Computer Software

Starting off: 1-20

1. You’ve just entered the world of warcraft, and you’re level one. You aren’t really worried about money right now so just pick up a lot of quests to start.

2. Finish up quests, and when you have depleted the entire starting area of quests you should have leveled considerably! Hurray for you, also some of your starting quests have made you, that’s right, GOLD.

3. Leave the starting area, gather a few quests, and train because you have the money.

4. Do every quest you’ve gathered, and along the way to speak to that npc or find that mob of raptors, kill some experience giving monsters, or luckily humanoids!

5. You’ve started a cycle, gather, grind, complete, and it is a money maker.

6. When you hit level 15 you should have an instance possibility! (for horde, for alliance it is Deadmines at level 17 or so.)

7. (This consists of alliance directions to deadmines.) Ok if you are a human, lucky you, if not, well… Night elves- (Get a hearth to auberdine before doing this, it helps) Hopefully by now you have been to ironforge, or better, stormwind! if you haven’t been to IF then you need to travel to Auberdine (level 12+ place should be grind-questing by now.) and take the boat on the right to menethil harbor. Spoiler, this place is your friend!

Now you MUST follow the road all the way to Dun Morough or you will die by crocolisk! Then follow the road to IF. Take the deeprun tram to stormwind, and get through stormwind head south down the road close to goldshire, then get to westfall. (BTW get in a good guild asap, they can help.)

Go to sentinel hill and then get the quests from the shiny armor man stading dead center of the entrance. You will get massive xp and finishing the chain will help.

Night elves have the farthest journey, dwarves and gnomes take the tram, humans just walk.

8. Repeat doing the deadmines as much as you can, this is called harvesting. Harvest until you have made one gold!

9. Congratulationss, you have made one gold!

10. You should nearly be level 20 by now, or close to being close.

11. Grind on Defias people on the gold coast, until you have made a level.

12. Find a grinding spot that suits you (get quests from Westfall until it no more appeases you, or helps whatsoever).

13. This is power leveling and money making at the same time, it makes a strong character later on, trust me, it is tedious.

14. Thank you for reading and using my guide to level 20, and a semi rich character. Stay away from gold farmers! Be safe on the net!

If you would like more guides visit http://www.wowgoldguide.com or you can purchase World of Warcraft gold at http://www.team-vip.com

Basic Mob Hunting

You’ll normally collect more adena if you were to hunt solo rather than grouped. The amount collected is usually less unless your character is really gimp and are unable to solo mobs on its own. Ideally you should target gree/blue con mobs. Although they give you much less SP they do provide a good amount of adena for the time you would take to kill them. Make sure the mobs you are farming are not too tough and that you do not have much downtime. If you are caster, assure that you’re able to kill the mob with out having to use too much power. If you’re a tank, try not to lose too much life or you will end up sitting majority of the time you are farming. Find areas where there are less players and is loaded with mobs. Having to wait for respawns can waste alot of time. You also do not want to run into too many players farming the same mobs as you, hence it’ll reduce the amount of mobs for you to farm. Avoid using soulshots as well, they can cost alot of money and should only be used when you’re in danger of dying.

Questing

There are some quests that are actually worth doing but here are some basic questing tips you should keep in mind while completing them. Always try to complete the quests that provides the highest amount of rewards for adena and/or offers a very valuable item. Always accept quests that involves killing alot of monsters. It helps you level along with some good loots from time to time. You can also combine certain quests if they are within the same area, being able to complete multiple quests within the same route is much better than completing them seperately. Avoid traveling long distances because they take up alot of time, travelling time can be converted to farming time. Always keep a “scroll of escape” around. Good to use when in danger and good to save yourself time from travelling long distances.

Drops

There are many mobs that have good drops, but that doesn’t mean you should solely focus all your time on them. Drop rates are by chance and chances are you will spend more time killing them for nothing than actually being able to get that specific item. However, if you are farming an area with a bunch of mobs and there are some with good drops you would of course choose to hunt those first before the rest.

Buying and Selling

Avoid buying from NPC merchants. They usually tend to cost more than buying from another player in the game. If you are planning to purchase a new set of equipment or any other item, buy them from Giran. Taxes there are only 10% and when you buy in large amounts you tend to save alot more. Do not sell off your loots immediately. Try to find the best bargen for them. Look around for players who are spamming “WTB…”. They tend to offer a higher price than normal since they probably have important use of it. Private stores can be one of your biggest assets in the game. You can easily browse through a wide selection at various prices, although it may lag alot but sometimes it can be worth the time spent. You may also want to setup your own store as well when you want to sell off your items. Would be ideal when you go AFK for a long period of time or planning to go to sleep. Don’t start your store and stare at the screen though, that’s just silly and a waste of time. Avoid selling more than 3 items at a time, set price 5-10% below shop price. You should be able to get a good return within 1-2 hours.

Travelling Merchants

If you have extra adenas laying around and you tend to travel a bit for whatever reason, you can be a travelling merchants. Getting to Giran can take a while and lot of players would rather not travel there to purchase stuff unless neccessay. You can always buy a stock full of some items that are demanded within certain areas and sell them off at a higher rate than being sold at Giran. Arrows, healing potions and soulshots are commonly bought items throughout the game. Ideal to stock up a bit on those and setup a store in caves or where ever when you need to go AFK. From time to time if you know the market well enough, there are players who are in desperate need of adena and will sell their item at a much lower price than normal. You can easily buy that and resell later at a higher rate.

For even better Lineage 2 Adena guides visit http://www.lineage2adenaguide.com
For the fastest way to obtain Lineage 2 Adena visit http://www.team-vip.com/index.php?openg=14

The Ice Giants of Everfrost are a very good source of Platinum. The Ice Giants are mid to high 40 Levels. They have around 3-4K HP or so. They can hit around 114 and they triple hit and duel wield. They are warriors. There are 3 of them that guard the entrance to Permafrost. The camps are referred to as North, South, and Back. Camp names can very from server to server. They can be duo’d by a few mid to low lvl 40’s full group of high thirties, or soloed by 45+ for the soloing classes. They can be good source of Xp at lvl 45 and under. They are light blue by the time you reach mid 50’s.

These Ice Giants are Blue and look as though they are made of Ice. They drop fine steel weapons, gems, pages, and various pieces of junk jewelry. Combined with what they drop and the pure Platinum,Gold,Siver,and Copper that they drop: they range in net worth of 2-70pp per kill.

Many times these may be camped already by other people. But if you do a camp check and find out who is camping they will usually be more then happy to send you a tell before they leave so you can take over the camp. Politeness always gets you a camp, sooner or later. Casting a few beneficial buffs on the persons camping earns browning points too. =) Another near by source of Platinum while you wait for a camp are the Woolly Mammoths that roam around Everfrost. Their Tusk go to vendors for around 9PP each and sometimes they drop 2 of them. So if you wait around for a camp whooly mammoths are a good way to keep busy and make some plat in your waiting time. The spawn time of the Ice Giants is about 5 minutes. So if you kill them in 60 seconds then you will be able too kill about 11-12 an hour. So you can easily get 300-800pp an hour here. These camps are great for if you can’t be on a raid because of going afk frequently and such. After you kill your spawn you can go afk for 4 minutes and come back in time to see the spawn

The Easiest way to get to the Ice Giants is to get to Everfrost by the Halas Stone in the Plane of Knowledge. It’s found through the gate behind and to the left of the Nexus Stone. The Halas stone will take you to Everfrost near the Halas zone line. It is a safe stone for all races/classes. Once you are in in Everfrost you will be facing the PoK Book. Right from the book as you are facing it. You will come to a ‘Y’ in the path take the path on the right of the ‘Y’ don’t take the path on the very far Right though. Then you just stay on the path and you will past two Halas Guards and a wolf. If you are evil you can invis past or Run way up high on the mountain past them. Then you just stay to the left of the zone line the entire way to PF. You will pass 2 ice rivers and then eventually come to a big Brick Fort. This is where the Ice Giants are located there are two guards one on the left and one on the right just inside the fort. They are far enough apart that you can pull them separately. Down the Hall past those two is the ‘Back’ camp. The giants spawns in an area on the right. This Hall leads to the Permafrost zone line.

Before you head to your camp be sure that you have all your slots filled with Backpacks, or even better 10 Slot handmade back backs. This way you can loot till your hearts content. Also, you will get Encumbered while you are here. Destroy your copper on a regular basis to cut down on weight issues. But after a few hours it won’t matter anymore as you become snared by the loot you are hoarding. It’s truly wonderful. And also remember to bring food and drink as you will be at the camp for several hours. Happy Hunting and remember: the Only good Ice Giant is a Dead ONE!

For more EverQuest farming guides visit http://www.everquestplatinumguide.com
For a faster source of getting everquest plat visit http://www.team-vip.com/index.php?openg=19

Playing computer games was once reserved for the geek of the class who would shut himself away until the early hours of the morning with no company apart from a joystick. This has changed significantly as the standard of graphics and game play has improved and the use of computers is even more widely accepted. The advance of the Internet has also made sure that online gaming has become increasingly popular allowing people from all around the world to play against one another or in huge online tournaments. The appeal has spread significantly to what it once was.

The first generation of gamers are growing older now and this is coinciding with the introduction of next generation console games that look and sound much better than was ever dreamt possible ten or twenty years ago. AS such, many of these early gamers continue to play console games and computer games meaning what was predominantly a children’s market is shifting upwards in age. It is by no means uncommon for people in their twenties and thirties to be buying the latest games.

As well as being younger, the game market used to consist of almost solely males. Again, this has changed. AS technology has become more and more accessible and accepted in the form of cell phones and computers, the playing of computer games has also increased and there are many girls and women who are just as comfortable behind a control pad or a joystick as the men.

One more factor that has changed in the gaming world is that playing computer games is a solitary existence. Again, the stereotype of previous generations of gamers is kids locked in bedrooms playing fantasy games until midnight. Now, well over half of the people who play computer games do so on the Internet or with their friends on a regular basis.

Judging by early reports the Playstation 3 is going to be one sweet machine. It will have the revolutionary Blue-ray technology and the ability to watch and burn DVD’s. This is very important as most consumers have DVD technology at the moment and it will be a smooth overlap.

The Playstation 3 will be like a mini computer, with a huge amount of processing power. Some might even say more processing power than the now released XBOX 360.When the Playstation 2 was released 7 years ago, the average number of games sold per unit sold was 5. Fastforward to the PSP; it released and has only sold about 2 games per PSP sold. This is mainly because of the multimedia aspect of the game. People are buying it to watch movies just as much as they are to play the games.

This doesn’t sound so bad, but it can cause problems for Sony. A lot of Sony’s income from video game consoles are the licensing fees they charge video game companies to create games on any of Sony’s console platforms. Thus, when less games are being sold, less money is being paid for the rights to make games since not as many games are being bought compared to the past.

Another possible problem with the Playstation 3 is the complexity of the interface. Since the Playstation 3 is so powerful, crtics are speculating that the console may confuse consumers and give the PS3 the reputation of being complicated.

Judging by the screenshots of games such as Fight Night Round 3 that were made for the Playstation 3 the life like imaging on the games are astounding.
Watever the case may be, we will have to wait until the release of the Playstation 3 to speculate on it’s features. One thing if for sure, it will be a feature packed console like nothing consumers have seen before.

The XBOX 360 has so many new features as opposed to the older version. Some features that really stand out are the wireless remotes, the 20gb hard drive and the aesthetically pleasing exterior casing.

Firstly the XBOX 360 is available in a choice of silver or black. Both are very appealing and it is a matter of personal choice which one the consumer wants to choose. Additionally you can remove nearly all the plates from the exterior casing to replace with whatever color you want.

The wireless remotes are a blessing. No more tangled remote wires or having to sit close to the console just to be able to play the many wonderful games.

The 20gb hard drive is more than ample to store multimedia such as videos and music. The hard drive is also upgradeable leaving the option to upgrade later down the track but this won’t be necessary. Just to give you an idea of how much 20gb can hold, it can store either 5 full length dvd movies or upwards of 6000 mp3 songs.

Below the visually appealing exterior lies a lot of processing power. The XBOX 360 has 3 3.2GHz processor. Standard personal computers have just the one processor. Imagine 3 times the processing power of a well decked out personal computer and you’ll understand what kind of power the XBOX 360 has.

To match the processing power the XBOX 360 has a custom ATI graphics processor. The ATI graphics processor has a whopping 512mb of RAM and runs at a speed of 500MHz. This is enough to make light work of any high end game.

Besides the major feature of the XBOX 360 that I’ve listed above, it also comes with many additional accessories such as the wireless headset and so forth. The XBOX 360 is a great innovation in the world of gaming and will continue to increase in popularity making it a formidable opponent to sony’s playstation 3.

Information Technology has improved the leasing process, parts at a time. Every company has evolved some manner of maintaining customer information. Accounting software has kept the back-end humming. The sales force has devised methods for maintaining customers and then bridging them with funding sources. The vendor is contacted when an order needs filling. Further down the chain, the collections process is managed independently. And, the savvy leasing business has found ways of retaining customers to keep the process alive.

Limitations of the traditional Lease Management Software
But the permeation of technology has been sporadic, at best. Thus far, the existent lease management software have spot lighted sections of the leasing process, affecting each uniquely, independently and in isolation from the whole lease operation. This has forced companies to tie together the disparate sections of the lease process manually, without using any lease management software. Inevitably, intervening to help one part of the business communicate with another without a technical platform such as lease management software to collaborate both parts creates inefficiencies. While financial data would help the sales-force negotiate with repeat customers, the sales-force may not be privy to the relevant information easily devoid of innovative leasing software. The lessee may be offered an online lease application, but a potential funding source is not intimated of the new request until much later. Unfortunately, the disjointed nature of traditional technology necessitates physical intervention almost every time one link of the lease chain needs to be connected with another.

Improving productivity through consolidated lease management
Here’s where concepts like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management, so successfully used in manufacturing and telecommunications, become relevant to lease management. Today, Internet-driven technology such as the lease management software can consolidate the entire leasing process, beyond simply improving its various sections in isolation. Productivity-wise, this consolidation will do to the leasing business what the assembly line did to automobile manufacturing. And, if implemented wisely, the cost of this technology is quickly covered many times over by the resulting synergy – and the quantifiable savings — that it brings to the leasing enterprise, regardless of its size.

Managing leasing relationships through the Lease Management software

Lessor Lessee The lessee-lessor relationship, for one, fits intuitively into the Internet model of the lease management software, given the high level of interaction it requires. After all, lessees have ongoing and insatiable needs, ranging from the most basic monthly invoice to the more complex asset-dependent property tax management specifics. Lessees with numerous assets under each of their leases, for instance, need a specialized flow of information to track their assets and stay abreast of their accounts by way of an effective lease management system. With a lease becoming a service rather than a mere financial product, lessors have to find ways of catering to the growing customer demand for information. One cannot help wondering why the systems they use for lease management, veritable storehouses of the needed information, don’t have CRM functionality. Indeed, CRM is as relevant at point-of-sale as it is during the lease process; it allows lessors to understand a lessee’s ongoing needs and even distinguish one customer from another. An online interface by means of lease management software can form the perfect channel of information exchange for the data-starved lessee.

Lessor Funding Source Driven by tight marketing conditions and innovative funding models, the unique investor-lessor relationship can also benefit greatly from the use of technology via lease management software. Typically, lessors sell receivables, in whole or in part, to various investors to fund their leases. In some cases, the residual value is even sold separately with the investor and lessor sharing the proceeds generated from off-lease remarketing, contingent on various realization thresholds. But, regardless of the level of complexity in their relationship, there is one undeniable truth: Information that is already present with the lessor has to somehow travel to the investor. Typically, this entails hours of error-prone report and document preparation, the need for pain-staking clarification and, possibly, re-reporting. Again, these inefficiencies beg a rather obvious question: Why not let the investor get the information it needs, in a controlled, secure and real-time environment, devoid of manual intervention? Shouldn’t it be possible, at least in theory, for the investor to view information that lives with the lessor without the latter’s direct involvement? With an Internet based lease management system, this becomes a very practical possibility. Once the lessor determines the type and extent of information access it wants to offer, a customizable Web interface can provide the forum that eliminates the traditional inefficiencies of the lessor-investor association.

The Solution – Internet based Lease Management Software
Indeed, owing to the ease of information flow that the Net inherently facilitates, Internet based leasing software technology can tie in the hitherto unconnected parts of the lease process. Through this technology, the lessor can provide its business partners with controlled gateways to information residing in the back-end. In light of optimizing these relationships, the technology used to forge this data exchange must be based on the same technology that is used to maintain the information. If, therefore, the back-end accounting software were Internet based, it would become a minor step to make the relevant information available to investors or lessees online.

The technological consolidation of the leasing process by way of a internet based lease management software begins, then, with the back end. Lease management software is the battering ram around which the rest of the leasing process is built. In fact, Supply chain management and CRM, as they pertain to leasing, are fueled primarily by the data-rich back end. After all, here’s where every detail about a lease, from inception through maturity, is maintained. Yet, despite the obvious opportunity to realize these efficiencies, the leasing industry has not recognized the benefits of online lease management software. Most software vendors still earn a living touting systems that are entrenched in the client/server model and that are seriously limited by their legacy origins. This scenario is changing, however, with companies like Odessa Technologies, Inc., based out of Philadelphia, that make Internet based lease management systems.

Through LeaseWave(Lease accounting and management software product), Odessa Technologies provides a cost-effective means to benefiting from the Internet. LeaseWave, at its nucleus, provides for complete asset management and lease accounting functionality, allowing the lessor to efficiently manage any number of lease portfolios. Beyond this core, LeaseWave provides a series of interactive web sites that connect the lessor with business partners including lessees, funding sources and vendors. This allows for the lessor to consolidate the leasing process, tying together business partners online, on a real-time basis. Through LeaseWave, the leasing supply chain meets CRM around a robust, Internet based lease management software.

Indeed, it was through supply chain management and CRM that Wal-Mart recently revolutionized the retail industry. IT investment “enabled the company to squeeze out every last inefficiency from [their] merchandising chain.” By connecting with their suppliers such as Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart was able to reduce inventory, lower order-processing costs and thereby offer “low, everyday prices.” One better than Wal-Mart, Cisco, one of the largest Internet hardware suppliers now boasts a paper free supply chain. Cisco’s suppliers only begin assembling components after a customer places an order online, giving “just-in-time supply” a new standard. Why then can’t our retail shops (read lessors), their suppliers (read funding sources) and their customers (read lessees) be similarly connected? Don’t we also want low, every day prices?

What’s google earth.com
Google Earth.com is stunning, it is another great package from the kings who can do no wrong. Simply follow 2 steps to take advantage of this great free download from Google for any holiday traveler. Google Earth.com is going to take some processing power, so firstly make sure you meet the minimum spec on your machine by checking the following before you download it:

- Windows 2000, or XP
- Pentium 3, 500Mhz
- 128M RAM
- 400MB disk space
- Network speed: 128Kbits/sec
- 3D-capable video card with 16Mbytes of VRAM
- 1024×768, “16-bit High Color” screen

- “Google Earth” is a free product and shares an installer with “Google Earth Plus”. You can upgrade your Google Earth to Plus via the Help menu.

- “Google Earth Plus” This version is for non-commercial use only

- This version supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
- It does run on Windows Server 2003 and XP-x64.

- It does not run on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, or Windows ME.

- There are known issues with “Windows XP for tablet PCs” and Windows XP Media Center.

- It has also been tested successfully with Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) with this exception:

- A minimum screen size of 1024×768 pixels is required. Also, “True Color (32-bit)” resolution and a sufficient graphics card are required for clamped filled polygons; otherwise, they will be displayed
as outlines only.

- The default OpenGL graphics rendering engine is the usually the best from both a performance and visual quality perspective for Google eart.

- The DirectX version of Google Earth.com can be selected in the Preferences panel. If there is a problem at startup, you can also change it from the Start Menu item. Use it on older machines and laptop computers that have trouble with the default OpenGL version.

- The DirectX version of Google Earth.com requires DirectX 8.1 or newer.

I would suggest you try it now. It really is an incredible tool from Google and will prove to be great from a educational and useful viewpoint , especially when they start adding Google Maps and Google Local to it.
You can soon see whats around the corner.
A 9 out of 10 from the Google Talks Team

Testing a website for accessibility can be a time-consuming and laborious process. The free Web Accessibility Toolbar can do most of the hard work for you though and is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in accessibility.

The toolbar is not an automated testing tool so does require manual work from you. It’s therefore able to avoid the many problems with automated accessibility testing tools. It doesn’t require any technical knowledge so even the biggest technophobe can check their website for accessibility!

Installing the Web Accessibility Toolbar

You can download the toolbar for free from http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/toolbar, and after you install it, it will sit in the toolbar area of Internet Explorer. The total file size is just 550kb so the download won’t take too long.

The toolbar only works on Internet Explorer on Windows, so if Internet Explorer isn’t your first-choice browser you’ll have to switch browsers when using it. (Alternatively, you can download the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox which offers similar, but not identical, functionality.)

Using the Web Accessibility Toolbar

Now you’ve downloaded and installed the Web Accessibility Toolbar you can start using it! There are 12 buttons in total on the toolbar, each with a down arrow to the right of the text. If you click on the down arrow for any of these buttons then a dropdown menu appears with all the available options (alternatively you can use the keyboard shortcut keys assigned to each button).

Checking for document structure

One of the most useful buttons is the seventh, Structure. It’s essential that the structure within the HTML code accurately reflects the visual structure of the page. This is so that visually impaired web users using screen readers can gain an understanding of the page structure.

Some of the most useful items in the Structure dropdown menu include:

Headings – Shows which items on the page are labelled as headings within the HTML code. The main page heading should be a heading level one and other headings should be heading level two. Any sub-heading of a heading level two should be a heading level three, then heading level four and so on. Heading numbers should always be sequential – a heading level four shouldn’t follow a heading level two if there’s no heading level three. Headings are especially useful for screen reader users as they can call up a list of headings and jump straight to the section in which they’re most interested.

List items – Shows which items on the page are labelled as lists within the HTML code, by displaying < li > next to any list item. Lists can be horizontal or vertical, and all navigation should be marked up as a list item. Lists are very useful for screen reader users as the screen reader will announce the number of items in the list before reading the list items.

Fieldset / Label – Shows which items on the page are called labels within the HTML code. After selecting Fieldset / Label, the text next to each form should say the word label next to it – if not, that text hasn’t been called a label in the code.

Table border – Places a border around each table. Nested tables within tables can cause huge difficulties for screen reader users. After selecting this item, the first table will have a black border the second blue, then green, yellow, orange, red and purple. If you see any of these last four colours it’s time to take a good look at the code behind the page.

Table cell order – Shows the order in which the page is read out to screen reader users (if a table is used for layout). Hopefully, the order should be reasonably logical.

Checking the site works under all circumstances

It’s important that your website doesn’t depend on any one type of technology, or users whose browsers don’t support that technology may be unable to access your site. You can check to see if your site depends on any one technology:

Images > Toggle Image/Alt – One of the most useful functions on the toolbar, replaces images with their ALT, or alternative, text. Alt text is read out to screen reader users or displayed to web users with images turned off, instead of the image itself (e.g. users on dial-up modems may turn off images to speed up the download time of pages). It’s essential that the ALT text provides an adequate description of the image.

IE Options > Toggle JavaScript – Turns off JavaScript. After selecting this option, work through the pages on your website – is the whole site still accessible to you?

IE Options > Toggle ActiveX – Turns off ActiveX controls. Again, after selecting this, work through your website to see if the whole site is still accessible to you.

IE Options > Toggle CSS – Turns off CSS. Are pages still legible? If CSS is used for layout then you will see the page content in the order that it’s read out to screen reader users. (If you toggle image/alt after this, you’ll have a complete visual representation of what screen reader users will hear.)

Other useful accessibility checks

There’s a huge amount of functionality available on the Web Accessibility Toolbar, but some of the other most important accessibility checks you can carry out with the toolbar include:

Validate > W3C HTML validator > Validate HTML – Checks whether the page is based on valid HTML or not. If the page is not valid, you’ll be told why.

CSS > Deprecated HTML > Deprecated elements & attributes – Checks for code that shouldn’t be used and is being phased out. A new window will open containing the HTML code – anything in red is deprecated and should be removed.

Doc info > Page speed report – Examines all the files used to display the web page and prepares a report on the average download speed for that page for different Internet connections.

Doc info > List links – Displays a list of all on-page links. Screen reader users can call up a list of links and jump straight to the page in which they’re most interested, so it’s essential that link text makes sense out of context. Link text such as ‘click here’ should be avoided at all costs!

Colour > Greyscale – Shows the page in greyscale. Great for checking colour contrast.
Other functionality

Other functionality

The Web Accessibility Toolbar offers some other interesting functionality:

Resize – See how your website looks for users on 640 x 480px, 800 x 600px and 1024 x 768px screen resolutions.

Tools > Simulations – Put yourself in the shoes of a special needs users with these fascinating simulations.

Conclusion

Have you have found yourself lost in a software hell? You are not alone. Every magazine you pick up advertises new and improved software; your junk email, I like to call g-mail, tells you of the latest products; you see it in catalogs; and your phone rings and some vendor is pushing you to purchase their latest package. You know you need software, or newer software, and colleagues are telling you that the latest software will help your business, make you more profitable, and help your customer service experience. But how do you determine what software is good for your business?

Lab and quality managers are forced to wear several different hats when choosing software for their business. Labs that have the resource of an IT department or an employee that has some software experience get frustrated trying to sift through the software maze and give up (more often than not). They decide the only way they are going to get what they want is to build it themselves. This fix seems to be a simple solution up-front but anyone who has been through this process will tell you it is far from simple.

Classifications
Software can be classified into different functional areas. Some packages do a good job of overall functionality, but most of the “best in class” applications specialize in a few specific areas of function. General classifications of software would include bench top, management, internet, mobile, enterprise, PDA and instrument packages.

The Environment
The first evaluation that needs to be done is to review the hardware that will be used by the new system. Will it be the same hardware, new hardware, some of both? You will want to look at the oldest machine that will be used by the software and make sure it meets the specification requirements of the software. In some cases, the upgrading of the hardware can be just as expensive as the software. If the hardware being used does not meet the requirements of the software, then your first decision point has been reached: do you replace the hardware or look for different software? If the life cycle of the hardware is to expire before the life cycle of the software, then it is usually easy to determine which way to go.

The second evaluation should be your connectivity to the outside world. If the software package requires any connection to the internet you will need to understand the capabilities of your facility. Like the hardware, this too can be upgraded if required and many of the high speed cable or DSL connections are as cheap as dial-up. If your bandwidth to the internet is limited, this may hinder or stop functionality of some software products. As a general rule, each user going out to the internet will consume about 16k of bandwidth utilizing a standard browser. If the user is requesting data on a regular basis, this utilization will increase. As a general rule of thumb, divide the bandwidth by 64k to determine how many people can ‘work’ through the internet connection.

The third evaluation will be the location of work. Is all of your work done in the lab or is some done on-site? Depending upon the ratio of on site work, the ability for the software to support the on-site process may be a factor. Additionally, if work is being done on-site and the software requires an internet connection, does the facility you are working at have a connection you can use? Many companies have requirements and limitations in allowing outside users access to their system. On-site work may require the use of a laptop or other portable computer device. Make sure you understand the basic requirements of the software for performing the work onsite before purchasing or upgrading any hardware. Licensing of on-site software should also be evaluated; if the on-site license cannot be used while that technician is not on site you may be forced to purchase more licenses than you have users. Software packages that allow the license to follow the user whether on-site or in the lab can be more cost effective.

The Workflow
Before seeking a software package sit down and develop a simple work process flow chart of your facility, starting from the time you contact the customer through the time you return the equipment to the customer. Include notes about other applications being used that impact your business or any requirements that you have to export data. It is recommended once you have developed the baseline chart that staff from different areas of your business review the chart. Technicians on the bench will most certainly have a different view from the quality auditors or business managers. Get as much input as you can for the business model. This will make it easier to evaluate how your software should support your business.

Once you have developed a good work flow model then the difficult task begins analyzing each of the work processes to determine if they will fit your future business needs and how critical they are to your business model. Some software packages expect you to change your business practices to meet the needs of the software. If you are highly flexible in how you do business, this aspect of the software decision will not be too difficult. However, if your business practices are supporting other processes outside of your business model, then it is important that the software be able to adapt to support your critical processes as well as the other outside business practices.

The Platform
The next step is to determine what operating system and style platform you want to run on. Some packages can run on Windows, Unix, Linux, or Mac operating systems and do not care what data storage product you choose. Generally these packages come in one of two platforms: Browser-based or Desktop.

Asking the Right Questions
Now you have some good tools to help you evaluate each software package. If you have determined the platform and the type of application you want to use this will narrow the number of applications you need to review. Next you will need to determine what types of software you need to review.

In Summary
Do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask for some help. Remember, every product was new at one point. New software will take advantage of new technology which usually means you get more bang for the buck. Examine all the angles and trends. You want to mitigate the risk, improve your processes, create a better work place, provide better customer service, and, of course, make more money.