The average office computer will be on for at least 8 hours a day during working hours and a home computer will often be on for a similar period whilst owners use programs or listen to music, even if they are not actively engaged with the computer. There are steps, however, that you can take to make your computer last longer and save you from costly replacements.

This article will consider some of the steps you can take to keep your computer running quickly and last for longer.

IT Support

When running an office, computer maintenance will take up a large amount of time so it is wise to seek computer support. This support should include maintenance of anti-virus software and the general condition of the computers. In an office, computers often become very slow because there is data stored under multiple users on the same machine.

To avoid this you can use an internal or external company server to store all of the information. One of the best steps is to ensure that the data from any members of staff who have left the business is promptly wiped clean once they leave so that it does not clog up the system.

Cleansing

One of the most common reasons for a computer becoming slow is a simple overloading of information. Data quickly builds up on a computer as we collect music and videos alongside completed work projects. It is important to regularly cleanse your computer by deleting unwanted data or at least storing it elsewhere.

A full hard drive will never run as smoothly as one with space to spare. A regular cleansing of your hard drive will allow your computer to continue running smoothly for longer.

Defragmentation

After cleansing your computer it is important to defragment your hard drive. When data is stored on the hard drive it is saved after the previous bit of information. Whilst this is the most obvious way to store data, it is not the most efficient.

What defragmentation does is reorganize your data to make it easier for your computer to access it quickly. By storing all similar files in the same place your computer increases its access times and raises the overall operation speed of your hard drive, thus speeding up your computer.

Replace Old Parts

Often, people replace computers that are actually in excellent condition because of a lack of understanding. It is often easy to replace parts of a computer to bring it back to its original quality so it is sensible to consider computer repair before replacement.

A broken laptop screen, for example, will cause your computer to appear broken when really it could just be a small wiring issue caused by the repeated opening and closing of the screen. Repair is far cheaper than replacement and repair companies will often waive the cost if they are unable to fix the problem.

Back Up

In some cases you will be unable to repair your computer and it will be necessary to replace it but this does not mean that you should sacrifice what your computer had become.

A computer becomes a collection of photos, videos and documents which make up large portions of our working and recreational lives. By backing up your computer on a regular basis you will be able to save everything that your computer contained when you change devices.

Backing up your device is the best way that you can protect from the loss of data so invest in an external hard drive and a USB pen for short-term back up.

Some of the new features, though, may be just enough to persuade the Apple faithful to take the plunge.

Better Processing

One of the biggest changes to the hardware is the new A5 chip. It’s a dual-core version of the A4, which provides double the processing speed.

This is great news for those who like to multitask and/or play mobile games with high-end graphics. It also ramps up download speeds for apps and web pages.

Pretty Sweet Camera

This results in sharper images and brings 1080p HD video recording to the iPhone for the first time. Apple also added image stabilization to make videos smoother and less shaky than before.

Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T Internet Plans

If users wish to travel overseas, customers will have to check to see if their Sprint, Verizon or AT&T internet plans will work without additional fees being added to their bill.

Aside from the new hardware features, the iPhone 4S comes off as a sport version of the previous version. If consumers want faster download speeds, a better camera, or simply want to use Sprint’s network, then this version is worth buying. Otherwise, they may want to wait until the next one (iPhone 5?) comes out.

As for which carrier to buy one from, Verizon and AT&T internet plans are the cheapest but they’re also limited in terms of the amount of data consumers can download each month. Sprint is the only carrier that still offers unlimited data, but it comes with a hefty monthly fee.

It may not be the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S is definitely a step in the right direction and a great vehicle for the latest version of iOS.

Blake Sanders is a writer of high speed internet news and information at broadband comparison site Broadband Expert. He also specializes in service providers and AT&T internet plans.

Photo courtesy of tenz1225 / via FlickR Creative Commons

Asking for help at the record store always seems intimidating because of snotty store clerks, and on the flip side finding help at a big box electronics store is next to impossible unless you want tech support or a new home entertainment system.

With streaming Internet websites you can increase your obscure music knowledge and gain a stronger sense of melody.

Pandora

Pandora has become the industry standard for providing streaming music content. Most businesses and restaurants have an iPhone connected to their speaker system with a streaming connection to a Pandora Station.

When you sign up for Pandora you can select an artist you are interested in and create a radio station that will include artists similar to your original selection. The only drawback to using Pandora is the 40 hour monthly limit it allows for usage.

By upgrading to a premium service you not only gain unlimited access, but you eliminate annoying ads between songs.

Create a free Pandora account and start enjoying great music today.

Last.fm

Last.fm is an excellent service to use if you want to keep visitors on their toes at all times. By setting up a profile you can pick an artist and hear other songs other users think are similar.

Not only does Last.Fm provide a streaming music service, it allows you to connect with other users in the form of a social network exclusive to the site. You can also discover concerts and festivals taking place throughout your area.

Create a free Last.fm account and start enjoying great music today.

Spotify

New to the streaming music scene, Spotify is quickly gaining popularity among the young social media elite.

By integrating a Spotify account with your Facebook profile, you can share what you are listening to with your Facebook friends, listen to playlists created by friends with Spotify, and generate playlists by integrating with Last.fm.

According to Reuters, the service is so popular that Facebook is even looking to integrate it into user’s profiles by-default.

Sign up for a free Spotify account today.

Music Videos (NetFlix, Hulu, YouTube)

If you need a visual form of entertainment to keep guests occupied, there are several streaming services at your disposal. For a fee of $7.99 you can have access to an extensive library of movies, television shows, and documentaries by purchasing a subscription to NetFlix.

If you want to see what everyone is talking about at work regarding the latest shows; Hulu provides the latest episodes of hit television series’. The old standby of YouTube is also a great way to beef up on your pop culture knowledge and find new videos because of the new recommendation feature.

There is no excuse for you not to be uncovering music and other entertainment. What was once buried in the annals of hipsterdom and snobbery is now available at your fingertips through a smartphone.

Vanessa Burke has been communicating to anyone who will listen to her ever since she could first make a sound. It seems that not much has changed over the years. She is a fanatic of anything digital, including books, music, and technology in general, and the business processes that make it happen.

The world is a complex place and she wants to leave no stone unturned.

Here are 6 ways you can improve your home office.

1. Decorate

Sometimes, it’s just easier to turn the ‘leftover’ room into your home office which is the room that often gets very little attention from the paintbrush.

Any other room in the house where you plan to spend time would be decorated so why should your office be any different?

2. Ergonomics aren’t Just for Formal Offices

Just because you’re not that worried about suing yourself for breach of health and safety laws, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t observe what measures larger organisations put in place to ensure their staff don’t end up calling in sick with all the common RSI related pains.

By simply observing very basic advice you can save yourself a lot of pain, stress and time in the long run.

3. Dedicate the Room to Work

People who have difficulty sleeping are advised to dedicate their bedroom to a place of sleep and nothing else. No TV or other things that are unnecessary for sleep. The same logic should be true for your office. Nothing that isn’t required for work.

Of course, this isn’t always practically possible, but if somehow you can make sure the room is solely for work purposes, you’ll keep yourself focused on the job at hand. You need to be able to motivate yourself without having the boss breathing down your collar.

4. Get a Comfortable Chair

It sounds basic, but if you’re spending time sat at your computer tinkering away, you’re not going to be effective with backache and neck pain.

Invest in a comfortable chair that suits you personally and make sure you stand up once in a while, you’re still human whilst you’re working.

5. Have Temperature Controls Handy

Just having a fan or heater nearby will save you time in finding these things if you suddenly need to change the room temperature. Leaving your work for just a few minutes can ruin your focused attitude and cause a distraction.

Just having these things in the room will save you lots of time when they are needed.

6. No TV in the Office

It’s worth mentioning as its own point. Unless you have a specific reason to have a TV in your office, it’s probably best to leave it out. As much as you may love your work, distractions can prove costly so in order to keep yourself in order, save TV till when the work is done.

Craig P. Is a furniture designer and put his critical eye on interior design and trend changes in the similar industry. He specially writes about Chesterfield Leather Sofas and Chesterfield Sofas, for more information please visit the official Website Chesterfield Heritage.

Social Media Jobs HQ, our sister site, recently featured on Outside Magazine, is loaded with resources to help you learn about the social media industry as well as provide you with a job board of the latest opportunities in social media.

This week’s Jobs in Social Media features opportunities from companies like Dell who is seeking a Social Media Program Intern to Saks Inc.’s hunt for a great Social Media Manager to support their new social media initiatives.

We hope that you find this post and the website a great resource if you’re seeking employment in this growing industry.

Check out this week’s top picks.

Social Media Intern – The Real Talker

“The Real Talker is developing a new type of news environment and seeks a forward thinking social media intern to join our efforts. The main focus of the job will be to organize, engage, and expand The Real Talker’s network of social media contacts and followers…”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Solutions Social Media Manager – Dell

“In addition, this position carries the responsibility for helping the Internal Communications team with its social media strategy and plans as the group leverages blogs, videos, and internal social networks …”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Social Media Manager – Saks Inc.

“Act as the social media liaison to Saks.com and SFA store creative teams, to insure all social media images and layouts are on brand and consistent with company-wide efforts. Act as the Social Media team’s expert on design trends within the social media space to advise on best practices and emerging platforms…”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Social Media Coordinator – Charles River

“Develop and publish social media content and coordinate all related activities in support of the company’s social media strategy. Assist with the analysis of social media initiatives and with company training related to social media platforms.”

Read more about this opportunity here.

For more opportunities visit SocialMediaJobsHQ.com.

Our job board gathers jobs related to social media marketing so you will encounter jobs that range from social media strategists to marketing interns. The opportunities are endless.

If you are an individual or company that would like to share a job with our readers, please check out the job posting page for more information.

Before you get overwhelmed and give up, or just start clicking randomly, take a minute. What, exactly, are you looking for? Do you want to post a funny picture to your Facebook account? Do you want to watch a video of a dog at a wedding? Do you want a tuxedo for your dog to wear? Whatever it is you’re searching for, Google has tools to make it easier.

When you search with Google, have you ever noticed the bar at the top left of the page? The one that starts out with Web highlighted? Got it? Okay, now here comes the fun part. The first tab after Web is Images. Click in Images if you want photos or drawings of the dog. Not what you want?

Try the next tab, Videos. Here you get YouTube, Hulu and other video sources from across the web. Not excited by the drooling bulldog? Okay, continue to the next tab. Maps will show the nearest dog clothing stores, News will give you info about the next dog show, and Shopping will scour the web, looking for that perfect doggie penguin suit.

Oh, wait a minute; your thesis is on human behavior as it relates to dogs? And you need some citations?

Try the pull-down menu. By hitting the More tab, you’ll get a plethora of other tools. There you are- Scholar! Here you’ll find out where dogs in tuxes have been discussed in science articles, cited by doctors, and studied by psychologists. You can also search for blogs devoted entirely to dogs with the Blog tab. Or find out how much the average person spends on a doggie suit with the Finance tab.

Any way you go about it, the simple tab bar at the top of Google’s page is a great way to refine your search. Knowing what you’re looking for is the hard part. Finding it with Google is easy.

This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet providers in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8@gmail.com.

It did not take long for business to adapt and create full-featured systems to integrate standard calling, extension possibilities and just about everything else any business needs with a business phone system.

Each time you contact a contact centre, your standard call is being diverted anywhere around the world so a representative can handle your call. This is how many companies are providing 24-hour call centre services in many languages.

The people working in those call centres are working during the day, or they are living in the country of the language you have chosen on the service menu.

At the same time, in any booming business, we have to be careful when we are selecting our vendor. Here are some of the scams you should be on the look-out for, and what you need to make sure you have.

DoS (Denial of Service)

DoS is the probably the biggest threat to enterprise and business. DoS attacks can come from two sources. The worst cause is by your own provider. Some providers are doing this to generate more revenue by charging extra fees to repair whatever ‘damage’ caused the break in service.

The other threat is from hackers who penetrate the communication data packets being sent through the internet, and ‘jam’ the communications by pushing in more packets to create mayhem.

Most VOIP operator’s applications and communication protocols will even prevent any ISP to know where any communication is coming from, and this creates a cover for the hackers.

Fee Threats

It could be too late when you realise your next VOIP bill arrives from your provider to stop hackers who have penetrated your system, and have been making multiple calls and video calls at your expense.

VOIP calling is particularly vulnerable to attack when compared with the older PBX systems because they internet networks and not closed PBX wired networks for a single company. At the same time, a VOIP-network for your company can be a network around the whole world.

Diversion

When I am out of the office, I can divert my traditional office phone to my mobile phone. That is a great service if I have money to burn. With a VOIP-based business phone system, all of the people working in my team have an extension on our system, and it does not matter where they are in the world, whether in their office, or on their mobile phone, the caller does not know, and the costs are negligible.

Even when we ignore the issue of diversion, and just consider the ability of having a phone system that allows our extension numbers to be anywhere in the world, there is absolutely no comparison with tradition phone calls and traditional phone calling cost.

Phishing

Phishing continues to be a big part of criminal activity on the internet. We all know those letters that come in our email telling us to help someone to get money out of a bank account in another country. They are looking to get your personal details, so they can steal your money. Phishing has hit serious levels with online recruitment and job websites.

Does it sound like I have had enough of my national carrier and the expensive costs of poor service and minimal features? To put it bluntly, I have had enough of paying too much. On top of that, I am already used to video calling, and don’t feel a call without an image of the person on the other end of the phone is enough.

I am also eagerly awaiting the release of the new Windows 8 operating system, so I can take even more advantage of VOIP systems, because my smartphone, business phone system and all of my other computer devices will be running on the same operating system.

Here’s a guide to change your wallpaper in Windows and Mac.

8th Anniversary Tower Lights

Download wallpaper / Photo Credit idovermani.

3,000 Flags

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Battery Park Memorial

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Montgomery County 9/11 Memorial

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911 Memorial, Staten Island

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All images credited to respective Flickr users, please note that some of the images are copyrighted and may require permission/purchase for you to download.

Technically, it’s because of the number of pixels that manufacturers squeezed into the small phone screens. When compared to the iPhone 3G, which has a display screen of 163 pixels per inch, with a resolution of 480 by 320, iPhone 4 has come a long way.

Everything Looks Amazingly Sharper

With iPhone 4, Apple presented its Retina Display, which is basically an LCD that offers a super high pixel density. They accomplished this by squeezing a 960 by 640 resolution into 3.5 inch screen resulting in 326 pixels per inch.

Result? There won’t be any jagged edges and with the high definition camera capabilities, the images will be displayed in the best display possible.

However, it is not only pictures and movies that will benefit from Apple’s new screen technology, as everything that is viewed on the screen, such as web sites and documents, will appear crisp and clean, leaving little to the imagination.

In comparison, when CRT computer screens were first developed they had a dot pitch of somewhere between .41 mm and .51 mm (It is the distance in millimeters between two same color phosphorous dots measured diagonally).

In theory, the smaller the dot pitch the better the quality of the image on the screen. Higher quality monitors were developed to have a dot pitch of .28 millimeter, providing what was then an exceptionally sharp image on the screen.

With the use of LCD displays the images became much clearer, especially on larger monitors, but the screens in cell phones remained small with such a small area into which the resolution pixels can be jammed together. Another issue with many of the older cell phone LCD screens is the visibility of the screen image when held at a slight angle.

Retina Display Solves It All

Apple is pointing to its new Retina viewing technology as having solved many of the issues associated with iPhone video viewing. The iPhone 4 offers a contrast ratio of nearly four times that of previous iPhone models and the back lit LCD screen provides better viewing when the phone is held at an angle from the viewer, much like the image on most LCD televisions with larger screens.

It also enhances color display and makes better use of the high definition camera recording capabilities.

Putting it simply, Apple packed more pixels into a really small viewing screen resulting in clearer images and colors that virtually seem to pop off the screen, but in the end it is still a screen.

Consider the Apple iPad that has a larger screen and can hold many more pixels than a 3-1/3-inch screen. The iPhone 4 packs about 80 percent of the pixels that fit into an iPad into the much smaller screen.

This makes the iPhone 4’s screen one of the tightest packed displays on the market. Although previous manufacturers had an 800 X 480 resolution, sub-pixel arrangements presented so many issues that it never really advanced.

The new Retina Display introduced by Apple with the iPhone 4 launch is considered to be the sharpest and brightest displays on a small screen.

This article was contributed by Calvin Scott. Calvin is tech freak and loves to write on the topic of gadgets. Visit his site for iphone4 and iphone5.

Social Media Jobs HQ, our sister site, recently featured on Outside Magazine, is loaded with resources to help you learn about the social media industry as well as provide you with a job board of the latest opportunities in social media.

This week’s Jobs in Social Media features opportunities from companies like Texas Instruments who are seeking a Social Media Program Manager to Activision’s hunt for a great Community Manager to support their new social media initiatives.

We hope that you find this post and the website a great resource if you’re seeking employment in this growing industry.

Check out this week’s top picks.

Social Media Program Manager – Texas Instruments

“Working in tandem with the community manager, the Social Media Program Manager will define, execute and deploy social media web applications with a focuson both internal and external audiences. Responsible for implementing TI’s Social Media Strategy, developing brand awareness, generating inbound traffic and…”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Marketing Manager, Social Media- Intuit

“Join us to help lead our Social Content Team, chartered to lead high level Social Marketing campaigns and drive significant growth for the Small Business group. This leader also owns key social media campaigns that drive significant growth for the business, as well as being tasked with creating new, innovative and buzz worthy campaigns to drive awareness and sales.”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Social Media Manager – LivingSocial

“Were redefining localized online advertising and social commerce, all while building a great company and cultivating superb talent. The explosive growth and success of LivingSocial has been recognized by media outlets new and renowned, from TechCrunch to The Wall Street Journal. To help fuel our growth, LivingSocial has secured hundreds of millions in funding from some of the most prominent investors and Internet leaders. As we continue to advance and innovate”

Read more about this opportunity here.

Community Manager – Activision

“We’re looking for an experienced, dynamic, and creative Community Manager to join our team as we launch a number of exciting new family-oriented online games.

Successful candidates will have expertise in creating an online community and keeping it exciting and active. This role will work closely with a team of people to ensure we have a world class community management program including website & online gaming community, as well as social network presence. You will maintain feedback, schedules, and release notes with external resources regarding the development of our game-specific websites, community websites and company website.”

Read more about this opportunity here.

For more opportunities visit SocialMediaJobsHQ.com.

Our job board gathers jobs related to social media marketing so you will encounter jobs that range from social media strategists to marketing interns. The opportunities are endless.

If you are an individual or company that would like to share a job with our readers, please check out the job posting page for more information.