Computers and Technology Articles

Touchscreen monitors are an ideal tool for any industrial, production or manufacturing environment. Some touchscreens are ideal for working in dirty environments as they can tolerate dirt and moisture that would quickly disable a keyboard or a mouse, whilst other varieties of touch screen are incredibly durable able to withstand the most ham-fisted operator.

Touchscreens are incredibly flexible this is because touchscreen monitors are based on numerous different types of technology and the application that the touchscreen display is required for, should govern the type of touchscreen technology employed.

For instance, resistive touchscreens wok by using a thin, flexible membrane separated from the glass screen. The surface has a transparent metallic coating that when touched closes an electrical circuit, triggering the Graphical User interface software (GUI the software that recognises the position on the screen.

This makes resistive touchscreens one of the least expensive methods of implementing touchscreen technology. However, resistive touchscreens are easily scratched or damaged which doesn’t make it ideal for industrial use, however, a resistive touch screen does offer high levels of sensitivity.

Capacitive touchscreens on the other hand are ideal for industrial applications. Capacitive touchscreens have no membrane, and as the touch sensitive electrodes at the corners are inside the glass this makes them incredibly durable with even surface scratches not affecting the sensitivity. Many industrial touchscreen monitors work this way.

Other methods of touch screen technology exist including surface acoustic wave; strain-gauge and infra-red although these are less common but are to be found in applications that require the extra durability or extra sensitivity that these other methods can provide.

Following technological advances and the use of touch screen in mobile phones, touch screen is now cheaper and more efficient than ever before. Some argue that it touchscreens are soon to replace the trusty mouse. Whether the mouse survives or not, with the next generation of operating systems such as Windows 7 being designed for touchscreen it is a technology that is here to stay.

Introduction

This guide will show you how to take a users hotmail email address and download or import their contacts programmatically using ASP.NET.

This kind of feature is useful if you are building a Web 2.0 website, a social networking website or anything like that which can benefit from users being able to easily import their contacts from MSN Messenger into your website. You can see this type of functionality on many websites today including MySpace, Facebook and Groupbox. I mentioned Groupbox because that is of course my website. Groupbox is a website for online groups and the feature you are about to learn is one that I implemented to make it easy for users to import their MSN messenger contacts.

After reading this guide you will be able to: Import a users contacts from MSN Messenger using their MSN Hotmail email address and MSN Password.

What you will need: I’ll need to assume you know a bit about programming on the web, the .NET framework, and in this case some VB.NET.

Much of the work for importing contacts from MSN Messenger has been done for you by a group called XIH. They have a class library named the DotMSN Messaging library. We will need this class library so I’ve included a link to my blog where you can download it at the bottom of the article.

The class library does many things but we are just going to use it to retrieve a users contact email addresses.

Importing contacts from MSN MessengerWe are going to achieve this by creating a function that will return an ArrayList of email address’ that you can then use in your website.Here is the function I’m using that imports the contacts and returns them as an ArrayList:

—–

Public Shared Function GetMessengerContacts(ByVal username As String, ByVal password As String) As ArrayList

Dim sEmail As String = username

Dim sPassword As String = password

Dim sConnected As Boolean

Dim iCountactsFound As Integer

Dim aReturn As New ArrayList

Dim DotMSN As XihSolutions.DotMSN.Messenger = New XihSolutions.DotMSN.Messenger

DotMSN.Credentials.Account = sEmail

DotMSN.Credentials.Password = sPassword

DotMSN.Credentials.ClientID = “msmsgs@msnmsgr.com”

DotMSN.Credentials.ClientCode = “Q1P7W2E4J9R8U3S5″

Try

DotMSN.Connect()

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000)

sConnected = DotMSN.Connected

For Each contact As XihSolutions.DotMSN.Contact In DotMSN.ContactList.All

aReturn.Add(contact.Mail)

iCountactsFound = iCountactsFound + 1

Next

DotMSN.Disconnect()

Catch ex As Exception

‘There was an error

End Try

Return aReturn

End Function

—–

As you can see it makes use of the DotMSN class library so make sure you have the XihSolutions.DotMSN.dll in your bin directory.

You will notice two things you may not have been expecting, firstly that the MSN network requires a ‘ClientID’ and ‘ClientCode’. Feel free to use the ones I’ve provided here. Take note thou that these may become invalid in the future so if that is the case, either contact me or do a search for some new ones. I’ve been using these credentials for a couple of years without problem.

Secondly, the line that reads System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000) may have caught your attention. Without this 10 second pause, I’ve found that only a portion of the contacts are downloaded. Obviously the DotMSN function runs asynchronously and as a result, I put this pause in to let it catch up. There are probably neater ways of doing this but because any given user only imports their contacts from time to time it doesn’t seem to be a problem.Third, you should capture the user’s username and password in a secure environment.

Summary

Simple stuff isn’t it - you’ll need to tool up a page that can pass the email address and password to the function but that is very simple and doesn’t need explanation. Additionally, you’ll need to make use of the ArrayList once it is populated with email addresses - again this is easy: you may want to store them in a database or send email invitation to each email address, or both.

If you are similar to most personal computer users, you don’t really understand all the jargon about files and sectors and partitions and bits and bytes. You boot up your computer, click on your Start Menu, and open whichever programs are necessary for completing the tasks at hand. And the entire process goes so smoothly every day that you forget things may not always work quite that way.

But what if one day you click on a program or file and get no response, or a message telling you that the file cannot be found? What then?

You’ll be in the company of millions of others who have felt the panic which accompanies the loss of personally or professionally important data from their computers, but despair need not follow–for a while, anyway. As long as your computer is functional enough to allow you online access, you can take advantage of free data recovery tools.

The Minds Behind The Free Data Recovery Tools

Free data recovery tools, or freeware, are just a small segment of a large and growing selection of software from designers who have decided to share their genius with the less computer-savvy at no cost. Freeware which can very nearly duplicate MS Word or Adobe Photoshop can be downloaded and installed on you PC with very little difficulty, and those programs are only the tip of the freeware iceberg.

Your concern, however, is with free data recovery tools. Run an Internet search and you will find an abundance of them, just there for the taking. But before you start acting like a kid in a candy store, spend some time reviewing what each of them will and will not do. The free data recovery tools you need are those which will address your particular form of data loss.

Kinds Of Free Data Recovery Tools

There are free data recovery tools which will help you recover accidentally deleted files; others are good for recovering data after you have formatted your hard drive; still others will recover E-mail files. But one thing common to most free data recovery tools is that they are programs written by computer whizzes for computer whizzes and may not be the most easily understood computer software you have ever used. But they are free, and if you have a friendly computer whiz around, you will be in fine shape.

Free data recovery tools are designed to rescue data lost from your Windows-based or Mac OS X systems, and if you can figure out how to use them properly, will restore those wayward files in less time than it took you to download and install them!

Finding solutions for computer problems is not an easy task because usually for every problem you need a specific solution. Computer experts conducted researches to find out the real cause of computer problems and they found out that most of computer problems are actually caused by defective system registries.

System registry files are the core files of windows that run various things in your computer. To put it simply programs and driver will not run without a specific registry, some registries are so important that your system will not run without them. Whenever an error occurs in your system, there is a chance that a registry file will go corrupt. Corrupted registries are the root cause of many errors like dll error, rundll32 error, physical memory dump, system crashes and much more. Registries also record information on each change made in your system therefore they tend to grow in size therefore congesting your entire windows system. This is the reason computers tend to go slower as you use them.

Windows cannot repair its own registry this is why people are often frustrated and bring their PC to computer shops. While computer shop repairs charge high you can get the same result just by using registry cleaner program for much less. Using registry cleaner software you can also repair your computer automatically and you do not have to pay extra.

Many registry cleaner programs provide free scanner to search your computer for problems. Since registry is so fragile, before making any change in your system, registry cleaner software will create a backup of your registry to make sure there is no risk when changes are made.

There are also freeware registry cleaner software out there but will they be able to really fix the problems? Many tests have been done and the result shows that freeware registry cleaners are not enough to fix errors and they are too risky to use since registry is too fragile. The worse problem with freeware was the tendency that they might contain spyware that create more problems for you.

Every company needs to comply with local and government standards to protect their company’s confidential information, including insider documents and client information. Loss of this data can cost up to millions of dollars. With the scandals of Enron, companies must comply with government regulations strictly controlling documents, finances and auditing.

However, taking the time to regulate and update your compliance code can be an exhausting project for any company. With the availability of storage systems, removable media, and communication through email and cell phones, there is a unidentified and large area that companies must explore to ensure that all employees’ documents are located in a secure place, such as a central server. One way to ease compliance efforts is by using compliance software to track documents that otherwise may put a company at risk.

What is Compliance Software?

Compliance software is defined as software that performs compliance record keeping and reporting (bitpipe.com). Innovative companies have engineered software to seamlessly comply with risk management and government regulations.

What are the Benefits of Compliance Software?

Compliance software is indeed, a solution for any company, but particularly helpful for large companies who must comply with government and record management codes. Here are a few benefits of compliance software:

-Track document versions stored on users’ hard drives, in email and on removable media and shared network drives with real-time status information.

-Classify documents with minimal user interaction.

-Does not require a centralized server or IT department.

-Maintains complete information about your documents-whether you and the people you’re working with are on or off-line.

-The service is easy to set up and use.

-Optimizes business performance.

- Unifies compliance of government regulations & risk management in business.

-Integrates risk management into day-to-day business processes, helping all employees follow guidelines.

It is a systematization of the process of software development to ensure the best solution most economically. Its goal is to produce high quality software at low rate.

Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation and maintenance of software. A typical software development project will need to go through the phase of Analysis, Design, Programming, Testing and Implementation. Software Project Management (SPM), Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and the use of Computer aided Software Engineering (CASE) would run parallel with the other phases and finally comes the maintenance phase. It is always said that more than 80% of the costs go towards maintenance of the software.

Software Methodology

It is a step by step plan for implementing a method using certain tools and procedures. It often describes the entry criteria, exit criteria and checkpoint for each of the activities or components in software engineering. Some of the popular methodologies today are based on structure techniques or information engineering or object-oriented techniques. Methodology selection depends on the nature of the project, the type of application, the tools proposed to be used and the kind of controls and documentation that would be required.

Waterfall, Prototyping, Spiral, Rapid Application, Stepwise Refinement, Industrial and military standards, Assembly by reuse, Application generation, Continuous transformation and Knowledge based software automation are some of the popular methodologies.

What factors would influence the choice of model for software development?

It depends on the nature and size of application, whether it is an in-house development or development through an external agency, the availability of various tools and resources, time frame and budget, etc.

Who is Software Engineer?

A software engineer is someone who applied engineering principles in the co-operative development of software. A good software engineer should not only generate computer programs but also learn the skills to produce good documentation, database and operational procedures for the computer system. He should be well defined about the components or modules of software engineering.

Registry cleaner tools have been around for many years now. Ever since Microsoft developed the Windows registry is 1998, these pieces of software have quickly gained popularity and supporters. Not only that, but as some tools have grown, others have come into the market promising more abundant and powerful features.

The Windows registry is simply the central database which Windows relies on to store everything from your desktop wallpaper to your administrator password. It’s a set of ALL your computer’s settings and data and is the central hub of your system. In short - without the registry, Windows wouldn’t be as stable or have as many features as it does today.

The reason why your computer is running slowly is not because of the hardware (bits and pieces) of your computer. It’s because the registry has become clogged up with corrupt files and files your system doesn’t need. So many people fall for the myth that your computer must be slow because the hardware is outdated… that somehow your computer is ’so old’, it must just need to be upgraded. This isn’t the case - your computer’s hardware stays the same throughout its life. It doesn’t ‘get slower’, it remains constant. It’s like if you have an old car. It doesn’t matter how old it is, it still runs just as fast…

Your computer is suffering from a file overload - where it simply has so many files in the registry that it takes 2X or 3X as long to find what it needs than normal. Not only that, but because Windows doesn’t recognize this as a problem it just gets worse and worse. In order to fix it, there’s an easy thing you can do. By using a registry cleaner tool, we can send a ‘robot’ into the depths of the registry database and delete all the unwanted and corrupt files on your system. This will not only speed it up, but it will also prolong the life of your computer as well.

There’s nothing quite as annoying as pop-up ads or a computer that no longer has the performance it once had. If it takes you forever to open up applications and you seem to spend more time watching the hour glass on your computer than accomplishing anything it might be a good time to try a free adware spyware scan to see if hidden malware is the problem.

These two types of malware, spyware and adware, wreak havoc on millions of computers everyday. In many cases most people don’t even realize that it has been sneakily installed on their hard drive until it’s to late and their computers performance slows to a crawl as pop-up ads bombard them faster then they can click them away.

If this sounds familiar then there is a good chance you are getting more then annoyed and moving to the frustrated phase of dealing with spyware related computer issues. There are many reasons you need to protect yourself from these programs and the best place to start is with using one of the many free adware spyware scans that many software companies provide directly from their websites.

If your still not convinced that this malware can cause irreparable harm to you and your computer let’s take a quick look at what some of these programs are capable of.

The first is a little program called a key logger. This insidious little bugger records all your keystrokes and forwards them on to whoever created the program. In this manner hackers can gain access to passwords, credit card numbers, bank and financial account numbers and information, and even your social security number. This opens you to all sorts of problems with identity theft.

Other forms of spyware and adware make changes to your registry settings, slowing computer performance. It can also secretly change your security setting leaving your computer open to further downloads that will create all forms of havoc on your PC. In the worst case these malware programs can bring your computers performance to a slow and painful halt, making it nearly impossible to accomplish anything.

If the specter of adware and spyware infecting your computer is a scary proposition the first step on the road to protecting yourself is doing a free adware spyware scan before these programs seemingly gain control of your PC.

Canon is a leading name for digital cameras and printers. Canon is also a leader of quality printer ink cartridges. The products that the company manufactures have a good reputation with clients worldwide. The best time to buy the Canon printer ink cartridge is before they completely run out of ink. This is because during an important printing process, if the ink runs dry you may not be able to get the right fillers.

Keeping spare ones or discounted ones is a good option for heavy duty printing material. Originals can be replaced with the same quality Canon toners compatible to the printer. The costs of the original can run very high and cheaper or low priced ones can be purchased. They are nearly 80% less than the original and give good printing quality. But they need to be purchased from the right suppliers or dealers. As they are affordable they can be refilled with an ink kit. They can also be delivered to homes and offices.

One can get fine color images with the Canon printer ink cartridges. The ip 4200 ink cartridges have been sold to millions of consumers. One of the reasons that good images come out cleaner with canon ink cartridges is because the printer burns the ink more than the other brands. Chances are that it may have to be replaced or refilled sooner. One has to opt for a cheap resetter. But till now there is none in the market like Epson resetters. If Canon introduces resetters the market will have more choices.