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Archive for May, 2011

Your business runs on data. There is no question about it. From accounting and inventory to payroll and customer orders, the information stored on your computers keeps your business going. It only stands to reason that it is vital for you to keep a current back-up of your data at all times.

When considering a data management plan for your business, the list of “what ifs” is very long. What if a natural disaster strikes? What if user error causes your systems to lose data? What if your equipment is stolen or damaged? And on, and on and on.

Prevention is always better than a cure and the best way to prevent data loss is to maintain a back-up system.

By far the cheapest way to back up your data is to do it yourself on removable media, i.e. CD/DVD, Zip, tape or several other formats. While this can be very cost effective as far as the actual back up media, it can be very expensive in terms of the time it takes to produce and maintain these back up solutions.

This is not the way a modern business should be backing up their data.

The best solution all around for most businesses is to maintain an off site back- up. The cost of creating and maintaining a private off site data backup can be very expensive, but there are a handful of companies that provide affordable, disaster proof data storage services.

When using a full-service, business class data back-up service, your data is sent electronically to a completely secure facility that is guarded around the clock and certified to protect your information in the event of a flood or other catastrophic event. Sometimes called electronic vaulting or e-vaulting, sending back-ups off site ensures systems and servers can be reloaded with the latest data in the event of a natural disaster, accidental error, or system crash. This also insures that a copy of pertinent data is maintained at all times in a remote location, safe from harm that may occur at your facility. Typically these systems are encrypted, making this a convenient, secure and cost effective solution to the problem of data loss.

When you are searching for a data back-up company, it is important that you look for a company that follows the guidelines of the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) that mandate the protection of data.

One of these major data back-up companies is Accurate Data Storage. ADS provides secure, reliable and affordable online data back-up storage that is available to businesses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. ADS consultants provide you with software to connect to their remote servers, as well as assist you in setting up a back-up schedule and choosing the amount of back-up storage space that is specifically optimized for your business.

Accurate Data Storage uses a 128-bit encryption to protect your files during the transfer. Your data is then stored in a password-protected vault at a World Class, disaster proof data center, protected by biometric locks, full-time security professionals and long-life diesel generators.

Regardless of which remote data back up company you choose, keep in mind that your business relies on the safety and security of your data. Make sure to ask questions about NIST compliance and the features of the site where your provider data servers are located.

Your business data is too important to risk being improperly backed-up or stored in a location that is less than secure.

As we begin a new decade, many people are overly focused on short-term conditions. This is a recipe for financial mediocrity or perhaps even financial failure. We need to keep the big picture in mind if we intend to reap the big returns.

Despite the current pain, the last decade was historic in terms of international economic development. Growth in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries alone has raised the standards of living and purchasing power for over 40% of the world’s people. Africa has seen a rate of progress that is producing a doubling in standards of living every 14 years or so.

As a result, hundreds of millions of people have switched from being net drains on the world economy to net producers. These changes will generate enormous positive benefits for markets and investors. The trick is to think long term and act on the big trends that are powering future technological transformation.

One area with disruptive technology, breakthrough developments, and transformational wealth creation is in the field of robotics. Exciting developments are underway and applications for robot technology are gaining steam.

The consumer robotics market is projected to reach B in 2010 and expand to B by 2025. By comparison, the digital music market is in projected to be B in 2010.

Bill Gates is predicting that in 10 years, personal robots will be as common as computers are today. Many think that investing in robotics now will be like buying Intel, AMD, Apple, and Microsoft in the 1980s.

The Great Recession has caused some temporary blows.

For example, a mainstay of the robotics industry has been assembly line machines for the automobile manufactures. This sector has been significantly down-sized and is essentially on idle (compared to what has been a few short years ago).

However, during these down-turns, innovation occurs. During the Great Depression, the automotive industry made improvements in areas of automotive technology like fully automatic transmissions and hydraulic brakes. When the Great Depression ended, motoring was revolutionized; sales went up, profit margins were larger, and share prices increased.

In addition, the robotics industry has been diversifying.

Robots are being used for dangerous jobs that humans would rather not perform. A recent example is from the US Commerce Dept that has developed robots to repair aging water transmission pipelines, from the inside.

Another example is the development of small and inexpensive robots that can enter collapsed buildings to find survivors after earthquakes. On the domestic front, more than 5 million robotic vacuums have been sold.

The economics of robotics is based on one simple fact. This fact is that computer costs are a fraction, for the performance received, of two decades ago, yet the technician who repairs the computer has probably received a raise.

Food prices have fallen steeply due to improved automation technologies for the agricultural industry. Due to improvements in automated agricultural equipment, the cost of our daily bread has been reduced and we have only scratched the surface of the benefits robots will bring in this area.

With the leading edge of the boomer generation entering retirement, the financial incentives for improved robots is enormous. Health care services have not declined partly because of labor costs however with improved robotic automation, simple housekeeping and personal services for our older family members will come from improved robotics.

The Japanese know this well as more than 1/5 of their population is over 65 years old. With a dwindling work force and an increasing demand for basic care in our homes and health care facilities, the solution is very likely to resemble a humanoid robot.

The biggest robotics problems are not hardware related but involve software or artificial intelligence (AI). If a robot is to be capable of operating in a wide variety of commercial and industrial environments, it must have multiple sensor feeds. This capability is necessary if a viable, multi-purpose, self-directed robot is to succeed.

Also, human / robot interactions must respond to voice requests, create voice reminders, and engage in word games.

A flagship robot will have both advanced and modular AI with a sensor system that allow robots to move about the typical home landscape. They will run on common PC hardware and use operating systems like Windows XP and Linux to keep the costs down. Due to the high cost of assisted care, a humanoid robot will pay for itself in a matter of months.

In a related area on the health care front, there are advanced robotics making large strides and being used in surgical procedures. One development is a unique and remotely controlled catheter that can be used during an operation and cause minimal trauma to the patient. One advantage of surgical robots is the degree of precision they are capable of achieving, much more than even the steadiest of surgeon’s hands.

I trust this post is providing some background and evidence that a robotics revolution is underway and that transformative technology could hand you transformational wealth for decades to come.

In closing, I favor a quote from Steve Forbes. Forbes says that pursuing additional financial education and the resulting increase in our financial literacy (including the investment potential of breakthrough technology) will open our eyes to alternative wealth creating strategies and this will be they key to resolving our financial crisis.

To gain the necessary financial education, it is best to obtain association with, access to, and membership in a wealth creation community. As a result, you will obtain examples of alternative wealth creating strategies such as debt reduction, asset protection, and wealth acceleration with investments in items such as robotics, nano-based next-generation battery technology, precious metals, water rights, oil, natural gas, potash mines, food commodities, or gold mines … perhaps investments in energy assets that are inherently useful like oil rigs, hydropower, or methanol plants … things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … definitely not financial stocks, definitely not retail stocks, definitely not commercial property.

It is wise to monitor breakthrough technology as there are truly exciting developments afoot in the field of robotics. I will continue to monitor developments and provide updates in future articles and at my blog over the next few weeks.

C++ Operators – Part 1

Introduction
Addition and subtraction symbols are examples of operators in C++. C++ has many other operators that do not have similarities with mathematics. In fact you should learn C++ operators as they are given without making similarities with mathematics. Making similarities can be misleading. This is the first part of a series in which I explain C++ operators. Take things as I give you and avoid making similarities with mathematics.

If you are an old programmer, you can read the series in any order or you can read just the part, which is related to a problem you currently have at your job site. If you are new to programming or you studied programming and have not been practicing, then you should read the whole series.

You need to have basic knowledge in C++ in order to understand this series. If you do not have basic knowledge in C++, then read the series in this blog whose first part is titled, “Getting Started with C++”. To arrive at the series, just type the title and my name, Chrys in the Search box of this page and click Search.

Note: If you cannot see the code or if you think anything is missing (broken link, image absent), just contact me at forchatrans@yahoo.com. That is, contact me for the slightest problem you have about what you are reading.

In this part of the series, we look at assignment operators in C++. An example of such an operator is =.

Operand
An Operand is an identifier or a literal (value) associated with an operator. Consider,

    myIdent = 30;  //this ID should have been declared as an int

myIdent is a left operand and 30 is a right operand to =. = is an example of an operator called, the assignment operator, not the equal operator (details below).

Consider:

      myIdent && hisIdent && herIdent

There are three operands in the above expression. So, you can talk of the first (myIdent), second (hisIdent) and third operands (herIdent). &&, that is 2 ampersands form another operator; we shall talk about it later.

Binary and Unary Operators
A binary operator needs two operands to work with: one on its left and one on its right. A unary operator needs only one operand to work with, placed on its left or on its right (see later).

Assignment Operators
Assignment operators are:

=  *=  /=  %=  +=  -=  >>=  <<=  &=  ˆ=  |=

We look at each of these operators in this part of the series.

Simple Assignment (=)
The simple assignment operator is, =. The following statement illustrates an example:

    int myInt = 35;

We say the integer 35 is assigned to the object, identified by myInt. The left operand to = is myInt. The right operand is 35. The left and right operands should be of the same type.

For all assignment operators the operation is from right to left; that is, from the right operand to the left operand. If you are trying to make similarity with mathematics, then the previous sentence (right to left) may not make sense; avoid making similarity with mathematics. We shall see many examples of right to left and left to right operations as we go along in the series.

For simple assignment, the right operand may be another identifier or even a function call that returns a value.

E1 op= E2 Expressions
In the following generalized statement, E1 is an object identifier, op is an operator and E2 is another object identifier; = is the simple assignment operator:

    E1 op= E2

This generalized statement that involves the simple assignment operator is equivalent to,

    E1 = E1 op E2

The rest of the assignment operators in the list above follow this generalized rule as explained below. The rest of the assignment operators are each made up of an operator you might already know and the simple assignment operator.

The *= Operator
Consider the following statement:

    int int1 = int1 * int2;

Here, int1 and int2 are object identifiers. Note that int1 is found in both the left operand and the right operand (int1 * int2), of the simple assignment operator. We also have the multiplication operator, *. In the above statement the result of multiplying int1 by int2 is assigned to int1. The statement can be re-written as:

    int int1 *= int2;

Also, int2 can be replaced by a number as in,

    int int1 *=3;

The /= Operator
Consider the following statement:

    int int1 = int1 / int2;

Here, int1 and int2 are object identifiers. Note that int1 is found in both the left operand and the right operand. We also have the division operator, /. In the above statement the result of dividing int1 by int2 is assigned to int1. The statement can be re-written as:

    int int1 /= int2;

Also, int2 can be replaced by a number as in,

    int int1 /=4;

The following program illustrates this:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

    int main()
{
int int1 = 20;
int int2 = 4;

            int1 /= int2;
cout << int1;

            return 0;
}

The %= Operator
Consider the following statement:

    int int1 = int1 % int2;

Here, int1 and int2 are object identifiers. Note that int1 is found in both the left operand and right operand. We also have the modulus operator, %. In the above statement the remainder of dividing int1 by int2 is assigned to int1. The statement can be re-written as:

    int int1 %= int2;

The += Operator
Consider the following statement:

    int int1 = int1 + int2;

Here, int1 and int2 are object identifiers. Note that int1 is found in both the left operand and the right operand of the simple assignment operator. We also have the addition operator, +. In the above statement the result of adding int1 to int2 is assigned to int1. The statement can be re-written as:

    int int1 += int2;

The -= Operator
Consider the following statement:

    int int1 = int1 – int2;

Here, int1 and int2 are object identifiers. Note that int1 is found in both the left operand and the right operand of the simple assignment operator. We also have the subtraction operator, -. In the above statement the result of subtracting int2 from int1, is assigned to int1. The statement can be re-written as:

    int int1 -= int2;

Bitwise Assignment Operators
>>=  <<=  &=  ˆ=  and |= are known as bitwise assignment operators. These are usually used by electronic programmers. They are not normally used by the programmers of business organizations and for common projects. I intend to address them in a separate series.

With that we have come to the end of assignment operators. See you in the next part of the series.

Chrys

To arrive at any of the parts of this series, just type the corresponding title below and my name, Chrys, in the Search Box of this page and click Search (use menu if available):

Assignment Operators in C++
Arithmetic Operators in C++
Equality and Relational Operators in C++
Logical Operators in C++
Unary Operators in C++
Type Casting Operators in C++
Pointer to Member Operators in C++
Isolated Operators in C++
Operator Precedence in C++

Thanks to the globalization of internet services, the world has become a much more convenient place to live. Today, we can find information about almost everything under the sun and beyond at the clicks of a mouse. It is undeniable that virtualization has helped us in innumerable ways, and one of them is large volume data storage and execution. Some of the biggest concerns faced by companies dealing with large volume of data are data storage, execution, and safety; this is where data centers come in to play.

What are Data centers? With the advent of servers in the 1990’s, the companies found a way of dealing with data management issues by setting up data centers; special facilities dedicated to housing storage systems with redundant or backup power supply, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls such as air conditioning, fire suppression etc, and a number of security features. The boom for data centers services came during the late 1990s with more companies going online and needing to store and manage large volume of data. Today, data centers are designed as per the guidelines of Telecommunications Industry Association.

What all they do? Data center services offer 27×7 power backup and continual cooling of the data storage racks. They also have a team of in-house IT experts for the maintenance of the storage systems; furthermore, you can have your own IT expert to handle critical data issues. Besides offering highly secure and reliable environment for storing large volumes of data, data centers can aid your business in several other ways. Data centers can operate and manage telecommunication networks and provide data center applications right to the provider’s customers, they can also serve the purpose of hosting applications for third parties in order to provide services to their customers.

How to Choose? Although all data centers sevices are designed as per the same guidelines, you still need to check for certain factors before trusting them with your company’s valuable data. The foremost factor to check is the company’s uptime track record; needless to mention, go for the highest. Another factor to check is the geographical safety of the company’s facility. Make sure it is not located in areas prone to natural calamities. Last but not the least; always check the capability of the facility’s cooling system before closing a deal.

Vantage Data Centers is bringing an entirely new concept to bear on the IT industry –a Data Centers,Secure data centers , Data center services so it gives their customers the peace of mind that their business can continue to grow with ample power.

If you are one of those busy executives that find juggling work and life difficult, a smart phone can come to your rescue. It is one of the blessed gadgets ever invented for business professionals who find 24 hours too short for an entire day. Hence, many of them prefer using their idle time to catch up with their pending work while they travel to work and back, or even socialize a bit in the middle of a busy day to catch up with their personal life. Therefore, a smart phone is not just a companion for many, but a virtual life-support they cannot live without. Let`s take a look how a smart phone can help you manage different things simultaneously.

Email sending – In fast paced life we live today, communication means everything. But, when it comes to business communication, a smart phone does more than just good to many business professionals. Most smart phones are equipped with `Push Email` feature that makes emailing a breeze and therefore, helps people communicate much more frequently with their superiors, subordinates, bosses and clients alike. Hence, this popular gadget has improved the efficiency of many professionals who are pitted against the hectic earlier, offering cellular communication a whole new meaning.

Office on the go – Thanks to the smart phone device, millions of executives around the world can now prepare their power-point presentation while traveling to work. With innovating mobile office features, catching up with their spreadsheet, and preparing other documents on the go, is a reality now.

Video calling: Some smart phones are fully 3G enabled, which means they have a front camera to facilitate video calling. This feature is very useful for those who need to hold important meetings with their clients or customers but cannot do the same physically. Video calling helps business professionals save critical time for executing important assignments.

Blogging – Smart phones have qwerty keypad facility which is highly ergonomic and much better than most keypads of traditional cell phones. Apart form sending quick text messages, they help you blog and tweet at your whims and fancy. This is a great advantage for many busy professionals who do not find time for updating their blogs on a regular basis. With the smart phones enabling you to take pictures, emailing and uploading them to your blog posts, online bogging has now got a new definition.

Social networking – This is probably one of the smartest things that smart phones have done to the corporate world. Today`s businesses have a high degree of dependence on online social networking. With smart phones, business executives can now connect to their contacts via social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Being in touch with people within your network and expanding business contacts with people holds the key to a successful business expansion. With this new gadget, online social networking has become far too easy for anyone.

Picturing capturing – No! We are not talking about taking pictures of your family, friends or colleagues at a weekend cocktail party. The all new smart phones help you take pictures and use them for much better purposes than ever before. Assuming that you are a bibliophile and have an account online public library, you can whip out your smart phone and take a picture of the cover and then log in your online public library website and search for the same book to read.

There are more to making calls when it comes to the widespread applications of smart phones. It is no wonder why so many business people now carry one of these smart cellular phones and consider them as one of the must have business tools.

You can have access to articles about cell phones in portuguese language from page PoloMercantil