Joshua Volz asked:


What’s the least favorite thing that can happen to your computer? Is it a virus? Is it the hard drive crashing and loosing all of your important work files, personal photographs and music? Nobody imagines that this can happen to them. Most of the time, it doesn’t happen. You go peacefully through your computer usage for years and then suddenly one morning you turn on your computer and it gives you the cryptic message: “No Operating System Found.” Everyone needs to learn to backup their important files!

Businesses have known for some time that if they loose their data they are in real trouble. Stories of businesses closing their doors because they lost their important customer data or the source code to their software are not uncommon. USA Today reported in 2006 that lost data cost businesses billions of dollars. What do business file losses have to do with you? You have more important personal data on your computer than any business does when measured in sentimental value. Businesses don’t have sentiment, so they only stand to lose huge sums of money. You stand to lose a piece of your personal history.

Nobody wants to believe it can happen. Most people don’t backup their data. People are naturally collectors and this habit extends to your computer. You collect music you like, photos of your family or important work documents. Everyone should be backing up their important files.

This blog is about how and why people should backup their personal data. What’s stopping people from backing up their data? I don’t believe it is laziness, because people have gone to a lot of trouble to collect the files that are important to them on their computers. I believe that the more non-technical users simply don’t known what to backup and how to do it easily. This blog will answer those questions.



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Ron McNeil asked:


If you were wondering if there was anyway you could make your business transactions real-time and not factored on the time of services of your bank or service provider, you need not wonder any more. Close to real time processing systems employing online billing software has been the new age advents of the internet. Online Billing software enhances the services offered by the internet by making things as simple as it can be for the end user.

The one click shopping is no longer a dream. Several interesting techniques are employed by these companies utilizing such online billing software. Classified ad software, the term, that is almost concurrent with online billing software, is the major source of marketing for such companies. If you ever thought looking up for businesses over the internet or products for exchange or even a right place to donate as charity on your birthday, you need not , any longer , browse through the yellow pages for services or flip through countless irrelevant ads on any hard print. Classified ad software aims at customers seeking specific services by giving the host an opportunity to dynamically display only relevant ads to the consumer. Looking up for things are getting easier , many companies develop these classified ad software , targeting businesses and individuals who utilize them in turn to turn potential visitors to customers . This is where online billing software comes into picture.

Transforming customer support and billing online enables telecom carriers to reduce billing processing charges, improving the tedious process and target more specifically on marketing. This process too, is readily aided by classified ad software. Such software also enhances the quality of CRM. The main focus will be, by these classified ad software companies, to provide services that can convince the unconvinced and to change the conventional theories of static marketing. This system is customer targeted and hence its impact is more. For example, as a comparison, a company employing such classified ad software to market and sell products as compared to a company practicing the traditional billing and marketing techniques has been seen to have larger coverage of consumers, better customer care and support and enhanced CRM. Since close to only five percent of the entire consumers stay addicted to online billing as primary transaction method, the challenge will be to enhance marketing strategies. Classified ad software aids in this area.

The need is to decide what software you plan to use. Classified ad software can provide marketing support, what billing can be a tedious once your market becomes considerably large. Obvious decision would be to have good quality software. But time spent must be very little on numbers. Typical billing software allows a database of all details of consumers, sales, stock and suppliers and many more. Many companies claim to be the ultimate solution for all business problems, but many remain only as promises. The choice of such software, aided by classified ad software is very vital. Some tips are given below.

1.) Decide on your scale and budget: scale of business and requirements primarily dictates what you will buy, but since software is available for nuts to castles, you will need to fix your budget.

2.) Database efficiency. : Some software is designed for specific types of businesses. Choose one that is close to yours and remember this is the core of the software, and these records relate to the consumers who were benefited by the classified ad software turning into potential customers. Hence high efficiency database is required.

3.) Record maintenance: you should know how records are managed, a typical example would be, a good system will not cause any chaos over a consumer with multiple contact details. Since most advertising is testified by word of mouth, your ads should not reflect bad data to turn away vital consumers.

4.) Ability to find relevant data: What good can software do if it can not find what you are looking for from it? Make sure your software has good search ability. Data retrieval should be easy.

5.) Online support: Customers need you all the time. Software with this motto will be very good for your business.

6.) Backup and update: A system that can not keep updated with time and technology and is not failsafe is never a good one for you.

All said and pondered, it is the difference between good online billing software combined with high marketing efficiency and one that’s incompetent that could result in the growth of your business.



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Ron McNeil asked:


If you were wondering if there was anyway you could make your business transactions real-time and not factored on the time of services of your bank or service provider, you need not wonder any more. Close to real time processing systems employing online billing software has been the new age advents of the internet. Online Billing software enhances the services offered by the internet by making things as simple as it can be for the end user.

The one click shopping is no longer a dream. Several interesting techniques are employed by these companies utilizing such online billing software. Classified ad software, the term, that is almost concurrent with online billing software, is the major source of marketing for such companies. If you ever thought looking up for businesses over the internet or products for exchange or even a right place to donate as charity on your birthday, you need not , any longer , browse through the yellow pages for services or flip through countless irrelevant ads on any hard print.

Such software aims at customers seeking specific services by giving the host an opportunity to dynamically display only relevant ads to the consumer. Looking up for things are getting easier , many companies develop these classified ad software , targeting businesses and individuals who utilize them in turn to turn potential visitors to customers . This is where online billing software comes into picture.

Transforming customer support and billing online enables telecom carriers to reduce billing processing charges, improving the tedious process and target more specifically on marketing. This process too, is readily aided by classified ad software. Such software also enhances the quality of CRM. The main focus will be, by these classified ad software companies, to provide services that can convince the unconvinced and to change the conventional theories of static marketing. This system is customer targeted and hence its impact is more.

For example, as a comparison, a company employing such classified ad software to market and sell products as compared to a company practicing the traditional billing and marketing techniques has been seen to have larger coverage of consumers, better customer care and support and enhanced CRM. Since close to only five percent of the entire consumers stay addicted to online billing as primary transaction method, the challenge will be to enhance marketing strategies. Classified ad software aids in this area.

The need is to decide what software you plan to use. This type of software can provide marketing support, what billing can be a tedious once your market becomes considerably large. Obvious decision would be to have good quality software. But time spent must be very little on numbers. Typical billing software allows a database of all details of consumers, sales, stock and suppliers and many more. Many companies claim to be the ultimate solution for all business problems, but many remain only as promises. The choice of such software, aided by classified ad software is very vital. Some tips are given below.

1.) Decide on your scale and budget: scale of business and requirements primarily dictates what you will buy, but since software is available for nuts to castles, you will need to fix your budget.

2.) Database efficiency. : Some software is designed for specific types of businesses. Choose one that is close to yours and remember this is the core of the software, and these records relate to the consumers who were benefited by the classified ad software turning into potential customers. Hence high efficiency database is required.

3.) Record maintenance: you should know how records are managed, a typical example would be, a good system will not cause any chaos over a consumer with multiple contact details. Since most advertising is testified by word of mouth, your ads should not reflect bad data to turn away vital consumers.

4.) Ability to find relevant data: What good can software do if it can not find what you are looking for from it? Make sure your software has good search ability. Data retrieval should be easy.

5.) Online support: Customers need you all the time. Software with this motto will be very good for your business.

6.) Backup and update: A system that can not keep updated with time and technology and is not failsafe is never a good one for you.

All said and pondered, it is the difference between good online billing software combined with high marketing efficiency and one that’s incompetent that could result in the growth of your business.



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David Marc Fishman asked:


The key to effective and efficient spyware detection and removal is in the spyware file definitions database that is provided by the software developer. Spyware removal software is just what it sounds like it is, a software program that will go through your computer and get rid of spyware and other programs you do not want to have on your machine. However, since it can be transmitted in a number of ways, spyware removal software may be something you want to try just in case you have acquired software without your knowing it. Several spyware removal software programs have been identified as fakes, but not before many computer users were drawn into the trap. With the demand for anti-spyware tools continuously on the rise because of the constant release of new and more invasive spyware scams, computer users may find themselves falling victim to malicious software downloads while searching for the right spyware removal tool.

The computer user will be unaware that this is happening as spyware software applications are usually hidden components in both freeware and shareware programs that can be downloaded from the internet. The challenge for us is to know where to go for these results and recommendations, and to know which of the anti-spyware and anti-virus programs to use on our computers. A real benefit for us is that most of the top rated anti-spyware and anti-virus programs are free, or available in Trial or Demo versions. There are thousands of these programs out on the internet that are just waiting to leach onto their next unsuspecting victim and launch hundreds of annoying popups on the victim’s computer or worst steal the victims Identity. Besides the most obvious issues of identity theft, spyware, adware, malware and other similar programs can greatly slow down your PC causing it to behave in ways you would never expect. The free spyware cleaners are good programs to get rid of spyware viruses you already have on your computer now. But how much of your personal information, passwords and even credit card numbers did these programs send out before they were removed.

To keep the anti-virus software working effectively it must be updated every couple of days and letting it become out-dated may harm your computer. Anti-virus software will help to keep your computer safe against worms, viruses, Trojan horses, and other uninvited programs. The important thing to remember about anti-virus software is that you make sure to update it often so that you get the latest computer virus definitions installed into the software program.

Here’s what you should look for when choosing anti-virus software:. They speak of up-to-date definitions and thorough scanning of the computer, and they are correct in that the anti-virus programs of today are leaps and bounds ahead of what was available just a couple years ago. The general way that almost every anti-virus program works is that it must be updated regularly to download the definitions of the newest viruses and spyware.



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John Carthy asked:


 

 

The year 2008 began with a dire prediction from Subodh Bapat, a vice president in the eco-computing team at Sun Microsystems, when he declared, “You?ll see a massive failure in a year.” He went on to say, “We are going to see a data center failure of that scale,” referring to the worm that took down 5% of worldwide UNIX boxes in 1988.¹

This time he isn’t citing security lapses as the root cause but rather failure caused by the massive computing power required to run today’s applications.

Though certainly an extreme position, the past year has seen a rash of data center failures that brings into question how reliable single data centers are for the delivery of mission-critical applications.

Vulnerabilities ranging from the most common, like natural disasters and infrastructure failure (data center power outage, burst pipes, construction work damaging fibre lines, ) to hardware failure, storage or database failure and common software problems, have been causing regular disruptions to businesses and come with a high price tag.

Recent events in the news support the fact that even with good planning, resourcing and design, some of the most sophisticated facilities can still experience catastrophic failure.

Last summer, the state-of-the-art 365 Data Center, in San Francisco – built with more than $125 million – was offline for hours due to a power grid outage by Pacific Gas & Electric that put a significant portion of San Francisco in the dark. Subsequently, the backup generators at the facility also experienced failure and had to be manually started.²

“When researching data centers, new facilities often boast N+2 levels of redundancy,” says Roger Smith, V.P. of Operations at Ceryx Inc. “However, as these same facilities fill up and age, that often becomes N+1, or in some areas no redundancy at all.”

According to Sun Microsystems Executives, the typical life span of a data center is only about 10 to 12 years and many data centers – built at the beginning of the dot-com era – now need to be rebuilt.

“As the person who is accountable for uptime I have to balance which applications are considered critical by upper-management and clearly communicate the cost and investment required to provide high-availability,” says Roger Smith. “When you present the facts, it becomes clear to everyone that an in-house data center couldn’t possibly provide the levels of redundancy required and even on a co-location level we would need redundancy.”

In many cases, no contingency plan could avoid the issues that plague individual data centers. On July 14th of this year, the Peer 1 data center in downtown Vancouver – one of the largest facilities in Canada – was offline for almost an entire day. An underground fire caused massive power outages throughout downtown Vancouver. While backup generators at Peer 1 started without issue, the water-based cooling system failed as firefighters – in their attempt to douse the fire – depleted the water pressure required to keep the cooling systems operational. This caused the backup generators to overheat and any failover to UPS was limited to a short battery life.³

In a similar event this summer, The Planet, a prominent hosting provider in Houston, experienced a major explosion in their data center, taking more than 9000 customer servers offline for several days. Backup generators worked perfectly, but again the fire department would not allow the facility to resume power until it was deemed safe. In some cases servers were physically migrated to a new facility.

In the aftermath of this disaster the Planet was applauded for their response to the crisis; allocating every resource they could to address the problem and proactively communicating status reports and issuing SLA credits. 

Google, whose Enterprise App customers experienced multiple outages on August 6th, 11th and 15th of this year, took a more reactive stance, promising to build a communication dashboard and issuing a blanket credit for all customers, regardless of whether they were impacted by the outage.

The real question remains, what is the cost of data center failure and the resulting downtime for organizations? Is it covered by SLA credits? Most SLA credits reflect the cost of the services rendered and almost never provide for business losses.

At the Continuity Insights Management Conference in 2006, Agility Recovery Solutions stated that 78% of businesses who suffer a catastrophe without a contingency plan are out of business within 2 years. And 90% of companies unable to resume business operations within 5 days of a disaster are out of business within 1 year. 

Clearly some applications are considered more critical and have more visibility than others. Large companies feel the impact immediately when their ERP, CRM (SaleForce.com is still plagued by a prime-time outage more than two years ago caused by a failure with an Oracle Database Cluster ?), Business Intelligence or E-mail systems become unavailable.

However, with the proliferation of mobile devices and ‘everywhere access’, e-mail clearly stands out as the premier mission-critical application of today. Systems like Lotus Notes® and Microsoft® Exchange maintain a living record of a company’s existence, storing every activity, process and thought an organization and its employees have. It’s no surprise public companies are now required to maintain a record of e-mail activity for compliance purposes.

While the vast majority of businesses rely on e-mail everyday to send contracts, proposals, quotes and the majority of correspondence, most e-mail systems have not yet reached the point of reliability that phone service provides (99.999% or 5.2 minutes of downtime per year)

According to Osterman Research, most North American businesses experience more than one e-mail outage every month — and many indicate that they could lose more than $100,000 as the result of a single major e-mail outage.¹

Osterman also found that the average business experiences nearly seven hours of e-mail downtime every year and that outages can bring many workers to a virtual standstill, who on average are 25% less productive during e-mail downtime.

“Forget the fact my billing rate gets impacted if I can’t access my email system,” says a partner at a major North American law firm who prefers to remain anonymous. “My company image gets tarnished immeasurably when I am working on a multi-million dollar, highly-confidential deal and I have to send out a set of documents using my Hotmail account because my email system is down. Somebody gets fired for that.”

Michael Osterman, goes on to say, “Organizations are not meeting their targets for messaging system availability,” and adds that the average e-mail system experiences about 70 minutes of downtime during a typical month, which translates to 99.84% uptime. To this he poses the question, “Is this good enough?” ¹¹

 

Ceryx Inc., a Hosted Microsoft Exchange provider with data center facilities in Canada and the United States, doesn?t think so. They were the first in the industry to offer a real 100% SLA based on their multi-data center architecture and software design. Customers? data is replicated in real-time and resides in both data centers – more than 500 miles apart – so that even in the event of catastrophic failure, the primary system would fail over with almost no impact to the end-user.

“We operate on the premise that even the best data center can and will experience failure due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control,” says Dr. David Penny, CIO at Ceryx. “We focus our R&D on keeping the application highly available and rely on our replication technology to mitigate the vulnerabilities that exist on the data center level. And then we make the operating and capital investments necessary to execute daily.”

For the past 4 years Penny and his team have worked with Enterprise Messaging systems, like Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, developing technology to deliver high availability. Since 2004 they have been providing a geo-replicated Microsoft® Exchange 2003 service to medium and large-sized companies who see the cost and performance benefits of the Ceryx solution.

Most recently Dr. Penny and his team have been working with Geographic Clustering in Server 2008 and native Microsoft Exchange 2007 CCR (Cluster Continuous Replication) technology. What this allows for is clustering over a wide area network. Traditional clusters, which rely on the same RAID system in order to continue to function properly, are susceptible to logical corruption and certain physical corruptions that can propagate across an entire RAID array causing complete failure. Geo-Clustering eliminates the reliance of redundant servers on the same set of disks thereby eliminating a very common single point of failure.

“Even with WAN replication we need to ensure that the corruption itself isn?t replicated,” says Dr. Penny. For this they are utilizing log-shipping with delayed application rather than block-level replication, thereby avoiding the replication of corruptions caused by application defects. By monitoring performance on the primary system closely they can stop bad changes from being committed to the secondary system.

Beyond the physical vulnerabilities of a single data center, Ceryx is protected against a number of other vulnerabilities anyone using a single data center is exposed to. “When negotiating our contract, our provider knows how easy it is for us to move facilities,” says Roger Smith. “The data is already replicated and we don?t need to physically migrate servers. Migration to a new facility can occur without any impact to our customers. We can’t be held hostage to a bad contract or radical increases in pricing or continued poor performance.”

Ceryx also has a lot of flexibility where routing is concerned and should a backbone be down or congested, Ceryx with front-end servers operating at both facilities, has the flexibility to route traffic through a separate facility and bypass potential network congestion that can plague operators running out of a single data center.

While there are a number of solutions in the market that provide continuity through an interim e-mail system in the event of downtime, the Ceryx system is different in that it doesn’t require the user to even change settings when the e-mail system fails over to the secondary facility. Moreover, things like e-mail history, sent items and calendar entries all remain intact.

In this respect the Ceryx solution is not a continuity solution but rather a high-availability solution that provides layers of redundancy, from the software level up to the facility level.

 

Hosted archiving solutions – a good plan for any company facing regulatory and legal compliance – also provides a layer of assurance and access to e-mail records, should the primary facility suffer complete failure. However, these solutions will not provide business continuity or availability.

Moreover, if the primary e-mail provider experiences failure due to data corruption, the data being archived may be corrupt as well. Large data stores, even at the mailbox level, lead to corruption and the current trend of Hosted Exchange vendors selling e-mail accounts with massive storage allowances is introducing a higher probability of data corruption and subsequent failure. A good archiving strategy can be used to keep mailbox sizes manageable and subsequently reduce the likelihood of corruption.

So while extremely valuable in today’s world of mission-critical e-mail, archiving to an external hosted facility should not be mistaken for a multi-data center strategy. Instead archiving is a good backup plan and will not provide the protection businesses today need against the inevitable vulnerabilities that exist with a single-data center strategy.

These vulnerabilities are typically covered in the fine print of a facility?s SLAs, under the term “Force Majeure”; a phrase often translated as an “Act of God? or the literal French translation, “Superior Force” and is included as a clause to excuse interruptions in services caused by extraordinary circumstances beyond the control of the provider. Circumstances that – as demonstrated over the past year – are becoming more and more common.

Michael Osterman concludes, in his presentation on the Importance of E-mail Continuity, that the only solution to the inevitable problems that plague mission-critical service delivery is with a geo-replicated, multi-data center solution, like the one being offered by Ceryx.



Footnotes:

¹ CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9828570-7.html



 

² Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2007/07/24/generator-failures-caused-365-main-outage

 

³ Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/07/15/vancouver-power-outage-kos-plenty-of-fish/

 

4 Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/06/01/explosion-at-the-planet-causes-major-outage/

 

5 Center Networks: http://www.centernetworks.com/the-planet-data-center-fire

 

6 CIO WebBlog: http://www.cio-weblog.com/50226711/google_manning_up_for_august_outages.php

7 London Chamber of Commerce Study, 2006

8 The Importance of Messaging in the Enterprise: A survey of email application continuity, Applicationcontinuity.org, 2006

9 CIO WebBlog: http://www.cio-weblog.com/50226711/salesforcecom_outage_root_cause_oracle.php

 

10 BNET Business Network: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4PRN/is_2008_July_8/ai_n27893385

 

¹¹ Appcon 2007: Application Continuity Conference, ‘The importance of Email Continuity’ – (webinar available at http://www.teneros.com/infocenter/ )

 



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Stig Kristoffersen asked:


Data mining or Data Search – What is the difference and why will it make the difference in the future?

Data Search or Data mining?

Today all of us do our data search on internet today with an internet search engine like www.google.com or www.yahoo.com or its likes. Anyone knows that it is not rare to get hits by the millions for one search alone. In best cases we get only a couple of 10’s of thousands of hits on our keyword we searched for. How is it possible for us to extract any knowledge from all these hits we encounter from our searches? And how do we qualify the hits we get from these as well? This is were we differentiate between the data search and data mining. Data mining goes beyond the search as it tries to find relationships as well as do investigations into unstructured or untraditional data and transform it to knowledge instead of just another information structure.

Data Mining

Data mining is a huge field of interest for many various groups of people and organizations. There is lots of literature, lectures, software available to assist us in our data mining, despite this there are lots of unsolved applied Computer Science research problems in areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Architecture & Engineering (ARC). Database Management Systems (DBMS), Graphics and Human-Computer Interaction (GHCI), Operating Systems & Networking (OSNT), Programming Systems (PS), Scientific Computing (SCI), Security (SEC) and finally Theory (THY).

Data Mining (DM) or at is also called Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) has increased in focus as our bases of data has become larger and more complex. More and more data are found within text just as you read now. Not all data can be searched in traditional manner, such as photos. Rarely you can find what you need from headers, web content keywords and its like. You have to dig pretty much deeper in order to get what you really look for. So, Knowledge Discovery Database or Data mining is consisting of various elements. It includes data discovery, cleaning, and preparation and Visualization is a key component (and can be very problematic). It often involves a search for patterns, correlations, etc.; and automated and objective classification.

It includes data modeling and testing of the models which again depends a lot on the type of data, the study domain (science, commerce, and so on), the nature of the problem and so forth. In general the Data mining algorithms are computational embodiments of statistics

The Industry

There has developed an industry of keyword experts into the market the later years, these experts claim to give you the best hit rate on your web page by using the right key words on your web sites. This may be true, but is that all that takes to be successful on the web? Or is this that will distinguish you from the rest as an individual or as a company? I am not so sure, and I think this really is an overstated marketing hype, however should not be disregarded, but the focus has to come somewhere else to make you stand out in the personal or business market place.

Apart from the internet industry and their keen interest in keywords, we have to look into the matter of data retrieval and advanced search apart from using the internet search engines. We have to first see what kind of research are done in this area.

Data Mining Research – Background

Do we have the capacity to perform real data mining, and most important of all, do we have any research arenas for this type of activity – data mining? We also need to have an understanding of who are the main contributors to information on the internet and how objective and genuine this information is. This will assist you in transforming the information to knowledge.

Data Mining Research – Commercial Side

Yes, we have several private companies such as Clear Forest, that is doing Commercial ROI of Text-Mining, and we have Entopia, Inc. doing Social Networks Analysis and Mining and Inxight which is one of the leading provider of enterprise software solutions for information discovery from unstructured data. Then we have Array Biopharma which uses Visualization and Data Mining to Decipher Chemical and Biological Data.

Data Mining Research – Academic Side

Several universities around the world are dealing with Data Mining as a specific topic in their curriculum. However, few are really deep into this topic, and therefore lots of the research we see today, is founded by private commercial interests.

There is however one academia that we can see makes use of Data Mining as one of their branches of Computer Science, and that is California Tech in USA. Professor S. G. Djorgovski heads introduction and deepening into this subject and clearly he sees the need for education and research into this subject.

Summary

Do we understand the ramification of our data bases and how much we can retrieve from them, my answer is still no!

We do not understand as individuals nor as companies the value of all data we have and how little knowledge we extract from them in our daily use. I have touched into social networks sites on the web and their sparse use of knowledge extraction through their social network analysis tools, as well as parts of the industry like in pharmacy, patent organizations using knowledge Discovery Database or Data mining in their daily work. However given the fact that internet still is immature and still the users are immature, we struggle with the fact that we do not utilize the power we have at hand. As individuals to empower our intelligence or as said by some in the industry, Intelligence Amplifiers or as organizations or companies, to create the business advantage or create new ideas or to become real innovators within the field of interest. Also as marketing tools, the real Data miners are bound to be the winners.

Afterwords

I have some key reference resource persons for you to explore further, and to go from there. That is if you would like to explore more on this subject. Mind yourself, this is not an extensive reference library, but only intended for the purpose to get you into the subject and to understand how much data mining involves and how many angles there are to this subject.

Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro’s KDNuggets

Andy Pryke’s “The Data Mine”

ACM’s Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery in Databases and their newsletter, “Explorations”

Andrew Moore’s statistics and data mining tutorials

The Classification Society of North America (CSNA)

Weka package

David Dowe’s mixture modeling

Fionn Murtagh’s multivariate data analysis software

StatLib at CMU

StatCodes at PSU



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Wade Anderson asked:


A software license agreement is either a manual or electronic memorandum of a contractual agreement between the producer of software and the end user, granting to the end user a software license to use the software legally. The user can be either a legal entity or an end user and sometimes the agreement is called the end user license agreement. This contract will clearly state all the parameters of the various permissions given to the end user. In case the software license agreement is between the software producer and a business or government undertaking some special clauses are included relevant to the agreement which are unique for the licensed software.

Very often, the agreement comes shrink wrapped with the product prior to installation of the software. If the user agrees to the terms and conditions, as stated in the agreement, he or she may continue with the installation and use of the software product or else he or she may refuse the product and thus not use the software. Mostly, users do not take the trouble of reading all the clauses of the software license agreement and just click on “Accept” and begin using the software anyway. This is because of the great depth of detail held within the license agreement. The enforceability of such agreements is open to debate, especially in the United States.

The copyright laws governing making backup copies of the purchased software allows the owner of the software to make copies for the intention of backup purposes only. However, there are various interpretations to this and a certain amount of ambiguity in this regard allows end users to make copies for purposes other than merely backing up their software.

The majority of the purchased software is liable to perform as per specifications but mostly the agreement disclaims any warranty and limits any damages to just the cost of the software. In addition, some agreements prohibit the use of any reverse engineering in order to protect their trade secrets.

In the world of computers, copyrighted software sold is of two types, namely open source/free software and closed source/proprietary software. It may be added that not all software is copyrighted. There is also one other type of software that is called “abandonware” software. This is a type of software that is not being sold or supported by its copyright holder. This means that though this software is still available in the market its support and development has ceased and that it is not actively being protected, represented or supported.

Using box wrapped software implies that once the wrapper has been opened the user is giving their assent to the software terms contained within. This type of agreement is termed as “click-wrap agreements”. The popularity of click-wrap agreements is increasing since it allows the user to read the terms and conditions prior to accepting them. It has also been found to be legally enforceable in the United States with courts generally upholding such contracts. A prime example of click-wrap agreements is Hotmail, the email program sold by MSN.

There is also a distinction between personal and commercial use of the software. Personal use implies that the software is being used in one’s personal capacity while commercial use implies that the software is being used to obtain commercial or monetary gain from use of the software.



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Dan Glauber asked:


Enterprise Data Management (EDM) is the basic concept of managing data in a central repository with protected access along with ways to share data responsibly.  Various approaches have been pushed into a production environment with this goal in mind.  These uncoordinated approaches by various segments of the organization can result in data conflicts and quality inconsistencies – making it difficult for users to trust the data as it is incorporated into models, mapped to applications, used to perform calculations, shared among participants and relied upon for decision-making.  Enterprise level data search capabilities has proven to be very useful for a fast paced environment and can provide a rapid return of input that is valuable.  This technology helps the end user make faster decisions based on the same information that could have taken days to receive instead of a few seconds.  Many developers and companies have created a wide variety of this same concept, but over the years that concept has strayed off course.  The basic concept is to create a single source search capability with the ease of use for the end user along with reliable results that pertain to the end users request in a timely manner.   Now we have a large amount of software that performs similar functions each with a slightly different take on the overall objective.   Operational DataTek puts the simple concept back in the forefront and pull the efforts of different communities into one management system.

BUILDING THE OBJECTIVE: 

While the Operational DataTek solution was being design and conceptualized, the key fundamentals were never overlooked.  Provide the user with what they need to do their job faster and more efficiently than ever before.  How can this be achieved?  Simple, listen to their request and learn from there needs.  In order to do this the system will also have to conform to change.  A dynamically changing system is what holds the key to success.  If the user is searching for a specific location in an area of interest, those results will be packed with information on that item.  Now the system knows the users is doing research on this particular item and will automatically let that user know when new items come in that meet the criteria either by instant message, email or notification the next time they login.  We can even provide a cross reference to more information that has commonalities besides the original keywords that were used to return the result set.  Now you’re getting results that are specific to your search without providing a cross reference of key words to pull back data.  A basic keyword search doesn’t have to return the basic results; it should contain a rich set of content that can help the end user expand their view on the problem set.  Our system provides that technology for the user.

Technical solutions designed for simplicity and security requirements working together without compromise to the purpose is our solution.  Empower your analysts with a single source solution and open the door to data sharing across the board that will result in answers that didn’t exist before.

AUTOMATION, NOT PERSPIRATION!   

Building a data management system that maintains itself is the ideal solution for any agency or command utilizing these tools.  Even with computer technology today, a 100% automated solution isn’t realistic, but the closer you are to that percentage the lower overall cost of maintenance.  We have created a system that is automated to the max.  It is automated where is should be automated and manual process are kept where necessary.  As new data sets are added or existing sets change, the system will adjust itself to maximize on productivity and system resources.  An end user can login to the system and manage their own datasets by either uploading products or creating them on the fly.  Simple data entry forms make it easy to create a standardized product.  As a product is created, it can automatically be searchable by other users doing similar research.  The creator of the product can manage how the document is handled, which means the end user can simply make a few changes to their settings and their products are either shared with the entire network or specific users and groups.  This is data sharing at its finest.  Let’s let the people who create these products share them out to who needs to know and get problems sets resolved.  The automated system will share out the products created or uploaded by users based on how the user wants their information shared; there is nothing they need to do to incorporate them into any search results.

DATA, DATA & MORE DATA:

Data is the heart of the system.  Our system will provide a way for users to create their own data sets and maintain them within their own profile.  Along with the creation of products the user can search other user’s products as long as those users allow access.  Besides the user creating and maintaining their own products, there are alternative methods to obtain data and we’re ready for it.  Some data sets can be ingested automatically from locations worldwide.  Either through FTP, basic file system locations or connecting directly to another database with allowed permissions. 



FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – 100% Automation

Data starts out from the original source and is transferred to the Common File System location

Data will be tagged and parsed and ready for final ingestion process in the System Database

Data is now searchable by users 

File System Transfer – 50% Automation

Data starts out from the original source and is manually dropped into a folder on the Common File System location

Data will be tagged and parsed and ready for final ingestion process in the System Database

Data is now searchable by users 

DB 2 DB: – 100% Automation

The system connects to a remote database with given permissions by source owner

Database structure of remote database is mapped and individual products are created and dropped into a folder ready for ingestion

Data will be tagged and parsed and ready for final ingestion process in the System Database

Data is now searchable by users 



DATASHARE: 

Each user will be able to create and maintain their own products using a simple to use interface.  Once a product is created, it will be indexed with the other datasets for optimal performance.  Even though data sharing the one of the main goals, certain data sets require more secure access.  These data sets will only be available to users with the right credentials.  Along with individual user products created for sharing, a data set can come into the system automatically from outside sources. 

DATASTREAM: 

Streaming data will also be available using multiple methods including File Transfer Protocol, Drop Folders and Database Connections.  The file system is automatically maintained so you don’t end up with folder names that have very little meaning to someone looking at it for the first time. The system maintains its own naming convention to keep file system organization standardized.  Information moving in and out of the file system will be monitored for inconsistencies and maintain structure.   

DATAPROC:

Each dataset is parsed individually with a process geared towards that particular format.  Each parsing procedure is based on a common standardization format, but this can be customized for each data set that might have unique aspects that need to be exploited.  This portion of the Dataflow process is extremely importation because this is where the data is optimized for search capabilities.

Data Definitions and Tagging: One of the core challenges associated with EDM is the ability to compare data that is obtained from multiple internal and external sources. In many circumstances, these sources use inconsistent terms and definitions to describe the data content itself – making it hard to compare data, hard to automate business processes, hard to feed complex applications and hard to exchange data. This frequently results in a difficult process of data mapping and cross-referencing. Normalization of all the terms and definitions at the data attribute level is referred to as the metadata component of EDM and is an essential prerequisite for effective data management.

STRUCTURE:

Each record in the database has a lot of good underlying information associated with it.  As a product is ingested into the system, multiple processes are run against the product to exploit information that might have been missed while creating the original Meta record that’s associated with the product.  A few items of interested are created during this process:

Full text extraction of original source

Word tagging based on content in full text extraction

XML markup of text extraction

Global variables that are populated with each record

Original product format for future reference

Metrics for each record and data set as a whole

Associated data relationships between other related products

Data Model Theory: A data model theory has three main components:

The structural part: a collection of data structures which are used to create databases representing the entities or objects modeled by the database.

The integrity part: a collection of rules governing the constraints placed on these data structures to ensure structural integrity.

The manipulation part: a collection of operators which can be applied to the data structures, to update and query the data contained in the database.

DATABASE INDIVIDUALITY:

What drives the usability of data is how data can be retrieved and used in an operational environment.  Each user will be given a certain amount space in the database to host there own products.  The data that has been created by a user will also be associated with other data sets that are ingested using multiple methods.  Each data set holds its own data but each one also has associations built that connect the data.  Running a cross reference between two individual tops has never been easier using this method.  Cross referenced material is displayed so the user understands that this particular product contains data that’s related to the original request.  The associated data may not contain the key words used to get them this piece of information but it’s directly related based on the key word and tagging technology. 

FRONT-END USABILITY:

Using a set of tools doesn’t have to be difficult and when creating these user interfaces once should keep in mind how the end user will react to the layout, functionality of the buttons and more.  A graphical interface needs to not only look good but be understood and comprehended for its intent.  A user should be able to look at the screen and understand what each button does or what information is being displayed. 



Web based user interface:



This application will be the most widely accessible application. 





DataTek light java based application:



This application is a smaller version of the web based application and the desktop application.  It can pull results back fast and easy with limited capability.  It’s good for a quick and dirty way of getting results.  The application can be downloaded online or installed via CD depending on availability. 





Desktop application



The desktop application has the same functionality as the web based application except for a few additional features.







GEOSPATIAL INTEGRATION

Geospatial tools are becoming more important than raw data itself.  For a user to visualize message traffic on a graphical representation of any given location helps the user see how the data relates spatially.  The open source community has created many unique web enabled geospatial applications which helps lower overall development costs and gives us the ability to create geospatial tools exactly how we see need. 

A geospatial application has shown its use in the field as necessary as any other tool out there.  When a product has a geospatial coordinate associated with it, the ingestion process will pick up that information and mark the product as geo operable.

TRAINING: 

Training is always a key asset to any system in the field.  With the simple ease of use, training becomes a community effort where the user next to you will have the answer.   This system is designed from a quick and easy Google type search to a more advanced and detailed search.  If an end user doesn’t fully grasp the more advanced features, or they don’t have the time, they can still utilize the system to its full operational capability with the basic functions at their fingertips.



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Ron McNeil asked:


Property for sale, or any other real estate term is no longer thing of the newspapers. If you are looking to buy or sell a property, internet will not only suffice your requirements of marketing but can actually be a place of right choice to venture into. Buyers and sellers alike are meeting up online to meet their real estate needs. It is no longer the only option to look for a realtor and fix up appointments within a busy schedule. This limitation is immediately overcome on the internet .The network of networks serves as a hub for all properties and gives you an opportunity to consult peer group and also analyze every property on sale or potential buyer from every perspective. Dealers are also more efficient on the web.

There exists a wide range of tools that aid them in setting up an interesting online showroom. Of course, no business is fully complete without marketing the products to reach the consumers. Even that, today, has become a thing to relax about for the realtors .Server side scripting mainly helps realtors to generate dynamic content as and when required by the visitors or consumers. Marketing can be done using specialized real estate classifieds. This real estate classifieds software generates relevant properties according to the query given and possibly a catalog type results that interest the visitors. The software’s standing features is dynamic tools that enable real estate dealers to setup their business according to their choice and requirements.

Server side classifieds software can used to create several kinds of showrooms for online buyers. At the core is the database, a popular software such as MySQL , that is used to convey the properties with their reference, details of the property, indexed by a reference id or property id and the pricing details and the formalities thereafter. Main thing to be appreciated is the software’s integrity in support various payment options. For example, single real estate classifieds software can be used on a variety of hosting environments, making only minute changes. It is easily maintainable with the admin interface that usually comes along with such real estate classifieds software. Usually no coding for such software is required for customization.

For example, real estate classifieds software may be easily customized to setup an automated online catalog of the properties for sale and potential buyers with requirements along the exact details of the property in question and this can be easily maintained from any web browser .Customization can be specific to inventory, that is, the real estate software can be customized to lay specific properties or location, or facility available with a property or anything with a classifiable requirement. This makes the updating of records to the database table easier because of the categorical approach.

Some run as a standalone application, while some are offered as scripting software. There are differences between them in their functionalities and efficiency. For example, the offline standalone application can edit and draft the real estate classifieds even when there is a loss of connectivity. This is in contrast to the online version, which provides dynamic content to the visitor according the required list of requirements. There are real estate classifieds software that can be used as a complete website and also as add on to the existing website. This means the usability of such a feature is independent of the other features of the site and does not hinder in any update of the same.

Online billing software can be integrated with the real estate software for various payment methods applicable or offered to the consumer or visitor online. Advanced versions have multiple utilities with better querying facilitating its purpose for each requirement with their own custom fields. The dealer can also include payment options in the catalog and the user will benefit by knowing all the features before actually buying the product. Hence the sale is based on wise decision of the consumer and further any sales generated would be of quality services because it has to convince the buyer.

Since the focus is on to illustrating to the consumer the ideal choice of property or, the elegance of the real estate classified software is at the outset governed by the look and feel of the software .This also will not be a problem to the dealers because most of the real estate classified software, from companies who also provide other similar software, comes with an array of templates that can be easily implemented into the site or the add on. Since word of mouth seems to outwit all other marketing and advertising techniques, being first person in conveying always impacts the consumer. To enhance such a state, most real estate classifieds software comes with a ‘refer-a- friend’ option that aids in sharing the quality of service in first person nature.

Albeit the scope of such real estate classifieds software is generic and property values are subjective, the option of sharing views and opinions, quick and easy setup, quality customer service options give the dealer an edge over others in marketing their products with ease. Further, the software type is usually failsafe or with a backup option always running to prevent any collapse of the system. It is now become a thing of the past to necessarily browse the real estate classifieds for hours just to shortlist potential business, when they are just a click away now.



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