If you are considering installing a surveillance system in your organization, you are probably deciding between the two types of solutions: hardware or software. With each approach having its pros and contras what will you choose? This article is about to help you make a weighted decision.
If you are managing a condominium and want a video camera on the front door, or when you need a garage monitoring system for an underground parkade you are pretty much forced to use a set of recording video cameras.But do you want a video surveillance system in your office?
While video surveillance may increase the performance and discipline of your employees, it can also have negative impact on the psychological climate among employees. Hardware-based video surveillance is easy to abuse, and you must know and comply with the appropriate laws and legislations. Hidden video surveillance is illegal pretty much everywhere, you you’re losing an opportunity to catch a dishonest employee selling off your trade secrets or telling your competitors about your plans. Finally, hardware-based surveillance can’t record anything meaningful from the computer screens. You’ll see dark and bright spots at best, and will never know what programs were opened, what Web sites were visited and what was typed in that chat window.
Software surveillance, on the other hand, is still unregulated by the governments and can be used without making your employees aware. Surveillance software disciplines your employees without causing the negative reaction to video surveillance and apparent video cameras. Finally, it is virtually impossible to abuse software surveillance because it works only on the employees’ computers that are supposed to be used for only one thing: work. Consider surveillance software a performance control tool and not a system to monitor employees.
Besides the legal and psychological benefits the importance of which is hard to evaluate, software surveillance provides a number of direct benefits. With computer surveillance software you can record your employees’ activities down to the last keystroke and mouse click. This low-level control is there if you need it, but if you don’t you can always revert to the more convenient, higher level control. Good surveillance software recognizes popular chats and instant messengers such as AIM, ICQ or MSN and logs the conversations, allowing you to access formatted chat logs that are easy to go through.
If you decided on software surveillance against a video monitoring system, there’s only one thing left: what surveillance software to chose from the many offerings? While there is no lack of software surveillance solutions, KGB Spy http://www.refog.com/ conveniently integrates the things that are most important to corporate users: security, convenience and features. Being a fully featured software surveillance system, KGB Spy offers all the usual gimmicks such as keystroke capturing, application logging and Web site monitoring. However, being a corporate-oriented product, KGB Spy goes even further, providing features such as remote access to logs via email or FTP, instant remote alerts on pre-defined events such as certain key phrases, and complete environmental control. KGB Spy makes periodic captures of the computer screen, showing you detailed snapshots instead of the blurred spots you would see on a video camera. Finally, KGB Spy is virtually undetectable and practically impossible to remove without knowing the administrative password.
And here’s one last yet most important feature of software surveillance: you can download, install and evaluate a complete surveillance system for absolutely free! Get your copy of KGB Spy from http://www.refog.com/ and get comfortable with the advanced surveillance features before paying.

In today’s hypercompetitive market each retailer needs to grow revenue and market share along with customer satisfaction. Retailers are using new technologies like digital signage to retain customers. Retailers not only provide additional value by facilitating their customers but also generate additional revenues by running branded advertisements. Static pop-up is a thing of the past. Digital signage is being placed in-store, showcasing product information, new arrivals, offers, clearance sales and information about availability of products along with their location. Huge video display screens grab comparatively more attention than other sources, influence customers and are a means of additional revenue and customer satisfaction. Communication is the key to any organization’s success. However, in today’s fast moving market it becomes a bit cumbersome and tedious for a corporate to inform each and every employee with key information at one go. One reason may be that all the employees do not have email ids like in floor shops, back offices or branch offices spread geographically. The organization can update its employees based in any country, in any location with the latest internal news; can welcome the new joinees, keep the entire employee force abreast with the latest HR policies, transfers of employees, etc. The organization can even broadcast live internal and sporting events simultaneously. Using Digital Signage software these updates and events can also be displayed on LCD or plasma screens. Digital signage also helps in assisting visitors in accessing a facility’s way finder, utilities area and other important information. The same can also be used to display the company profile and areas of expertise. Third party feeds like news, weather, stock market updates, financial news, etc., are added advantages for staff and visitors alike.
Why is digital signage important in the transportation sector? Digital signage allows you to put live or real time data on to screens (LCD/ Plasma) fixed at the departure or arrival areas of airports, railway and bus terminals. Passengers can be updated with the current schedules in an interesting manner, rather than the boring numeric being currently used. This can be used to display useful information that a passenger would like to know – trip delays, news, sports coverage, stock market updates, currency rates, safety information, world clock and weather. All this can be displayed simultaneously. Interactive kiosks or touch screens make it easy for travelers to purchase tickets, check-in and locate where to board planes, trains, and buses and tourism info centers.
Digital signage can delight customers by displaying their menu, along with their ingredients and calorie counts, price and the waiting time outside their premises. This could encourage the customer to have pre-decided his/her order once she looks at the menu thereby leading to the higher TRT (turn around time) leading to more revenue. Inside the restaurant besides the menu, entertaining videos, news, stocks etc can be displayed for customers.
Digital signage is ideal for retail banking because it lets you deliver personalized information to individuals critical to the success of retail banking. It can be used to display messages from the bank’s board of directors or head appreciating and thanking customers for their loyalty. Display screens fixed at waiting areas informs the customer about the current offers and services for different categories and testimonials along with tickers, live news feeds and stock data making his wait more entertaining. Further the head office can communicate with other branches simultaneously at a pre-defined time for all internal communication.
Digital signage can play a significant role in making your guests stay memorable, for e.g. Screen at the reception desk, can be used to display different time zones of different countries dynamically which means a clock showing IST(Indian Standard Time) can have a background of The Taj Mahal and after predefined time it can show London time with Big Ben or video of London or a hotel logo as the background, this can also be added with weather conditions in multiple numbers, here imagination has no full stop. Likewise in the lobby area a screen can be used to display facilities and amenities available with-in the hotel like today’s function, today’s top menu etc. to facilitate customers and guests. This can also help your guests find their way to rooms, what’s in for menu, type and time of restaurants, bar, rest room and other amenities etc. at touch of their finger tip along-with the city’s tourist’s places, entertainment venues and prominent market in interactive kiosk mode.

Digimaker is a leading .NET based Content Management Platform in the Nordic region. Digimaker Content Management NetServer is a 100% .NET-based, C#-written, web-based Content Management platform meant for editors, authors, developers and .NET solution houses for building user-friendly websites, creating rules-driven editorial processes for aligning online publishing efforts with business objectives and building customized solutions.
Offered throughout Scandinavia by a selection of Microsoft Certified Partners we are proud to announce a growth rate of approximately 50 licenses per month. Currently, for the first phase of our launch sequence for the USA, UK and Middle East market, we are looking to engage with a selection of highly qualified Microsoft Certified Partners, for representing us in the market more aggressively.
Some of our leading clients include the following: Ftadviser UK, Daimler Chrysler Worldwide, Jeep, Dodge, Cheroke, Fuji Films, Ventelo, Bravida, Norske Skog, Monter, History Today, etcDigimaker Software Developer’s KitRegister and download your copy from Digimaker The Developer Kit includes:• Developer copy of Digimaker – The .NET Content Management Platform • SiteBuilder – Digimaker SDK with full Visual Studio 2003 integration • E-book – “Developing web applications with Digimaker SiteBuilder” • One free license – deploy your first project without further costs Digimaker at a glance:• The .NET Content Management Platform for the future – used by enterprises like Mercedes Benz, National Oil well and The Financial Times. • Built on award winning technology since 1997 • Downloadable and self installing • Fully integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio for easy development of solutions. • Growth rate of 50 licenses per month and rising. Download your free copy now!

Are you developing a new client-server project in .NET? Concerned about the many security issues connected with different implementations of secure communication protocols? Care about compatibility and reliability of your new project? Want to make a future-proof product with no technical support calls? Use ready-made .NET SFTP and SSH components to add support for the industry-standard communication protocols!
SFTPBlackbox http://www.eldos.com/sbb/net-sftp.php makes the development process straightforward, leading your .NET team straight to deployment. Enclosing SFTP and SSH protocols into a set of .NET components, SFTPBlackbox makes for a perfect developer’s companion. No need to concentrate on every little implementation detail in SFTP and SSH protocols. No need to worry about security holes or porting C++ algorithms into C# or VB.NET. Integrate .NET with SFTP and SSH protocols seamlessly with SFTPBlackbox!
Have no past experience in communication or security? New to SSH and SFTP .NET development? Add SFTP and SSH protocols to.C#, VB.NET or .NET Framework projects in minutes! Using ready-made SFTP .NET components lifts all SSH, SFTP or security experience requirements from the developers.
SFTPBlackbox allows you to deploy the .NET project sooner, and get a clean, reusable .NET code. Every SSH and SFTP function is implemented call after call and method after method, leaving no place to any security holes or reliability issues.
SFTPBlackbox has been developed by the professionals with strict industry standards in mind. SFTP and SSH components provided with SFTPBlackbox are strictly standard-compliant and full-featured as well. SFTPBlackbox produces a highly compatible, robust code and assures you’re your product will work with no problems for years to come!
Different types of licenses allow large corporations to appreciate the power of SFTP .NET and SSH .NET components, while smaller companies and individual developers will find it very affordable.
SFTPBlackbox is one of the best SFTP and SSH components for the .NET environment. Download SFTPBlackbox from http://www.eldos.com/sbb/net-sftp.php and open a supplied sample project in C# or Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET) environment to see how clean and easy o understand the resulting .NET code is, and how quick it becomes to create an SFTP application in any .NET language from the ground up!

Just imagine how dull computers would be if all software developers and game creators used an identical or standard icon. Fortunately, this is not the case as many of us strive for originality and creativity. But how many users have a standard background image on their Windows desktop? Desktops are clearly far more interesting with personalized desktop and file icons. And navigation is also easier, as it can be very frustrating to find a favorite game shortcut on a desktop filled with hundreds of identical icons! Software and game developers have always used icon creation software to inject creativity and originality into PC use. And it is for this purpose that Aha-Soft has created an icon toolkit that gives both home PC users and developers the power to create, modify and convert icons. The Aha-Soft Icon Toolkit consists of two separate software packages – ‘Any-to-Icon’ and ‘ArtIcons’. The Any-to-Icon software package includes an icon format conversion program, allowing users to convert more than a dozen image formats (BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PCX, PSD, TGA, TIFF, WMF, WBMP, XPM, XBM and CUR) to Windows icon formats (ICO). Icon libraries can also be handled by Any-to-Icon, together with extraction of icons from ICL, EXE, DLL, SCR, IL, NIL and other libraries. Any-to-Icon has a wizard interface (as well as a command line interface) making it possible to convert multiple files in an instant. Any-to-Icon offers a number of important functions to the home PC user. Firstly, there is icon creation: the home user can instantly convert favorite photos or images into 32-bit true color icons (Windows Vista style). It is also possible to extract icons from favorite games and use them on a desktop. Any-to-Icon even converts screenshots via the clipboard, automatically resizing and enhancing them. In addition to assisting the home user, Any-to-Icon is an even more valuable tool for the developer. Powerful enough to handle multiple file conversion, there is no need to manually convert all software icon libraries for Windows Vista. Any-to-Icon does the job for you – simply select all software icon libraries, process them through Aha-Soft’s Any-to-Icon (selecting the sizes and color depths), and the process is complete! This can result in three simple sets of icons for Windows XP users, Windows Vista users and DOS users. And this is not all the super software can do! The custom size output setting in Any-to-Icons can be used to create icons for presentations (size 64×64 and over) and much more. The ArtIcons software package is truly a monster utility indeed! Users can create new and original icons from scratch, using professional image editing tools, shapes and effects. Users can also convert, edit, extract and manage icons and even entire icon libraries. ArtIcons can also import Apple icons and save them to Adobe’s PSD, GIF, and many other image and icon formats. ArtIcons is available in two different versions: ArtIcons Standard and ArtIcons Pro, which is supplied with an integrated icon library manager. Using ArtIcons, software and game developers will never need to worry about how and where to get a new set of original and cool icons for their ‘freshly-baked’ slick software. ArtIcons allows home PC users to modify their existing icons easily and professionally, amazing friends with an awesome looking ‘My Computer’ icon with the user’s smiling face inside the screen! The possibilities with ArtIcons are endless! Both software packages from Aha-Soft have a clear, easy to understand and user-friendly interface in multiple languages (including French, German, Hungarian, Brazilian-Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Italian, Japanese and dozens more). ArtIcons and Any-to-Icon both come with clear help files and other documentation. Both packages were developed to be powerful and resourceful for professional users (ie art designers, software programmers, web developers), while remaining easy-to-use for amateurs and normal PC users. ArtIcons and Any-to-Icon are available instantly using a credit card over the phone, by mail, e-mail or using a secure order form on the developer’s website. The packages are compact enough to be downloaded instantly using a broadband internet connection, or in just a few minutes over a 56kbit/sec modem. The option of having a CD-ROM sent out to any country in the world is also available. Aha-Soft also has special discount schemes for bulk volume purchases, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Aha-Soft provides demo downloads for both Any-to-Icon and ArtIcons, with a fully functional 30-day trial period for the latter, and some function limitations for Any-to-Icon. The world of icon creation and modification has never been so easy with Aha-Soft’s Icon Toolkit: ArtIcons and Any-to-Icon. Be original and creative, save time and money – try ArtIcons and Any-to-Icon today! For more information please visit the web pages of Aha-Soft’s ArtIcons and Any-to-Icon.

In my line of work, I find myself constantly producing PowerPoint presentations. Sometimes these are just individual slides (like a diagram or case study), sometimes they are templates, and sometimes they are whole, individual presentations. Most of my PowerPoint work is completed at my day job where I am an in-house designer, but my freelancing alter ego occasionally comes across a client needing some presentational pick-up. Over the years, I have built and edited hundreds of PowerPoint files.
I know a lot of people think PowerPoint is the devil incarnate, but in the corporate world, it is an ubiquitous evil. To shake some of the negative stereotypes, I apply traditional design principals to make my company and clients look better than the competition.
We go to 120 trade shows a year, and we present at every single one. We also use Macromedia’s Breeze for hundreds of online demos. Our PowerPoint is often the first thing a potential customer will see from us, so it is critical (and easy) to make a good impression before they even receive a brochure.
PowerPoint is used by nearly sales guy on the planet, with a whole industry of accessories built around the presentation guru / road warrior concept. It is employed for downloadable or live web demos, and it is even used (or abused, depending on your point of view) to pass along copy, concepts and notes between internal team members. With this volume of use, PowerPoint slide design becomes just another facet of a company’s identity program.
From Chuck’s Neighborhood PeeCee Warehouse to Apple Computer, the local cafe with the amazing bagels to Starbucks Coffee, every business benefits from a unique identity, a look and feel that separates them from competition. The company logo is only a small part. Corporate colors, type treatments, illustration styles and repeated graphic elements are all parts of the greater whole. This identity is carried through to stationary, trade show graphics, packaging, advertising and yes, PowerPoint.
The software has become so ubiquitous that I consider it part of a greater paradigm shift in mainstream communication. The only problem is that this evolution is hindering communication. Like text messaging or 200-pixel banner ads, the information is compressed to a set of key buzzwords, crippling the message by stripping the skeleton of any meat. Bullet points become rapid-fire metadata. I give you the words “purple” and “fish” — you figure out what I am trying to say.

* Leverage your existing technology
* Realize rapid ROI
* Streamlined implementationIs about as meaningful as:
* Parsed cabbage flux capacitor
* Disco glitter manifestation
* Expressive giraffe BLTMaybe a hundred years ago those phrases denoted something, but by sheer repetition and abuse, the PowerPoint generation has crushed the meaning like 200,000 people at a Stones concert trampling through a flower garden.
In the same way a good logo supports a successful identity program, good PowerPoint transcends half-assed bullet points and reinforces the speaker — their personality, message and purpose. It doesn’t recycle the same, tired messaging over and over. Not only does it look awesome, good PowerPoint hammers home the presenter’s message with unique phrasing, interesting design elements and a certain disregard for the status quo bullshit buzz-speak.
All the flashy backgrounds, painstaking animations and intense clipart research are for nothing if the message has been gutted from the shell. So while I “design” PowerPoint, I design for the audience because I am focused on how they will react to the information.

You’ve been browsing the Internet or opening and closing media files, and you notice that you’ve left your fingerprints all over your operating system. You would think that media files that you downloaded, viewed and deleted are gone: But they’re not entirely.
If you opened up your media in “Windows Media Player”, it has also made note of what videos that you have watched. (This is similar for most players; however, Windows Media Player is the most common so I will only provide an example for it).
Removing Traces from Windows Media Player
- Open Windows Media Player
- Go to “Tools” – > “Options…” in the menu bar
- Select the “Privacy” tab.

- Select “Clear History” and “Clear Caches” at the bottom right (You might even want to turn this feature off by un-selecting the checkbox by: “Save file and URL history in the Player”)
- Press “Apply”, and “Ok”
- Go to “Library” or “Media Library” depending on what version you are using.

- Click on “all Video”
- If the list is empty then you are fine, chances are will be a list of recently watched videos. You can either individually select videos that you wish to remove, or you can press “Ctrl+A” (Select All), and then press “Delete” to remove them all at once.

- Done!
*NoteUse at your own risk – These steps are to be used as a guide, and have been proved effective under normal scenarios. Paul Ryan is not responsible for any malfunction or any other problems that occur from this tutorial. They have been tested and work, but in case something goes funny with your current configuration, he is not liable.

—You may copy this article to use on your ezine provided that all links and biography information is left in tact.

Whenever you search the internet, and view files on your computer your operating system is taking note of these operations, and stores them for later. This can be a useful tool for re-tracing your footsteps; but what happens when you don’t want other people to be able to find out where you’ve been.
This may seem a bit technical but it’s really quite simple and useful:Removing Traces from Windows – Click “My Computer” on your desktop (Or open up “Windows Explorer” – Navigate by double click to: “C Drive” – > “Documents and Settings”
- Next you need to go to double click on whatever username you are logged in as.

- Often times by default folders will be hidden in here. Let’s:
- Go to “Tools” – > “Folder Options…” in the menu bar
- Select the “View” tab
- In the scrollbox select the radio button by “Show hidden files and folders”
- Press “Apply” and then “Ok”
- Double click on “My Recent Documents” and delete everything inside of this folder.

- Next go back a folder and double click on “Local Settings”
- In this folder will be all of the cache and history files that we should have delete in the Internet Explorer instructions above. Let’s double check.

- Delete everything from inside of the “History”, “Temp” and “Temporary Internet Files”.

- Done!

*NoteUse at your own risk – These steps are to be used as a guide, and have been proved effective under normal scenarios. Paul Ryan is not responsible for any malfunction or any other problems that occur from this tutorial. They have been tested and work, but in case something goes funny with your current configuration, he is not liable.

—You may copy this article to use on your ezine provided that all links and biography information is left in tact.

If you are like the majority of people, you surf the internet on a shared computer. You might know already, but if you don’t: Everywhere that you go your computer is keeping record of; leaving your finger tips all over the place for others to find.
There are a few quick and easy things that you can do to remove these traces, without buying any software, that a lot of people advertise.
Under normal settings your Internet browser is always storing your browsing history, cached files of pages, and saved form information. These are three easy places to get busted for your past browsing habits. These things are all meant to make your browsing experience quicker, and more convenient however they can also become a nuisance when you don’t want other people to know where you are:Cache is an actual stored copy of a web page that sits on your local computer, so that your browser can load it rather than always downloading pages from the Internet.
History is the browsers way of tracking where you have been both in the address bar to help make future url input faster, but also to help you retrace and find pages that you recently visited.
Saved form information is a very handy tool that allows the browser to remember what you enter into forms, to help speed it up the next time that you use a form.
Removing Traces from Internet explorer
- Open Internet Explorer
- Go to “Tools” – > “Internet Options” in the Menu Bar
- Select “Delete Files”
- In the pop-ip select “Delete all offline content”
- Next select “Clear History”
- At the top select the “Content” tab
- Select “AutoComplete”
- Select “Clear Forms” (You might even want to turn it off altogether)
- Your done – Internet Explorer is clean!
Removing Traces from Mozilla Firefox
- Open Mozilla Firefox
- Go to “Tools” – > “Options…” in the Menu Bar
- Select “Privacy” on the left hand side.

- Clear “History”
- Clear “Saved Form Information”
- Clear “Download Manager History”
- Clear “Cache”
- * You might even want to clear your cookies, but note that often times useful information such as remembered logins,etc are stored here. – At your own Risk!

- Done!

*NoteUse at your own risk – These steps are to be used as a guide, and have been proved effective under normal scenarios. Paul Ryan is not responsible for any malfunction or any other problems that occur from this tutorial. They have been tested and work, but in case something goes funny with your current configuration, he is not liable.

—You may copy this article to use on your ezine provided that all links and biography information is left in tact.

Developing, debugging and testing a database application are common tasks for data-intensive organizations. Private companies, medical and financial corporations, and even government authorities are the largest customers for the database developers. Commercial and trade secrets must be protected from a business security standpoint. Privacy policies and government legislations legally restrict the possibilities of organizations to provide real data to database developers, protecting subjects whose information makes the content of a database. Violating such policies and legislations can cause bad publicity and have negative legal consequences altogether.
Why provide real data to the developer at all? The answer is simple: the developers need realistic sample data in order to develop the database, optimize its performance and eliminate possible bugs. Given a sample too small or too far away from whatever data is actually going to be used, the developers make poor decisions, which leads to a non-optimal performance or consistent problems in usability and reliability of a database.
The paradox is obvious: one can’t give supply the developers with any real data without facing negative publicity and legal consequences, while at the same time a database can’t be realistically developed without the data. The solution to this dilemma is data scrambling.
Data scrambling replaces real data with fake yet realistic records. If a record in a real financial database reads “John Doe, balance $10,000, account #000”, a data scrambler will replace the record with something random yet realistic, e.g. “Mae Smith, balance $2,345, account #123”, protecting the identity of the customer by changing the name, at the same time protecting the security of the financial institution by randomly changing the balances of the customers’ accounts.
Scrambling is a process of transferring data from the production database into a test mode database. Data scrambling, when used properly, removes sensitivity from the sensitive information, which results in realistically looking data records preserving the original keys and relationships of the real database. Using scrambled data allows giving out a perfectly usable fake database to the developers, allowing the developers to perform full-scale optimization and testing of the resulting application without compromising the system database.
DTM Data Generator (www.sqledit.com/dg) implements data scrambling in a correct way. Its scramble mode allows creating a new scrambled table in the existing or new database. The scrambled table contains modified information such as changed names, credit card numbers, medical records, and so on. The substitute records are not looking as if they were a random set of characters. Instead, names are replaced with other names, and credit card numbers are replaced with the numbers of the same length and of the same structure.