Reasons for a Hiring a Taxi Service

When people try to think of reasons about why they need to hire a taxi, they may come across many points but this also creates confusion up to some level. These confusions may include, which taxi service to go for or where the taxi service varies can deliver the work we need it to do. Going through this article can give some insight about how to choose a taxis service for travel and how.

The most important reason for people traveling in a cab is o enjoy the ride. When one is moving on his own, it is almost impossible for the person to enjoy the ride, but in a taxi, one gets immense time to do this. Secondly one does not need to spend a lot amount of time in learning the routes. A good taxi driver does know all the routes and can help in door to door service. It would also be the sole responsibility of the driver to make you reach safely at the destination.

Another advantage for traveling in a taxi would be the cheapness of service. Traveling in a taxi from a taxi service would be comparatively cheaper than moving in an independent taxi owner or moving in personal vehicles. One need not worry about additional expenses as because the taxi companies are not going to charge you anything else that the actual fixed price which would make the travel a lot more fun and enjoyable.

Another reason for hiring a taxis service rather than waiting for an independent tax would be the saving of time. When you are moving from one place to another, just give a call to the taxi service company and they would be sending a taxi to your location. Within that time, you can just pack up your items and get ready to move out. The reputable tax companies can provide a taxi at your service in mostly within 20 minutes. In case of hiring an independent taxi, one may have to pack up everything, then move to the road and wait for a taxi, then losing a lot of amount of time, which can be used for some important work.

These are just a few of the many reasons for hiring a taxi service. Even after going through all these points, it depends upon the sole decision of the individual, to whatever go and wait for a taxi to come on or just make a call to a taxi service and they would be sending a taxi at your service.

Web Design For Business

Personal web design and web design for business are two completely different elements. If you're just having fun creating your own personal website, then colours and graphics can reflect your personal style and taste and may be a great asset to your site. However, when it comes to a business website, you need to have a professional appearance that is functional and appealing to the exact type of person or organisation you're trying to appease. For example, if you cater to professional business clients, you need a professional-looking site. However, if you're a business that caters to young adults, having a more interactive and, dynamic site might be more your style.

Web design for business is largely based on personal preference and industry experience as to what works for other companies. If you're not sure what you need, research similar companies that have successful websites, and use the concepts they have to build your dream website. Don't be afraid to see what your competitors are doing.

You can also consult with professional designers and design companies to get a better feel for what you need, if you're less informed on the web design end of starting your business. Often, it's better to invest the money into hiring professionals so that your site turns out to be the best that it can be. It's not that you're not capable, but would you fix your own television or hire a trained professional?

Getting traffic to your website takes more than just great web design for business. However, once you get people to your site, you need to have that little edge that makes them want to stay. They aren't going to want to stay at a site that isn't intriguing, so appeal to your customers. If you're not sure how, put yourself in their shoes, or do a research study, ask friends, family or colleagues to find out what people would like. Sure, all this is going to cost money. However, the investment will be worth it in the end, when you have a website that outlasts the test of time and provides you with more business than you ever imagined.

No one can guarantee the success of your website, but having great web design for business purposes is only going to assist you in succeeding. Not having a functional, well designed website is NOT an option in today's fast paced e-commerce society.

Home Theater - Your Personal Silver Screen

Home Theater Projector Screens and Surfaces

The recent increased popularity of home video projectors and the large, clear images they can produce has led many new arrivals to the Home Theater real to choose a video projector as their display device of choice. Video projector images look best when directed onto a properly matched screen surface. Although some anxiously new owners may premierely start by aiming their new projector on a white wall - they soon will want to get a projection screen for best results. Video projection screens come in many varieties - from the simple Do-It-Yourself (DIY) homemade screen to the most elaborate, manufactured remote control electric models and those various models in between. Video projector screens also come in a variety of surface finishes and reflectivity ratios. All of these factors should be considered when selecting a screen for your Home Theater.

Screen Surface Types

Home Theater projector screens come in a multitude of surface finishes. The variety of surface finish you will need depends upon your projector model. Screen surfaces vary from matte white, slightly silver or gray-ish, to reflective glass beaded models. Glass beaded models increase the effective brightness of your projector's image similar to the way a highway sign reflects car headlights. Lower lumen-level (lumens = light output) projectors such as CRT models benefit most from higher reflectivity (or gain) of a screen's surface. Higher gain surfaces increase the perceived brightness of the projected image. Conversely - a brighter projector looks best with a matte white or even a silver / gray surface. That is because the glass beads on higher gain screens have a tendency to "splatter" the brighter light waves produced by a high lumen output projector. A silver / gray surface will also enhance the perceived contrast level of LCD projectors which do not have the best contrast / black levels. So first you must decide the type and lumen output of the projector you are purchasing and that will help help determine the surface type of the video projector screen you will need.

Model Types

Projection screens come in three basic styles - manual pull-down, electric and fixed variacies. Manual pull-down models are operated much like a window shade. Electric models have a motorized mechanism that does the work for you and fixed screens are motionless and stay right where you place them. Fixed screens also provide the flattest of all screen surfaces. Pull-down and electric screens can be suspect to a slight waves on their surface. Although not obtrusive if properly cared for, some may prefer the absolute flat surface of a fixed screen model. The drawback to fixed screens is that you must live with them in place whereas retractable models can be deployed for viewing and afterwards be hidden from sight until next use.

Aspect Ratio

There is another very important factor to consider when shopping for a screen - that of the screen's aspect ratio. The aspect ratio of a projection screen refers to the shape of the available screen surface. Screens come in two basic aspect ratios --- 4x3 which is your normal television aspect ratio and 16x9 which is the normal widescreen or HDTV aspect ratio. The aspect ratio of your screen is an important decision to make prior to its purchase. That's because of the fact that once you buy it there's no way to change the aspect ratio - other than masking portions of the screen. You can mask the surface with material or curtains if you want to get creative and that can temporarily change the aspect ratio of your fixed screen.

You will save a lot of time and trouble by thoroughly researching your screen choice prior to its purchase. Whatever your application and needs --- rest assured there is a projection screen surface and model available to fit your particular situation. For further and more detailed information on video projector screen applications for home theaters please refer to the section on projector screens which can also be accessed from the navigation bar at http://www.Home-Theater-Systems-Advice.com .

Lessons In Business Success From Muhammad Ali

Whether you like boxing or not there is no question that Muhammad Ali still remains a respected figure when it comes to becoming a champion and achieving great success. So what can you learn from him and apply in your own business in order to realize your own great success?

Let's look at two quotes from Muhammad Ali:

'He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.'

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Do not quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

This does not mean that you have to suffer to succeed and build a great business, but these quotes should make you consider what achieving success is worth to you?

Is it worth putting in a few extra hours a few week to start your own venture that can then give you the freedom you have dreamed about for so long? You may have been afraid to just up and quit your job and start your own company so far for fear of financial security and income. Though today you can realistically kick off a new enterprise in a few hours a week, and wait until your revenues start rolling into tell your boss what you think of them. Many entrepreneurs today, armed with the right business models are making incredible incomes in just a few hours a week, while having plenty of time to enjoy life to the max.

Is achieving true financial freedom by having a business that works for you instead of your working for it worth a small investment. It really does not cost a lot to start your own business today. In fact it has never been easier to launch your own start up. With a little coaching, a website and a reasonable marketing budget you could finally be able to be free from your corporate chains and be confident in being able to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

Sure you may face a little criticism and doubt from coworkers and those close to you. Although is not it worth it to be able to craft a business and lifestyle that these critics have only dreamed of, yet have been too afraid to attempt themselves. Make them eat their words.

Starting your own company may take a little hard work in the beginning, but is not that more than a fair trade for being able to have money working for you for the rest of your life instead of you having to work for your money and depend on your boss' good moods to bring home the bacon?

Who Owns the Business Smartphone? Mobile Device Liability

Today's enterprises have already learned how to deal with the complexities of their mobile employees and the information carried in their laptop computers. After all, the information in those laptops is confidential and owned by the corporation. Those same complexities-and many more-now arise from the employees' use of smartphones. Often, the data in a smartphone is just as sensitive and critical to the company as data in computers. Issues of security, compliance, legality, trust, and of course cost all need to be addressed.

All of these issues give rise to the biggest question of all-who should own the enterprise smartphone-the employee or the corporation? Smartphone use among U.S.-based information workers is expected to triple by 2013, according to Forrester Research. It seems that the decisions and strategies surrounding the control and ownership of these devices should be made sooner than later.

The cost of ownership is perhaps the easiest aspect to calculate. It might seem like just reimbursing an employee for a flat percentage of the bill from their own phone would be a quick and easy way to go. But there are hidden costs to consider, including the support costs of accounting, billing, and asset management, and for controlling things like overseas roaming charges. Not to mention keeping track of how and where the connection charges are occurring in the company, this can yield valuable information on the true costs of enterprise mobility.

Corporate-owned phones come with their own set of problems, like supporting the plethora of different phones and carrier types. Think again if you believe that you can just issue the same phone to everyone to control that complexity. It's usually the best performers, the hardest employee-type to recruit, who insists on having his or her own type of phone, "because it's worked for me in the past."

Even though it seems obvious that there is need to control employees' equipment and use-after all, there are hundreds of emails, calendars, documents, and confidential customer information stored on these smartphones-an increasing number of companies are loosening their hold on employee-owned handheld devices that are used for business purposes.

Today, half of the smartphones in use among U.S. and Canadian businesses are not company-issued equipment, according to a recent report from Forrester Research. Most companies are still grappling with the question of who should be liable for these devices. In this debate, there are still many unanswered questions and hidden trapdoors, including: What is meant by "liability"? What are the legal aspects that must be considered? How can I start to build a strategy that is meaningful and balances the needs of both the company and the employee?

What Is Meant by "Liability"?

There are many types of liability associated with owning and using a smartphone, including financial, regulatory, compliance, privacy, and legal liability, to name just a few. Financial liability is perhaps the easiest to understand. It would seem obvious that paying for individual liable (IL) carrier plans would be the responsibility of the employee. But what if the employee racks up a $5000 bill on a three-week business trip to Europe? And what if that employee uses a corporate liable (CL) phone to conduct an illegal activity with large financial consequences, like using the camera feature to take a picture of a competitor's confidential documents?

If you are in an industry with stiff regulatory and compliance considerations, it would be more likely that stronger controls and CL smartphones would be the norm. Of course, it is the data on that phone, and not the phone itself, that needs to be managed. In a larger company with adequate IT staffing, keeping sensitive data away from the phone with specialized software and firewalls is relatively easy. But what about smaller companies that allow phone access to company records on the company's private intranet?

Financial services and medical companies can have very high financial and legal ramifications for misuse of private data that might end up on a smartphone. Many of these companies require all corporate data to go through company-issued computers (and not phones) that have elaborate encryption and other data protection mechanisms. But "privacy" can have another definition. How about protection of employee-owned information that resides on a CL smartphone? Does the employer have the right to look at ALL of the data on the phone they own, even if they might happen upon some embarrassing photos?

And here's a hypothetical "who's liable" question. What if an employee happens to lose a next-generation prototype smartphone that is later found and sold to a technology magazine, so that the new features and technology can be "outed" to an interested public? What kind of insurance/risk management liability plan will cover THAT?

Legal Aspects of Data Ownership and Control

There is a distinct lack of legal clarity about what a company can and cannot control when it comes to smartphones. With case law lagging behind technology, how do you factor legal issues into the equation of who should own the smartphone?

Some generally accepted practices are starting to emerge. Corporate email messages and company data are owned by the company, regardless of where they reside. The company has unrestricted access to the information and can set usage policies that must be adhered to by the employee. On the other hand, courts have ruled that once this data is sent via the Webmail through a service like AOL out into the cloud, employers can lose the rights to confidentiality! The problem is multiplied exponentially if you are an international firm, because in the E.U., Japan, and Canada, all email is regarded as private to employees if it was authored by them.

Can an employer mandate control over CL or IL phones used for business purposes? One way that seems to hold up legally is through the use of employment agreements. Even if the phone is owned by the employee located in (let's say) Canada, a well-crafted employment agreement will trump the local laws about employee privacy of business email and text messages. Of course, the employment agreement will not hold up if it is only selectively or randomly enforced, which makes the employer the bad guy if it is strictly enforced with a heavy hand. It is generally agreed upon that any policy must be well understood and "bought into" through consensus to be able to avoid lawsuits over privacy issues.

Start with a Strategy

There are too many variables in the equation to go about randomly managing your policy for smartphone use, ownership, and control. At the core, you need to define your strategy upfront. What are the business goals you want to accomplish? How do you balance the needs of BOTH the employee AND the company? Since every function and level of a company-not just sales and marketing Road Warriors-is affected by this plan, the strategy must be well thought out.

Segmentation of user types is generally the first step of the strategy. Forrester analyst Ted Schadler recommends dividing your information workers into several groups based on how their mobile enablement benefits the company:

• Those who use the most sensitive data get company-paid, company-managed smartphones






• Those who work extensively away from their desks receive subsidies for most or all of their personal smartphone charges






• Those who work away from their desks occasionally receive a partial subsidy for their personal smartphone use






• Those who rarely work away from their desks receive no subsidy, and you may consider locking their smartphones out of your systems altogether.

Conclusion

So who should own the smartphone? There is no perfect answer. Sometimes it's the employee, sometimes the employer. Times have changed and employee expectations are different. The workforce today is demanding to choose their own devices. The locked down, two-year old corporate device just doesn't cut it anymore.

Planning for this dynamic is the new reality. Forrester's Schadler says, "The secret to smartphone management is treating employees like grown-ups and using a 'trust and verify' model for policy control. You have to stop treating it as an IT policing issue, and instead treat it as a business risk management question."

More and more companies are already starting to make this shift in their thinking. A balance needs to be found between issuing smartphones as an IT-controlled management tool, to letting a certain subset of employees own the responsibility for their own devices. That balance point will vary for every company. One thing is certain-the IL/CL debate will rage on for a quite a while to come.

How to Deal With Slow Windows XP and Make Your Computer Run Faster Right Away

You may be asking yourself why is your computer slow in performance and how to fix a slow windows XP computer. Are you trying to figure out how to speed it up like it was when brand new?

The first thing that comes to mind is getting a computer expert or turning to a computer repair store. There does not seem to be another way out apart from selling out money. What's worse is some people hop on to buying a new computer and selling the slow one off to a second hand shop or giving it away to someone they know at a dirt cheap price.

What they are missing here is this. Before taking any of these steps they need to look carry out some basic maintenance.

The main reasons behind a machine becoming slow are due to the registry. A windows computer has a database of settings and information in a directory called registry. This place stores all your application settings, hardware settings and more.

When you install new software, it puts an entry in the registry. This is why the registry keeps expanding. A registry gets corrupt and slows the computer down and results in a slow windows XP computer.

Another commonly found problem is spyware. This sets in the registry area and is notorious for stealing your personal information. They conceive themselves in the registry and the entries that are affected by such spyware stop functioning properly and slow your computer to a crawl.

To get a clean registry and to get malicious spyware out of your system, use a registry scanner. This is readily and freely available on the internet. So, instead of investing huge bucks in computer repair or a new PC use basic maintenance tricks which, when taken care of, will make your windows XP computer run fast like when it was new.

Fixing these issues does not need an expert in computers. Neither is it costly. You just need to be aware of these things that play a huge role in determining your machines speed at the end of the day. There's no need to panic when you have a slow computer, all you need to do is follow the guidelines mentioned in this article. This along with some preventive maintenance goes a long way in keeping your PC healthy and fast and speeding up a slow windows XP computer right away.

Web Hosting - A Guide for Beginners

So you're looking to learn about web hosting and what it has to offer or you may not know much about web hosting? There is no shame in not knowing this information. Everyone has to start at the beginning at some point. On that note, lets begin learning about web hosting.

First off, what is web hosting and how does it work?

Web hosting is the business practice of providing space and bandwidth on a high-powered computer server that is connected to the Internet at very high speeds. Hosting companies maintain large networks of high-powered web server computers in a physical location known as a data center. These computer servers are connected to a very fast, and generally redundant, Internet connection. The data centers have primary and backup power, a fast connection to the Internet, and a security monitoring staff.

The web hosting companies provide a share of disk space and available bandwidth to a customer for a monthly fee. Once the customer is signed up, they can upload files to their personal space on the web server and the information is then viewable to anyone interested on the Internet. The monthly fee the web hosting company charges is much less than what it would cost to run a server out of your own home or data center. This is the reason these companies exist. They take care of all the hardware, software, and other technical needs for you.

Types of web hosting

There are many different types of web hosting offers, but the main three are shared, reseller, and dedicated. Each type of hosting is for a different purpose.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is the most popular form of hosting. Shared hosting is a portion of disk space and bandwidth provided to you by the web hosting company on a high-powered server. There are many other web sites hosted on this server, and the hosting company is likely to have quite a few of these servers in a large data center. The resources of the server are shared by as many other websites as are allocated to that computer.

Shared web hosting is the best form of web hosting if you are looking for a great price and do not have more than a couple thousand daily visitors to your site.

Reseller Web Hosting

Reseller web hosting is a popular, low-cost solution to starting your own web hosting business. There are two types of reseller hosting, private-label and a reseller of services.

The private-label is the best type of reseller plan because it allows you to retain full control over your customer's websites. A private-label plan allows the reseller to keep the full monthly payment of the web-hosting customer, but the reseller must pay a monthly fee to the larger hosting company for the reseller space. The more hosting accounts a private-label reseller can sell, the higher the profit for them. Private-label hosting allows you to host many more websites than if you were using shared hosting for each. This is a great solution for someone who has many sites that they need to host in one location to save money.

The reseller of services plans resell the regular web hosting plans of a larger web hosting company, but you get a discounted price for providing the customer and earn a monthly fee for as long as they remain a customer. This plan does not allow control over customer web sites and you only keep a portion of the potentialally monthly revenue.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated web hosting is the most powerful and cost effective solution of hosting a busy web site without resorting to buying your own equipment and paying hundreds of dollars per month for a fast Internet connection. Dedicated hosting consists of single server with no one else hosting on that computer. This allows for the greatest of configuration options. Anyone who has a busy website will find restricted hosting is the necessary choice.

Web Hosting Considerations

Wondering about all the other information listed in web hosting plans? In this section, I will explain the most important considerations in choosing a good web host.

Price

The price of web hosting services is one of the most important. There are many hosting companies out there with cheap hosting packages, but they may be lacking in other areas. Do not let the price of a hosting package fool you. There are some hosting companies out there who have great prices and the other features are just as good. Price may be one of the most important decisions of a web hosting plan, but there is much more to consider in choosing a quality web host.

Disk Space / Storage Space

Disk space is the amount of physical storage space a web host gives to you to store your web files. Hosting companies these days have plans with disk space being measured mainly in terms of gigabytes, but some are still offering plans in the megabytes for storage space. Depending on your needs for file storage space, you may need more or less. Usually the more disk space offered, the better.

Bandwidth / Data Transfer

The amount of bandwidth available can make a big difference in choosing a quality hosting plan. In general, the more bandwidth a hosting company makes available to you, the better. This means you can support more traffic to your web site as your business grows. Be wary of web hosting companies that offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth. While many of these are legitimate offers, there are some out there who are overselling their bandwidth in hopes the average user will not use much.

Customer Support

In any business, it is very important to provide exception customer service. Web hosting is no exception to this. Many of the hosting companies are available all day and night in case you have a problem with your web site, but there are some who are just available specific hours of the day. If your web site goes down in the middle of the night when they're not available, this means lost revenue for a business. You should make sure the web host you select is always available for support.

Money Back Guarantee

Most web hosting companies will provide a thirty-day money back guarantee. Some will provide one even long, but be wary of the ones who offer no money back guarantee. I would not purchase web hosting services from a company who does not offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee, unless they have proven themselves to be a leader in the industry and have an excellent reputation.

Operating System

An operating system is a piece of software that controls the interaction between the computer user and the physical hardware of the machine. A vast majority of all web sites on the Internet run on the Linux operation system. Linux is generally much more stable than Windows. Stability is critical in running a web site. For this reason, I prefer to host my web sites on the Linux operating system. Some sites have specific requirements that only the Windows operating system can satisfy, but there are always alternatives to those requirements.

Backup

A good web hosting company will have a regular schedule to backup the data on all the web servers. The more often the data is backed up, the better. At the very least, a web hosting company should backup web site files daily.

Control Panel

The control panel is the point of contact the web site administrator will have between the host server and their own machine connected via the Internet. It is essential to have a well organized and easy to use control panel interface. My favorite control panel is cPanel, which is one of the leading web hosting control panels out there today. Plesk is another good one, and many companies will create their own control panel for you to use. Most web hosting companies will provide a link to a demo of the control panel that they use with their hosting plans. The control panel used is a matter of preference, but it should be user friendly.

Email

Email is essential part of communication on the Internet. Most web hosting companies out there will give you more email addresses and more space to hold email messages than you will ever need. What you need to watch out for is the companies that have decided to have a little strict on their email accounts and only offer a small number or a small amount of message space.

Uptime

Uptime is a term used to describe how often the average web site hosted by a company is available online. No company should be expected to provide an exact 100% uptime. This is impossible due to things such as hardware, software, and power failures. A vast majority of the companies are very good with uptime, and they guarantee it. It is still a good idea to be conscious of the uptimes posted by the company. If it is not at least 99.5%, it is probably not worth hosting with that company.

Statistics

As a webmaster, it is nice to know how many visitors you've had, where they came from, how long they stay on your site, and how much bandwidth they've used. This information is compiled by the web server and is placed in a log file. A statistics software package can read this data and provide meaningful information to the webmaster. The information gathered from these logs can be very valuable in improved services to the viewers of the web site.

FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a way of quickly uploading or downloading many files to and from a web server. Most web hosting companies will allow their customers access to their web hosting accounts via FTP. FTP is very useful and is a great feature to have when paying for a web hosting account.

Scripting

Since the World Wide Web began, many scripting languages ​​have been created and have evolved into the dynamic and interactive environment we enjoy today. A scripting language is a way of adding functionality to a web site, whether it be to calculate numbers or to load information from an external database. Scripting languages ​​have made electronic commerce possible. Some of these languages ​​include PHP, ASP, JSP, Coldfusion, VBscript, Javascript, and Perl. I will not go into the details of these in this article for the sake of complexity. If you know how to use these languages, you should know what to look for in a web server for them.

Databases

A database is a place to store data that can be used in a large variety of ways. Databases are used on the Internet for applications such as shopping carts, message boards, and product catalogs. The more databases the web hosting provider allows you to create, the most applications you can deploy on your web server. Databases are used by the more advanced web master, but information is freely available online should you be interested.

Conclusions

Web hosting can be a very difficult decision with the many thousands of hosting companies out there. It is critical to find a plan that fits your needs and to have a good hosting company. I hope this article was useful in making your decision about which company to host with. Happy Hosting!