Advantages and Disadvantages of VoIP: Know Them Before Switching to VoIP Service

to VoIP Service

Today, more and more people are consciously making an effort to learn about Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP. One thing that they all look for is whether or not VoIP can act as an alternative to the good ol telephone service, which has made such an impact in the lives. Can VoIP replace the humble telephone for good? One way to find out is to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of VoIP.

VoIP offers many advantages for you. Among them are:

1. VoIP is a whole lot cheaper compared to your normal landline telephone. With a residential VoIP plan you only need to pay about 9.95 for the most basic service up to about 39.95. For a business VoIP plan, the cost would be somewhere about 49.95 to 99.95 and comes inclusive with a separate fax number.

2. The VoIP modem (which is free) is delivered to you in only 5 to 10 days. Or you could buy it at your local store for same day service and get the VoIP provider to credit it against your bill.

3. The services which are considered as extras in your regular landline telephone service, such as Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Voice Mail, 3-Way Conferencing, Repeat Dialling, and Call Block are now standard services with your VoIP. In short, you dont have to pay extra for these extra services. They come free with the package, including the most sought after service: unlimited calling, either local or long distance.

4. With VoIP service, there is no charge for any incoming calls, which cannot be said for US cellular service providers. The same also holds true for outgoing local calls, which depends on your talk plan.

5. With VoIP service in North America, local is always inclusive of US, Canada, some countries in Western Europe, parts of Asia, and parts of Latin America. For countries which are not already included, there are international plans available which cost a lot less than that offered by the standard long distance services providers. Another way is for you to make occasional calls without a plan, but for far lower charges per-minute compared to the usual long distance plans. For VoIP services in Europe, Asia and elsewhere around the globe, this also applies (more or less) in reverse.

6. With VoIP service, you dont need to have a computer. Just take your average phone cable from your VoIP modem and plug it into your regular desktop or portable phone.

7. With VoIP service, you can activate every phone jack in the house. First, disconnect your house internal phone wiring from the regular telephone service at the phone box outside (most probably on your front wall). Then, simply take the VoIP modem and plug it into any existing wall jack inside your house. However, this option is not available for those who live in apartments.

8. With VoIP service, you can choose your own virtual phone number in almost any area code that you wish for at a very low price (around 5). This way you can have friends and family dial a local number that will then ring on your phone. The drawback is that you cant make outgoing calls, as its not considered as a real line phone line.

9. With VoIP service you can have low cost 800 numbers. This way it will be free for people to call you and yet will not be too hard on your pockets. There are monthly rates fixed for you, but they vary according to the provider. Generally it could cost you about 5 for the first 100 minutes per month, and somewhere about 4.5 cents per minute beyond that.

10. Some VoIP service providers offer a service that could locate you called Find Me at other numbers that you provide, either in sequence or simultaneously, should you fail to answer your call. If you still dont answer, your call will then go to your Voice Mail which can be retrieved later.

11. And finally, the icing on the cake: You can take your home or office phone with you wherever you go. Just bring your VoIP modem with you, and when you get to your destination, plug it into any high-speed internet connection. You could be in a hotel room in the Caribbean, at your friends or relatives house in Paris or even at the airport. No matter where you are, one youre plugged in, you can make as well as receive calls on your regular phone number. Charges are based on your home location. You could be in New Zealand and if anybody were to call your office or home number in Atlanta, they would never know that youre not really there. And if you make calls, your regular caller ID still shows.

As with everything else, with advantages there are certain disadvantages, even for VoIP services:

1. If you utilise a cable connection for your Internet, your upline is 2 to 10 times slower than your downline. This means that, although you can hear crystal clear what the other person is saying, they may not necessarily hear you. This could lead them to hang up (as they dont know youre on the line), or to them telling you to call from a regular phone and to get off the speaker phone.

Even though VoIP companies insist that 256K should be sufficient for a clear signal, it does not seem to be the case. Thankfully there are ways to overcome this obstacle if you have a very knowledgeable VoIP support tech. Consult your VoIP service providers about this.

2. The quality of high-speed connections may vary, as it is dependant on many factors, including the number of other users on your cable line, or your distance from the nearest DSL booster node. This means that the VoIP quality may vary daily or during each call.

3. During your calls, when there is no one speaking, there is a silence that could lead the other person to think that the line has gone dead. This is especially true for those who have become so used to hearing a slight buzz when using a regular telephone. Instead of being bombarded with many people asking are you still on the line? you should first explain this silence that you will encounter at the very beginning of your conversation.

4. When using VoIP service, you may not be able to activate a new credit card, as the computer at the other end will claim that you are not calling from a home phone. The reason for this is yet unknown as VoIP providers have yet to answer this.

5. While conversing, you should never allow anyone to put you on silent hold, as the VoIP service may disconnect you when it doesnt hear anything. It assumes that you are no longer on the line, thus disconnecting you after a while.

6. If you have an upline signal that is not capable of relaying your call, and when you cannot get through, all that youll be hearing is a recording stating that Your call cannot be completed at this time, which can be very annoying if it happens often.

7. Sometimes, your VoIP service will just cease to work. How to solve this depends on your provider. Mostly it will take some unplugging and replugging of various connections: VoIP modem, router, cable connection, DSL connection. It all depends on your provider and the solution (and sequence) that they provide you with.

8. And finally, in what is the worst disadvantage among all, if you lose your Internet connection for whatever reason imaginable, you lose your telephone service. Should you decide to depend almost entirely on VoIP service, then you are strongly advised to have a cell phone with you at all times. This also works in your favour as you can set your VoIP service to call your cell automatically should you not answer your VoIP line.

The verdict? Commercial VoIP service is an actual telephone service, compared to the likes of messenger services (computer-based) or Skype (which insists that it is not a telephone service). Of course it has its disadvantages, it has no video (at the moment that is) and has some minor glitches. Yet these glitches can be put up with when you realize that you can save anywhere from 30 to 100 a month. These glitches may be a big issue if you plan to use VoIP for your office, but if you have a cell phone with you for back up, youd have no problems at all. You may find yourself joining the huge number of users who have gone 100% VoIP, with the intention of never again using the telephone. 

How the Internet actually works

In this article I will explain how the Internet works, all the way from what goes through the wires and how the wires across the globe connect, to how meaningful activities are performed on your computer.

Unlike other Internet articles, I won't try to explain the history behind the Internet of today it's complex enough, and like me, you probably don't care very much. I also won't be confusing you with highly technical explanations.

So, what is the Internet? To most people, it's the place to which everyone plugs in their computer and views web pages and sends e-mail. That's a very human-centric viewpoint, but if we're to truly understand the Internet, we need to be a bit more exact:

   The Internet is THE large computer network of the world that people connect to by-default, by virtue of the fact that it's the largest. And, like any computer network, there are conventions that allow it to work.

This is all it is really a very big computer network.  However, this article will go beyond explaining just the Internet, as it will also explain the 'World Wide Web'. Most people don't know the difference between the Internet and Web, but really it's quite simple: the Internet is a computer network, and the Web is a system of publishing (of websites) that sits on top of it.

Computer networks

And, what's a computer network? A computer network is just two or more of computers connected together such that they may send messages between each other. On larger networks computers are connected together in complex arrangements, where some intermediary computers have more than one connection to other computers, such that every computer can reach any other computer in the network via paths through some of those intermediary computers.

Computers aren't the only things that use networks the road and rail networks are very similar to computer networks, just those networks transport people instead of information.
Trains on a rail network operate on a certain kind of track such a convention is needed, because otherwise the network could not effectively work. Likewise, roads are designed to suit vehicles that match a kind of pattern robust vehicles of a certain size range that travel within a certain reasonable speed range. Computers in a network have conventions too, and we usually call these conventions 'protocols'.

There are many kinds of popular computer network today. The most conventional by far is the so-called 'Ethernet' network that physically connects computers together in homes, schools and offices.  However, WiFi is becoming increasingly popular for connecting together devices so that cables aren't required at all.

Connecting to the Internet

When you connect to the Internet, you're using networking technology, but things are usually a lot muddier. There's an apt phrase, "Rome wasn't built in a day" because neither was the Internet. The only reason the Internet could spring up so quickly and cheaply for people was because another kind of network already existed throughout the world the phone network!

The pre-existence of the phone network provided a medium for ordinary computers in ordinary people's homes to be connected onto the great high-tech military and research network that had been developed in years before. It just required some technological mastery in the form of 'modems'. Modems allow phone lines to be turned into a mini-network connection between a home and a special company (an 'ISP') that already is connected up to the Internet. It's like a bridge joining up the road networks on an island and the mainland the road networks become one, due to a special kind of connection between them.

Fast Internet connections that are done via '(A)DSL' and 'Cable' are no different to phone line connections really there's still a joining process of some kind going on behind the scenes. As Arthur C. Clarke once said, 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.

The Internet

The really amazing about the Internet isn't the technology. We've actually had big Internet-like computer networks before, and 'The Internet' existed long before normal people knew the term. The amazing thing is that such a massive computer network could exist without being built or governed in any kind of seriously organised way. The only organisation that really has a grip on the core computer network of the Internet is a US-government-backed non-profit company called 'ICANN', but nobody could claim they 'controlled' the Internet, as their mandate and activities are extremely limited.

The Internet is a testament both simultaneously due to the way technologists cooperated and by the way entrepreneurs took up the task, unmanaged, to use the conventions of the technologists to hook up regular people and businesses. The Internet didn't develop on the Microsoft Windows 'operating system' Internet technology was built around much older technical operating systems; nevertheless, the technology could be applied to ordinary computers by simply building support for the necessary networking conventions on top of Windows. It was never planned, but good foundations and a lack of bottlenecks (such as controlling bodies) often lead to unforeseen great rises like the telephone network before, or even the world-wide spread of human population and society.

What I have described so far is probably not the Internet as you or most would see it. It's unlikely you see the Internet as a democratic and uniform computer network, and to an extent, it isn't. The reason for this is that I have only explained the foundations of the system so far, and this foundation operates below the level you'd normally be aware of. On the lowest level you would be aware of, the Internet is actually more like a situation between a getter and a giver there's something you want from the Internet, so you connect up and get it. Even when you send an e-mail, you're getting the service of e-mail delivery.

Being a computer network, the Internet consists of computers however, not all computers on the Internet are created equal. Some computers are there to provide services, and some are there to consume those services. We call the providing computers 'servers' and the consuming computers 'clients'. At the theoretical level, the computers have equal status on the network, but servers are much better connected than clients and are generally put in place by companies providing some kind of commercial service. You don't pay to view a web site, but somebody pays for the server the website is located on usually the owner of the web site pays a 'web host' (a commercial company who owns the server).

Making contact

I've established how the Internet is a computer network: now I will explain how two computers that could be on other sides of the world can send messages to each other.

Imagine you were writing a letter and needed to send it to someone. If you just wrote a name on the front, it would never arrive, unless perhaps you lived in a small village. A name is rarely specific enough. Therefore, as we all know, we use addresses to contact someone, often using: the name, the house number, the road name, the town name, the county name, and sometimes, the country name. This allows sending of messages on another kind of network the postal network. When you send a letter, typically it will be passed between postal sorting offices starting from the sorting office nearest to the origin, then up to increasingly large sorting offices until it's handled by a sorting office covering regions for both the origin and the destination, then down to increasingly small sorting offices until it's at the sorting office nearest the destination and then it's delivered.

In our postal situation, there are two key factors at work a form of addressing that 'homes in' on the destination location, and a form of message delivery that 'broadens out' then 'narrows in'. Computers are more organised, but they actually effectively do exactly the same thing.

Each computer on the Internet is given an address (a so-called 'IP address'), and this address 'homes in' on their location on the Internet. The 'homing in' isn't done strictly geographically, but rather in terms of the connection-relationship between the smaller computer networks within the Internet. For the real world, being a neighbour is geographical, but on a computer network, being a neighbour is having a direct network connection.

Like the postal network with its sorting offices, computer networks usually have connections to a few other computer networks. A computer network will send the message to a larger network (a network that is more likely to recognise at least some part of the address). This process of 'broadening out' continues until the message is being handled by a network that is 'over' the destination, and then the 'narrowing in' process will occur.

An example 'IP address' is '69.60.115.116'. They are just series of digit groups where the digit groups towards the right are increasingly local. Each digit group is a number between 0 and 255. This is just an approximation, but you could think of this address meaning:

• A computer 116
• in a small neighbourhood 115
• in a larger neighbourhood 60
• controlled by an ISP 69
• (on the Internet)

The small neighbourhood, the larger neighbourhood, the ISP, and the Internet, could all be consider computer networks in their own right. Therefore, for a message to the same 'larger neighbourhood', the message would be passed up towards one of those intermediary computers in the larger neighbourhood and then back down to the correct smaller neighbourhood, and then to the correct computer.

Getting the message across

Now that we are able to deliver messages the hard part is over. All we need to do is to put stuff in our messages in a certain way such that it makes sense at the other end.

Letters we send in the real world always have stuff in common they are written on paper and in a language understood by both sender and receiver. I've discussed before how conventions are important for networks to operate, and this important concept remains true for our messages.

All parts of the Internet transfer messages written in things called 'Packets', and the layout and contents of those 'packets' are done according to the 'Internet Protocol' (IP). You don't need to know these terms, but you do need to know that these simple messages are error prone and simplistic.
You can think of 'packets' as the Internet equivalence of a sentence for an ongoing conversation, there would be many of them sent in both directions of communication.

Getting the true message across

All those who've played 'Chinese whispers' will know how messed up ('corrupted') messages can get when they are sent between many agents to get from their origin to their destination. Computer networks aren't as bad as that, but things do go wrong, and it's necessary to be able to automatically detect and correct problems when they do.

Imagine you're trying to correct spelling errors in a letter. It's usually easy to do because there are far fewer words than there are possible word-length combinations of letters. You can see when letter combinations don't spell out words ('errors'), and then easily guess what the correct word should have been.
   It reely does worke.

Errors in messages on the Internet are corrected in a very similar way. The messages that are sent are simply made longer than they need to be, and the extra space is used to "sum up" the message so to speak if the "summing up" doesn't match the message an error has been found and the message will need to be resent.
In actual fact, it is often possible to logically estimate with reasonable accuracy what was wrong with a message without requiring resending.

Error detection and correction can never be perfect, as the message and "summing up" part could be coincidently messed-up so that they falsely indicate nothing went wrong. The theory is based off storing a big enough "summing up" part so that this unfortunate possibility is so unlikely that it can be safely ignored.

Reliable message transfer on the Internet is done via 'TCP'. You may have heard the term 'TCP/IP': this is just the normal combination of 'IP' and 'TCP', and is used for almost all Internet communication. IP is fundamental to the Internet, but TCP is not there are in fact other 'protocols' that may be used that I won't be covering.

Names, not numbers

When most people think of an 'Internet Address' they think of something like 'www.ocportal.com' rather than '69.60.115.116'. People relate to names with greater ease than numbers, so special computers that humans need to access are typically assigned names ('domain names') using a system known as 'DNS' (the 'domain name system').

All Internet communication is still done using IP addresses (recall '69.60.115.116' is an IP address). The 'domain names' are therefore translated to IP addresses behind the scenes, before the main communication starts.

At the core, the process of looking up a domain name is quite simple it's a process of 'homing in' by moving leftwards through the name, following an interrogation path. This is best shown by example 'www.ocportal.com' would be looked up as follows:

• Every computer on the Internet knows how to contact the computers (the 'root' 'DNS servers') responsible for things like 'com', 'org', 'net' and 'uk'. There are a few such computers and one is contacted at random. The DNS server computer is asked if they know 'www.ocportal.com' and will respond saying they know which server computer is responsible for 'com'.
• The 'com' server computer is asked it knows 'www.ocportal.com' and will respond saying they know which server computer is responsible for 'ocportal.com'.
• 'The 'ocportal.com' server computer is asked if it knows 'www.ocportal.com' and will respond saying that it knows the corresponding server computer to be '69.60.115.116'.

Note that there is a difference between a server computer being 'responsible' for a domain name and the domain name actually corresponding to that computer. For example, the 'ocportal.com' responsible DNS server might not necessarily be the same server as 'ocportal.com' itself.

As certain domain names, or parts of domain names, are very commonly used, computers will remember results to avoid doing a full interrogation for every name they need to lookup. In fact, I have simplified the process considerably in my example because the looking-up computer does not actually perform the full search itself. If all computers on the Internet did full searches it would overload the 'root DNS servers', as well as the DNS servers responsible for names like 'com'. Instead, the looking up computer would ask it's own special 'local DNS server', which might remember a result of a partial result, or might solicit help (full, or partial) from it's own 'local DNS server', and so on until, in a worst case scenario, the process has to be completed in full.

Domain names are allocated by the person wanting them registering the domain name with an agent (a 'registrar') of the organisation responsible for the furthest right-hand part of the domain name. At the time of writing a company named 'VeriSign' (of which 'Network Solutions' is a subsidiary) is responsible for things like 'com' and 'net'. There are an uncountable number of registrars operating for VeriSign, and most domain purchasers are likely not aware of the chain of responsibility present instead, they just get the domains they want from the agent, and deal solely with that agent and their web host (who are often the same company). Domains are never purchased, but rather rented and exclusively renewable for a period a bit longer than the rental period.

Meaningful dialogue

I've fully covered the essence of how messages are delivered over the Internet, but so far these messages are completely raw and meaningless. Before meaningful communication can occur we need to layer on yet another protocol (recall IP and TCP protocols are already layered over our physical network).

There are many protocols that work on the communications already established, including:

• HTTP for web pages, typically read in web browser software
• POP3 for reading e-mail in e-mail software, with it stored on a user's own computer
• IMAP4 for reading e-mail in e-mail software, with it archived on the receiving server
• SMTP for sending e-mail from e-mail software
• FTP for uploading and downloading files (sometimes via a web browser, although using special FTP software is better)
• ICMP for 'pinging', amongst other things (a 'ping' is the Internet equivalent to shouting out a 'are you there')
• Telnet for logging into another computer across the Internet and typing in commands for it (the old operating systems that the Internet developed around are heavily based on the typing in of commands rather than just using a mouse don't expect to be able to telnet to a Windows computer)
• MSN Messenger this is just one example of many protocols that aren't really standard and shared conventions, but rather ones designed by a single software manufacturer wholly for the purposes of their own software

I'm not going to go into the details of any of these protocols because it's not really relevant unless you actually need to know it.

The information transferred via a protocol is usually a request for something, or a response for something requested. For example, with HTTP, a client computer requests a certain web page from a server via HTTP and then the web server, basically, responds with the file embedded within HTTP.

Each of these protocols operates on more or more so-called 'ports', and it is these 'ports' that allow the computers to know which protocol to use. For example, a web server (special computer software running on a server computer that serves out web pages) uses a port of number '80', and hence when the server receives messages on that port it passes them to the web server software which naturally knows that they'll be written in HTTP.
For a client computer it's simpler it knows that a response to a message it sent will be in the same protocol it initially used. When the messages are sent back and forth the server computer and client computer typically set up a so-called 'stream' (a marked conversation) between them. They are then able to associate messages to the stream according to their origin address and port number.

The World Wide Web

I've explained how the Internet works, but not yet how the 'World Wide Web' (the 'web') works. The web is the publishing system that most people don't realise is distinguishable from the Internet itself.
The Internet uses IP addresses (often found via domain names) to identify resources, but the web has to have something more sophisticated as it would be silly if every single page on the Internet had to have it's own 'domain name'. The web uses 'URLs' (uniform resource locators), and I'm sure you know about these as nowadays they are printed all over the place in the real world (albeit, usually only in short-hand).

A typical URL looks like this:
   <protocol>://<domain-name_OR_ip-address>/<resource_identifier>
For example:
   http://www.ocportal.com/index.php
That said that's not really a full URL, because occasionally URLs can be much more complex. For example:
   <protocol>://<user>:<password>@<domain/ip>:<port>/<resource_identifier>
You can ignore the more complex example, because it's not really relevant for the purposes of this article.

HTTP is the core protocol for the web. This is why URLs usually start 'http://'. Web browsers almost always also support FTP, which is why some URLs may start 'ftp://'.

Typically the 'resource identifier' is simply a file on the server computer. For example, 'mywebsite/index.html' would be a file on the server computer of the same path, stored underneath a special directory. On Windows the "" symbol is used to write out directory names, but as the web wasn't invented for Windows, the convention of the older operating systems is used.

We now have three kinds of 'Internet Address', in order of increasing sophistication:

• IP addresses
• Domain names
• URLs

If a URL were put into web browser software by a prospective reader then the web browser would send out an appropriate request (usually, with the HTTP protocol being appropriate) to the server computer identified by the URL. The server computer would then respond and typically the web browser would end up with a file. The web browser would then interpret the file for display, much like any software running on a computer would interpret the files it understands. For the HTTP protocol, the web browser knows what to interpret the file as because the HTTP protocol uses something called a 'MIME type' to identify each kind of resource the server can send out. If the web server computer is just sending out an on-disk file then the web server computer works out the MIME type from the file extension (such as '.html') of the file.

An 'HTML' file is the kind of file that defines a web page. It's written in plain text, and basically mixes information showing show to display a document along with the document itself. If you're curious, try using the "View page source" function of your web browser when viewing a web page, and you'll see a mix of portions of normal human text and short text between '<' and '>' symbols. The former is the document contents and the latter are the display instructions.
In newer versions of HTML there's a split between 'structuring' a document and 'displaying' a structure in this case, another special technology named 'CSS' is added to the mix.

I've explained how typical web pages are just files on the disk of a server computer. Increasingly, things are slightly less direct. When you visit something like eBay, your web-mail, or an ocPortal-powered website, you aren't just reading files. You're actually interacting with computer software, and the web pages you receive are generated anew by that software every time a request is made. These kinds of systems are known as 'web applications' and are increasingly replacing the need to install software on your own computer (because it's so much easier just to use a web browser to access a web application on a server computer).

Whispering across the globe

The problem with sending messages around the world using protocols such as HTTP, built on well-understood standard protocols, potentially between 100's of computers, is that it's hardly safe when those messages contain passwords and credit card details.

There are in fact three main security problems with just using common Internet technologies for sensitive communication. These problems are that any of the 'middleman' computers between source and destination could be:
listening in (for passwords, for example)

• altering the conversation (inserting instructions into banking requests to take money out of bank accounts, for example)
• hijacking requests (pretending to be the bank, for example)

To solve these three problems we need to encode data so that:

• it's encrypted
• it's only encryptable by the sender (i.e. Tampering becomes impossible, because they don't know how to encrypt new data to tack on)
• it's provable that the engaging client computer really is the correct client computer and that the responding server computer really is the correct server computer

This is all done using something called 'TLS' (formerly named 'SSL'). I won't explain exactly how it's done, but the basis is that there's a way of encrypting, and the receiver can identify whether the sender did the encrypting itself without actually knowing how the sender did it. It's done using some mathematical trickery.

Conclusion

I've explained:

• how computers can be connected together, even under non-ideal conditions (such as not being physically connected, or only with having a phone line as a connection to the world)
• how an Internet can be built such that all the computers on it can contact each other
• how messages can be sent between computers on the Internet
• how messages can encode requests and responses that translate to meaningful human applications
• how human-understandable URLs, built upon human understandable domain names, allow the world wide web to function
• how files can encode web pages
• how the Internet can be made safe and secure

I hope you've learnt a lot from this article. The Internet is big and it's complex, with so many technologies that very few people can understand all of them fully. It's amazing how the chaotic and unplanned amalgamation of technologies that allow the Internet to function has, by the collective and non-organised efforts of the masses, allowed such an amazing single and coherent system of information sharing and global communication to evolve.

Google Adsense - The "Duplicate Content" Controversy

The hoopla over duplicate content has been going on for quite some time now, and I see it as simply just another money making scheme by online entrepreneurs wishing to chase down the Golden Goose.  Almost every day, my inbox is inundated with yet another "article converter" that is guaranteed to make my private label rights articles hit the top of the search engines with no fear of the Google Police knocking at my PR door, screaming "Duplicate Content!"

I ofttimes wonder how many of the so called gurus take the time to really read the Google Adsense Program Policies.  And I wonder many times during my working day just how many people open their wallets to let fly their hard earned dollars to these people. 

Here are Google's exact words, and I quote: "Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content."  What does this really tell us?  Does it tell us that the PLR sites that sell thousands of the same articles to people who don't have time - or are too lazy - to write their own content are breaking Google's rules?  Not hardly.  Google is telling us that we cannot create what used to be called "mirror sites" (This is a Web site which contains the same information that is located on another site. If the site abc.com is the same as def.com, then it may be disqualified from listing by search engines) in an attempt to increase Page Rank and increase Adsense income. 

Many opinions abound on the forums and elsewhere on the web discussing duplicate content.  And many netrepeneurs have taken advantage of the misinterpretation of Google's policies to capitalize on this.  Because Google has made this the era of content, everyone that is involved in the online communities is scrambling for the proper answers.  I see threads that are three to five pages in length on the more popular forums with people agonizing over their fear of duplicate content.  What a field day for the guru's!  I wonder how many thousands - perhaps millions - have been made by people taking advantage of this fear factor?

Lets examine the facts.  If there really was a duplicate content filter then many news web sites that publish AP or Reuters news would be banned from search engines.  Many catalogue sites would go under, because they sell the same products, using the same promotional items as other sites. Affiliate sites would be banned from the search engines because people use the promotional items provided by the site owners.  And even the giant eBay would go under, because anyone who has spent time there sees a ton of items listed which are identical, using the same description, same images, and same user ID.  I wonder how Copyscape.com would handle this?

What about the sites that put articles and ezines in archive. This content ends up being displayed both in static pages and archives as well.  Penalized for duplicate content, when the website owner wants to have his articles available to the general public?  I doubt it...

Common sense is the order of the day.  If you take the time to provide original and unique content to your site, the site is well optimized for the search engines, and you have relevant backlinks, then your site will do well with no fear of penalty. 

Don't use article scrapers, which mirror the exact content of other sites, and is nothing more than a rip off.  If you buy PLR articles, try to rewrite them in your own unique voice.  If your budget will allow, hire a ghostwriter to create articles pertinent to your particular niche.  And most of all, just use plain common sense!

How to build great software

In this article I'm going to explain the top 10 software development fallacies my company avoids. By avoiding these myths and concentrating on excellence, we are able to make great quality software.

Myth 1) Software must be designed in detail before development starts, so that a clear plan can be out-layed.

The truth) The more complex a design, the more like software the design itself is. By perfecting a design, then writing the software to that design, you're effectively writing the work twice. Instead, by doing just some simple design sketches and data modelling rather than a book-like design, a good development team can create a shell for the software and efficiently refine it towards the finished product. This process of refinement creates natural prototypes, allows easy adaptation when issues that would be unforseen by a design arise (or brought up as fresh concerns by a client), and the total process takes significantly less time. To pull this off requires a close team, skill, and experience, but it is by far the best option for the majority of situations.

Myth 2) There are programmers, designers, analysts, and users.

The truth) By structuring development so that all developers get some exposure to each part of the development process, skills may be shared and greater insight may be gained. If developers are encouraged to actually use the software then they can use that expertise to think of improvements that otherwise would not come to light.

Myth 3) A happy team is a productive team.

The truth) A team of people with a wide variety of natural skills, experience and concern, that criticises each other and argues vehemently over the smallest details, will bring up and resolve issues that otherwise would never be tackled. A furnace of relentless argument is the best way to forge understanding and reach perfection.

Myth 4) It's important we understand our direction and don't compromise with it.

The truth) Life is compromise, and compromise is not a weakness. There will always be issues (such as efficiency, budget, ease-of-use, power, scope, and the need for easy internationalisation) that cannot be simultaneously met without such compromise.

Myth 5) We know what the client wants, we know what the issues are.

The truth) Without constant re-evaluation, it is easy to lose track of the objective. Developers are often faced with problems to solve that they consider the issues, when those are in fact separated from the actual market goals and can become totally irrelevant. Developers must always understand the market goals and be able to adapt when other things change, or even the goals themselves change.

Myth 6) Bigger is better. Features are cool.

The truth) Features can easily confuse users, and their actual value should always be considered against the cost of confusion. In some cases it is sensible to actually remove working features due to such concerns.

Myth 7a) The customer is always right.

The truth) Most customers try hard not to look ignorant in front of software developers, and hence phrase their suggestions in a technical way. The effect is that often suggestions aren't really appropriate, because they're not founded on a solid understanding of technical issues.

Myth 7b) The customer is often wrong.

The truth) Although customers needs are often not best met by doing literally what they say, they always know what they want and why they want it - and usually for very good reason. Understand them and adapt what they say, discuss with them, but never ignore them.

Myth 8) Comment your code a lot.

The truth) Good code needs hardly any commenting, because sensible uses of naming and white-space are better alternatives. Comments should only ever explain the non-obvious, or provide standard API documentation.

Myth 9) Such and such is needed, such and such is great.

The truth) A bad workman blames his tools. Whilst some development tools aid development substantially, a good developer can do great results in most things served to them. There are a few exceptions, like Microsoft Access, or assembly language, but generally speaking the difference in quality results is much more due to the skills of the developers than the quality of their tools.

Myth 10) The customer will understand if there's an efficient and easy-to-use interface.

The truth) The interface doesn't just need to be easy-to-use, it needs to be navigatable without an overall systems understanding. Screens need to be self-describing.

Blu-ray Technology

New technology is now making it possible for viewers to record and store high definition programming onto DVDs. Blu-ray Disc is one method of recording HD content onto an optical disc. A blue-laser optical disc (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) is used. Systems that use this technology will be able to play traditional DVDs, but the goal of Blu-ray is to create an image that's as close to the HD format as possible. The name Blu-ray comes from the blue laser that decodes and copies information to each disk. Blu-ray technology may very well revolutionize the world of high definition programming. The Blu-ray disc format offers greater potential for storage, usually 25 gigabytes, which exceeds that of a standard DVD (15 gigabytes). One single-layer Blu-ray disk can hold about four hours of high definition content. A two-layer disk can contain eight hours of HD content. Four- and eight-layer disks are now in the works. These disks would have storage capabilities of 100 and 200 gigabytes. The Blu-ray recording system utilizes a shorter wavelength for recording information than traditional CDs and DVDs, and this is part of what allows it to hold more content on a single disk.

Blu-ray has also influenced the computer industry, specifically in terms of data storage capability. A number of major companies have come out in support of Blu-ray, including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, Pioneer, and Sony. Hewlett Packard plans to market desktop computers and laptops that utilize Blu-ray technology. Sony has announced that it will introduce a Blu-ray component in PlayStation 3, which is expected to appear in November of this year. Microsoft has also said that it may add a Blu-ray component to its Xbox 360. Currently, Blu-ray is only available in Japan, but it will appear in the United States in May, in video games and a DVD system that recreates a high definition effect on a viewer's TV.

Many movie studios have Blu-ray films planned for future release. In 2005, Sony Pictures cornered the market on the first Blu-ray feature-length movie disk, which was none other than Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Studios that support the technology include Walt Disney and Twentieth Century Fox.

Competing with Blu-ray in the area of HD storage is HD DVD. HD DVD disks have less storage capability, but they're cheaper to produce. Other big-name companies are showing their support for this option, including Microsoft, Intel and Toshiba, as well as Universal Studios. In what may be the smartest move, some companies are backing both types of technology, ensuring that their products support both Blu-ray and HD DVD. These companies include Samsung, Paramount and Warner Brothers. 

Guide to Buying a Laptop Computer

With the many different brands and models on the market, buying a laptop or notebook computer may at first seem confusing. But simply breaking down the process into a few key areas and using Myshopping.com.au to search for the most suitable features and pricing makes it much easier to access exactly the machine you're looking for. 

How important to you is mobility? 

Mobility in laptop computers is a combination of size, weight and battery life: how often you carry it around, and if you will be relying mainly on the notebook's battery, or whether you will access an external power source. Laptops can weigh from a little over 1 kg up to 6kg, depending on the model and features included. The screen, storage space and disc drive all affect the weight. 

Battery life is shortened by bigger screens and multiple disc drives. Manufacturers advertise the weight of the laptop in their specifications, but it is important to consider whether that specification includes batteries and other peripherals such as external drives that you may be lugging around. The most common battery type is Lithium Ion (Li-Ion), which can operate for one to three hours under normal working conditions. But many power saving options available and higher celled batteries can extend the discharge time considerably. Battery life deteriorates over time however, and as your laptop ages; the discharge rate of the battery will diminish. Sometimes it is worthwhile carrying an additional battery. 

Application and cost 

If mobility is of a lesser concern, then battery life and weight will be less important. You may be more inclined to have a bigger processor, screen size and memory capacity. The type of work you do can affect the screen size and type that is most suitable for you. For a lighter load, and less graphics intensive applications a 12-14in screen instead of 15 or 17in widescreen will be more suitable. If, on the other hand, the graphics capabilities and size of the screen are important then the best screen you can afford will be more of a priority. It may work out cheaper to buy a basic unit and add such things as an external TV card and DVD burner when the need arises. 

How much you need to spend is closely related to how you use your laptop. If you only want to access your e-mail, browse the Web and do word processing, then you can consider lower budget machines with smaller processors, screens and facilities. 

A medium-level user, perhaps playing games or working in multimedia applications, will need a powerful processor, graphics controller, storage space, and a bigger screen. The more features your laptop has, the more expensive it will be. Including a DVD-burner instead of DVD-ROM, hard drive capacity of more than 40GB, a 17in widescreen screen and wireless capabilities results in a more expensive machine. 

If you are not looking for high power and graphics capabilities, then you may find a suitable laptop for around 1500. The latest processor, full blown graphics capability, DVD burner, widescreen and wireless connectivity may cost over 4000. Use Myshopping.com.au to search with different price ranges. 

Other key components 

Having determined by what you will do with it, and how mobile you need to be that you are definitely buying a laptop, you now need to get down to the nitty gritty and find the specifications that will meet your needs. So, what to look for? Essentially, you are considering differences between the following components: display, graphics controller, memory (RAM), hard disk, removable storage, networking options, peripheral connectivity, sound and battery. 

Display and Graphics 

Notebooks now all feature LCD screens (Liquid Crystal Displays) presenting crisp text and reduced eyestrain. These screens display sharper text than standard CRT monitors, but are less capable of displaying well-rendered graphics. If you will be using your notebook for graphics work, it may be worthwhile having a CRT monitor to connect to. Screen sizes for notebooks range from 12.1in to 17in (widescreen). A 15in display or 15.4in widescreen alternative is the most common in notebooks today. Widescreen is quickly becoming more common, partly to accommodate playback of DVDs and also because widescreen proportions make it is more durable. 

On-screen graphics are affected by both the size and type of screen as well as the graphics card. It is reasonably safe to assume that larger displays offer higher on-screen resolution. Screen brightness (measured in nits) is another specification that can vary between makes and models. Brighter screens impact less on eyes and can be more easily read in bright conditions. Some manufacturers have a glossy, reflective coating over the display improving contrast and colours. But, because it increases the reflectivity of the screen, it can show you reflected in the screen. Surface scratches may also show up more readily. Not all LCD screens have the same viewable angle, with some screens not easily viewed from a side angle. 

Graphics performance in laptops is still inferior to that of desktop machines. All graphic controllers easily render 2-D images and if you don't need more from your graphics, then an integrated graphics controller is ample. However, if you want to play the latest 3-D games at a decent resolution and frame rate or you're a CAD designer, then you'll need a discreet graphics controller with a dedicated DDR video memory. 

Memory and Storage 

In all computers RAM chips keep the CPU efficiently fed with data or instructions from programs on the hard drive. Notebook computers now commonly use DDR SDRAM (Double Date Rate SDRAM), the default standard, and DDR2 SDRAM which is a next-generation memory type offering considerable performance and power benefits over SDRAM. Either way, when it comes to RAM, more memory is better and you should consider 256MB as the absolute minimum. Upgrading memory can achieve better performance, and quite a number of vendors offer higher RAM configurations as a 'deal sweetener' at the time of purchase. Search through Myshopping.com.au for bundled extras such as more RAM. 

The hard drive provides the long-term storage and is the centre of program control. There are two critical specifications of hard disks. One is disk speed, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). Faster disks speeds provide quicker access for loading and saving and 'file swapping'. The other is storage capacity, and drives are now available for notebook computers with 120GB capacity. If you work with large file sizes, then you will probably want at least 40GB of hard drive space. You may also want to consider the type of removable storage such as a DVD writer, removable hard disks and media or 'flash' card systems that will suit your use best. 

Networking and connectivity 

Laptop computers now include 56Kbps modem (RJ-11) and 10/100 Ethernet (RJ-45) connections as standard features. Some feature an Infrared port and you can use it to connect your mobile phone. Other wireless technology for connecting mobile phones, printers and PDA devices includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, allowing connection at certified public access points and home wireless networking. Most laptops use USB 2.0 or FireWire connection for connecting keyboard, mouse, printers, cameras and other peripherals. Nearly every new notebook will have around three USB 2.0 ports, and one FireWire port and a VGA-out port to connect an external monitor to. 

Notebook computers have traditionally been able to expand their capability through simple plug-in PC Cards. Recently a new standard has emerged called ExpressCard, a smaller, faster and more portable plug-in card to provide such things as expanded video and sound capacity. 

Choosing a laptop becomes much easier once you've decided on these basic requirements. You can search Myshopping.com.au to compare makes, models, prices, accessories and all the important specifications. You can also compare vendors and their prices and service.