Technology and Gadgets Online

Faxing no longer means buying a traditional fax machine.  Though it was very useful when it was introduced, traditional faxing now feels slow and old.  The Internet has brought a new speed in communications, and now we can enjoy a mix of faxing with Internet speed thanks to email fax technology and fax services.

Email fax services allow you to use your email address to send and receive fax in a digital format, while retaining 100% compatibility with fax machines (which are still used by many companies).  Faxes are sent in a similar way email messages are sent and you receive them in the form of email attachments straight in your inbox thanks to a virtual fax number that is provided to you when you open an account with a service.  This technology allows you to receive and send fax from Gmail or any other free provider.

This new technology is also portable.  At first this meant that you could fax anywhere using just your laptop and an Internet connection, but offers have gotten more interesting with the introduction of smartphone technology.  Nowadays you can basically turn your smartphone into a mini electronic fax machine thanks to the development of apps to fax from iPhone as well as Android and Blackberry devices. Let’s take a look at the current mobile fax options.

Mobile Fax Services

Ringcentral Fax.  RingCentral offers a cool plan called “RingCentral Mobile”, which makes full use of their app. Besides faxing you also get VoIP and can even redirect your current number for convenience. Of course, you can also opt to just use the fax features with a common faxing plan. RingCentral offers packages for different fax volumes.

MyFax.  This is another excellent fax service which offers an app to receive fax in all smartphones.  This app is very easy to use and has all the basic capabilities to keep your incoming faxes organized.  Additionally, Myfax is one of the fax service providers that offers international fax at no extra cost.

eFax.  This company offers perhaps the most interesting iPhone fax app currently available on the App store. It doesn’t only allow you to receive faxes, but it also takes advantage of the phone’s built-in camera to take pictures of documents and send them!

All of these options are available to download for free in your smartphone, but they only work if you have an existing fax account with these companies.  Luckily you can start out for free, given that all of them offer 30 day free trials with all features enabled.

Oops…  I think I bricked my router

So, you’ve broken something.  You were upgrading firmware on your router, and you jumped the gun and rebooted too soon.  You’re up a creek without a paddle, right?

Wrong!  (hopefully) Breaking stuff isn’t fun, especially when other people use it, or you paid good, hard earned money for it.

Instructions

The FIRST thing you should do to find out if your router is salvageable and will accept a TFTP flash is to ping it.  If you get a response, you’re in good shape and there is a much better chance you’ll be able to get save your router.

1. Open up a command prompt:  start-run type cmd and hit enter

2. c:\ping 192.168.99.1 (your router’s ip)

You might see : Reply from 192.168.99.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Something to pay attention to in your pinging is the TTL, or time to live.  You’ll generally see a TTL of 64, under normal conditions.  However, when a router is ready to accept a TFTP transfer (of firmware), the TTL will change, to a number like 100.  I doubt that the TTL will always be 100 in every flash, but, it’s important that it’s different than normal.

Next, if you can ping your router, than you should download the firmware that you want to flash onto the router  (probably good to go with Stock firmware)

Important:  If you are using Vista or Windows 7, you must install the TFTP client first before proceeding!  If you don’t know how to do this, go to this tutorial on How to install TFTP in Vista or Windows 7.

Start a pinging session on your computer in the following manner:

ping (your router’s IP)  -t

Keep this command prompt open and watch it carefully.

Open up another command prompt and type the following:

tftp –i (your router ip) put firmwarefile.bin

Now….

Unplug your router, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in.

As SOON as your router starts to give ping replies (and you may notice the TTL is different than normal), hit enter on your TFTP prompt.

This may take a few tries.  You have to hit the sweet spot in the booting process of your router where it is accepting firmware transfers.  This of course will not work with every router under the sun.  But… hey… what do you have to lose?  It’s broken.

Good luck!  Hope you can get that router back.

Yahoo! Answers is perhaps the biggest question-and-answer forum on the Web. Unfortunately it is also plagued by spam, nonsense and plain incompetency by some members.  A recent addition to the Facebook website called Questions may turn out to be a better substitute.

Facebook Questions is designed to be an open forum where people can inquire about practically anything. The answers can come from anyone in the Facebook world, but a key feature is that if people on your network of friends answer your question, their replies will be displayed first. This ensures that you see the responses from people you trust first. This is the advantage that Facebook Questions has over other answering communities on the Web, where you know nothing about the background and qualifications of the person giving you information.

To begin using Facebook Questions, first log into Facebook. After are you are logged in, look for the input bar where you enter new statuses to your wall. Click the Question tab next to Status.

On the bottom right of the input bar, you may notice there is no padlock icon beside the Ask Question button. That is because all Facebook questions are open to everybody. You cannot privatize your questions so only your friends could see them.

Type a simple question in the box. Examples are “Where can I order pizza with no delivery charge?”, “What’s a good car seat for a 12-month old?” or “What’s the best coffee shop in New York City?”

If your question is a survey, you can add a poll by clicking the link on the bottom left of the input text box. You can specify whether to allow other users to add more options or not. For example, if you list three options for the question “What’s the best pizza restaurant in Leesburg?”m enabling that feature will let other people suggest more places.

Unlike Yahoo! Answers, however, Facebook Questions is not anonymous. Your name and profile picture appear with your questions along with whatever details you make public. So not use it if you do not want that kind of publicity or openness.

One very large part of learning how to choose a cheap web hosting provider is determining your specific hosting needs.  This requires you to have a clear understanding of the amount of traffic that you anticipate getting, as well the amount of space and speed that are needed in order to ensure the successful operation of your online endeavor.  Luckily, there are several simple things that you can do to garner this understanding.

There are several factors which you should consider when you compare cheap web hosting providers.

The first is to speak with others who share your niche.  Businesses that function much like your own and that have been operational for some time are often best able to gauge the amount of server space that is needed to function within the industry.  While your competition is not always likely to share helpful tips that will enable you to successfully join the market, online research will reveal numerous blogs and sites that are dedicated to helping specific types of companies determine the server space and type that they will need.

The type of server that you will need is important as well.  A dedicated server is yours and yours alone but is likely to prove more costly than other hosting options such as opting to use a shared server.  Taking the time to understand the difference is key to choosing wisely.  If you currently have a small budget, a shared server may be the necessary selection given the highly affordable price that it often comes with.

There are two main types of dedicated servers.  These included managed servers and unmanaged servers.  With a managed server, the business need not concern itself with the technical issues that arise, as the managing host will be responsible for all of the required maintenance and repairs.  With an unmanaged server, the business will need to have its own IT team and usually a method or means of storing the server on site. These differences will stand out if you compare different web host providers. For example, by doing a Hostgator vs Godaddy comparison, the differences are obvious.

While learning how to choose a cheap web hosting company you are likely to find that there are both advantages and disadvantages that come with nearly every type of server.  Some hosting companies offer cheap web hosting for all different server types.  Once you have determined the features that will be most advantageous for your business, learning to compare cheap web hosting companies of this nature will enable you to find the most cost-effective package for your needs.

Before you visit California’s Big Bear Lake, you can use a cool new feature of Google Earth to “fly over” and “zoom in” on things you want to see before you get there. The program can be downloaded from Google at www.google.com/earth and you will then simply type Big Bear Lake, California into the search bar to “fly” to the lake.

The first thing you’ll probably want to do is check out your Big Bear lodging choices by zooming in on the coves, hillsides or crossroads where you plan to stay. The resolution of the satellite images is amazingly good. You can easily see the layout and the buildings, and it’s as if you were in a helicopter right above the lake.

The California Tourist Guide urges visitors to use “overviews” of an area as the best way to get started in your vacation planning. The website for a hotel or amusement park might sound great, but it’s better to actually SEE what’s there before you commit to one place or another.

Another thing you can see from the air is the terrain and topology of a place, and Big Bear Lake is a perfect example of what you can learn. You’ll clearly see the dam at the west end of the lake, the marshy flat at the east end of the lake, cut off by a causeway and earthen fill for the small airport there. On the south side, you can see Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, the two modest skiing destinations at Big Bear Lake. You can see the marinas clustered around the “village,” and you can see that Big Bear City is not much of a city at all!

Moreover, if you care about peace and quiet on your vacation, you can zoom in on the less developed north shore and look at some of the cabins and other places to stay in the canyons framing the lake from the north. And if you look carefully, you’ll see that this very high lake (6,750 feet above sea level) is fed exclusively by snowmelt from the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains, and that the water drains off in two directions – east AND west.

Give it a try! Before long, everyone will be using Google Earth for this sort of “fly before you buy” vacation planning.