Deploying iPhone and iPod Touch

iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are designed to easily integrate with your enterprise systems, including Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, 802.1X-based secure wireless networks, and Cisco IPSec virtual private networks. As with any enterprise solution, good planning and an understanding of your deployment options make deployment easier and more efficient for you and your users. When planning your deployment of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, consider the following:

• How will your company’s iPhones and iPad (Wi-Fi + 3G models) be activated for wireless cellular service?

• Which enterprise network services, applications, and data will your users need to access?

• What policies do you want to set on the devices to protect sensitive company data?

• Do you want to manually configure devices individually, or use a streamlined process for configuring a large fleet?

The specifics of your enterprise environment, IT policies, wireless carrier, and your computing and communication requirements affect how you tailor your deployment strategy.

Each iPhone must be activated with your wireless carrier before it can be used to make and receive calls, send text messages, or connect to the cellular data network. Contact your carrier for voice and data tariffs and activation instructions for consumer and business customers.

You or your user need to install a SIM card in the iPhone. After the SIM card is installed, iPhone must be connected to a computer with iTunes to complete the activation process. If the SIM card is already active, iPhone is ready for immediate use; otherwise, iTunes walks you through the process of activating a new line of service. iPad must be connected to a computer with iTunes to activate the device. For iPad Wi-Fi + 3G in the U.S., you sign up and manage (or cancel) an AT&T data plan using iPad. Go to Settings > Cellular Data > View Account. iPad is unlocked, so you can use your preferred carrier. Contact your carrier to set up an account and obtain a compatible micro SIM card. In the U.S., micro SIM cards compatible with AT&T are included with iPad Wi-Fi + 3G.

Although there is no cellular service or SIM card for iPod touch and iPad Wi-Fi, they must also be connected to a computer with iTunes for activation.Because iTunes is required in order to complete the activation process, you must decide whether you want to install iTunes on each user’s Mac or PC, or whether you’ll complete activation for each device with your own iTunes installation.

After activation, iTunes isn’t required in order to use the device with your enterprise systems, but it’s required for synchronizing music, video, and web browser bookmarks with a computer. It’s also required for downloading and installing software updates for devices and installing your enterprise applications.

Lasik or ICL?

Some of the people who are considering the Lasik procedure to correct their nearsightedness or farsightedness have of some potential problems of Lasik, and are wondering if there any other options. Although more than 95 percent of the Lasik patients have a very successful procedure without any major side effects, there are choices for people who wish to improve their vision. Let's compare two, and discuss these choices with a reputable ophthalmologist.

Traditional Lasik surgery uses a scalpel to create a small flap in the eye, and then a laser reshapes the eye in order to focus accurately. There are two more recent forms of Lasik, one that entirely uses a laser and does away with the scalpel. Another variation uses a three dimension waveform for people with unusual eye shapes, and both of these are worth discussing with your ophthalmologist.

Those people with very thin corneas or other issues that make Lasik not a good candidate for their particular case can consider implantable contact lens surgery. This is known as ICL in the eye surgeon's lingo, and is a good alternative to Lasik to permanently correct vision. These lenses function in exactly the same way as removable lenses, except that they remain permanently in the eye. Like Lasik, they reshape the eye in order for it to focus accurately. The patient will not feel the lens once the operation has been performed.

Lasik and ICL are similar in several ways. Lasik can improve vision affected by nearsightedness and astigmatism, and ICL can improve these vision deficiencies also. Both Lasik and ICL also have some of the same risks, one of these being that the correction is not accurate after the first operation is done. Lasik is a much more frequently performed procedure, and less than 3 percent (according to the FDA) of these patients need to undergo additional surgery to further correct vision after the first Lasik procedure is done.

Like any operation, there is a chance of infection in either a Lasik procedure or an ICL operation. Good post-operative care by the patient will minimize this and regular checkups at the Lasik or eye care center will nearly always clear this up without further complication. In a small percentage of the cases, either Lasik or ICL patients may not achieve perfect vision and may need to continue to wear corrective eyewear, though usually not at the same strength as the original eyewear.

One advantage of ICL over Lasik is that ICL is a reversible procedure, where the implanted lens can be removed later if that becomes necessary. Lasik involves the reshaping of the cornea to bring objects accurately into focus, and is permanent. However, for a typical, healthy patient either Lasik or ICL will generally bring about the desired improvement in vision.

Lasik is generally a less invasive procedure, and this is reflected in the current cost of the operation. The current price for a Lasik procedure is between $500 and $2500 per eye, depending on the type of procedure and the presiding physician. A typical price for ICL is between $1500 and $3000 per eye. Do some investigation into the options offered, and select the eye procedure that is best for your personal case.

Protecting Home Wireless Network

While the security problems associated with wireless networking are serious, there are steps you can take to protect yourself. The following sections describe these steps.

Make Your Wireless Network Invisible
Wireless access points can announce their presence to wireless-enabled computers. This is referred to as “identifier broadcasting.” In certain situations, identifier broadcasting is desirable. For instance, an internet cafe would want its customers to easily find its access point, so it would leave identifier broadcasting enabled. However, you’re the only one who needs to know you have a wireless network in your home. To make your network invisible to others, see your access point’s user manual for instructions on disabling identifier broadcasting. (In Apple wireless networking, this is called “creating a closed network.”) While this kind of “security through obscurity” is never foolproof, it’s a starting point for securing your wireless network.


Rename Your Wireless Network
Many wireless access point devices come with a default name. This name is referred to as the “service set identifier” (SSIS) or “extended service set identifier” (ESSID). The default names used by various manufacturers are widely known and can be used to gain unauthorized access to your network. When you rename your network, you should choose a name that won’t be easily guessed by others.


Encrypt Your Network Traffic
Your wireless access point device should allow you to encrypt traffic passing between the device and your computers. By encrypting wireless traffic, you are converting it to a code that can only be understood by computers with the correct key to that code. For more about encryption, see the US-CERT Cyber Security Tip “Understanding Encryption,” http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-019.html.


Change Your Administrator Password
Your wireless access point device likely shipped with a default password. Default passwords for various manufacturers are widely known and can be used to gain unauthorized access to your network. Be sure to change your administrator password to one that is long, contains non-alphanumeric characters (such as #, $, and &), and does not contain personal information (such as your birth date). If your wireless access point does not have a default password, be sure to create one and use it to protect your device.

Use File Sharing with Caution
If you don’t need to share directories and files over your network, you should disable file sharing on your computers. You may want to consider creating a dedicated directory for file sharing, and move or copy files to that directory for sharing. In addition, you should password protect anything you share, and use a password that is long, contains non-alphanumeric characters (such as #, $, and &), and does not contain personal information (such as your birth date). Never open an entire hard drive for file sharing.

Keep Your Access Point Software Patched and Up to Date
From time to time, the manufacturer of your wireless access point will release updates to the device software or patches to repair bugs. Be sure to check the manufacturer’s web site regularly for any updates or patches for your device’s software.


Check Your Internet Provider’s Wireless Security Options
Your internet service provider may provide information about securing your home wireless network. Check the customer support area of your provider’s web site or contact your provider’s customer support group.

Biometrics Technology

Biometrics refers to the identification of a person on the basis of their physical and behavioural characteristics. Today we know a lot of biometric systems which are based on the identification of these, for everyone's unique identity. Some biometric systems include the characteristics of: fingerprints, hand geometry, voice, iris, etc., and can be used for identification. Most biometric systems are based on the collection and comparison of biometric characteristics which can provide identification.

This study begins with a historical review of biometric and radio frequency identification (RFID) methods and research areas. The study continues in the direction of biometric methods based on fingerprints. The survey parameters of reliability, which may affect the results of the biometric system in use, prove the hypothesis. A summary of the results obtained the measured parameters of reliability and the efficiency of the biometric system we discussed. Each biometric system includes the following three processes: registration, preparation of a sample, and readings of the sample. Finally the system provides a comparison of the measured sample with digitized samples stored in the database.

Personal identification is a means of associating a particular individual with an identity. The term “biometrics” derives from Bio,(meaning “life” and metric being a “measurement”. Variations of biometrics have long been in use in past history. Cave paintings were one of the earliest samples of a biometric form. A signature could presumably be decifered from the outline of a human hand in some of the paintings. In ancient China, thumb prints were found on clay seals. In the 14th century in China, biometrics was used to identify children to merchants (Daniel, 2006). The merchants would take ink and make an impression of the child’s hand and footprint in order to distinguish between them. French police developed the first anthropometric system in 1883 to identify criminals by measuring the head and body widths and lengths. Fingerprints were used for business transactions in ancient Babylon, on clay tablets (Barnes, 2011). Throughout history many other forms of biometrics, which include the fingerprint technique, were utilized to identify criminals and these are still in use today. The fingerprint method has been successfully used for many years in law enforcement and is now a very accurate and reliable method to determine an individual’s identity in many security access systems.

Biometrics is not really a new technology. With the evolution of computer science the consecutive manner in which we can now use these unique features with the aid of computers contemporaneousness. In the future, modern computers will aid biometric technology playing a critical role in our society to assist questions related to the identity of individuals in a global world.

“Who is this person?”, “Is this the person he/she claims to be?”, “Should this individual be given access to our system or building?”, etc. These are examples of the every day questions asked by many organizations in the fields of telecommunication, financial services, health care, electronic commerce, governments and others all over the world. The requirements and needs of quantity data and information processing are growing by the day. Also, people’s global mobility is becoming an everyday matter as is the necessity to ensure modern and discreet identification systems from different real and virtual access points on a global basis.

In order to adopt biometric technologies such as fingerprint, iris, face, hand geometry and voice etc., we will evaluate some factors including the ease of use, error rate and cost. When researcher evaluate the score for each of the biometric technologies, we find that there is a range between the upper and lower scores for each item evaluated. Therefore we have to recognize that there is no perfect biometric technology. For example, if a biometric system uses fingerprint technology, we will determine several factors as follows:

a. What is the error rate (ER), as we use the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) or False Rejection Rate (FRR) that the system will allow?

b. False Acceptance Rate (FAR) is the probability that a biometrics verification device will fail to reject an impostor.

c. False Rejection Rate (FRR) is the probability that a biometrics verification device will fail to recognize the identity, or verify the claimed identity, of an enrolee.

d. What is the security level (SL) to protect privacy and fraud that the system will require?

e. Which environmental conditions (EC) for sensing fingerprints will be considered as dry or wet and dusty on the glass of a fingerprint scanner?

In the last ten years, new identification systems have been achieving extremely rapid development. The evolution of microelectronics has enabled practical application in the branch of automation of logistics and production. It is necessary to research and justify every economic investment in these applications. In this work the most important quantitative characteristics of reliability are explained. The authors also show the methodology for defining the reliability and efficacy of biometric identification systems in the process of identification and provide experimental research of personal identification systems1 based upon reliability and efficacy parameters. Furthermore, a real identification system was upgraded based on automation and informatization.

Social Bookmarking Benefits

With the Social Bookmarking system, users can store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists can be accessible to the public by users of a specific network or website. Not only can you save your favorite websites and send them to your friends, but you can also look at what other people have found interesting enough to tag. Most social bookmarking sites allow you to browse based on a certain category like shopping, technology, politics, blogging, news, sports, etc., and usually they allow you to vote on the submitted link , or story which will in term show the No of readers whom visit your site.

Social bookmarking and social news allow you to specifically target what you want to see. Instead of going into a search engine, typing something in, and then searching for that needle in a haystack, you can quickly narrow down the items to what you are looking for. It's pretty easy to tell that the article with a hundred votes might be your best choice. You no longer need to look through thousands of results to find your subject of interest. Now, you can simply go to a social bookmarking site, choose the category or tag that matches your interest, and find the most popular websites.

Most social bookmarking services allow users to search for bookmarks which are associated with given “tags”, and rank the resources by the number of users which have bookmarked them. Its increasing popularity and competition have extended the services to offer more than just sharing bookmarks, such as commenting, and rating and the ability to import and export, add photo, reviews, story, email links. Creating groups with your own follower, send notification and also provide feed subscription.

Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon & Delicious provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services. The benefit is two fold. They provide immediate traffic from like-minded targeted viewers but also powerful back links to your sites that bring positive SEO and Search Engine results.

Lasik Vision Correction With Wavefront Technology

The brilliant results of Lasik surgery have been improved by research adding new ways, such as Wavefront technology. This technology gives a Lasik physician the ability to see and accurately map even slight variations in the surface of the eye. This gives the physician the ability to more accurately tailor a Lasik operation to the individual, and result in even clearer vision.

The concept behind Wavefront technology was originally developed by astronomers, in order to indicate if a mirror or a lens had slight imperfections in it. It is very important in astronomy to get near perfect optics in order to clearly see the small light sources million of miles away in the universe. In the 1970s a sensor was created to electronically check these surfaces, and a type of this sensor is now used in the Wavefront guided Lasik procedures.

The idea to apply this technique, or to use this sensor, to the field of ophthalmology and later to the specific area of Lasik vision correction, was begun in Germany. The physician Josef Bille began using the sensor in his practice, and this started others to refine the sensor and how it is used and to apply it to Lasik technology. In 1997 the improved sensor, with greater accuracy and speed, was announced to the Lasik laser manufacturers. This allowed the companies that manufacture the Lasik equipment to develop tools using the Wavefront concept for each of their own laser systems.

The FDA approved the first Wavefront guided Lasik vision correction system for general use. Initially, the Wavefront sensor makes a map of the eye's imperfections, and this map is sent to the laser that is used in the Lasik vision correction portion of the operation. This allows for precise eye alteration in order for Lasik to present the best vision correction possible.

The Wavefront technology used in Lasik can be described easily at an informal level. A small, flat sheet of light (called a wavefront) is passed through the eye, reflected off of the retina, and passed back through the eye and is captured by the Wavefront machine. If the eye were perfect, the light would return as a flat sheet and be captured that way by the Lasik machine. However, any imperfections changes the way that the light returns, and this is detected by the Wavefront part of the Lasik process.

A number of these small, flat sheets of light are sent into each eye from various directions and the results returned generated a three dimensional map of the eye to be used in the Lasik vision correction process. In addition to the commonly known problems of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism, there are more than 60 other patterns that are known and can possibly be corrected for.

All of this information generated by the Lasik sensor is converted by software into a set of directions to be carried out by the Lasik excimer laser. Ask your doctor about this exciting advance in Lasik vision correction, and see if this procedure is right for you!

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Falls Below 50% in Browser Market Share

NetMarketShare reporting that for the first time Microsoft's Internet Explorer has finally fallen below 50% in the browser war. Can you imagine that back in 2004 it has 95% share which won in the battle against Netscape Navigator. To some it might not be a big deal, but to most of us the choice of a browser does matter. The data below shows that Internet Explorer now owns 49.58% of the browser market share for web traffic. As Internet Explorer loses its edge on the competition, I'm really curious to know which browser that people around the world prefer.

Brilliant LEGO 3D Floor Art

I found this picture on other blog(I forgot the name of the blog) and I think it's quite creative. Since I love Lego I share it for my viewers especially LEGO hardcore fans.

iPad 3 Will Be Launch March 2011?

According to a sources from the upstream supply chain, Apple's new generation iPad will enter mass production soon with the launch set for March 2012. According to Digitimes this new iPad is not seen by Apple as an iPad 3, but instead an upgraded iPad 2. Instead they say "the actual iPad 3" won't be launched until the 3rd quarter of 2012 at the earliest. The upgraded iPad 2 will be thinner than the original iPad 2, and will offer longer battery life, said Digitimes.

White Balance Setting on Digital Camera

Have you ever taken a picture of a brilliant winter scene and been quite disappointed to discover the crisp, white snow came out with a bluish tint?  This is the kind of situation your digital camera’s white balance is meant to prevent.

The white balance is a sensor that will help you to analyzes the lighting conditions and colors of a scene and adjusts so the white in the picture appears white.  This helps to insure that the other colors appear as natural as possible. This is one advantage digital photography has over tradition film.  With film, you buy with a certain lighting condition in mind.  If that changes, you need to either change your film or hope you can fix any errors in post-production.

Almost every digital cameras nowadays allow you to use either automatic white balance or choose between several preset conditions such as full sun, cloudy day and so forth.  Automatic white balance will work in most conditions.  There may be times, however when you want to “warm” up a picture to enhance the color, such as for portraits or sunsets.  The best way to do this is  set your camera’s white balance to “cloudy”.  This will deepen the colors and add a glowing quality to portraits.  It will take a beautiful sunset and enhance it to the point of incredible. 

Practice taking the same photo with different white balance settings to get a feel for the changes each setting evokes. Keep notes until you have a good idea of what each setting does.  In time, you will come to automatically sense which setting is best for your particular situation. 

White balance is a small setting that can make big changes in your finished photos.  Make it your friend and you will no longer have to worry about faded sunsets or blue snow.