OPTICAL DISK

Optical disk is an electronic data storage medium from which data is read and written to by using a low-powered laser beam. It is flat, circular, plastic or glass disk on which data is stored in the form of light and dark pits. The laser beam reads the pits and the data can be accessed. There are three basic types of optical disks:

• Read-only optical disks: The optical disks, which are recorded at the time of manufacture and cannot be erased. CD, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and DVD-Video are the read-only disks.

• WORM: WORM stands for write-once, read many. The optical disks that can be recorded by the user only once but cannot be erased. After they have been recorded once, they behave like a read-only optical disk CD-R, DVD-R, and WORM disks are write-once.

• Rewritable/Magneto-optic disks: The optical disks that can be erased and written to with the new information. CR-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and magneto-optic disks and Data play are rewritable. Rewritable disks use magneto-optic or phase change technology.

An optical disk offers many advantages over magnetic storage media.

• Highest storage capacity

• Low cost per Megabyte of storage

• Environmental condition tolerance

• High data stability

• Long media life

An optical disk has much more storage capacity on the order of gigabytes, than a magnetic disk. It can hold up to 6GB of data in comparison to 1.44 MB of a diskette. Optical disks are inexpensive to manufacture. Data stored on optical disks is resistant to power surges or magnetic disturbances, such as head crashes or corruption form stray magnetic fields. Hence, they provide high data stability. Optical disks are less vulnerable to extremes of hot and cold as
compared to the magnetic disks. Optical disks have long media life than magnetic disks.

OPTICAL STORAGE DEVICES

CD-ROM

CD-ROM: is an abbreviation of Compact Disc Read-Only Memory. A CD-ROM is a CD that contains computer data, which cannot be read or rewritten. In
computers, CDROM is the most commonly used optical storage technology. CD-ROM is a compact disc that contains information, which is accessible by a computer. It is composed of polycarbonate plastic, thin reflective metal layers, made of aluminium and a lacquer coating. Data is stored on the disc as a series of light and dark pits; the light portion refers to the spaces between the pits. A laser beam reads the pits and the data can be accessed.

CD-ROM is an adaptation/EXTENSION of the compact disc that is designed for music storage and playback. The format of CD-ROM is very similar to an audio CD; the only difference being the standards used to store data. A standard 120 mm CD-ROM holds up to 700 MB of data, or about 70 minutes of audio. This may mean that One CD can contain over one thousand novels; an average novel being composed of 60, 000 words. Once the data is written to a standard CD-ROM disc, it cannot be altered or rewritten.

A CD-ROM can be read using a CD-ROM drive, which is almost common on the personal computers. A CD-ROM drive may be connected to the computer in several different ways depending on the type of interface, such as:

• IDE (ATA)

• SCSI

• SATA

• Firewire

• USB

Almost all modern CD-ROM drives can play audio as well as video CDs.

CD-ROM STANDARDS

CD-ROM format provides an outstanding solution to the problem of storing large digital files. Several formats are used for data stored on CD-ROMs. These include Red book standards for audio-CD, White Book and Yellow Book for CD-ROM. An ISO 9960, which defines the standard file system of a CD-ROM is due to be replaced by ISO 13490.

CD-ROM FORMAT

One CD-ROM sector contains 2352 bytes, which is further divided into 98 24-byte frames. A CD-ROM contains a third layer of Reed-Solomon error correction in order to achieve improved error correction and detection.

Mode-1 CD-ROM: It has full three layers of error correction data, which contains 2048 bytes of the available 2352 per sector.
Mode-2 CD-ROM: It is mostly used for video files, which contains 2336 user-available bytes per sector.

CD-ROM SPEEDS AND USES

+ Early CD-ROM drives were known as single-speed and could read the data at the speed of 150 KBps.

+ CD-ROM drives can transfer data up to the speed of 7800 KBps

+ CD-ROM can store audio, video, text and program instructions. It is used to store software programs.

DVD-ROM

DVD-ROM: is an abbreviation of Digital Versatile Disc- read only memory. DVD-ROM is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, which includes movies with high video and sound quality. DVD-ROM is a non-volatile optical storage medium similar to CD-ROM, which contains computer data that cannot be erased or rewritten. These DVDs are read-only disks that have storage capacity for 133 minutes of high quality video, in format, and audio full- length feature film. The discs are pressed in a similar fashion as the CDs. The reflective surface is gold or silver colored.

DVD-ROM can be accessed using a DVD-ROM drive attached to the personal computer. DVD-ROM drives are backward compatible, i.e. they are also capable of reading CD-ROMs and audio CDs as well. The DVD-ROM supports disks with capacities of 4.7 GB to 17 GB and access rates of 600 KBps to 1.3 MBps. A standard DVD disc store up to 9.4 GB of data. DVD-ROMs are of same size as a compact disc, but holds data about 7 times more. DVD can store that much of data because both the sides of a disc are used, with sophisticated data compression technologies.

DVD-ROM is a variation of CD-ROM that is being used in place of CD-ROMs in many personal computers. All DVD-ROMs contain a file system, UDF, which is an extension of the ISO 9660 Standard used for data CDs.

CD-RW

CD-RW is an abbreviation of compact disc-rewritable. It is a recordable CD format that can be erased and rerecorded multiple times, just like a floppy disk or a hard disk. It is a rewritable version of CD-ROM. CD-RW disc is round plastic, about 5 inches in diameter. CD-RW disks can be played or recorded in the CD-RW drive only. These disks behave unusable when put in a regular CD-drive or a CD-R drive cannot be played. A CD-RW drive can read everything except a DVD.

A CD-RW can hold 650 Megabytes of data (unlimited number of times) written by a CD-RW drive. CD-RW cannot be selectively overwritten but can be extended. CD-RWs must be closed before they can be read in a normal CD-ROM drive. CD-RW disks cannot be read using a CD-ROM drive built before 1997. CD-RWs can be randomly read and written because of the variation of UDF format. CD-RW disks and drives are more expensive than a regular CD-ROM drive or media. A CD-RW disc can be read optically by laser light.

DVD-RW

DVD-RW: stands for Digital Versatile Disk-Rewritable. It is a re-recordable optical disc, which can record up to 4.7 GB per side in a similar fashion to a CD-RW. DVD-RW supports sequential read/write access i.e. the device may need to wait for the correct location in a constantly revolving medium. The information stored on DVD-RW can be erased and rerecorded over multiple times without damaging the medium.

DVD-RW is a phase-change erasable format based on DVD-R, using similar mark length, track pitch and rotation control. The format is supported by the DVD Forum. DVD-RW is also called “DVD Dash RW” and “DVD Minus RW”.

DVD-RW can be played in many DVD drives and players. Depending on quality, recording time varies from 1 hour to 6 hours.

If these optical disk gets damaged then the stored data becomes in accessible, these lost or damaged data can be recovered by usinig Stellar Phoenix CD Data Recovery Software
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Joomla is a powerful framework for delivering Complex web portals. With over 4700 extensions and counting, the largest developer network in the world and the most user friendly interface has made the award winning Joomla CMS the fastest growing open source CMS project perhaps in the world. With millions of users and enthusiasts from all around the globe and a low cost of entry this is quickly becoming the dominant content management system (CMS) for small businesses (SMB’s) and even larger enterprises and institutions. We compared Joomla vs Drupal and Joomla vs Wordpress which are other worthy technologies but Joomla seemed for us to be the best overall platform for recommending to our customers. As Joomla integrators and Joomla Component Developers we deliver complex Joomla configurations for a wide variety of customers. Joomla is a perfect framework for the micro small business owner that needs training and mentoring to work independently on building their web empire as well as the small business enterprise with complex Joomla configuration needs.

There are several layers in deploying a Joomla CMS project.

* Planning and content architecture
* Template Design and graphics
* Components and Configurations
* User experience
* Customer Programming
* Legacy System Integrations
* SEO and Marketing
* Joomla User Training
* Ongoing Technical Support

Just to name a few… With any technology there are different points of entry depending on the experience and technical aptitude of the humans interacting with the system, the technical and business process requirements and the overall dynamics of the organization implementing the particular solution. We (our CNP Consultants) try to help folks “Get the most value out of their technology investment”. Yea you will see this in our marketing but this is much more than hype. Value can be the key to success or failure. Among the biggest mistakes we have seen folks make and even made ourselves are:

Common Mistake #1

Just because you can do something with technology does not always make it practical.

I have personally implemented many powerful tools that accomplish their intended functionality but they actually never get used to their full potential by the end customers. While these were fun for us to build as developers and to see something cool that works, it did not really serve any of us well since our clients customers do not use them and thus they have a significant investment they are net getting a return on and thus until this first investment is paid for they are not all that excited to engage us to build more stuff.

The key here is determining first the business priorities of the project and then making sure everyone is listening to the needs of the end customer or user. Hey sometime folks build web tools just for themselves. I know I often post blog articles with a lot of links I want to not only share but also refer back to and we put plenty of tools online that we want to use ourselves as much as we want to and share with our customers. Just make sure you are clear why you are doing something and assess if it is going to deliver the right return on your investment.

Stay focused on what your customers are saying and what will yield the greatest return.

Technology implementation can be a never ending pit you throw money into, something that my father used to say about owning a luxury boat. If you are building your site for the shear ego of having a beautiful site with all kinds of creative features and functionality, have at it and of course we love to work with entrepreneurs with big ideas. However, like any relationship and any good investment a long term strategy is often much more practical. Our consulting customers get good advice about products and services that can grow their business or allow them to continue to get value from their investments. I have seen folks to often go for a quick sell and end up with dysfunctional customer relationships that ultimately cost more than the profit you made in the first place. Ask yourself many questions including “Is what I am doing today going to matter a year from now”? If you ask the right questions up front this can help you get the most out of your initiatives.

Technology is a moving target

One of the many reasons we got behind the Joomla CMS project as a core competency was because it was open source which offered freedom and scalable options for solving the greatest amount of business problems. We took the gamble from the trends in the market place that Joomla would continue to grow with features and stability and that the developer community would continue to be attracted to the Joomla framework thus building more confidence in the market place. With a scalable platform that is built on open source code for use was great since we wanted to work with technology that sold itself and that we could support and expand upon it to meet the needs of the types of customers we wanted to attract. Any kind of dynamic web portal project is a moving target and often needs to change course in mid stream. You have to keep good forward momentum yet listen to the trends in the marketplace so you can sail into the wind effectively. An innovative and scalable open source platform like Joomla is a perfect foundation for meeting this challenge.

But wait there is more…

A couple years ago, after a good year of working with Joomla we were looking for solutions that could actually help us build an all-in-one web based framework for managing our business in a Virtual Office Environment (everything accessible on the web). This is when after trying and implementing several CRM and project management tools ranging from SugarCRM to MS Project to SharePoint we found Info@hand CRBM. This was the perfect platform since it was open source code base and integrated with the Joomla CMS and QuickBooks. Now after 3 years of connecting the dots we have a powerful web infrastructure with “Complete transaction life cycle management” and “Customer Relationship Business Management”. Very very very cool platform… we love it and so do many of the customers we have introduced to it. Though this system is also wired up with the DimDim.com conferencing and collaboration suite it also fills many gaps in client customer collaboration. These types of regular new innovations continue to add low cost of entry tools and value to the small business.

Sounds complicated but it is also very simple if you have time as your friend

What we have learned as “early adopters” is that there is much more to it than the technology if you are going to be successful. Complex Joomla Integrations are getting simpler as this platform evolves. The old carpenters saying get the right tool for the right job is very good advice. Since there are so many tools now in our toolbox and we fully understand how they all can work together I know I can start talking about it and it does not take long to get that “deer in the headlights look” from a prospect. The trick here is making sure we establish a clear roadmap and strategy for implementing technologies that will bring the greatest reward to your business and value to our customers. This takes time and effort to get it right and should be done early on in your process.

Common Mistake #2

Just because you have the technology does not mean you should implement it.

The second most challenging aspect of implementing a complicated project is the thought process of “let’s do it all at once”. I have often had clients that want to load up their sites with a ton of components and then they want to throw these new features out to their customers or workforce all at once. Well this is a huge horse pill that never gets swallowed. Hate to say it but until recently I have been guilty of this myself. There is a fine line between “Build it and they will come” and “Here take a bite and let me know if you like it”.

Remember this is all about relationship management

I remember back in my days of dating that it only takes one or two words to “turn off” and scare someone away. Essentially this is a similar process we go through for attracting customers. While you want to make sure what you are presenting is honest and has substance you do not want to overload, overwhelm folks with more information than they are particularly interested in at the moment. You also want to put out information and web tools in a way that they want to have them presented. As in listen well and be a good conversationalist. Such is the case even more now with the Social Technology boon. I used to say “it is not hard to fall in love since people are impulsive by nature but the real challenge is falling in love with the right one”. The same is true with technology. It can be easy to get excited about some new features and want to add them right away to your site just because they are cooler than the site next door. However, every time you push something new out it may distract or turn off your customers.

In relationships of any kind they are best nurtured over time. Deploying technology is a complex multi dimensional relationship. Moving too fast has greater risk of failure for everyone involved. You actually have several relationships and processes that need careful consideration over time:

* Solutions: Customer Needs – Business Process Need – Technology Implementation
* Relationships: Vendor Teams – Client Teams – Customers

In Conclusion work smarter with a good plan

Plan carefully and gather the right information about your customers and how technology can get you the best results as it relates to your business strategy. Make sure you deploy solutions over time with good the right vendors and the right customers. These systems have enough complexity that you have to really keep your eye on the ball or you can and will often times fail. None of us want to waste time or money and the wrong decision in this economy could cost you business. Before you travel anywhere it is a good idea to get directions, a map or invest in a GPS. Why would you not want to invest in good quality consulting to help guide you along the path of implementing technology?

Joomla Roadmap and Planning Guide

Value Builder Methodology

We have since built consulting practices to address these two common mistakes folks make with complex technology implementations. Yea sure we have to be geeks and able to wire all this stuff up and yes we do this well but the trick to getting value out of your technology is much more that the groovy tools we can dish out. With a few exceptions, most of the technology these days is all ready built and what that means is there is a greater need for configuration and being able to map the humans with the technology in a way that will allow you to stay focused on your priorities. Just start asking yourself questions like: What actions will give the best long term results? What will put out the fires of tomorrow before they start? How can I make this profitable to my company and add unique benefits to my customers?This should help get you on the right path.
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In todays technology-driven times, CRM solutions help businesses streamline their customer management processes. CRM stands for customer relationship management being an integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and post sales activities in an organization. CRM embraces all aspects of dealing with prospects and customers, including the call center, sales force, marketing, technical support and field service. The primary goal of CRM is to improve long-term growth and profitability through a better understanding of customer behavior. CRM aims to provide more effective feedback and improved integration to better gauge the return on investment (ROI) in these areas.

However, choosing and deploying the right CRM solution for your needs is not an easy task. There are many proprietary and Open Source CRM solutions to choose from. SugarCRM is commercial open source Customer Relationship Management software that is designed to meet all the CRM requirements of organizations. It is developed using PHP and available in both free and commercial editions. It provides basic CRM functionality such as lead tracking, sales management, project management, issue tracking etc.

CRM helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. SugarCRM is one of the most significant and demanding commercial Open Source Customer Relation Management (CRM) software which suits to all sizes of companies. SugarCRM can be easily adapted to all types business environment through providing a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than any other proprietary applications.

SugarCRM is commercial Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes, its rich functionality and intuitive user interface provides a gateway to all CRM applications thereby enabling corporate to migrate to SugarCRM to expand their customer base. SugarCRM takes your business to a new level by integrating the enterprise server software sales model with that of a software-as-a-service model. It is available in both free and commercial editions.

SugarCRM has easy to user browser based interfaces that can be easily customized to meet the requirements of individual organizations. Being an open source off-the-shelf-application, a wide variety of plug-ins and module are available, which can be integrated with the basic SugarCRM application to enhance its functionalities. The plug-ins is available through the SugarCRM support group, the Sugar Network. They can be can be easily integrated with the Sugar Open Source and Professional editions enabling them to be upgraded to the Sugar Enterprise edition.

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LTX400GWW is a high performance ultrium cartridge developed by Sony based on the LTO-3 tape format. The Sony LTO-3 tape like its previous version LTO-2 and LTO-1 tape, also incorporates a memory chip capable of storing valuable information of 4KB. The cartridge memory not only accelerates the process of file access but it also contributes to the significant increase of media access speed in tape libraries. Breakthrough technologies employed to the LTX400GWW LTO-3 tape assure high density recording in a cost effective manner. Sony has developed a new robust base film for the high capacity LTO-3 tape cartridge which incorporates an advanced and robust weather resistant magnetic material which has improved the smoothness of ultrium tape media. The increased packing density leads to reduction in noise level and improvement of data throughput.

Sony LTO-3 tape features newly designed highly robust base film. Higher S/N ratio is essential in order to ensure efficient high density recording, therefore, Sony has added new techniques in LTO-3 ultrium technology to improve the S/N ratio so that the performance and efficiency of high density recording can be assured by utilizing the magneto resistive heads. Highly innovative lubricant and back surface design of Sony LTX400GWW media tape increases the media’s durability and lowers the tracking errors. Special servo writer has been engineered by Sony for linear tape open technology whose purpose is to increase the strength of magnetic servo signals. This leads to increased overall efficiency. Thickness of tape reel has been significantly reduced in order to attain higher recording capability of the Sony LTO-3 cartridge. Back surface design was re-engineered by Sony for the LTX400GWW ultrium tape so that optimum tape winding and smooth tape travel could be ensured. Thinner tape reel of Sony LTO-3 data tape optimizes the performance level and assures increased recording efficiency. New lubricant has been used by Sony for its ultrium-3 backup tapes.

The government agencies and corporations around the globe are now focusing on retaining their critical information on unalterable backup recording medium for an assigned time period in order to comply with the data retention laws. Sony LTO-3 is designed to enable the customers to address compliance needs. The WORM LTO-3 tape introduced by Sony offers high speed performance and complete storage capacity of the Sony ultrium-3 backup tapes in write-once read many media format. Re-writing, data deletion and alteration are not allowed in the Sony WORM LTO-3 backup tape. Leading businesses that require fast data archival and data backup prefer the Sony LTO-3 media due to its long term data storage capability and lowest cost per Gigabyte. 160 Mbps transfer speed is attained in Sony ultrium-3 in compressed form. Economical backup and archival are ensured by the Sony’s innovative technique A3MP. Sony LTO-3 tape’s media features unmatched resistance to harsh conditions. WORM technique is also offered by the third generation Sony LTO tape format which is very helpful in satisfying the laws of data retention.
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A microphone is an example of a transducer, a device that changes sound from one form to another. Sound exists as patterns of air pressure; the microphone changes this into patterns of electric current.

Microphones vary greatly in quality. A top end recording studio microphone may cost thousands and in many cases they are needed for the very best recordings. A variety of mechanical techniques can be used in building microphones. The two most commonly found in recording studios are the magneto-dynamic and the variable condenser designs.

All microphones convert sound energy into electrical energy, but there are many different ways of doing the job, using electrostatics, electromagnetism, piezo-electric effects, or even through a change in resistance of carbon granules. When it comes to microphones used in recording studios, the vast majority of microphones used are either capacitors, electrostatic, or dynamic.

Both types employ a moving diaphragm to capture the sound, but make use of a different electrical principle for converting mechanical energy into an electrical signal. The efficiency of this conversion is very important, because the amounts of acoustic energy produced by voices and musical instruments are so small.

Different types of microphones used in recording studios

In live sound, nearly all the microphones used are dynamics. In the studio, instruments such as drums, electric guitars, and basses are recorded using dynamic microphones. Dynamic microphones have the advantages of being relatively inexpensive and durable, and they don’t need a power supply or battery to make them operate.

Dynamic microphones are most effective when working with relatively loud sound sources that do not contain a lot of very high-frequency detail. They are also tough instruments which make them good for recording studios. Another type of dynamic microphone is the ribbon microphone, but this is only used in fairly esoteric recording applications by engineers who appreciate the subtleties of the ribbon sound.

These microphones are comprised of a thin metal ribbon suspended in a magnetic field, and when sound energy is encountered, the electrical signal generated is induced in the ribbon itself rather than in a voice coil. The main advantage of ribbon microphones is their smooth, detailed sound which makes them perfect for studio environment.

Capacitor microphones are more expensive than their dynamic counterparts, and they are also much more sensitive, and can capture high-frequency detail much more accurately. Even though they are relatively efficient like dynamic microphones, capacitor microphones produce such a small electrical signal that they require a special type of built-in preamplifier to bring the signal up to usable levels. Thus they are not fit to be used in live concerts or open air concerts. Capacitors are used mostly in recording studios where there is less noise.

Conclusion

The microphone is a ubiquitous piece of equipment. Found in everything from telephones and computers to recording studios, microphones are part of our daily life. A professional studio will accumulate a varied collection of microphones. The top studios use microphones such as Shure SM58s and 57s, AKG D112s, or Sennheiser 421s.

It all began in the late 90’s. I wanted to put some news on my website. A diary. A list of forthcoming events. Let the visitors see my human side (I don’t have one, but that’s another story).

I started with simple HTML. One page, with sections for every post. Simple.

Then I heard about ‘blogs’ and ‘blogging’. Being smart, I picked Wordpress, the most popular software. How clever, I thought. If you get the WYSIWYG editor going, anyone can put up a web site. Very democratic.

This encouraged my to post my outermost thoughts; on politics, London, and sinusitis. As a webmaster, I watched to see Google index them. “Here we go”, I thought, “soon, my jewels of extrospection will belong to the ages!”.

Except Google didn’t like my blog. It wouldn’t index much beyond the front page. Why, why, why?

Duplicate content? I set it to put only one post per page.

No improvement.

I looked at what Google was indexing. Then I looked at the blog HTML. Soon, all became clear.

In sum:

- Wordpress was still duplicating my content, and

- It had no proper META tags, and

- There was a lot irrelevant HTML, and

- The layout obscured the content.

I had a quick search on Google to find search engine optimisation tips. There is a plugin ‘head META description’. But I didn’t use that, oh no.

For some reason, I got the notion that a complete theme would be the ticket. I tried modifying an existing one myself. Better, but not perfect. Google was starting to index more pages, but they all had the same title. My missives to an uncaring world were being ignored.

So I got someone else to do one, based on my criteria, which were:

- Grab a META ‘title’ from the blog post ‘title’;

- Grab a META ‘description’ from the blog ‘excerpts’;

- Put a ROBOTS ‘noindex’ tag in non-content pages.

But that wasn’t enough. For best SEO results you need to configure Wordpress brutally. You have to be _mean_ to it. You have to _man_ enough.

I did a bit of research and came up with to following tips.

WARNING: They are extreme. If you already have good rankings, making radical changes to your URLs may affect them. In my case:

- Moving my blog to the root web directory (oh dear)

- MOD_REWRITING its URLs (eek!), and

- Removing a 301 redirect (crazy!),

… caused my PageRank to go to 0. BUT, page indexing was unaffected.

This is temporary, I hope, as Google sees it as ’suspect’ behaviour. I had radically changed my site.

Here are the tips, for real _men_, who can look in the face of internet death and laugh:

1. Activate permalinks by going to ‘Options/Permalinks’. You may have to enable Apache MOD_REWRITE on your web account.

1a. Shorten the permalinks code to just the %postname% variable. Don’t bother with the date codes. This keeps your URLs short.

2. Point your blog in the uppermost directory possible.

3. Under Options > Reading > Show at most ‘1′ post
This is so duplicates of your content don’t appear on your site.

4. Then install an SEO’d theme.

My blog posts are now being indexed beautifully. The Google ’site:’ command returns all my posts, and little else.

For my next challenge, I take on Windows XP, and turn it into an operating system. Come on, you devil, I’m ready for you!

Though you can very well base your whole computer software on open source, most of us get the operating system bundled with the PC or notebook we purchase; most of the times, the OS will be one of the versions of Microsoft Windows. That is why we shall discuss here how to get freely available programs and applications on the internet which run very well on MS Windows OS.

The first thing to do with your newly acquired computer is to protect it from all the threats that lurk in the cyberspace. To that effect, connect to the internet and get the latest update of your operating system (yes, that is one of the reasons why it is important to have legitimate copy of a proprietary OS). Then get a free antivirus solutions; AntiVir, AVAST or AVG are only some of them. Select the one that appeal to you the most, download it and check that you have the latest update. Then proceed to set up other lines of defense by downloading Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware and Spyware Blaster. Throw in a decent firewall, like the free version of Zone Alarm or the free

With Outpost Firewall you are equipped to spread your wings and take off into the cyberspace. The programs you downloaded will guard you against viruses, worms, bots, spyware and malware of every sort – but only if you regularly update each and every one of them and periodically scan your computer for problems. And yes, it is a lot of work, but if you are not ready for that you’d probably do better to buy a proprietary off-the-shelf solution.

With your computer nicely protected, it is time to think about doing some actual work on your computer, like writing a school essay. No need to suffer the limited functionality of a Notepad (which is included in Windows OS), nor to fork out a few hundred Rands on purchasing a proprietary office suite. Instead, download OpenOffice. It has all you are likely to need, and more: word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, database, and other applications that work like a charm.

The only hassle is that you have to remember to save the documents in Microsoft Office format in order to be able to share them with people who use MS Office. This is because, while OpenOffice is open to inter-compatibility, MS is not.

Open source will take you much further than office suite of software. Depending on your needs, you may download a variety of programs. Photography enthusiasts may want to get a simple photo editing tool like Paint.NET, or the very advanced Gimp; the latter allows the same level of image manipulations as the best of the proprietary programs out there. A good open source vector graphics editor is Inkscape.

If you are looking for a tool powerful enough to let you create snazzy web sites, turn to Joomla. If you have a business and want to sell your products online, osCommerce and Zen Cart are good e-commerce solutions. And for sending your promotional emails to a large list of recipients, go to PHP Lists.

The biggest catch with open source solutions is that they all require your involvement. First of all, you need to do some research in order to choose the one that suits you best. Then, you need to spend some time studying. Most open source software projects have active communities, ready to help a newbie. Still, you need to fist comb the documentation and the forums for queries that have been already addressed, for no one likes answering the same question for the umpteenth time. Therefore, be prepared to spend hours on the internet looking for the solution for your particular problem.

Also note that all of the programs mentioned here are computer based (that is, you download them on your hard disk drive and then work on them, without the need to stay connected to the internet) – except Joomla, osCommerce, Zen Cart and PHP Lists. The last four are server based, which means that you need to have a domain name and an internet service provider to host those programs for you.
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Advancements have been made by Sony in several critical and valuable components of the second generation LTX200G tape cartridge including its transfer rate, durability, mechanical stability, track density, tape length, compression technique, media coating process and recording capability. Sony has introduced new technologies to the LTO-2 format that has significantly decreased the noise level enabling it to match with the increased sensitivity of magneto resistive heads. Tape travel stability and mechanical stability in Sony LTO-2 cartridge has been assured by its smooth and uniform tape surface. The uniform tape surface of Sony LTX200G helps to optimize the head media interfacing to ensure high output frequency.

The fast transfer speed of Sony LTO-2 format reduces the time of data retrieval and backup operations. This ultrium technology consumes less energy and therefore saves the costs. The Sony second generation LTO format offers impressive speed of 80 MB/s along with 200 GB recording ability. Sony LTX200G backup media technology secures the vital information of the clients. The backward compatibility secures the client’s investments. Sony LTX200G tape’s capacity and output frequency has been doubled from the first generation LTO format. The increasing storage needs of the clients can now be fulfilled by fewer Sony LTX-200G data tapes. By adopting the Sony LTO-2 technology, the clients can increase their ROI as the Sony LTO-2 format has lowered the I.T and maintenance costs.

Sony has added advanced features to the high capacity LTO-2 media format. Backup & archiving solutions offered by Sony LTO2 ultrium are highly dependable and economical. A3MP coating system has further improved the media robustness and has enhanced the output frequency of Sony LTX-200G data cartridge. The resistance of Sony LTO-2 tape has been raised by the A3MP technology. Sony LTX200G is the most dependable media tape cartridge for those demanding working environments. The cartridge shell of Sony LTX-200G tape has been ultrasonically welded that furthers strengthens its reliability. High output frequency and exceptional tracking stability of Sony LTO-2 tape leads to long life span.

Sony LTX-200G cartridge delivers excellent performance in all ultrium-2 drives. Sony has specifically engineered LTX200G cartridge for long durable life. 4-KB IC memory chip helps in fast access & retrieval of information that improves the performance. Servo writing system is used in the Sony LTO-2 data media format that lowers the tracking error rate and contributes to precise recording and reading of data. Massive backup storage needs are fulfilled by the Sony LTX200G ultrium-2 tapes offering 80 Mbps compressed speed. Incorporating a memory chip, the Sony LTX200G ultrium-2 tape offers fast access speed in tape libraries. The innovative techniques in Sony LTO-2 tape have lowered the friction resulting in stable backup operations. Therefore this feature also helps to decrease the noise level. Smooth tape surface of Sony LTO-2 helps to stabilize and speed up the backup operations.
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