Prepaid calling cards are communication tools that go beyond the card that customers purchase. The processes of getting the minutes to the customer actually start with the customer. When an individual is enrolled in a monthly plan, there is typically minutes that get unused.

However, since the phone company has already sold the minutes, it does not carry over the minutes. Therefore, when phone companies have their extra minutes, instead of losing money and discarding the excess minutes, they choose to turn around and sell the minutes, so that they do not lose the money. Basically, this is where the minutes come for prepaid calling cards.

Most Prepaid Mobile Call Cards Offer Text Messaging Services

Text Messaging is a service that lets you receive important messages when you’re on the go. With text messaging already a part of a prepaid mobile call card’s service, users can send and receive quick, concise text messages on their digital phones.

There are also some conventional landline phones that allow for sending SMS messages, which allows a mobile phone user to communicate with through text. Text Messaging transmits numeric or alphanumeric messages to your digital wireless phone. Now you can receive important information immediately without having to interrupt meetings to take calls or use valuable airtime.

Prepaid Call Cards Offer Different Rates For Calls And SMS Services

Most prepaid call card providers keep a lower calling and texting rate, however some of them add-on some fees and service charges that make up for the costs of the lower calling rates. Sometimes these fees will cover their services, and at times it is used to pay other charges, like FCC or state telecommunication taxes. There are some calling card companies that will minimize their service fees, but they often have the higher per minute calling or SMS rates.

Mechanism Of Sending Text Messages

Generally, prepaid call card users can send an SMS to both domestic or international locations. Sending an SMS to local destinations is an affordable mode of sending messages, and the rates vary with each provider. However, sending and SMS overseas is quite costlier than texting local areas, since call card providers will add international connection charges, that are partly to cover the add-on connection rates made by an overseas carrier.

As with texting local destinations, you could also send SMS messages overseas,provided the other party on the receiving end has a digital landline, or has the same mechanism for receiving text messages. In sending text messages, you need not worry about using your airtime minutes, since they won’t get deducted. However, if you access voice mail from your wireless phone to send a message, you will be using airtime minutes.

Calling cards can conveniently found in many places They are sold in groceries, convenience stores, airports, and other places that have high traffic. Calling cards are sold with different minute allotments and at different rates. A person can purchase calling cards with a certain amount of time on the card Prepaid calling cards have the minutes already paid for, so as they are getting used, a person can see how much time they have left on the calling card.

http://flatratephonecard.com – Flat Rate Phonecard

Source by Vanessa A. Doctor

Have you ever heard of MPLS and are you considering switching to a private network transport service through MPLS? Then read on and find out more about it!

MultiProtocol Label Switching which is simply known as MPLS; is an internet protocol or IP-based frame relay technology that uses added capabilities in a secured network. MPLS inherently interconnects the WAN of its users and allows them to prioritize traffic for real-time packets such as voice and video.

MPLS has been around for a while but it is just recently when more people discovered its benefits and started using it for their networks. MPLS is gaining public acceptance and popularity that is why it more people are talking about it.

If you want control, flexibility, and performance for your networking needs, MPLS might just give you what you need. If MPLS is paired with a notable service provider such as AT&T, you can be assured that you will only get quality service for your money!

AT&T offers MPLS Private Network Transport or PNT which is a flexible path to migrate from legacy data networks to a high performing and scalable IP-based network without sacrificing the security which is traditionally found in dedicated private networks. Private Network Transport is a network based IP VPN solution over the AT&T IP Network and it utilizes an advanced witching technology such as MPLS.

AT&T has a diverse IP VPN portfolio and PNT provides any-to-any connectivity to link all the users’ domestic sites to a single IP network that easily integrates new applications and locations. The PNT provided by AT&T is the ideal solution for customers with domestic locations who want to switch from traditional packet-based Layer 2 networks or premises-based VPN solutions to efficient and flexible network-based IP VPN solution.

What’s good with the PNT services offered by AT&T is that it allows simplified management and flexible networks. It helps networks converge through multiple disparate voice, data, and video networks to a single IP-based network that supports any-to-any connectivity. The flexible network allows users to efficiently add new sites and applications to the network.

The MPLS PNT service also allows flexible addressing options support either through existing private or public LAN addressing. Simplified connectivity is allowed through static and border gateway routing protocol options. MPLS PNT is also designed with CoS or classes of service which allow users to classify traffic prioritization over a single infrastructure, allowing high levels of performance for voice, data, and video while also providing and efficient use of bandwidth.

What are the benefits of an MPLS PNT? Users will be able to receive secure, reliable, network architecture providing any-to-any connectivity for domestic sites in the United States; flexibility to easily add new locations, features, and applications to the network; and optional management capabilities providing the level of control the users require.

Other benefits include the ease of budgeting, accounting, and reconciliation with flexible billing options; improvement of application performance using classes of service or CoS to prioritize traffic; and simplify network management with easy to use web based tools.

MPLS Private Network Transport Services are among the best things that have happened to technology today. Why don’t you give it a try?

Source by Gerardo Burns

I’ve always been intrigued by the subject of intelligence. As a child my mother would refer to me as “smart,” but I quickly noticed that all parents refer to their children as smart. In time I would discover that all children are not smart, just as all babies are not cute. If that were the case, we’d have a world full of beautiful, smart people – which we don’t.

Some of us are smart; but not as smart as we think, and others are smarter than they seem, which makes me wonder, how do we define smart? What makes one person smarter than another? When do “street smarts” matter more than “book smarts”? Can you be both smart and stupid? Is being smart more of a direct influence of genetics, or one’s environment?

Then there are the issues of education, intelligence and wisdom.

What does it mean to be highly educated? What’s the difference between being highly educated and highly intelligent? Does being highly educated automatically make you highly intelligent? Can one be highly intelligent without being highly educated? Do IQs really mean anything? What makes a person wise? Why is wisdom typically associated with old age?

My desire to seek answers to these questions inspired many hours of intense research which included the reading of 6 books, hundreds of research documents, and countless hours on the Internet; which pales in comparison to the lifetime of studies and research that pioneers in the fields of intelligence and education like Howard Gardner, Richard Sternberg, Linda S. Gottfredson, Thomas Sowell, Alfie Kohn, and Diane F. Halpern whose work is cited in this article.

My goal was simple: Amass, synthesize, and present data on what it means to be smart, educated and intelligent so that it can be understood and used by anyone for their benefit.

PRENATAL CARE

With this in mind, there was not a better (or more appropriate) place to start than at the very beginning of our existence: as a fetus in the womb.

There is mounting evidence that the consumption of food that’s high in iron both before and during pregnancy is critical to building the prenatal brain. Researchers have found a strong association between low iron levels during pregnancy and diminished IQ. Foods rich in iron include lima beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, seafoods, nuts, dried fruits, oatmeal, and fortified cereals.

Children with low iron status in utero (in the uterus) scored lower on every test and had significantly lower language ability, fine-motor skills, and tractability than children with higher prenatal iron levels. In essence, proper prenatal care is critical to the development of cognitive skills.

COGNITIVE SKILLS

Cognitive skills are the basic mental abilities we use to think, study, and learn. They include a wide variety of mental processes used to analyze sounds and images, recall information from memory, make associations between different pieces of information, and maintain concentration on particular tasks. They can be individually identified and measured. Cognitive skill strength and efficiency correlates directly with students’ ease of learning.

DRINKING, PREGNANCY, AND ITS INTELLECTUAL IMPACT

Drinking while pregnant is not smart. In fact, it’s downright stupid.

A study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that even light to moderate drinking – especially during the second trimester – is associated with lower IQs in offspring at 10 years of age. This result was especially pronounced among African-American rather than Caucasian offspring.

“IQ is a measure of the child’s ability to learn and to survive in his or her environment. It predicts the potential for success in school and in everyday life. Although a small but significant percentage of children are diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) each year, many more children are exposed to alcohol during pregnancy who do not meet criteria for FAS yet experience deficits in growth and cognitive function,” said Jennifer A. Willford, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Paul D. Connor, clinical director of the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit and assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington has this to say about the subject:

“There are a number of domains of cognitive functioning that can be impaired even in the face of a relatively normal IQ, including academic achievement (especially arithmetic), adaptive functioning, and executive functions (the ability to problem solve and learn from experiences). Deficits in intellectual, achievement, adaptive, and executive functioning could make it difficult to appropriately manage finances, function independently without assistance, and understand the consequences of – or react appropriately to – mistakes.”

This is a key finding which speaks directly to the (psychological) definition of intelligence which is addressed later in this article.

ULTRA SOUNDS

Studies have shown that the frequent exposure of the human fetus to ultrasound waves is associated with a decrease in newborn body weight, an increase in the frequency of left-handedness, and delayed speech.

Because ultrasound energy is a high-frequency mechanical vibration, researchers hypothesized that it might influence the migration of neurons in a developing fetus. Neurons in mammals multiply early in fetal development and then migrate to their final destinations. Any interference or disruption in the process could result in abnormal brain function.

Commercial companies (which do ultrasounds for “keepsake” purposes) are now creating more powerful ultrasound machines capable of providing popular 3D and 4D images. The procedure, however, lasts longer as they try to make 30-minute videos of the fetus in the uterus.

The main stream magazine New Scientist reported the following: Ultrasound scans can stop cells from dividing and make them commit suicide. Routine scans, which have let doctors peek at fetuses and internal organs for the past 40 years, affect the normal cell cycle.

On the FDA website this information is posted about ultrasounds:

While ultrasound has been around for many years, expectant women and their families need to know that the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exposures on the fetus are not fully known. In light of all that remains unknown, having a prenatal ultrasound for non-medical reasons is not a good idea.

NATURE VERSUS NURTURE…THE DEBATE CONTINUES

Now that you are aware of some of the known factors which determine, improve, and impact the intellectual development of a fetus, it’s time for conception. Once that baby is born, which will be more crucial in the development of its intellect: nature (genetics) or nurture (the environment)?

Apparently for centuries, scientists and psychologists have gone back and forth on this. I read many comprehensive studies and reports on this subject during the research phase of this article, and I believe that it’s time to put this debate to rest. Both nature and nurture are equally as important and must be fully observed in the intellectual development of all children. This shouldn’t be an either/or proposition.

A recent study shows that early intervention in the home and in the classroom can make a big difference for a child born into extreme poverty, according to Eric Turkheimer, a psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The study concludes that while genetic makeup explains most of the differences in IQ for children in wealthier families, environment – and not genes – makes a bigger difference for minority children in low-income homes.

Specifically, what researchers call “heritability”- the degree to which genes influence IQ – was significantly lower for poor families. “Once you’re put into an adequate environment, your genes start to take over,” Mr. Turkheimer said, “but in poor environments genes don’t have that ability.”

But there are reports that contradict these findings…sort of.

Linda S. Gottfredson, a professor of educational studies at the University of Delaware, wrote in her article, The General Intelligence Factor that environments shared by siblings have little to do with IQ. Many people still mistakenly believe that social, psychological and economic differences among families create lasting and marked differences in IQ.

She found that behavioral geneticists refer to such environmental effects as “shared” because they are common to siblings who grow up together. Her reports states that the heritability of IQ rises with age; that is to say, the extent to which genetics accounts for differences in IQ among individuals increases as people get older.

In her article she also refers to studies comparing identical and fraternal twins, published in the past decade by a group led by Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., of the University of Minnesota and other scholars, show that about 40 percent of IQ differences among preschoolers stems from genetic differences, but that heritability rises to 60 percent by adolescence and to 80 percent by late adulthood.

And this is perhaps the most interesting bit of information, and relevant to this section of my article:

With age, differences among individuals in their developed intelligence come to mirror more closely their genetic differences. It appears that the effects of environment on intelligence fade rather than grow with time.

Bouchard concludes that young children have the circumstances of their lives imposed on them by parents, schools and other agents of society, but as people get older they become more independent and tend to seek out the life niches that are most congenial to their genetic proclivities.

BREAST-FEEDING INCREASES INTELLIGENCE

Researchers from Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand studied over 1,000 children born between April and August 1977. During the period from birth to one year, they gathered information on how these children were fed.

The infants were then followed to age 18. Over the years, the researchers collected a range of cognitive and academic information on the children, including IQ, teacher ratings of school performance in reading and math, and results of standardized tests of reading comprehension, mathematics, and scholastic ability. The researchers also looked at the number of passing grades achieved in national School Certificate examinations taken at the end of the third year of high school.

The results indicated that the longer children had been breast-fed, the higher they scored on such tests.

TALKING TO YOUR CHILDREN MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Thomas Sowell, author of Race, IQ, Black Crime, and facts Liberals Ignore uncovered some fascinating information that every parent should take note of. He writes:

There is a strong case that black Americans suffer from a series of disadvantageous environments. Studies show time and again that before they go to school, black children are on average exposed to a smaller vocabulary than white children, in part due to socioeconomic factors.

While children from professional households typically exposed to a total of 2,150 different words each day, children from working class households are exposed to 1,250, and children from households on welfare a mere 620.

Yes, smart sounding children tend to come from educated, professional, two-parent environments where they pick-up valuable language skills and vocabulary from its smart sounding inhabitants.

Mr. Sowell continues: Black children are obviously not to blame for their poor socioeconomic status, but something beyond economic status is at work in black homes. Black people have not signed up for the “great mission” of the white middle class – the constant quest to stimulate intellectual growth and get their child into Harvard or Oxbridge.

Elsie Moore of Arizona State University, Phoenix, studied black children adopted by either black or white parents, all of whom were middle-class professionals. By the age of 7.5 years, those in black homes were 13 IQ points behind those being raised in the white homes.

ACCUMULATED ADVANTAGES

At this juncture in my research it dawned on me, and should be fairly obvious to you, that many children are predisposed to being smart, educated, and intelligent, simply by their exposure to the influential factors which determine them long before they start school.

An informed mother, proper prenatal care, educated, communicative parents, and a nurturing environment in which to live, all add up to accumulated advantages that formulate intellectual abilities. As you can see, some children have unfair advantages from the very beginning.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of top-selling book Outliers, wrote that “accumulated advantages” are made possible by arbitrary rules…and such unfair advantages are everywhere. “It is those who are successful who are most likely to be given the kinds of social opportunities that lead to further success,” he writes. “It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention.”

With that in mind, we turn our attention to education and intelligence.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL EDUCATED?

Alfie Kohn, author of the book What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated? poses the question, does the phrase well educated refer to a quality of schooling you received, or something about you? Does it denote what you were taught? Or what you remember?

I contend that to be well educated is all in the application; the application and use of information. Information has to be used in order to become knowledge, and as we all have heard, knowledge is power.

Most people are aware of the floundering state of education in this country on some level. We tell our children that nothing is more important than getting a “good” education, and every year, due to government budget shortfalls, teachers are laid off, classes are condensed, schools are closed, and many educational programs – especially those which help the underprivileged – are cut.

The reality is, we don’t really value education. We value it as a business, an industry, political ammunition, and as an accepted form of discrimination, but not for what it was intended: a means of enriching one’s character and life through learning.

What we value as a society, are athletes and the entertainment they offer. The fact that a professional athlete makes more money in one season, than most teachers in any region will make in their careers, is abominable. There’s always money to build new sports stadiums, but not enough to give teachers a decent (and well-deserved) raise.

Ironically, the best teachers don’t go into the profession for money. They teach because it’s a calling. Most of them were influenced by a really good teacher as a student. With the mass exodus of teachers, many students are not able to cultivate the mentoring relationships that they once were able to because so many are leaving the profession – voluntarily and involuntarily – within an average of three years.

At the high school level, where I got my start, the emphasis is not on how to educate the students to prepare them for life, or even college (all high schools should be college-prep schools, right?), it was about preparing them to excel on their standardized tests. Then the controversial “exit” exams were implemented and literally, many high schools were transformed into testing centers. Learning has almost become secondary.

This mentality carries over into college, which of course there’s a test one must take in order to enroll (the SAT or ACT). This explains why so many college students are more concerned with completing a course, than learning from it. They are focused on getting “A’s” and degrees, instead of becoming degreed thinkers. The latter of which are in greater demand by employers and comprise the bulk of the self-employed. The “get-the-good-grade” mindset is directly attributable to the relentless and often unnecessary testing that our students are subjected to in schools.

Alfie Kohn advocates the “exhibition” of learning, in which students reveal their understanding by means of in-depth projects, portfolios of assignments, and other demonstrations.

He cites a model pioneered by Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier. Meier has emphasized the importance of students having five “habits of mind,” which are: the value of raising questions about evidence (“How do we know what we know?”), point of view, (“Whose perspective does this represent?”), connections (“How is this related to that?”), supposition (“How might things have been otherwise?”), and relevance (“Why is this important?”).

Kohn writes: It’s only the ability to raise and answer those questions that matters, though, but also the disposition to do so. For that matter, any set of intellectual objectives, any description of what it means to think deeply and critically, should be accompanied by a reference to one’s interest or intrinsic motivation to do such thinking…to be well-educated then, is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends…

HISTORY AND PURPOSE OF IQ

We’ve always wanted to measure intelligence. Ironically, when you look at some the first methods used to evaluate it in the 1800s, they were not, well, very intelligent. Tactics such as subjecting people to various forms of torture to see what their threshold for pain was (the longer you could withstand wincing, the more intelligent you were believed to be), or testing your ability to detect a high pitch sound that others could not hear.

Things have changed…or have they?

No discussion of intelligence or IQ can be complete without mention of Alfred Binet, a French psychologist who was responsible for laying the groundwork for IQ testing in 1904. His original intention was to devise a test that would diagnose learning disabilities of students in France. The test results were then used to prepare special programs to help students overcome their educational difficulties.

It was never intended to be used as an absolute measure of one’s intellectual capabilities.

According to Binet, intelligence could not be described as a single score. He said that the use of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) as a definite statement of a child’s intellectual capability would be a serious mistake. In addition, Binet feared that IQ measurement would be used to condemn a child to a permanent “condition” of stupidity, thereby negatively affecting his or her education and livelihood.

The original interest was in the assessment of ‘mental age’ — the average level of intelligence for a person of a given age. His creation, the Binet-Simon test (originally called a “scale”), formed the archetype for future tests of intelligence.

H. H. Goddard, director of research at Vineland Training School in New Jersey, translated Binet’s work into English and advocated a more general application of the Simon-Binet test. Unlike Binet, Goddard considered intelligence a solitary, fixed and inborn entity that could be measured. With help of Lewis Terman of Stanford University, his final product, published in 1916 as the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence (also known as the Stanford-Binet), became the standard intelligence test in the United States.

It’s important to note that the fallacy about IQ is that it is fixed and can not be changed. The fact is that IQ scores are known to fluctuate – both up and down during the course of one’s lifetime. It does not mean that you become more, or less intelligent, it merely means that you tested better on one day than another.

One more thing to know about IQ tests: They have been used for racist purposes since their importation into the U.S. Many of those who were involved in the importation and refinement of these tests believed that IQ was hereditary and are responsible for feeding the fallacy that it is a “fixed” trait.

Many immigrants were tested in the 1920s and failed these IQ tests miserably. As a result, many of them were denied entry into the U.S., or were forced to undergo sterilization for fear of populating America with “dumb” and “inferior” babies. If you recall, the tests were designed for white, middle class Americans. Who do you think would have the most difficulty passing them?

Lewis Terman developed the original notion of IQ and proposed this scale for classifying IQ scores:

000 – 070: Definite feeble-mindedness

070 – 079: Borderline deficiency

080 – 089: Dullness

090 – 109: Normal or average intelligence

110 – 119: Superior intelligence

115 – 124: Above average (e.g., university students)

125 – 134: Gifted (e.g., post-graduate students)

135 – 144: Highly gifted (e.g., intellectuals)

145 – 154: Genius (e.g., professors)

155 – 164: Genius (e.g., Nobel Prize winners)

165 – 179: High genius

180 – 200: Highest genius

200 – higher ?: Immeasurable genius

*Genius IQ is generally considered to begin around 140 to 145, representing only 25% of the population (1 in 400).

*Einstein was considered to “only” have an IQ of about 160.

DEFINING INTELLIGENCE

Diane F. Halpern, a psychologist and past-president of the American Psychological Association (APA), wrote in her essay contribution to Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid that in general, we recognize people as intelligent if they have some combination of these achievements (1) good grades in school; (2) a high level of education; (3) a responsible, complex job; (4) some other recognition of being intelligent, such as winning prestigious awards or earning a large salary; (5) the ability to read complex text with good comprehension; (6) solve difficult and novel problems.

Throughout my research and in the early phases of this article, I came across many definitions of the word intelligence. Some were long, some were short. Some I couldn’t even understand. The definition that is most prevalent is the one created by the APA which is: the ability to adapt to one’s environment, and learn from one’s mistakes.

How about that? There’s the word environment again. We just can’t seem to escape it. This adds deeper meaning to the saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” It means recognizing what’s going on in your environment, and having the intelligence adapt to it – and the people who occupy it – in order to survive and succeed within it.

There are also many different forms of intelligence. Most notably those created by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University.

Dr. Gardner believes (and I agree) that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We esteem the highly articulate or logical people of our culture. However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live.

He felt that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on IQ testing, was far too limited and created the Theories Of Multiple Intelligences in 1983 to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults.

These intelligences are:

Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”)

Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”)

Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”)

Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”)

Musical intelligence (“music smart”)

Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”)

Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smart”)

Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”)

Not associated with Dr. Gardner, but equally respected are:

FLUID & CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE

According to About.com, Psychologist Raymond Cattell first proposed the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence and further developed the theory with John Horn. The Cattell-Horn theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence suggests that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities that interact and work together to produce overall individual intelligence.

Cattell defined fluid intelligence as “…the ability to perceive relationships independent of previous specific practice or instruction concerning those relationships.” Fluid intelligence is the ability to think and reason abstractly and solve problems. This ability is considered independent of learning, experience, and education. Examples of the use of fluid intelligence include solving puzzles and coming up with problem solving strategies.

Crystallized intelligence is learning from past experiences and learning. Situations that require crystallized intelligence include reading comprehension and vocabulary exams. This type of intelligence is based upon facts and rooted in experiences. This type of intelligence becomes stronger as we age and accumulate new knowledge and understanding.

Both types of intelligence increase throughout childhood and adolescence. Fluid intelligence peaks in adolescence and begins to decline progressively beginning around age 30 or 40. Crystallized intelligence continues to grow throughout adulthood.

SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE

Then there’s Successful Intelligence, which is authored by intelligence psychologist and Yale professor, Robert J. Sternberg, who believes that the whole concept of relating IQ to life achievement is misguided, because he believes that IQ is a pretty miserable predictor of life achievement.

His Successful Intelligence theory focuses on 3 types of intelligence which are combined to contribute to one’s overall success: Analytical Intelligence; mental steps or components used to solve problems; Creative Intelligence: the use of experience in ways that foster insight (creativity/divergent thinking); and Practical Intelligence: the ability to read and adapt to the contexts of everyday life.

With regard to environment, Mr. Sternberg writes in his book Successful Intelligence: Successfully intelligent people realize that the environment in which they find themselves may or may not be able to make the most of their talents. They actively seek an environment where they can not only do successful work, but make a difference. They create opportunities rather than let opportunities be limited by circumstances in which they happen to find themselves.

As an educator, I subscribe to Mr. Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence approach to teaching. It has proven to be a highly effective tool and mindset for my college students. Using Successful Intelligence as the backbone of my context-driven curriculum really inspires students to see how education makes their life goals more attainable, and motivates them to further develop their expertise. Mr. Sternberg believes that the major factor in achieving expertise is purposeful engagement.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

In his best-selling 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman reported that research shows that conventional measures of intelligence – IQ – only account for 20% of a person’s success in life. For example, research on IQ and education shows that high IQ predicts 10 to 25% of grades in college. The percentage will vary depending on how we define success. Nonetheless, Goleman’s assertion begs the question: What accounts for the other 80%?

You guessed it…Emotional Intelligence. What exactly is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence (also called EQ or EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. Many corporations now have mandatory EQ training for their managers in an effort to improve employee

relations and increase productivity.

TACIT KNOWLEDGE aka “STREET SMARTS”

You’ve heard the phrase, “Experience is the greatest teacher…”

In psychology circles knowledge gained from everyday experience is called tacit knowledge. The colloquial term is “street smarts,” which implies that formal, classroom instruction (aka “book smarts”) has nothing to do with it. The individual is not directly instructed as to what he or she should learn, but rather must extract the important lesson from the experience even when learning is not the primary objective.

Tacit knowledge is closely related to common sense, which is sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. As you know, common sense is not all that common.

Tacit knowledge, or the lessons obtained from it, seems to “stick” both faster and better when the lessons have direct relevance to the individual’s goals. Knowledge that is based on one’s own practical experience will likely be more instrumental to achieving one’s goals than will be knowledge that is based on someone else’s experience, or that is overly generic and abstract.

BEING BOTH SMART AND STUPID

Yes, it’s possible to be both smart and stupid. I’m sure someone you know comes to mind at this precise moment. But the goal here is not to ridicule, but to understand how some seemingly highly intelligent, or highly educated individuals can be so smart in one way, and incredibly stupid in others.

The woman who is a respected, well paid, dynamic executive who consistently chooses men who don’t appear to be worthy of her, or the man who appears to be a pillar of the community, with a loving wife and happy kids, ends up being arrested on rape charges.

It happens, but why? I found the answer in Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Essentially, intellect is domain specific. In other words, being smart (knowledgeable) in one area of your life, and stupid (ignorant) in another is natural. Turning off one’s brain is quite common especially when it comes to what we desire. A shared characteristic among those who are smart and stupid, is the difficulty in delaying gratification.

Olem Ayduk & Walter Mischel who wrote the chapter summarized: Sometimes stupid behavior in smart people may arise from faulty expectations, erroneous beliefs, or merely a lack of motivation to enact control strategies even when one has them. But sometimes it is an inability to regulate one’s affective states and the behavioral tendencies associated with them that leads to stupid and self-defeating behavior.

The central character in this book who many of these lessons regarding being smart and stupid revolve around is Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinksky.

WISDOM & CONCLUSION

My great grandmother, Leola Cecil, maybe had an 8th grade education at the most. By no stretch of the imagination was she highly educated, but she had what seemed like infinite wisdom. She was very observant and could “read” people with startling accuracy. Till the very end of her life she shared her “crystallized intelligence” with whomever was receptive to it.

She died at the age of 94. I often use many of her sayings as a public speaker, but most importantly, I use her philosophies to make sure that I’m being guided spiritually and not just intellectually. Many of us who are lucky enough to have a great grandparent can testify that there is something special about their knowledge. They seem to have life figured out, and a knack for helping those of us who are smart, educated and intelligent see things more clearly when we are too busy thinking.

What they have is what we should all aspire to end up with if we are lucky: wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability to look through a person, when others can only look at them. Wisdom slows down the thinking process and makes it more organic; synchronizing it with intuition. Wisdom helps you make better judgments regarding decisions, and makes you less judgmental. Wisdom is understanding without knowing, and accepting without understanding. Wisdom is recognizing what’s important to other people, and knowing that other people are of the utmost importance to you. Wisdom is both a starting point, and a final conclusion.

Source by Gian Fiero

There is a lot that needs to be considered when deciding to use a newsletter as the centerpiece of your marketing campaign. You must figure out how to effectively maintain your list of subscribers, be able to distinguish prospects from people who are not interested in your message, and much more. It is also important to determine how often you will send out your newsletter and what length your publication should be. Length is a very tricky area because making it too long could overwhelm the reader to the point of losing their interest, whereas by making it too short, there is a chance that you will not be providing the reader with enough. The length of your newsletter depends on various factors that are specific to your campaign, but coming up with a good formula is a must.

Reader Preference

Some readers would prefer longer newsletters while others will prefer something shorter to make for a quicker read. This serves as an example that there are no clear cut guidelines when it comes to the preferences of readers. Therefore, the best way to determine length is to consider the tendencies of your audience. Are your subscribers more likely to have the time to sift through pages of content or are they pressed for time? It is also a good idea to figure out just how much value you can pack in a newsletter that only contains a few short paragraphs versus long pages of text. The key is to focus on delivering quality content that offers value to the reader, something that is difficult to accomplish whether your newsletter is very short or very long.

Creating a newsletter that offers enough value to justify the recipient opening and reading it every time is difficult enough. A longer publication only makes this harder as your content must be able to maintain value throughout its length. When going over three or four pages of content, you stand the chance of losing the readers interest. The good thing is that while maintaining interest can be difficult, it is not impossible. With that said, here are a few tips to help find the appropriate balance of length and content:

1. If your newsletter is designed to get subscribers to take some sort of action such as clicking, buying or signing up for something, a shorter publication would probably be the best option. This way, the reader can spend more of their time focusing on the most important aspects, and less on the filler content.

2. If you are announcing something like an industry event or special offer, a longer newsletter would be ideal. This will help you maintain the good balance of content we mentioned above.

3. If the purpose of your campaign is to create brand awareness or establish long-term relationships, a short or long newsletter could both work out in your favor. A shorter newsletter that delivers great value shows respect for the readers time while a longer one can be impacting from the sense of expertise and authority.

The truth is that when it comes to the length of a newsletter, nothing is etched in stone. There are no set standards. What you have to do is understand your audience and how to address their needs. Only then will you be able to determine the ideal balance.

Source by Gary San

Sixty years of age is a key milestone for the baby boomer generation. Some say sixty is the new forty with all the advancements in medicine and health consciousness. The fact is, people today are living longer and enjoying a higher standard of living and better health than did their parents and grandparents. According to the 2010 statistics published in The State of Aging and Health in America by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average life expectancy for American citizens has increased to 78.5 years old.

Since people are living longer, the years from age 60-80 have become a very important period in the lives of senior citizens. These are the retirement years. This demographic has fewer career and family responsibilities than other age groups, plus more money and powerful spending potential from investments, and large equities in their homes. They know what activities are fulfilling and have the spare time to learn and do new things. Rather than stay home and watch soap operas, many seniors are now starting new financial enterprises and activities such as stock trading, golf, travel, running a new home based business, volunteering, working in their church, participating in community groups and committees, sports, or joining new social circles such as dance groups, card clubs, fraternal organizations, and country clubs. For those who want to reinvent their life, all of these activities and interests are proving that this period of life can be very fruitful, productive, and fulfilling.

Retirement is different for every individual according to their personal situation and when they plan to retire. For many, a lot depends on their social security income and when they elect to receive benefits. The monthly benefit amount varies according to when a person retires. For seniors born during 1943 – 1954, the full retirement age is 66. Some will choose to retire as early as age 62, providing they meet the 40 minimum earned credit requirement, and their benefit amount will be reduced depending on how many months they receive benefits before they reach full retirement age.

Conversely, there are those who plan to delay retirement and work up to age 70, or longer, in order to draw an increased monthly benefit. Those working past age 66 and born during 1941 – 1942, will receive a 7.5% increase, while those born in 1943, or later, will receive an 8% increase up to age 70.

For many seniors, plans for an early retirement went down the drain along with the equities in their homes when the economy slipped into recession and many people lost their retirement nest eggs. Those not forced to extend their career will no doubt retire, however, those who must work until age 70, or longer, will be forced to reinvent themselves, like it or not. Here are some basic guidelines to help those who will have to experience the ordeal of change during their peak retirement years.

Before you can reinvent yourself, however, you need to take an inventory to see where you are now and determine where you want or need to be. This self-evaluation should include as many aspects of your body, mind, and spirit as you can identify. You need to examine your present belief system and determine your values, your ethics, your morals, and your attitude. One of the primary things you need to evaluate is your ability to change and how you handle stress and new circumstances. You will find that there are some things you can change while there are others that you cannot. It is not true that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks. Just because you are sixty or older doesn’t mean you are set in your ways and cannot adapt.

Remember, nothing changes if you change nothing, or cannot change, so for those who are motivated to alter their present lifestyle and situation; here are some suggestions to help you plan your own metamorphosis and get the ball rolling. Change begins with taking the first step and with baby steps thereafter. Change need not be so dramatic and stressful, or traumatic, but rather it can be a very pleasant experience composed of curiosity, discovery, experimentation, and acceptance; resulting in increased self-esteem, pride, and a new feeling of self-worth and renewal.

Reinvent Yourself Socially –

• Get involved with others. Meet new friends. Join clubs, committees, and online dating services to maintain communication and interaction with people with common interests.
• Do more things together with your spouse… take dance lessons, attend a pottery class, play bridge, go swimming, join a health club or country club, golf, browse thrift shops and book stores, watch videos, etc.
• Do more things with your children or grandchildren… attend their functions, help with homework, teach them a craft, go to the zoo or a ball game, bake cookies, tell stories, or go shopping together.
• Volunteer at your church or fraternal organization. Organizations always need organizers and workers and directors. Attend regular city council or town hall meetings and get involved in your community. You can also become a companion to shut-in seniors in nursing homes or visit patients in the hospital. Local government always needs volunteers for voter registration, jury duty, planning committees, advisory boards, and similar positions.
• Get a cell phone. It doesn’t have to cost much. You can use a pre-paid minute phone and learn to text message on it. Texting will keep your fingers nimble and your mind sharp. Just don’t text message while you drive.
• Get a laptop computer and get on the Internet. Join one, or several, social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or any forum that interests you. Surfing the web is a great way to improve your social skills and to stay informed and connected with current events.
• Host more dinner parties, barbeques, or get-togethers with friends, neighbors, family, suppliers, customers, and coworkers.
• Join a network marketing business and attend meetings and recruit new members.

Reinvent Yourself Mentally –

• Take personality tests in books and online to find your personality type, temperament and preferences
• Join luminosity.com and participate in their program daily.
• Play mentally challenging games such as chess, bridge, poker, Sudoku, Mahjong solitaire, and cross-word puzzles.
• Attend lectures and take personal development classes at a community college or monitor any classes on subjects you are interested in. For example, if you are an art lover, consider taking a primer on Art History. If you have artistic skills, consider taking a drawing or painting class. Learn a new language for an upcoming vacation trip, or just for the sake of challenging your ability to speak a new tongue. Many people devote much of their lives to raising children, building careers, or both, and never took the time to learn new things, so now is a good time to learn something new.
• Read more and watch less television. Write your autobiography or articles on various subjects that pique your interest. Learn to speed read. Try to read at least one book a week. If you don’t have the spare time, then subscribe to an audio book club and listen to at least four books per month to stay informed.
• Start a new hobby or expand an existing one. Collect rocks, stamps, coins, or go bird watching; whatever brings you joy and satisfaction. Make a little hobby area where you can make candles, do pottery, grow plants or bonsai trees. Learn to paint landscapes or portraits. Learn to knit or crochet or perhaps you want to finally restore that old car out in the garage.

Reinvent Yourself Physically –

• If you want to reinvent yourself quickly and effectively, stop smoking, stop drinking alcohol, eat less red meat, eat more vegetables, stop eating fast foods, take vitamins, and exercise more. It’s the same advice your doctor and mother probably gave you in high school and just think if you’d followed it back then, where would you be now? I know you didn’t want to hear this again, but it was true then and its true now.
• Join an athletic club if you’re looking for moderate activity with some social aspect, or join a walking group, or start one with your neighbors. Keeping fit and active is vital to make the most of the years after 60. Play tennis, racquet ball, or ping-pong with friends, or join a team sports league for bowling, volleyball, soft ball, or some similar sport designed for senior adults. The exercise will keep your energy up and the interaction with other participants will enhance your social life.
• If you are on a tight budget, get more aerobic exercise any way you can. Walk, swim, ride a bicycle, or climb a hill at least three to four times per week. Increase your heart rate up to training levels lasting for twenty minute durations. Do something to work up a sweat. If you are overweight, then try to exercise at least three times a week for a minimum of twenty minutes each time to increase your metabolism and burn more calories. Cardio exercise is recommended, but check with your doctor first. Compute your body mass index (BMI) and follow guidelines for your ideal height-weight ratio. If you cannot be active, then try yoga or tai chi or chi gong exercises which will strengthen and stretch your muscles, improve your breathing, balance, and coordination.
• Pay more attention to your diet and eat less. Stay within the recommended calories per day for your body and try to maintain your proper weight in proportion to your height. Your diet should contain fewer simple carbohydrates and more vegetables and fruits. Avoid fast food, sugar, salt, candy and try to eat more green salads. Try juicing and eating more dinners with less red meat. Fasting one day a week is also highly recommended.
• Take food supplements and vitamins. Visit your health food store and start reading more information about your health. You should take a multi-vitamin supplement daily at the very least, but you can also custom design whole cocktails of supplements to accentuate and support desired conditions and specific areas such as memory function, eye sight, digestion, diabetes, stress, sleep, heart, liver, and colon cleanse.
• Determine your body and blood type and follow the recommendations for your category. Check your blood pressure and pulse daily
• See a medical professional for exams; at least twice a year, and have a complete blood work performed at least once a year. A complete annual physical exam should include monitoring blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen, peripheral circulation, weight, listening to your heart, examining your body for lumps, moles, lesions, abrasions, bruises, and examining your mouth, ears, nose, throat, feet, and genitalia. Women should receive a pap smear and men should have their prostate gland examined and a hernia exam.
• See your dentist at least twice a year, or if you have dentures, schedule an annual exam to ensure your dentures fit properly and your mouth is not changing which could result in discomfort or sores later on.
• Develop an active lifestyle… which may include boating, hunting, fishing, skiing, jogging, bicycling, and similar activities if you are able.
• Get adequate rest; at least seven hours of sleep is recommended with a twenty minute long nap after lunch. As people age, they tend to need less sleep, but don’t become a night owl and stay up late. If you snore, ask your doctor about the potential for sleep apnea and follow his advice. If you find yourself sleeping a lot, especially during the day, or experience fatigue with wide spread flu-like pain, then ask your doctor about anemia and fibromyalgia. Don’t sleep your life away.

Reinvent Yourself Spiritually –

• Attend your church, temple, or religious group regularly. Spiritual growth enriches life and gives hope and support for difficulties that arise as you age. You may wish to join yoga or a tai chi group in your community or attend Bible studies or even make a pilgrimage to some city or country that you have wanted to visit all your life.
• Volunteer at public organizations, religious functions, food banks, free clinics, blood donation centers, parks and recreation departments, and local animal shelters so you can give back to your community by donating your time. Volunteer for an organization or cause that you truly care about. If you have loved animals all your life, then volunteer to walk dogs, socialize cats or organize fundraising events for your local shelter. If you have previously supported development projects in other parts of the world, contact the organization and ask if you are able to volunteer your time in your community as well. No matter what you do, reinventing your life after 60 should be about making your life the one you want to live. You only go around once, so make it count, and do it your way.

Reinvent Yourself Emotionally –

• Change your diet so that you consume less alcohol, less fat, and eat more foods that support serotonin and dopamine production in the brain.
• Fight bouts of depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) with SAMe and herbal supplements and exercise.
• Find someone or a pet to love. Love is the best medicine for almost any problem and you can never get or give too much of it.
• Laugh daily. Surround yourself with positive people who cause you to laugh and maintain a positive attitude despite difficult situations. Watch comedies more often and find funny and interesting videos on YouTube.com and similar web sites. Read funny stories, jokes, and watch uplifting and inspiring television programs.
• Don’t live alone. If you can’t live with family or friends, find a roommate so that you always have someone who can look in on you and keep you engaged. Loneliness breeds fear, solitude, depression, and withdrawal.
• Join a senior center for regular companionship and scheduled activities such as potluck dinners, bingo, card games, and music entertainment.
• Visit family members often and call them all on a regular basis just to stay in touch. Remember birthdays with a card or gift and try to attend all holiday dinners and traditional get-togethers.
• Nothing improves your self-esteem better than changing your wardrobe. If you have always wore blue jeans, then buy some nice slacks. If your old shoes have seen better days, then buy a nice new pair of shoes. Try wearing a suit around once a week; that will perk you up. When you look good, you feel good.

Reinvent Yourself Financially –

• These are hard times. If the economy has robbed you of your nest egg and forced you into austere circumstances, then you may have to swallow your pride and apply for public assistance. With high unemployment, you may have no choice. You have to eat. Contact your local food bank, Health and Welfare office, and any free medical clinics for assistance. Do what you have to do to get by until things improve. Make the smart move. Do the right thing. This is a temporary economic condition that will pass.
• Instead of retiring early, or at the regular age; work longer and your monthly social security benefit will increase when you do finally retire.
• If you lost your life savings when the “too large to fail” banks collapsed, then you may be reluctant to save or invest. However, making safe investments is still one of the best ways to increase your net worth. Consider safe growth stocks.
• Day trading and saving your money in a bank are not good ideas. Consider buying tax deed certificates (paper trading) from county governments which yield high interest rates.
• Finding employment that pays a realistic living wage is tough these days. You may have to return to school and retrain in a new occupation or field. For example, there are many loggers and construction workers who have switched to become insurance salesman, truck drivers, welders, CADD drafters, project managers, inspectors, and similar alternative occupations when their industries collapsed during the recession. Search online and find the best source for your training and secure a loan, or pay as you go, in order to acquire the knowledge necessary to change careers. It will be worth it.
• Consider moving to a new city if you can’t find work in your community. If you have always wanted to live in a different location, take the opportunity to do it after 60. If you want to test out living in a new town without committing long-term, sublet an apartment or room for a couple of months. Check with the Chamber of Commerce and Senior Centers for recommendations. If your children have already relocated to another city, try to visit them and check out the area before you commit to a permanent relocation. If you don’t want to change cities, but do want to see more of the U.S., consider using a recreational vehicle for part of the year. You can live in RV parks and stay in new locations in comfort, providing the weather and fuel prices cooperate.
• If you are inclined to gamble, then trading in binary options online promises higher gains in a short period of time with a potential of earning thousands of dollars monthly from the comfort of your home.
• Start an online affiliate business. Create a web site with affiliate links that point to major league suppliers like Amazon.com and ClickBank.com, and drive traffic to that site to earn sales commissions. There is a learning curve involved, but the dividends are well worth it.
• Turn your hobby into a small business operation. If you enjoy making things, you can sell your crafts on eBay, in local auctions, craft fairs, at garage sales, and at farmer’s markets. Make your venture low-risk and stay focused on something you like doing, regardless if sales are adequate or consistent. Reinvest some of your profits back into the business to grow and earn more income. Don’t forget to take all your tax deductions.

Source by Dave Salois

The industry of mobile game development has introduced a very important aspect to the market – the ability to conceptualize, develop, and release video games on devices with far more success and ease than ever before. And with the Android app marketplace only requiring a one-time fee for submitting an application, the cost becomes almost negligible to put the product out for millions of customers to find. Even the submission process is drastically shorter than on most other smartphones, as the app regulation is far more lenient for the Android OS.

Another drawing point for developing games on Android devices is the programming language featured- Java. Java has long been one of the most popular programming languages for video game developers, and thus makes it extremely easy for the average programmer to pick up Android development for the first time. Compared to most other mobile platforms, which usually sport modified or newly invented languages, the learning curve is decreased to nearly nothing, so a new developer can complete a game in a fraction of the time.

Another unique aspect to Android game development is the lack of standardization in the droid phone family. As the Android OS is not licensed to a single mobile phone making company, the phones themselves can vary to an extreme degree in terms of features and hardware specifications. While one device may have a fully functioning A-GPS and HDMI video compatibility, another may have a QWERTY keyboard and no GPS at all. While this is certainly appealing to some developers, as they are likely to find a phone that will meet their hardware needs precisely, it will also restrict the potential audience, as some phones will not be able to support the more complex applications.

When the game development process has finally reached the point where it can be released to the public, the developer is presented with yet another choice- which market would the game be most visible in? Unlike the iOS, there are numerous marketplaces and app stores for Android phones, each one with it’s own advantages and disadvantages. From the basic Android marketplace, built to only display the apps compatible with the phone currently being used, to the Amazon app store, which offers a different free app every day, the myriad of marketing strategies can be almost daunting, which makes it all the more useful that an application can almost always be entered into multiple marketplaces without issue. However, whether it makes sense to spread attention across several different fields is another question entirely.

The Android game development process overall truly gives the most variety on the smartphone market. From start to finish, strategies can be hand-tailored to the developer’s desires, making the game as close to the original concept as currently possible. While the audience may not be as large as that of iPhone users, the Android presents itself as a strong contender, purely through its accessibility. And with the largest variety of smartphones on the current market, the possibilities for development are inexhaustible, and continued releases can only add to the capabilities the platform has to offer.

Source by Michael VK

Security has become second nature to people over the years, whether it be your home, car, or personal belongings. Our computers are no exception to this, as digital thieves are lurking everywhere, and can be almost impossible to detect by the average computer user. Preventing unauthorized access to your wireless home or business network (Wi-Fi) is an extremely important measure to take, as a hacker doesn’t need to know you personally to target you, and they can be in a house or apartment nearby, or even parked in a car on the street. Wi-Fi hackers have been known to drive around neighborhoods searching for wireless networks in people’s homes, gain access through various unlocked doors in a wireless router’s configuration, and then have a field day with your information. In this article, we will go step by step through the different configurations of your wireless router that leave your network vulnerable, and what to change to make your network virtually hacker proof.

Step 1: The first thing that we have to do is login to our router’s configuration utility. To do so, you must first figure out what your gateway’s IP address is. You can do this by going to Start > Run and typing in CMD. This will open a session of command prompt. In command prompt, type ‘ipconfig’ without the quotations, and press enter. If done while connected to your network, this will return several different numbers. The one we need is listed as “Default Gateway”. Take the IP address listed as “Default Gateway” and write it down, or copy it. If you’re not familiar with IP addresses, it is a series of numbers separated by periods like this: 192.168.1.1 In fact, this particular IP address I just used as an example is the most common gateway, but yours may be listed as something different. Now, with this IP address copied, open a web browser such as internet explorer or Firefox, and paste or type the IP address exactly as it shows into the address bar and press enter. This will bring up the login page for your router. If you know your login details enter them here, if not, you will have to find the manufacturer’s User ID and password for your router. You can find this in the manual that came with the router, or by going to the manufacturer’s website and searching for the manual under the router’s model number (this can be found on a sticker on the back, side, or bottom of the router.) You can first try common ones like “admin” for the User ID, and “password” for the password, or “admin” for both User ID and password. If these don’t work, refer to the manufacturer’s manual for the User ID and password. If you set up your own User ID and password and forgot them, or the manufacturer’s default User ID and password are not working, if other people in your home have access to the router or it had a previous owner, the default User ID and password may have been changed. In such a case you can reset them back to the defaults by pressing and holding the reset button on the back of the router for at least 5 seconds. Now you can login using the default User ID and password set by the manufacturer.

Step 2: Change your User ID and password if they are set to the manufacturer’s defaults. If someone gains access to your wireless network, they can easily log into your router’s settings and change them to their liking.

Step 3: Change your SSID. Your SSID is the name that you see for your wireless network when you search for open networks using a Wi-Fi enabled device. If the SSID is set to the manufacturer’s default, anyone searching for an open network nearby can see yours, and with a little searching on the internet they can figure out the model number of your router which will help them gain access to your router’s settings.

Step 4: Disable broadcasting of your SSID. Broadcasting of an SSID is simply how when you search for open networks in an area, the names of open networks will show on your device. If you disable broadcasting of your SSID, when people search for open networks, yours will not even show up, so essentially, they will not know your wireless network even exists. You will still be able to connect to your network by typing your SSID into your Wi-Fi enabled devices manually.

Step 5: If available, enable WPA2 encryption. If WPA2 is not available, enable WPA encryption. If neither is available and only WEP is available, search your router’s manual or website for information on updating your router’s firmware. An update for your router may include support for WPA or WPA2 encryption. If no update is available to your current router, you may consider buying a new router as yours is likely very outdated. WPA2 encryption is ideal as it is much more secure than WPA and especially WEP.

Step 6: Setup a Pre-Shared Key or PSK or Network Key. Whatever your router calls it, this is the “password” to your network. This is not to be confused with the password that we changed in step 2 for your router. Your Pre-Shared Key that you setup should be impossible to guess, and should include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. It is very important to include all of these to make it almost impossible to crack, but don’t make it so long that it takes you 5 minutes to enter it into every device. If it is difficult to remember, you can always look it up whenever you need by logging into your router’s settings again.

Step 7: Enable MAC Address Filtering or MAC Address Authentication. This step is optional, and should only be performed if you do not have visitors that use your Wi-Fi, or if the devices that use your Wi-Fi are consistently the same devices. A MAC Address is basically an ID that every internet or network enabled device has that looks something like this: 00:20:e0:00:41:00. Every device ever created has a unique MAC address so that they can be properly identified on a network as an individual. Using MAC Address Filtering or Authentication only allows the specific devices that you select to connect to your wireless network. Any outside devices will not be able to connect because their MAC Address will not be in the list you create of allowable devices. To add your Wi-Fi enabled devices to access list, you first need to obtain the MAC Address of each device. For computers and laptops, you can simply go to Start > Run and type ‘CMD’ without quotation marks. This will bring up a Command Prompt window. Then type in ‘ipconfig /all’ without quotation marks, and press enter. Something saying “Physical Address” should be listed somewhere near the top. Next to it you will see your computer’s MAC Address. It may be listed with hyphens in between every 2 characters instead of colons like in the example above. This is okay, just make sure when you enter the MAC Address into the access list that you do it in the format required by your router, so you may need to change all hyphens into colons. Do this for all computers connecting your wireless network. For devices such as iPods, iPads, cell phones, etc., you will have to search for your device information most likely in the Setup menu (or it may be somewhere else depending on the device). Here, if it is a Wi-Fi enabled device, you will find the MAC Address. Do this for all non-computer devices that connect to your wireless network and add them each to your access list. Don’t forget, every time you purchase a new device or someone visits and wants to use your Wi-Fi, you will have to perform this step.

It is important to perform all steps to properly secure your wireless network, except for the optional step #7. There are other security measures that can be implemented, however the above steps are the most important, and most necessary to prevent unauthorized access to your wireless network. If you completed all of the steps listed in this tutorial, you can feel confident that your wireless network is now virtually impenetrable.

Source by Jesse Pierce

Computer networking is the connecting of two or more computers that allows them to share resources. It can be done between computers in a home, in a business, across a corporation, and even internationally. It can equally be defined as a method of connecting two or more computer systems together including printers and other devices.

The benefits of networking are considerable, even on a network of only three systems. In computer networking there was never a truer statement than that this is a case of advantages experienced being far greater than the sum of the parts. PC networking is, as a consequence, a rapidly evolving discipline with many exciting opportunities. Challenges that arise in networking and particularly in the Internet tend to be truly global and have the potential to impact upon millions of users.

One huge and growing impact is Internet shopping. Shopping online has grown over the last 10 years to become a huge market, and if a sales business does not today incorporate this technology use they will fall behind their competitors.

But computer networking is also producing much more subtle uses within our societies. For example, Internet technologies can be deployed to favorably condition empathic response in those who have offended against community norms out of a lack of appreciation for the effects that their criminal behavior has on other people. In other words Internet linked devices can track home prisoners to maintain their behavior, in ways that 20 years ago had not even entered the heads of science-fiction writers, to the benefit of society as a whole.

Wireless Internet technology, is the development, also known as WiFi, which is really taking over the way people access the Internet and it has become widely popular in a very short space of time. One reason for this is it allows individuals to access the Internet via a network hot spots, while traveling without the use of cables or wires. In short it releases us from the tyranny of wires and plugs!

Wireless networks are now widely used including Internet-enabled mobile phones with cellular phone networks and, within buildings, wireless networks such as Bluetooth. These are in addition to the site networks used by academic institutions and large businesses. Wireless routers must be configured immediately for security right after you set up your network. It is important to emphasis that wireless can easily also mean insecure unless users are careful to set systems up correctly.

So, do this right away, as soon as you have got the device running. You need to set a new password for the router and limit access to only those computers on your wireless network.

Informally defined computer networking is the foundation of the Internet. The Internet itself is easier to understand when defined as the set of users, enterprises,and content providers that are interconnected by Internet Service Providers (ISP).

From an engineering standpoint, and please forgive me for being rather techie here; the Internet is the set of subnets, and aggregates of subnets, which share the registered IP address space and exchange information about the reachability of those IP addresses using the Border Gateway Protocol . Computer networks may also be classified according to the network layer at which they operate according to some basic reference models that are considered to be standards in the industry such as the seven layer OSI reference model and the five layer TCP/IP model.

Companies that use their own computer networks must administer complex systems which, once deployed, become vital tools for the continued efficiency of their operations. They employ administrators who focus primarily on the day-to-day operation of networks, while network engineers deal primarily with system upgrades, security testing, and so on.

Given the highly technological nature of computer networks you would have thought that just maintaining and developing these would be hard enough. However, companies also routinely face ongoing challenges with the fight against damaging software, such as malware such as worms, viruses, and spyware.

Computer networking has enabled people to work on the move, and take work home much more efficiently than has ever been possible before. Today’s mobile workforce attach numerous devices to the corporate network that are hard to control from a security policy perspective. It is a common strand that companies that maximize the use of and benefits from the capacities and capabilities of their networks are able to gather, analyze, and disseminate critical marketing information quickly, which can give them an advantage over their competitors.

However, data loss and system downtime can bring any business to it’s knees, so in this area to use the strictly cheapest systems and labor, may be a false economy of the first order. There are many highly trained staff who participate in Microsoft’s certified computer networking courses and qualification. These specialists are more than able to protect your business network day and night. They deliver network support services which include data security, data backup and disaster recovery plans.

Source by Steve Last

Earning money is the lifeline and primary aim of any business. Businesses pay a large amount of money on generating more money through advertisements and marketing. The crux of a good eCommerce platform is the reliability and speed of its payment gateway system. While it may sound very simple, a great amount of research goes into choosing the right one for your business. This article tries to explain the different aspects of choosing the right payment system, making it a pleasure to do business as well as a pleasure for your online customers to transact through your website.

Coverage is a major factor when looking at a Payment Gateway Solution. If you are a local provider doing focused business, you may be able to manage with a Payment Gateway that accepts only Internet Banking as a mode of payment. Many small providers choose to have only Net Banking as an option, as it usually attracts lesser fees. Larger providers must have an array of payment options for their customers to choose from, else they may lose out on competitors offering a more popular method of paying. While transaction fees and commission on a Credit Card Transaction maybe higher, there maybe a lot of customers wanting that extra bit of Credit for some essential household commodity or that essential footwear from your website. If you don’t offer the option of Credit Cards, they will just not be able to buy from you. There may also be the budget conscious lot who refuse to use a Credit Card and will insist on paying instantly with a Debit Card. There are also many who prefer Mobile Phone Apps to pay the money.

Another aspect of coverage includes currency coverage. Which currencies your gateway covers determines your reach and scope of doing business. People are most comfortable thinking about a purchase in terms of their own currency. You wouldn’t want to bother about the exchange rate and the actual cost of purchasing the goods in another currency.

Fraud Checking is also an important aspect of which payment service provider you choose. Many providers offer multiple layers of verification and checking. Some send a One-Time Password to the mobile phone of the customer, while other have an automated IVRS Phone Call which verifies the Phone Number of the Client. Either way, fraud checking should be the responsibility of the Payment Gateway Provider. You should be free to concentrate on your online business and not have to bother about a payment being disputed.

How soon will you get your money? Many payment gateway providers credit the amount received on behalf of your business, to your bank account only at the end of the month. This may not be very suitable as you may want to use a part of that money for running your business. Some providers also withhold your money until a certain threshold is reached. This is more uncertain, as a dip in sales in future months, will block your previous money as well. This may cause unpredictability and prevent you from planning your budget. But if you are a small business, wanting to pay less fees, you may have to bare with all these restrictions. A larger business has more bargaining power.

How much commission will they take? Commission and fees are an important point to ponder over before choosing a payment gateway. Some charge a fixed yearly fee in addition to a percentage of the sale amount. Other do not charge a yearly fee and instead include it in the percentage of commission per transaction. Some charge lesser for Credit Card Transactions, while some base the commission upon the Volume of business that you can commit. Large shopping websites also offer their own payment gateway services, which charge a lesser fee, in exchange for your client’s data or information.

A payment gateway is a pillar of any online business and must be fast, easy to understand and should not be notorious on the safety front. A security conscious customer will definitely be driven away from a shady looking design or archaic format of the payment gateway system. A good example is a popular travel website in India, which was able to do better sales of train tickets as compared to the Government website which was slow and painful to deal with. The maximum failures on the government website were due to the payment system having issues or timing out. It just couldn’t handle the load. This increased costs of replying to support emails from angry customers. The e-ticketing website has a quick and easy payment system, which offered to retry the failed bookings. The success rate with this system was visible with the bumper sales. The same can also be achieved by you, with some effort and the right solution.

Source by Alex H D

Anti-virus software is software that you install on your computer so that you can be alerted when you have a virus. Anti-virus software will help to keep your computer safe against worms, viruses, Trojan horses, and other uninvited programs.

The software can also help you clean your computer if you should happen to have a virus. The important thing to remember about anti-virus software is that you make sure to update it often so that you get the latest computer virus definitions installed into the software program. There is no point in having the anti-virus software if you’re not going to update it. You’ll be able to get updates from the vendor that sold you the anti-virus software, such as Norton.

Many times you may already have anti-virus software on your computer in which case you be sure to uninstall it before installing your new software. To find out if you have virus software check under your Start menu to see if you one listed, such as McAfee or Norton. Keep in mind that just because you have anti-virus software already installed on your computer that it (1) might not be working, and (2) hasn’t been updated for a long time.

Once you’ve installed anti-virus software on your computer you’re going to want to make sure that you use it correctly. Make sure that the settings in your computer automatically turn the anti-virus software on when you boot up your computer. You always want to be protected. If you’re downloading something off the Internet your anti-virus software will let you know if there is a problem.

You can also use the anti-virus software to specifically scan any downloads, or files, that that have been sent to you via e-mail. If you are alerted that you have a virus your software will guide you with the right steps to removing it. Make sure that you don’t continue to use your computer until the virus, or worm that you have, is removed. You don’t want to send e-mail to friends and help in the spreading of the virus.

Source by James Hunt