Archive: Business & Technology

Dr. Digit: Sharing Printers

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Mar 2, 2006 |

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No doubt your parents taught you to share. Sharing is good, even when you are computer equipment. Sharing a printer makes a lot of sense if you have more than one computer. Sometimes it even makes sense to share a keyboard, monitor and mouse. Other times it makes sense to share files. Sharing generally means you have set up a network, which generally means you have more than one person using more than one computer somewhere in your home or business.

This week I'm going to talk about sharing printers. We share a printer at our house. The printer sits next to my computer, but my wife can print coupons from Borders on it from her computer, and the kids can print homework on it as well. The first few times they did this after I got it set up I nearly hit the ceiling. There I was, intently staring at my screen, completely absorbed in whatever I was working on. All of a sudden the trusty old ink-jet started printing something with the chug-chug noise it makes and paper slowly making its way along the rollers. Yipe! They had to scrape me off the ceiling!

Time to Choose a Small-business Retirement Plan?

: By Reprinted with permission of Invstment Representative Celine Richardson of Ithaca's EdwardJones; Business & Technology; | Feb 23, 2006 |

If you own a small business, you're always thinking about today. How can you get more customers today? Is your cash flow sufficient for today? What are your competitors doing today? However, you can't forget about tomorrow. Specifically, you need to make sure you're building sufficient financial resources to enjoy a comfortable retirement. To help you do just that, you need the right small-business retirement plan.

And since it's the beginning of a new year, it's a perfect time to set up the right plan for your needs. You have several attractive options, all of which offer some key benefits, including tax-deferred earnings, the ability to make pretax contributions and a variety of investment choices.

Dr. Digit: Flat Computer Screens

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Feb 23, 2006 |

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Have you noticed that all the computers on TV shows have those flat panel screens? Somehow in TV Land everybody has the money to spend on flat panels and all those fictional land fills are filled with conventional monitors. They look modern and cool, hip and up to date. They also cost a lot more, so are they worth it?

First some acronyms. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors are like the old TVs. In fact they are what those TVs use to display pictures. Three color guns shoot light onto the surface of the screen so you can watch the castaways on "Lost" or "Gilligan's Island." They're big, they're bulky and they heat up. Flat panels are Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) -- well some are plasma, but those tend to be those honker flat TVs you lust over at Best Buy. LCDs are made of a matrix of crystals that form the pictures as electricity is applied to them. A back light illuminates the surface of this matrix to make the picture visible.

Take Advantage of Higher IRA "Catch-up" Limits

: By Reprinted with permission of Invstment Representative Celine Richardson of Ithaca's EdwardJones; Business & Technology; | Feb 16, 2006 |

Now that it's 2006, you are one year closer to retirement. Of course, if you are still in your twenties, this milestone may not mean that much to you. But if you are 50 or older, the prospect of actually becoming a retiree looms larger as the years go by. Fortunately, it's just become a little easier to build savings for your retirement years. Why? Because, starting Jan. 1, you can put in $1,000 in "catch-up" contributions to your traditional or Roth IRA, up from $500 in 2005. So, given the $4,000 annual limit for regular contributions, you can put in a total of $5,000 to your IRA in 2006.

Dr Digit: Internet Phones

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Feb 16, 2006 |

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Lately Time Warner Cable has been inundating us with ads about their Internet phone. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephones take analog signals and transmit them digitally over the Internet, bypassing the conventional phone company's infrastructure and high costs. While you can connect with nothing more than speakers and a microphone attached to your computer with some free services like Skype, the companies that capture the average imagination are those that use regular phones.

The advantages to VOIP service are many. You can take your VOIP phone adapter with you when you travel, and your phone will ring wherever you are. Another advantage is price. Top rated Vonage has a $25 per month unlimited local and long distance plan that is about half that of a similar Verizon plan. If you still have the old Verizon Freedom plan Vonage was less than half.

Don't Be a "Groundhog Day" Investor

: By Reprinted with permission of Invstment Representative Celine Richardson of Ithaca's EdwardJones; Business & Technology; | Feb 9, 2006 |

This week, the spotlight is on Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous groundhog. As the folklore goes, if Phil sees his shadow, he anticipates six more weeks of bad weather, and he retreats underground. If the day is cloudy, he thinks it's spring and he stays above ground. Of course, many of us would say that Phil is never right. If you live on the East Coast, or in the Midwest or the Great Plains states, you probably don't view the weather as "springlike" in early February, or six weeks later, either. But Phil is not alone in reliving his errors. Many investors also keep making the same mistakes, year after year.

Dr Digit: Computer Viruses

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Feb 9, 2006 |

Dr. Digit 'Splains It All

There are two kinds of computer file, executable programs and data files. Data is just stuff. A book report, a picture of Aunt Nellie, your budget for the year or whatever. Executable Programs do things. Your word processor is one, as is your picture editor, your web browser, your iTunes software and so on. Let's say a little program that says "I there" attaches itself to your word processor. Whenever you want to write a program you start the word processor and it says "Hi there" to you. You think, "how nice, it likes me!"

Well, maybe. Maybe not. Computer viruses are little programs that duplicate themselves just as biological viruses do. They infect other programs so that when you run them you also run the virus. If it's a malicious virus it can cause irreparable damage to your computer, delete your files, and generally make your life miserable.

Dr Digit: Secure On-line Ordering

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Feb 2, 2006 |

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Have you ever thought twice before using your credit card in an on-line store? Shopping sites, banking sites, even sites for the lovelorn say they are secure, but what does that mean, really? Can't your credit card number or social security number or grandchildren's names be hijacked as they whiz through the Internet from your browser to the remote site's servers? And if it is really secure, how do you know?

To tell you the truth, I do a lot of shopping on the Internet and haven't had any security problems. I've bought books, software, flowers, gifts, ink and labels for my printer, blank CDs and DVDs and services. I even paid for the Lansing Star's logo over the Web.

Dr Digit: Your Own Web Site Part III

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Jan 26, 2006 |

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Last week we talked about what should go on your web site. This week let's talk about getting it onto your web site. Web pages are generally text files with little codes interspersed among the text that tell your browser how to format the material, what pictures to show, sounds to play, and so on. So how do you make these files?

It's just like building a home. You can build one yourself, hire someone to build one for you, or buy pre-fab pieces to assemble. You don't have to be a programmer to build a Web page if you are willing to get tools that will do the back-end coding for you. You actually have quite a few options.

Dr Digit: Your Own Web Site Part II

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Jan 19, 2006 |

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Last week I broke down what you need to get your Web site onto the Internet: a Domain Name (the address people go to), a Web hosting account (the place the address points to) and Content (what they see when they get there). This week I'm going to talk about Content.

The great thing about the Internet is that your Web site can be seen by millions of people all over the world. The bad thing is that there is so much there that people will have a hard time finding out about your site. And once they do find it you will want them to stay and look around.

Dr Digit: Your Own Web Site Part I

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Jan 12, 2006 |

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Have you thought of setting up your own web site and wondered what it would take? You need little more than an idea to publish yourself on the World Wide Web. It doesn't have to be expensive, and you have a lot of flexibility as well as a potentially huge audience.

First a quick word about what the Internet actually is. Computer networks are two or more computers that can "talk" to each other. They can share files and information. "Local Area Networks" (LAN) are just what the name implies. If you have two computers in your house that are connected you have a LAN. "Wide Area Networks" (WAN) are a larger group of computers in several locations that can talk to each other. The Internet is an enormous WAN.

Dr Digit: Internet Radio

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Jan 5, 2006 |

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One of my favorite things when I had an AOL account was AOL Radio. It had largely commercial free programming -- a few ads were interspersed with the content, with stations to suit every taste. On top of that it showed who was playing and what song they were performing. And if you really liked a song it offered links to purchase the CD, plus links to information about the artists and the music. I had tried many other on-line radio offerings, but none matched AOL's variety, ease of use, rich feature set and refreshing lack of popup advertisements.

My favorite purchase of 2005 was an XM radio for my car. It had many of the features I loved from AOL Rqadio, including commercial free programming, genre-based stations and a display that tells who is playing and what they are performing. On top of that they had news and talk stations, including popular television news and sports, comedy and kids.

Dr. Digit: Computer Acronyms

: By Dan Veaner; Business & Technology; | Dec 22, 2005 |

Dr. Digit 'Splains It All

Being in the computer industry has been a challenge for me because I am acronym-impaired. I always pronounce acronyms as if they were words. I say "Gooey" for GUI, "Middie" for MIDI, and "Mipps" for MIPS. A character created by a local juggler is "Mimo the Talking Mime," pronounced mee-moe. MIMO is another computer acronym. But what do they mean? Acronyms have become so ubiquitous that people use them as words without always knowing what they stand for.

What is a GUI? It stands for Graphical User Interface. It means that you see pictures, icons and symbols on your screen (as in Windows or Mac OS) instead of just text (as in DOS and UNIX). And MIDI is "Musical Instrument Digital Interface." And MIPS is Million Instructions Per Second," pretty fast, especially if you are in the Army! And that talking mime one? MIMO stands for "Multiple Input, Multiple Output." And in case you were wondering, in computerese, MIME stands for "Multimedia Internet Message Extensions." In (sort of) plain talk it means coding attachments to your e-mail such as a picture of little Junior so they will go through your modem without confusing it, then un-coding it on the recipient's end so they can see the picture you sent.

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