports: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8.

Size: 8.52Mb

License: Freeware [?]

Please Leave a Comment if you find problems with the download link! :)

You can do this separation of words from images online through http://onlineocr.net/

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How To Copy Websites And Access Them Offline?

Hai Guys here is a collection of Amazing softwares to Copy Entire website and access them offline (i.e) without internet connection.
Using This software you can copy a selected part or the entire website itself and access them offline by saving it to a selected location on your hard disk.

Uses:

        This software will be very very useful, to download sites which holds education materials(Which can be accessed only Online) and access them offline. You can download online dictionary sites and search for meanings offline. In this way you can do many things using this software. Sites with login forms can also be downloaded.

Here the softwares to implement this:

1.) HTTrack Website Copier:

           HTTrack allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. On Opening the website HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads.

2.) Cyotek WebCopy:

          WebCopy will scan the specified website and download it's content onto your hardisk. Links to resources such as stylesheets, images, and other pages in the website will automatically be remapped to match the local path. Using its extensive configuration you can define which parts of a website will be copied and how.

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How to Make Profit as a Freelance Writer

A freelance writer has more opportunities to earn a living than have ever existed. Back in the 20thcentury, a freelance writer had only a very small chance of even getting their work published at all. Even writers who were hired to write directly for businesses were generally only hired for short term low paying contract work. In the age of the internet, though, demand for the written word is higher than ever in history. Every website you see has some type of written content on it. This could be anything from a few paragraphs to hundreds of articles to full books. Nearly every business that wants to market their products or services on the internet needs a constant supply of well written content. There are also more ways than ever to deliver that content to the consumer.

If you want to make a living as a writer today, all you need is a computer and an internet connection and you are fully set up and ready to go. Control your own schedule and work where you want to. All you need is the drive to get the job done and a little knowledge about marketing. You can pick up all sorts of regular freelance work without ever having to leave the comfort of your home. In addition, a writer no longer has to spend years trying to convince a publisher to print their book or novel. Everything can now be done online, including marketing.

If you want to make a profit as a freelance writer, you don’t have to worry much about business expenses. You just need to sit down and write every single day. The most effective way to get noticed and to pick up lucrative writing jobs is to have a substantial portfolio of work to show to potential employers. Make it easy for potential clients to be able to find your work and determine if you are a good fit for their business. Regularly submit articles to reputable websites in order to get links published back to your own website where you offer your writing services.

If you have specialized knowledge, be sure to take advantage of it. Quite a few writers specialize in specific subject areas and even in specific types of content. For example, if you have experience and knowledge in the real estate business, market your services to real estate agents for their websites and customer newsletters. If you enjoy writing long detailed works, then market yourself as an eBook writer, or better yet publish books of your own through Amazon’s Kindle platform. If you enjoy writing marketing material, then market yourself as a copywriter and help others with sales pages, autoresponder emails and web content. Most writers do a little bit of each of those things, but you can feel free and make a profit doing the tasks you do best.

One of the easiest ways to market your self is by joining some of the freelancing web sites such as elance.com, guru.com or freelancer.com. You can probably find many more with an easy Google search. These sites can help you get a fast start while you market yourself to higher paying clients. Each of these sites has different procedures but usually the process involves potential employers posting jobs they need done and the freelancers have the opportunity to bid on the jobs. Once you have won the bid for the job, the payment is placed in escrow until you successfully complete the job. There are also sites such as textbroker.com where you can simply “claim” jobs and you get paid through the site when you complete the work.

Another great source for freelance writing work is the local business community. All businesses need to have a marketing presence on the internet today and those businesses need web content. A lot of it. Local businesses today need to hire writers. Blogging is a perfect way for a business to continually build a relationship with potential customers and most business owners don’t have the time to do it Join local business networking groups and give presentations on online marketing (including the need for regular content). Offer to provide that content for those businesses for a regular monthly fee.

If you want to make a living as a writer, spend a few hours each day or every other day working on your writing and another few hours each day or every other day soliciting clients and before you know it, you your career as a freelance writer will be underway.

Author Bio:

Matthew is an Internet Marketer, specializing in helping webmasters put a website online and make money. In particular, he helps with the web hosting portion of becoming a webmaster. Check out his tips and tricks at How to Sign Up For Web Hosting.

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