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How to Effectively Stay Safe from Identity Theft

How to Effectively Stay Safe from Identity Theft

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Summary: Identity theft is a serious issue that continues to plague the United States. Be sure to always remain vigilant.

While you might not think it’ll ever happen to you, the truth of the matter is, identity theft can happen to anyone. It’s a serious issue in today’s society and continues to occur on a daily basis. It’s been said over 8 million Americans have their identity stolen each year. No, not in total, but every single year. Could you be next?

Here are some tips that will greatly decrease the chances of becoming an identity theft victim.

Taking Preventative Measures

No, it’s likely you don’t have access to some technologically advance NOC design or a command center that’s watching your back 24/7. You basically do not have too many options when it comes to protecting your identity. Criminals in this day and age are getting smarter and more proficient when it comes to theft. You’ll need to take preventative measures to ensure that you stay one step ahead of these dangerous individuals.

Don’t Be Careless With Your Social Security Information

For one, you’ll always want to protect your social security number. Don’t carelessly walk around with your social security card in your wallet or purse – you’re basically asking to be robbed. If your social security number is listed on your driver’s license, health insurance card, or any other document that you carry around, request to have it reissued.

Be sure to always look over your bills and credit card statements and see if everything lines up with your purchases. If something looks odd or you’re finding charges that aren’t yours, contact your provider immediately. It also helps not to be careless with your credit or debit card either, but things happen. The professionals believe that keeping a close eye on every financial aspect on a regular basis is an efficient way to monitor identity theft.
How Artificial Intelligence Has Driven Manufacturing Companies to New Heights

How Artificial Intelligence Has Driven Manufacturing Companies to New Heights

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Summary: The importance of implementing AI into manufacturing has significantly increased throughout the years.

Since the early 1900s, manufacturing has come a long, long way. From the unproven rows of worker drones to the industrial robot, signs of slowing down are unlikely to occur.

These creations didn’t come without a cost however. The early models of bots were only able to perform a single mindless task without any room for versatility. It wasn’t until the next stages of the automation breakthrough – the utilization of artificial intelligence – were these machines able to make logical decisions in real time.

Implementing Change

The fact that these real-time decisions were playing such a unique and significant role in society has only inspired others to continue this tradition and further enhance the AI system. This approach is becoming more and more prioritized as industries lean towards reducing costs but also keeping stock on an as-needed basis. Manufacturing companies and their supplies need to keep up with the high demand.

The Sky’s the Limit

Applying artificial intelligence to the manufacturing industry requires numerous technologies and process innovations. One of the most efficient forms of integration comes from the smart factory, which is basically a networked factory in which data from supply chains, production lines, and so on, are linked to an intelligent creation engine – forming a central station that processes each aspect of the factory. This has not only enhanced the way industries have been operating, but the rather, uncanny, use of artificial intelligence has propelled a variety of companies to new heights.

 
Outsourcing with an EDI Service Bureau

Outsourcing with an EDI Service Bureau

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When you need to outsource your EDI implementation, one of the better options is to use an EDI Service Bureau. Here are some of the features:

Translation and mapping of data

Organizations start using EDI to improve transactions with their suppliers and partners. In some situations, they do so because the partners insist on transactions using EDI. The EDI service bureau translates and maps the data to a format compatible with your existing applications. The system will map and translate outbound data to a format that your partners will accept. A bureau handles all of the data, label requirements, etc. your direct involvement will be minimal.

Format conversion

Once you sign up with a service bureau, the services are not limited to EDI communications. The bureau will translate and convert formats from one to another according to your requirements. Some web applications output XML data; the service will then translate this data into something that your applications will understand.

Transport

There are several methods of actually transporting the EDI data. When sending data to your company, the bureau will use a protocol agreed beforehand and will use the preferred format when sending to your trading partner.

VANS

A VAN is a Value Added Network. Some organizations use a third party VAN to store EDI communications that the service bureau will pick up. There are service bureau’s that operate their own VAN, which will interconnect with the VAN of your trading partners.
Look Out For Fake Online Shops

Look Out For Fake Online Shops

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As the world shifts its shopping onto the Internet, the scammers that exist in the physical world are following them there. Plenty of fake websites have sprung up hoping to catch unsuspecting consumers and the sad fact is that the consumers are falling for it.

The primary way to avoid such bogus sites is to stick to the old adage “If it’s too good to be true, then it is”. If you are looking for the newest X-Box on the day before Christmas and you find a website that says they have lots in stock – it’s fake! Sometimes the scam works by offering unbelievably low prices on products. Again, if it’s unbelievable, it probably is.

But sometimes you just can’t figure it out, because the scam is pretty good. In these instances, just put good old Google to use. Let’s say the company’s name is ABC789 Inc. Just type in that name in Google and look at what turns up. Usually, if it is a company that has been in operation for a while, there will be many hits on the page. You will also run into many forums where users have commented on that company. From this information you can make an informed decision on what type of company it is and how reliable their products are.

As always, good research can always help you before you get into a sticky situation. Don’t be impetuous and impulsive when you make purchases online, because it might even get you into more trouble than losing your money or getting a bad product.
How Clean are Your Computers?

How Clean are Your Computers?

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Article written by Best Businesses

Would you consider grabbing a sandwich after you touch a toilet seat? Would you consider eating a sandwich after touching your keyboard? Out of the two scenarios above, the cleaner option is the one that involves the toilet seat. Surprising, right?

Studies have found that toilet seats contain 80% less bacteria than keyboards. This is because restrooms are cleaned regularly and hygiene is a priority in offices. The keyboard and mouse are not even considered for a complimentary wipe down. This is a matter for concern and must be taken seriously. The cleanliness of computer equipment that you constantly use is very important. Humans with their quirks such as nail biting, nose digging, rubbing the eyes, etc. transmit bacteria when at the workstation.

Proper care must be taken by administrators in an office to make sure that these items are cleaned as well. This not only ensures better health for the employees, it also results in more productivity and less downtime for the office. The cleaning company must also be carefully selected, and the chemicals that they use for cleaning must be reviewed thoroughly before being given the green light. Improper methods can lead to a variety of incidents that range from letters being erased from keyboards to chemical fumes affecting employees.

These concerns are not limited to the office only. Even in your home, you should make an effort to keep your computer equipment clean. After all, good hygiene is good living.
How to Bring Down Your Electricity Costs

How to Bring Down Your Electricity Costs

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You may not realize it but your computer can eat up a lot of electricity. How much it consumes depends on you’re the configuration and also on what other devices you have connected to it.

Usually a desktop PC will have a Power Supply Unit that is rated between 300 and 500 watts. This denotes the maximum power that can be delivered via that PSU. Before you start panicking, the PSU does not deliver the maximum all the time and only does it when required.

There are many culprits that cause a lot of power consumption. Advanced graphics cards draw a lot of power, especially when graphics intensive games are played. Using apps that require a lot of memory and processing power also delivers similar results. Using a large CRT monitor or even an LCD monitor at full brightness can push up your power bill.

To bring down your energy costs, try to do the following:

1. After shutting down the computer, physically cut the power connection to the PC by flicking the switch to the “off” position on the wall socket.
2. If your monitor does not draw power from the PC (enabling an auto switch off), you should switch it off manually after shutting down the PC.
3. Switch off printers and scanners when not in use.
4. Switch off any powered speakers when not in use.
5. Reduce the brightness on your monitor. This will consume less power and also promote long life in the product.
6. Use power management tools provided with the OS.
Buying an External Hard Drive

Buying an External Hard Drive

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An External Hard Disk is a worthwhile investment for any computer user. If you are an avid downloader of content (legally, of course) then storing movies and mp3s on your computer is going to take up a lot of Hard Disk Drive (HDD) space. This is fine until you encounter the day when the HDD crashes. Backing up your data can save you the frustration and anger when that happens and this is where an external HDD really comes into play.

When looking to buy an external drive, you have to consider the two types available -Solid State Drives (SSD) and HDD’s. SSDs have no moving parts in them, so vibrations and small impacts will not do any harm to them. However, as long as you treat your HDD carefully there is very little chance of anything happening to it either. Of the two, HDDs are easier on your wallet.

You should decide on the size of the external drive, depending on how much data you want to backup or transfer out of your computer. If these are mainly documents that will be stored, then even a 100GB drive is enough. Otherwise, if you do need more space, 1TB and 2TB drives have recently become more affordable.

If you can afford to wait a while, USB 3.0 drives will be out in the near future offering staggering transfer rates. But in the meantime, external drives come in USB 2.0, Firewire and eSATA flavors. You should choose one of these depending on the connectivity you have on your computer and the availability of external power as some of these devices require that.

Just remember that the cost of an external drive is peanuts compared to the cost you will encounter at a data retrieval service should your HDD crash.
Buying a PC Case

Buying a PC Case

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As you become more familiar with the hardware components in your computer, you will want to assemble the next computer you buy. This is because it allows you greater freedom in customizing the configuration and getting it “exactly right”. At this point, you should pay some attention to the type of casing that will house your computer.

The first decision is to choose between a Desktop and a Tower casing. The only real advantage of a Desktop casing is that it does not consume a lot of space. It allows you to place the monitor over it and there ends its usefulness. For serious hardware enthusiast, the Tower casing is the way to go.

Tower casings come in a variety of sizes and you should pick the biggest one you can which won’t eat up too much of space in your room. There are many advantages in doing this, the main one being the cooling factor. A large case will allow you to fixe multiple fans inside the casing, at strategic locations, so that your computer can be cooled efficiently. Inefficient cooling can lead to quick hardware deaths. A large casing laterally will also accommodate the large heat sink towers that are now available for CPU’s. In addition to this, it can also accommodate any future hard disk and DVD drive expansion plans.

Usually, casing come with a pre-installed power supply. In most cases this is enough to drive basic to moderately advanced hardware. But if you are going to plug in multiple hard drives and run a high end graphics card, you should probably ask the store to swap the existing power supply with one that has a higher Wattage. This will ensure that there is enough “juice” to keep all your hardware running smoothly. A word of warning though, the more devices you run on the machine the more your electricity costs will go up.
Computer Maintenance Guidelines

Computer Maintenance Guidelines

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Computers, just like cars and other mechanical devices, need to have maintenance performed on them regularly. However, this article does not deal with the hardware maintenance, but rather the software side of maintenance, which is often forgotten.

Software, as most people do not realize, also needs to be kept in order. More often than not, the software that you get contains a few undiscovered bugs, some unpolished corners and even some loopholes in the code that allow hackers to exploit them. These can be fixed by installing software updates. In the past, the prevalent method involved manually checking for, downloading and installing the updates. Now, most software vendors have taken to the automatic delivery of software updates. This generally happens through the application you purchased, which is put into effect the moment you register. Whenever you see an alert for a software update, make sure you install it as quickly as possible. This is especially important in the case of operating systems, virus scanners and firewall updates.

Other than this, you can take some steps to make sure your data is protected as well. Make data backups a part of your schedule. Once a week or in two weeks is an acceptable frequency. You should also scan your hard drives for viruses regularly, once a day if possible. Hackers are always finding new ways to infiltrate systems so it is better to be safe than sorry. One other thing you can do to stay safe is to change your password whenever you can. This helps keep any unwanted characters from getting into your system and stealing valuable data.

The best way to keep track of all these tasks is to make a schedule with a checklist and stick to it religiously. This will ensure that your computer stays in good working order for a long time.

The Truth about New Circuit Breakers

The Truth about New Circuit Breakers

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New circuit breakers typically come with a 12-month money-back guarantee. According to leading circuit breaker dealer All Breakers, these manufacturers not only understand the risk that they might have to replace some circuit breakers when they fail, they count on it.

The truth is that it is cheaper for the dealer or manufacturer to ship untested circuit breakers than to test each product utilizing cutting-edge digital testing equipment. Dealers much rather wait for a circuit breaker to break-down than to test each one. This is why many people opt to purchase refurbished circuit breakers from All Breakers inc. The company offers affordable refurbished circuit breakers that undergo more testing and quality checks than their new counterparts. Whether you’re searching for Cutler Hammer of FPE circuit breakers, All Breakers offers the refurbished circuit breakers you need.