If your looking to increase your websites presense on the internet we will provide you with a detailed insight into the world of Search Engine Optimization, so let us begin with this broken down introduction to SEO. In the current age having your site online is only one step towards making your mark on the internet, it's incredibly easy to get online but once you get online you will probably encounter a common dilemma, where are the visitors? Undoubtedly you have joined the many millions of websites that fall into the abyss of the search engine's, if you are fortunate to get listed by them at all. You may not think search engine positioning affects you but if you own or operate a website, it does. If you any ambitions for your website then you have to cater for this increasingly important webmaster role. Search engine optimization is more than making your site rank well in the major search engines, it's about integrating it seamlessly into your page design without your visitors even being aware exists. SEO is an on going task that all webmasters need to undertake in order to keep reasonable positioning within search engines and recieve the subsequent traffic it brings. A common mistake many people make is to optimize their site once and believe that they can hold a rank, this might be true for some obscure key words but there is so much information flowing around the internet that there will always be someone willing to take your site on for rankings. It is important to remember the complex algorithms search engines use to determine your position calculate thousands of different factors, you cannot rely on one to keep ahead of the game. SEO Assistance will bring you an indepth view into the world of search engine positioning, we have broken it down into easily digestible sections so you can move your site up inch by inch. One downside to keeping your website in the public eye is that it requires a constant effort but if you are planning to sell a product or keep your website active, it is definitely worth it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Search Engine Optimization - Advice and Tactic
Unique content is King. Search engines love new, unique and updated content. If you produce new content at a rate of just one reasonably sized page per day and tied in with the other advice throughout the site, I can almost guarantee you will get good listings. Remember though, write for the visitors but cater for the search engines. If your field of expertise fits into a niche in the market, all the better for you but you must get unique content all you will fall behind. Page Structure. Search engine bots can sometimes get confused with poorly coded html, javascript and other web languages. If the bot has to wait too long or cannot decipher the web language then it will just abandon your site and move on to the next, even if it manages to get through the code it usually leads to poor search engine indexing of your website. You should also keep to widely used file extensions like .htm, .html, .php, .asp for your pages. Loading Speed. The loading speed of your website should be kept to a minimum, if it takes long than 5 seconds on 256kb+ connections then you lose visitors - both real and search engine bots. There are a variety of reasons why pages can load slowly, it may either be your web server, poorly coded server side code like php or client side code like javascript which can slow or even stop your page from loading. Visitor Navigation. This is more an aesthetic feature of your website focused at real visitors but you need to have some sort of standard navigation that is the same throughout your whole site. People can be put off and leave your website if they find it difficult to browse easily, search engine bots may also miss links if they can only be found deep within your site. Try to make as many internal links as possible available on each page. Site Hierarchy. Site hierachy can be great for adding keyword density to your web site. An example of site hierachy working effectively would be this page, seo-advice.php. The full link contains SEO twice - www.seoassistance.com/seo-advice.php which is very beneficial in the way search engines determine your sites relevance to a particular subject. Use your domain, folders and file names to your advantage. Avoid Blackhat SEO. Blackhat SEO is a vast topic that commands little respect from real webmasters as it means using underhand methods to gain search engine rankings, although the site is usually banned quickly. Blackhat SEO includes using link farms, search engine spamming, hidden or disguised text, fake meta tag data, using duplicate content and using doorway pages. I would recommend you stay away from tactics like this as you will end up losing out in the long run. Targeted Linkswaps. Link swaps are great but you must make them work for you. It does little good for you when your going for top search engine positions when your link swaps are untargeted. You should choose some specific keywords for both the link text and the link title text then make sure before you link swap that the other webmaster adds those specific keywords with the link.
When to Hire a Professional SEO Firm?
In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more companies are turning to online marketing initiatives – specifically, search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) is the art and science of blending technical and marketing skills together into a finely tuned website that is both search engine-friendly, ranks well for specific keywords and phrases, and is tailored to your audience from a buyer and seller perspective. According to a recent U.S. study, only 20% of all businesses outsource search engine optimization programs to professional SEO firms. The remaining 80% either do not conduct search engine optimization at all or they believe they have the resources and skills to do it in-house. Of this 80%, it is probable that 90% of these companies can’t be found on the web – they don’t exist. In order to generate any amount of significant web visibility, your website must typically rank within the top-30 results. So, the question comes down to what is in your company’s best interests? Conduct your SEO program in-house or out-source it. To answer this question, let’s first take a look at the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to implement and maintain a successful search engine optimization program. SEO knowledge and skills required 1) Basic understanding of how search engines and directories work. This may seem overly obvious, but you would be amazed how many people do not understand how they actually work. This knowledge provides the foundation for your SEO program. 2) Website design Although SEO is not completely a technical marketing process, it does require a fair amount of technical knowledge of what constitutes search engine-friendly web design. Certain web design elements can either help your search engine rankings or hurt them. You simply have to know which is which. 3) SEO experience This is the most important and most difficult knowledge to obtain. If you have never implemented a SEO program, then you are in for a big surprise. Search engine optimization programs require a lot of research and are extremely time consuming. Most importantly, they require actual SEO experience. This means knowing what SEO strategies and tactics work and which ones don’t. In-house vs. out-sourced SEO programs If your company is considering conducting your search engine optimization program in-house, here are some questions to consider. • Who will be responsible for analyzing, developing, implementing and measuring the success of your SEO program? • Is this considered the role of your IT department, Marketing department or some other individual(s) within your company? • Do they have the time, knowledge, and resources to successfully implement and maintain your search engine optimization program? And do they really care if it works or not? IT Department Typically your IT department handles multiple daily tasks from trouble-shooting your company’s LAN or WAN to fixing the sales department’s laptops? Out of a busy IT person’s day, what priority and focus do you think he or she will commit to for your SEO program? And even if your IT department has some skills in web design or development, these skills make up only a small percentage of the knowledge required for a successful search engine optimization program. Marketing Department Typically, your marketing department juggles many marketing projects at once and faces strict completion deadlines. From handling new print collateral campaigns to getting ready for new product or service launches, marketing personnel’s time is spread very thin. In addition, how knowledgeable is your marketing department in the technical aspects of web design and search engine optimization? Do they have the time to become well-versed? Do they have sufficient internal resources? Often the answer to both questions is no, they do not. Other individual(s) within your company Ok, so the responsibility falls onto someone outside of your Marketing or IT department. Who will that be and why are they responsible for your SEO program? Providing these individuals with a new “project of the month,” will typically result in another check mark off of their monthly to-do list and frustration by top management of why their website is not producing any sales results. Summary From a business standpoint, it makes sense to try to leverage internal resources to maximize your company’s productivity and profitability – whenever possible. However, there must be a line drawn in the sand between knowing what your organization’s capabilities are and what they are not. As you can see, there is more to search engine optimization than meets the eye. In order to implement and maintain a SEO program, you must acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources. This can be done by hiring a professional search engine optimization firm. Professional SEO firms have dedicated resources and experience to support your company’s web marketing initiatives. By leveraging their experience and know-how, your company can quickly and more efficiently implement a successful search engine optimization program.
There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings
Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions in SEO is that ranking at Google and Yahoo is all that counts in search engine optimization. Potential clients come to me with a single goal: "Get me a top-ten ranking at Google." Some will also mention MSN, and a few will rhyme off a list of search engines and want to rank well at the top 200 of them. It is time to separate fact from fiction. Yes, your SEO consultant can get you a top-ten placement at Google. But... 1. If the placement is for "dirty brown shoes", it probably won't help your shoe store one bit, even if I get you the first place ranking. Few people are actually searching for that term. 2. Being number ten might not help much either, depending on the term. People searching for "Essential Nectar liquid vitamins", will probably click on the first result they see, or at least on one of the "above-the-fold" results that do not require scrolling. On the other hand, someone searching for "liquid vitamins" might check through two pages of results to familiarize herself with the options available. 3. If your title tag reads like a cheap list of search terms, it will not be enticing. For instance, if it reads: "vitamins, liquid vitamins, multivitamins, multi-vitamins", you might skip over it in favor of the next result that reads "Liquid vitamins from the Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store". 4. If your description tag is a mess, people will more likely skip over your listing, even if it does rank number one, in favor of one that sounds like what they are looking for. Google and others use the description tag usually when the term searched for is found in it, so make sure to include your key search terms in a description tag that actually reads well. I recently responded to a forum question, which went something like this: My site ranks number one for this term at this engine. The term is searched this many times per day, and the engine has this percentage marketshare. Can I expect this many visitors? That's not an SEO challenge; that's a math problem: searches x marketshare = visitors I responded with a few factors that override mathematics in the SEO game, including the site's title tag and description tag, as well as whether the term lends itself to scrolling. I also pointed out that it depends on the title tags and description tags of the competition, too. Another factor that makes predicting traffic difficult is the abandonment factor – how many people click on none of the results because they get interrupted or confused, or abandon the search for a new one because they find themselves off-topic or searching too broadly. It also depends on how many sponsored links there are and how they are marked. Often at Yahoo and Lycos, for example, there are so many ads that the average searcher might never scroll a screen or two to see the organic (natural) results. And, of course, it also depends on the color of the walls in the room the searcher is clicking from, the weather outside and how well they slept last night. But there is little you can do about that. What you can do is to work with your SEO consultant to choose the most effective search terms for your business and make sure he develops a title tag and description tag that sell to both humans and the search engines. Then make sure he is monitoring not just the rankings for your key search terms, but also the description used by each of the search engines. A good ranking at Google and Yahoo is just one measure of your SEO consultant's success. A more complete evaluation is that he is your partner in building long-term, targeted traffic.
Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is big business. If you rely on search engines to bring visitors to your business website, you need to rely on more than luck. Your business will lag far short of its potential unless your site is optimized and re-optimized for search engine results. What is search engine optimization? SEO is optimizing your website for search engines, acquiring inbound links, and monitoring your traffic and referring links to use them optimally. SEO is also studying and monitoring your competitors’ techniques. The goal of SEO is to bring in targeted traffic that is organic, i.e., from search results. When people type in a keyword or phrase that you’ve optimized your site for, you want your site to appear on the first page, preferably high on that page. Good SEO results in increased traffic without the cost and time spent on advertising. The SEO industry Where there’s a need, there’s an industry ready to help you spend money on that need. SEO firms charge from a few hundred dollars up to six-figure amounts to optimize your site for search engines. If paying thousands of dollars to an SEO firm isn’t in your budget, consider using SEO packages to optimize your site yourself. A combination of SEO tools is needed to get the best results. The SEO packages described below offer a variety of tools to help you optimize your site for search engines. SEO tools compared While we’ve listed numerous features of each SEO tool, these comparisons are summaries only. Internet Business Promoter (IBP) Known for their link popularity tool ARELIS, IBP also produces a three-step suite of tools to help you promote your website: 1. Page optimization • Generate, analyze, and edit keywords • Optimize for the top 10 search engine rankings • Optimize the title, link texts, and other parts of the web page • Validate the HTML • View the site via a spider simulator 2. Page promotion • Submit your site to search engines and directories • Search for sites that might add a link to your site 3. Results tracking • Verify search engine positions automatically Price: $179.95 or $349.95. LinksManager Links Manager is designed to help users manage reciprocal linking. It doesn’t require any software downloads, and current links pages can be imported into it. Some of its features: Link organization and formatting • Organize your links into multiple categories, subcategories, and “most popular links” lists • Store the links on your own server • Highlight newly added and featured links Link management and tracking • Remove dead links temporarily via a dead link checker • Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist • Rotate links automatically • Deny link submissions according to the criteria you set via a blacklist • View the most popular keywords on your links pages Price: $19.95 a month. SEO Administrator SEO Administrator automates website promotion with tools that can do these tasks: Keywords and site visitors • Track your site’s position for your keywords in over 30 search engines • Report on the keyword weight and density of your site as well as of competitors’ sites • Suggest keywords that are relevant to each page • Analyze your site logs to find out about site visitors, keywords used, referrers, and more Search engines and directories • Check which pages at your site have been indexed by various search engines • Check Google PR, the number of inbound links, and whether or not the site is listed in the DMOZ and Yahoo directories • Show the automated descriptions that search engines display for your pages Price: from $70 to $150, depending on the version. SEO Elite With SEO Elite, you can find out exactly what your competitors are doing and copy their strategies. You can find out about your competitors’ web pages: • Keyword density and prominence • Their headings • Their meta keywords • Whether their site is listed in the Yahoo directory • Which websites your competitors are advertising on Concerning link partners and search engines, SEO Elite can: • Find thousands of possible link partners • Track details about pages with inbound links • Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist • Indicate which of your pages search engines have indexed • Keep a record of where your site is ranked for search terms Price: $167. SEOToolset The focus of SEOToolset is to provide data to help with website promotion. The toolset includes: Your website • Keyword density analyzer • Keyword selection tool • Reports on rankings for keywords, page names, and indexed page counts • Link partner finder Search engines and directories • Engine-specific keyword research • Traffic checker for keywords • DMOZ category selector • Search engine submission tool • Search engine ranking monitor Your competition • Keyword research summary • Link analysis of inbound links to competitors’ websites Price: $90.00 per quarter per site. Web CEO The 10 tools in the Web CEO package are designed to help you promote and maintain your website, improve search engine results, and analyze site visitors. A summary of these tools: At your website • Keyword research • Website optimization • Inbound link tracking • WYSIWYG website editing and file uploading • Link checking • Website monitoring • Stats analysis to track visitors, ad campaigns, transactions, and more Search engines and competition • URL submission to search engines • Search engine rank checking • Tracking who links to the competition Price: $295 for one person. A free version is also available. WebPosition WebPosition, one of the oldest and most popular SEO tools, offers a five-step SEO process: 1. Determine your position in search engines • Create search engine ranking reports • Monitor your site’s placement in search engine results 2. Research and choose keywords • Identify the most searched and least competitive keywords 3. Optimize your pages • Compare your pages to those of top-performing sites and specific competitors • Detect when your competitors’ pages have changed • Be alerted to changes that could affect your site rankings 4. Design and submit your pages • Use Page Builder and Upload Manager to design and maintain your site • Submit your site to search engines with the Submitter tool 5. Analyze your results • Track the correlation between search rankings and revenue • Import top-performing keywords Price: $149 or $349. How to hire an SEO firm If you’d prefer to hire an SEO firm instead, do your research. You’ll be spending a minimum of a few hundred dollars, more likely thousands of dollars for a medium-sized or larger website. While many SEO firms are good at what they do, the field unfortunately has its share of scammers as well. They may tell you that a variety of tricks such as hidden text or cloaking will improve your site’s position in search engines. In reality, these techniques may get your site banned from search engines. More information is at these pages at Google.com: • http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html Webmaster Guidelines • http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html Search Engine Optimizers If you’re considering an SEO firm, ask how they measure success. Will your site hits be organic? Look at the sites of SEO firms’ clients and the site for the SEO firm itself. Do the sites rank well for keywords at these sites? The search engine results for relevant keywords will indicate how successful an SEO firm is.
What to look for when shopping for a SEO specialist.
When, shopping for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company/specialist you need to be aware of a few things. If someone offers you fast results they may be pulling your leg. If you aren’t listed on search engines the average time to be index takes around 4 weeks. Someone offering submissions in less then that is coning you. Websites that are already listed and are just being updated will have a faster result. A guarantee isn’t always reinsurance. Just because a site states they can get you in the 1 spot doesn’t mean they can deliver. Or, they may have you listed under an obscure keyword or phrase. Most legitimate SEO’s will tell you no one can guarantee a top spot on all keywords and phrases. Search Engine optimization is not an exact science. Trail and error along with constant tweaking will help bring your site closer to your goal. Most SEO’s should give you some information on where your site stands currently. You links, keywords, where you rank on major search engines etc.. Or, do one yourself. My article “Google’s Helping hand” show you free tools that can help you evaluate where you are on search engines. Don’t go into any SEO work blindly. Know where you stand before and after. Price is never an indication of how good a service is. More isn’t always better. Shop around try to get the most for your money, but be realistic. If it seems too good to be true then it may just be. Be prepared to shell out some cash. SEO is not cheap. You should think of SEO as advertising. It should be contestant as should all of your advertising efforts. Ask questions! Do not be afraid to ask what will be done to increase your ranking. Most SEO’s will have no problem telling you what they will do. They may not want to reveal their whole SEO operation. But, they will give you some insight to what they will do. Talk to more then one SEO company. Compare what each has to say. Do some research on your own. Find out if these companies have been reported to the Better Business Bureau. If the company or persons have had any articles or reviews written about them. Ask around. Try to have some idea of the company or persons creditability. A few additional things to keep in mind are: Is SEO there main business or is it a sideline to other businesses. SEO is a full time job. Especially, keeping up with the constant changes. Do they have a specialist? Do they outsource? How much do they really know? What are there view points on link farms and doorway pages? Will they do anything to get you links and traffic? Even though search engines frown on those practices. Can they explain to you clearly how their plan of action? Are they looking to take small steps with you? Or, are they trying to sell you the biggest SEO package possible? Follow this outline when you are searching for someone to optimize your site. In the end it will be worth it. Joe Balestrino’s site is www.mr-seo.com he offers affordable SEO, submissions and other articles on SEO and marketing. His other site www.jnb-design.com offers affordable web design and free lifetime hosting.
The SEO Rip-Off
I have decide to write this article as a result of numerous emails. It seems more and more people are falling victim to bad SEO. The main complaint is that they are paying entirely too much for little or no results. Additionally, many fall prey to bad SEO practices. If you plan to hire an SEO pro in the future, I suggest you use this article as a set of guidelines. Before going with any SEO firm or individual, do the following: A) Find out how established and experienced an SEO firm is before you negotiate. Do they have a sizeable client list under their belt? Are they published? B) Scrutinize their portfolio. What kind of results have they achieved? Contact a few of their clients. Were they satisfied with the work performed? C) Consider and confirm their methods? How will they optimize your site to reach your keywords? Do they use organic methods? Some individuals or companies use doorway pages, hide text in the background, utilize re-directs and other blacklisted methods. Stay away from these. D) Get a least three proposals from different SEO firms. Look at each one carefully. Are there similarities? Proposals will help you see which companies are honest and which are trying to sell you something you don't need. What is the cost? The cheapest isn't always the best, however, the highest price may not be attached to a comprehensive and viable course of action. Try to find find an individual or organization that will give you what you want within your SEO budget. E) Contract, Contract, Contract. Get everything in writing. Look over the document carefully. Be sure it covers everything you have discussed, including methods of achieving your desired results. Have the copies signed by both parties. If the job is a large one you may want to consult a lawyer. F) Clearly state the terms of payment. While most SEO firms will not do any work for free or agree to a results based pay scale, many competant SEO professionals will not shy away from a base plus performance incentive package. I am not a firm believer in prepaid contracts.. Most SEO professionals will abide by the 50% up front, 50% upon completion standard. Make sure all financial terms are as clearly defined in your contract as the actual scope of work. This will protect all parties involved in the event that expectations are not met. All in all, try to do your best to educate yourself on SEO. Have a basic understanding of SEO terminology and SEO methodology. Anyone offering SEO services should not have a problem explaining how they intend to get you results. If they fail gain your confidence or raise a red flag for any reason whatsoever, keep searching. You will eventually find someone who will help you reach your goals for a fair price. Happy hunting.
Press ReleasePromote Your Website in Google Absolutely Free
Free SEO help. The SEO Book helps charities promote their websites in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and other major search engines. The recently updated number one ranking SEO Book is now available to charities free of charge.
State College, PA July 20, 2004 -- Aaron Wall has made his recently revised best selling SEO Book available to charities free of charge.Hiring a quality search engine optimization firm can often cost thousands and thousands of dollars, which is well beyond the budget of many charities.Without proper placement in search engines people who want to help your charity may not be able to find you.The SEO Book is a simple and straightforward guide which helps even the most novice webmaster learn how to promote their website."In a field like Internet marketing, where so much nonsense dispensed by self-proclaimed experts passes for decent advice, it is refreshing to find a talent as down-to-earth and unpretentious as Aaron, who just seems to get a kick out of being honest and helping other people avoid the traps and dead ends set by the hype-meisters and snake oil salesmen."- Mario Sanchez, "The Internet Digest"Search engine optimization is a complicated industry filled with confusion and error. Much of the applicable information changes from month to month or year to year and much of the available information on the web is outdated or absolutely incorrect. The SEO Book is published in ebook format so that it is constantly revised to keep current with the ever changing SEO field.If you are the webmaster of a charity, church, or educational institution feel free to inquire about acquiring your complimentary copy of The SEO Book today at http://www.seobook.com/charities.In addition you may direct your questions directly to Aaron via email at seobook@gmail.comAbout the SEO Book:SEO Book is a major industry hub of the SEO community. SEO Book is a search engine news blog which offers free SEO tips, SEO news, and a current guide to search engine optimization. Aaron Wall wrote the SEO Book to help businesses lower the cost of entry into the web and to help charities spread their messages. For more information about obtaining a complimentary copy of the SEO Book please visit our charities page at http://www.seobook.com/charities. For more information about the SEO Book website visit http://www.seobook.com.About Aaron Wall:Aaron Wall is a search engine optimization expert and an internet entrepreneur. His goals on the web are to help businesses effectively market their websites and help charities spread their messages.
You may have found the best assistance with reference to computer sales.
When you are trying to find excellent advice concerning computer sales, you'll find it easier said than done separating superior advice from amateurish computer sales suggestions and support so it's prudent to know how to judge the information you are offered. HP Business Store: Computers Purchase computers online. Also find HP Compaq notebooks and desktops, HP printers, servers, handhelds, and storage solutions. Here are several tips that you should make use of when you're seeking information about computer sales. Bear in mind the recommendation we give is only appropriate to internet info about computer sales. We can't give you any guidance or tips if you are receiving information offline. Sterling Computer Sales: Rugged Portable Computers Offers a variety of ruggedized lunchbox portable computers designed to provide a full function workstation. Features flat panel displays. A great tip to follow when you are presented with information or advice on a computer sales webpage would be to determine who owns the site. This may divulge who is behind the site computer sales qualifications The quickest way to work out who owns the computer sales site is to find the 'about' page. All decent sites providing information on computer sales, will almost certainly provide an 'about' webpage which will list the owner's details. The details should disclose key points about the website owner's expertise. This enables you to make an assessment about the webmaster's training and understanding, to offer guidance about computer sales.
Digital Cameras Are Fun
What is one of the most fun computer accessories? Digital cameras I love mine! Wouldn't you like to send some pictures to some friends and family by e-mail? A digital camera is the easiest way to do that. Also, it is the easiest way to get pictures onto your computer. You can also print them from your computer, most modern printers and some quality photo paper will print great quality photos. The best part is that you can see the pictures instantly on the camera's LCD screen with the review feature, or load them onto your computer. Digital makes it so easy to take great pictures because you can see how they turned out instantly and re-take if necessary. No waiting for film to be developed either, just load onto your computer with the software program that comes with the digital camera, and print. There are lots of different sizes, prices, and brands to choose from. So have some fun -- get a digital camera today! One of the greatest computer accessories you will love to use.
After the best sourced advice relating to computer securityrisk model computer securit
After the best sourced advice relating to computer securityrisk model computer securit When you are in search of top advice concerning computer securityrisk model computer security, you'll find it easier said than done extricating superior advice from misguided computer securityrisk model computer security submissions and support so it is wise to recognize ways of judging the information you are offered. Here's a few tips that we think you should use when you're searching for information about computer securityrisk model computer security. You need to realize the recommendation we give is only applicable to internet based information regarding computer securityrisk model computer security. We cannot offer any assistance or guidance when you are also conducting research offline. A great hint to follow when offered help and advice regarding a computer securityrisk model computer security article is to verify the ownership of the website. Doing this could reveal the owners computer securityrisk model computer security qualifications The easiest way to work out who is at the back of the computer securityrisk model computer security website is to look on the 'about' page or 'contact' page. All reliable sites providing content on computer securityrisk model computer security, will almost certainly provide an 'about' or 'contact' page which will list the site owner's details. The details should make known key points about the owner's necessary expertise. This permits you to make an informed assessment about the vendor's insight and appreciation, to provide advice to you regarding computer securityrisk model computer security.
urplus Computers and Discount Computers Are New Computers!
Surplus computer just means that manufacturer excess, overstock, and slightly obsolete inventories in HUGE quantities were purchased. What that means for you, our customer, is truly remarkable discount computer prices! These benefits and values of surplus computers were traditionally available to only large volume commercial buyers, dealers, and corporate level buyers. But now discount computers are also sold retail so you can get all the benefits too. The sellers of surplus computers and discount computers are committed to offering tremendous savings to you, the retail customer. Desktop PCs, laptops, notebooks, barebones, whole computer systems, computer accessories, everything in computers you can find in surplus and discount computers. Repackaged products are sometimes sold as surplus computers or discount computers but they are always evaluated, tested and quality assured, fully functional and repackaged for shipment. Also, sometimes sold as surplus computers or discount computers are open Box products which are retested, quality assured, fully functional and complete. The customer can expect original manufacturer packaging.
How SMS Works
SMS, or Short Message Service, is the technology behind what we often refer to as ‘text messages’ or ‘SMSes’, as well as what allows for news alerts on cellular phones. In recent years SMS has ballooned to over a 50 billion dollar industry and is quickly taking the communications world by storm.
Short Message Service actually refers to a framework that uniquely allows computers, or in this case phones, to communicate with each other without the need of a central hub. With SMS, phones can find each other, send short packets of information back and forth, and do it all without any central computer to guide them. But because the system does not rely upon fixed lines like a land based telephone system does, the amount of information that can be sent at one time is limited in size. This depends on the language spoken, but for English letters this typically means around 150 characters (Chinese and Japanese letters are limited to 70).
Quite recently, however, new developments in the technology have allowed for even longer messages to be sent. Long or Concatenated SMS is a development that allows multiple messages to be combined to form a single message. In effect, what happens is that your phone actually sends out a few smaller messages and then the receiving phone simply compiles those messages so that for users on both ends, it appears as though the message were cohesive. While there are some limitations, the brilliance behind SMS is that because there is no need for central hubs, and thus the system can be expanded indefinitely without any concerns of it slowing down or becoming more expensive.
The most common form of SMS is ‘texting’. This usually takes place with a cellular phone in which individuals use the letters behind the number pad on their phone to spell out words and phrases and then send them out. Because many companies charge by the word, individuals have come up with a sort of ‘texting slang’ to cut down on the amount of words required to convey a particular message. For example, ‘gr8’ and ‘BTW’ mean ‘great’ and ‘by the way’. In addition, other words have just been shortened, such as ‘lata’ to mean ‘later’. Most users simply pick up the lingo through frequent use, and although some slang is widely understood and used, other shortcuts are developed within circles of friends and family.
The major advantage of SMS is its price. The price is typically $0.05 per message, a significant cut below that of traditional telephony and cell phone per-minute charges. The savings of SMS has its roots in the nature of the technology. Short Message Service, like SIP, is modeled on a peer to peer model and not a cog and wheel like traditional communication systems. This means that instead of having to route a message through a central hub, your text goes straight from you to its destination. This has radically cut down on the cost of SMS implementation and led to its overwhelming popularity throughout the world.
Short Message Service (SMS) has radically changed the face of the communications industry. While the practice has become quite common throughout the world, it has only recently become popular here in the United Stats, a growth partly predicated upon, surprisingly enough, its featured role in the show American Idol. The fact that ‘texting’ is quickly gaining both in popularity and recognition in the United States is not surprising however, due to its ability to offer users a cheap, quick, and often fun way to communicate with friends and family.
Short Message Service actually refers to a framework that uniquely allows computers, or in this case phones, to communicate with each other without the need of a central hub. With SMS, phones can find each other, send short packets of information back and forth, and do it all without any central computer to guide them. But because the system does not rely upon fixed lines like a land based telephone system does, the amount of information that can be sent at one time is limited in size. This depends on the language spoken, but for English letters this typically means around 150 characters (Chinese and Japanese letters are limited to 70).
Quite recently, however, new developments in the technology have allowed for even longer messages to be sent. Long or Concatenated SMS is a development that allows multiple messages to be combined to form a single message. In effect, what happens is that your phone actually sends out a few smaller messages and then the receiving phone simply compiles those messages so that for users on both ends, it appears as though the message were cohesive. While there are some limitations, the brilliance behind SMS is that because there is no need for central hubs, and thus the system can be expanded indefinitely without any concerns of it slowing down or becoming more expensive.
The most common form of SMS is ‘texting’. This usually takes place with a cellular phone in which individuals use the letters behind the number pad on their phone to spell out words and phrases and then send them out. Because many companies charge by the word, individuals have come up with a sort of ‘texting slang’ to cut down on the amount of words required to convey a particular message. For example, ‘gr8’ and ‘BTW’ mean ‘great’ and ‘by the way’. In addition, other words have just been shortened, such as ‘lata’ to mean ‘later’. Most users simply pick up the lingo through frequent use, and although some slang is widely understood and used, other shortcuts are developed within circles of friends and family.
The major advantage of SMS is its price. The price is typically $0.05 per message, a significant cut below that of traditional telephony and cell phone per-minute charges. The savings of SMS has its roots in the nature of the technology. Short Message Service, like SIP, is modeled on a peer to peer model and not a cog and wheel like traditional communication systems. This means that instead of having to route a message through a central hub, your text goes straight from you to its destination. This has radically cut down on the cost of SMS implementation and led to its overwhelming popularity throughout the world.
Short Message Service (SMS) has radically changed the face of the communications industry. While the practice has become quite common throughout the world, it has only recently become popular here in the United Stats, a growth partly predicated upon, surprisingly enough, its featured role in the show American Idol. The fact that ‘texting’ is quickly gaining both in popularity and recognition in the United States is not surprising however, due to its ability to offer users a cheap, quick, and often fun way to communicate with friends and family.
After the latest and accurate help in relation to accountancy.
When you are looking for high-class advice concerning accountancy, it will be hard sorting out the best information from foolish accountancy proposals and guidance so it's best to know ways of moderating the information offered to you. NetSuite: Small Business Accounting NetSuite offers an integrated online accounting application with ecommerce, sales, inventory, shipping and support. Free Trial. Now we would like to offer you some advice which we advise you to use when you are searching for information about accountancy. You need to realize the guidance we put forward is only pertinent to internet based information concerning accountancy. We don't really offer any direction or assistance when you are also conducting research in books or magazines. OpenPro: Web Based Accounting Offers Web-based, open source ERP accounting system with financials, supply chain, manufacturing, CRM and ecommerce features. An interesting tip to pursue when you're presented with information and suggestions on a accountancy website would be to determine who owns the site. Doing this could reveal the owners accountancy credibility The easiest way to reveal who owns the accountancy web site is to find the sites 'about' page. Any reputable site providing information concerning accountancy, will always have contact information which will record the site owner's contact details. The details should make known some key points concerning the owner's requisite knowledge. You can then arrive at a decision about the webmaster's depth of experience, to offer guidance about accountancy.
How to Choose the Right Accounting Software for Your Business
With any good luck and a good amount of hard work, you're having the same problem many business owners today are facing. Your business is growing rapidly and you're having problems controlling your finances. Time and time again, that Microsoft Excel spreadsheet you've been using just isn't getting the job done for you. So, you’ve decided that you’re ready to take the next step, and buy a full-featured accounting software program. Many options are available to choose from, but I believe the best solutions to be Quicken Premier Home and Business by Intuit, QuickBooks Pro also by Intuit, and Peachtree Accounting by Sage. In order to decide on the right package for you, you need define the type of business that you operate. With the rise of self-employment (businesses with one or more owners but no paid employees) a need has arisen to manage business and personal finances on one platform. Intuit has released Quicken 2005 Premier Home and Business to fill this need. This software is perfect for the small business owner who receives income from investments, real estate, and/or internet marketing. Also, Quicken 2005 Premier Home and Business is well priced at only $89.95. For more typical brick-and-mortar business owners, you will usually need a more robust solution like QuickBooks Pro or Peachtree Accounting for functions like payroll reporting and check producing. Each piece of software has its advantages, but don't forget that QuickBooks has been the standard in business accounting software for many years now. As for features and basic operations, both applications will provide you the same functionality and convenience for your business. One additional factor to consider in your decision is that Peachtree Accounting is less expensive than QuickBooks. Both starter versions of Peachtree and QuickBooks are priced at $99.95 each, but the full-featured version of Peachtree is priced at only $199.95 while the full-featured QuickBooks Pro is priced at $299.95. At the end of the day, the biggest advantage QuickBooks offers over Peachtree is compatibility with other applications. For example, most commercial banks (Bank of America, SunTrust, etc...) provide you with files designed to work directly with QuickBooks, so that you can read, study, and decipher transaction details. Also, some banks will allow you to update account information in real-time with QuickBooks. Check with your bank to see what accounting software their online services support, and you should be able to make your decision.
Do You Need Accounting Software For Your Small Business?
If you’re anything like me then you dislike with a vengeance doing your accounts and taxes. So how can you make this process easier, less painful and cut your accountancy fees? Well buying an accounting software package is one way. First of all you need to decide whether you are going to keep your accounting records manually, that is using pen and paper, or whether you are going to computerize the process. If you decide that computerizing the process is the way to go then you need to decide whether to buy an accounting software package, for example Sage or Quicken, or whether a spreadsheet, such as Microsoft Excel will suit your needs better. As a general rule if you are a cash business that just needs to record income and expenditure then you are better off using a spreadsheet. So, should you choose an accounting software package? Yes if: · You have customers to whom you extend credit and you buy goods in the same way · You process in excess of 50 transactions per month · Your business is an Incorporated Company (Limited Company in the UK) and · You are computer literate or are willing to learn! Before choosing the accounting software, speak to your accountants – they will be familiar with the various accounting software packages on the market and will be able to advise you. Most accountants use software in their office to process the bookkeeping for their clients and will have a working knowledge of the accounting software package they use. It may be cheaper for you to use the same one they do, because they can advise you how to get it up and running and will be on hand to answer questions, plus at your financial year end when your accounts need preparing it will be less expensive, believe me to have a compatible program. I also recommend doing some research yourself, you may be able to obtain a demonstration disk or download of the most popular accounting software packages and this will give you an idea of how they work and if they are user-friendly. The cost may also be an issue, so you need to decide on your budget. But consider how your business is likely to expand - you may outgrow that budget accounting software quickly and end up buying the more expensive one anyway. Accounting software providers may also try and up-sell you a maintenance contract. Save your money! In my experience the established software providers will not have bugs in their systems. They will also try and upgrade you to the next version on a regular basis, but if the software is doing everything you need then there is no need to upgrade. Of course, you could also pay someone to do your accounts for you, either your accountant or a bookkeeper – the payoff being you don’t have to do it yourself and it frees you up to actually run your business! Copyright © Jakki Francis,(UK), 2005
Surprise! Accounting is the Hot New Major
There was a time when accounting was the boring college major that many people regretted signing up for. A constant barrage of numbers, statistics and spreadsheets was none too interesting. Boy, have times changed! Thanks to recent accounting scandals by companies like Enron, there is a high demand for accountants and auditors. According to the Job Outlook 2005 survey, accounting comes out on top as the most in-demand major on college campuses. Forget dot com start ups. Cleaning up a company’s accounting books is what’s in. But can accounting be sexy? “All the focus on accounting created a perception to students that accounting matters and is perhaps even sexy,” says Ira Solomon, head of the department of accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Colleges are scrambling to find more accounting teachers and professors to replace those retiring. Not an easy task, since there are twice as many accounting faculty openings than applicants to fill them. Here are the top 10 most in-demand college majors as surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE): 1) Accounting 2) Electrical Engineering 3) Mechanical Engineering 4) Business Administration/Management 5) Economics/Finance 6) Computer Science 7) Computer Engineering 8) Marketing/Marketing Management 9) Chemical Engineering 10) Information Sciences and Systems If you’re good with numbers and a stickler for details, you might want to consider accounting as a good career choice. However, you’ll probably have to take a number and wait in line behind all those other future accountant hopefuls.
Accounting Police: Do They Exist?
Who created accounting principles? Who sets and revises accounting standards? What if you don’t follow all the rules, do you go to jail? Is there an accounting police force that investigates and arrests violators? It would seem that there must be some regulatory force to make sure that providers of financial statements conform to the rules. There is, up to a point, and here is how it works:
Mainly, it’s all voluntary and it works pretty well. First, double-entry accounting originated in Italy in the 1400’s, so its been around awhile. Accounting principles have evolved over the years just as have accounting standards. The reason why the system works is that the business community could not function if there was not commonality and consistency in financial statement reporting. It would be chaos, much like if there were no driving rules of the road.
Therefore, in the United States, a body of experts known as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB pronounced Fasbee) was established in 1973, which superseded another board called the Accounting Principles Board (APB). The FASB members go through a lengthy process of analyzing and reviewing problems in the accounting field that are brought to them. After much thought, they will make a pronouncement as to what they think the new or revised way of approaching the treatment of an accounting issue should be.
They are a non-governmental organization that has private financing. A big supporter of FASB is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) belong to this prestigious organization and are obligated to abide by its guidelines and principles of behavior. Other countries no doubt have similar organizations that require high levels of accounting professional conduct.
FASB established an accounting code called “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles” or (GAAP). The assumption is that if a business financial statement is prepared according to GAAP, then the user of that financial statement could rely on or trust the information more readily than if not prepared according to GAAP. Those businesses that deviate from GAAP, and many smaller businesses do, cannot say that their statements are prepared under GAAP; in fact, they should inform the reader that they are not. However, let the buyer beware.
One governmental body that has a policing function is the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It is primarily concerned with public companies because their job is to protect investors from unscrupulous acts. Recently, the SEC has gotten into the act of establishing accounting standards. It has its hands full today.
Since most businesses use their financial statements to prepare their required income tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may audit those tax returns and review the financial statements upon which the tax returns are based. Not following the rules can get you in trouble with this governmental body.
You can see that in many ways compliance to the principles and standards is a mixture of voluntary and regulatory behavior. Currently, there is an effort underway to set international accounting standards due to the inexorable globalization process. This is a massive undertaking that will take years, but it is obviously necessary and inevitable.
Mainly, it’s all voluntary and it works pretty well. First, double-entry accounting originated in Italy in the 1400’s, so its been around awhile. Accounting principles have evolved over the years just as have accounting standards. The reason why the system works is that the business community could not function if there was not commonality and consistency in financial statement reporting. It would be chaos, much like if there were no driving rules of the road.
Therefore, in the United States, a body of experts known as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB pronounced Fasbee) was established in 1973, which superseded another board called the Accounting Principles Board (APB). The FASB members go through a lengthy process of analyzing and reviewing problems in the accounting field that are brought to them. After much thought, they will make a pronouncement as to what they think the new or revised way of approaching the treatment of an accounting issue should be.
They are a non-governmental organization that has private financing. A big supporter of FASB is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) belong to this prestigious organization and are obligated to abide by its guidelines and principles of behavior. Other countries no doubt have similar organizations that require high levels of accounting professional conduct.
FASB established an accounting code called “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles” or (GAAP). The assumption is that if a business financial statement is prepared according to GAAP, then the user of that financial statement could rely on or trust the information more readily than if not prepared according to GAAP. Those businesses that deviate from GAAP, and many smaller businesses do, cannot say that their statements are prepared under GAAP; in fact, they should inform the reader that they are not. However, let the buyer beware.
One governmental body that has a policing function is the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It is primarily concerned with public companies because their job is to protect investors from unscrupulous acts. Recently, the SEC has gotten into the act of establishing accounting standards. It has its hands full today.
Since most businesses use their financial statements to prepare their required income tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may audit those tax returns and review the financial statements upon which the tax returns are based. Not following the rules can get you in trouble with this governmental body.
You can see that in many ways compliance to the principles and standards is a mixture of voluntary and regulatory behavior. Currently, there is an effort underway to set international accounting standards due to the inexorable globalization process. This is a massive undertaking that will take years, but it is obviously necessary and inevitable.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
PlayStation
The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December 1994.
The PlayStation was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation series of console and handheld game devices. Successor consoles and upgrades include the Net Yaroze, PS one, PocketStation, PlayStation 2, a revised slimline PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, a revised PlayStation Portable Slim and Lite, PSX, and the PlayStation 3. On March 31 2005, the PlayStation and PS one reached a combined total of 102.49 million units shipped,[6] becoming the first video game console to reach the 100 million mark.[9] As of July 20, 2008, the PlayStation has sold 102 million units. Sony ceased production of the PlayStation on March 23, 2006, over 11 years since it was first produced.
The PlayStation was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation series of console and handheld game devices. Successor consoles and upgrades include the Net Yaroze, PS one, PocketStation, PlayStation 2, a revised slimline PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, a revised PlayStation Portable Slim and Lite, PSX, and the PlayStation 3. On March 31 2005, the PlayStation and PS one reached a combined total of 102.49 million units shipped,[6] becoming the first video game console to reach the 100 million mark.[9] As of July 20, 2008, the PlayStation has sold 102 million units. Sony ceased production of the PlayStation on March 23, 2006, over 11 years since it was first produced.
History
he first conceptions of the PlayStation date back to 1986. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disc technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. Its rewritable magnetic nature could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and the discs were a copyright infringement danger. Consequently, when details of CDROM/XA (an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously) came out, Nintendo was interested. CD-ROM/XA was being simultaneously developed by Sony and Philips. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was signed, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.[11]
Sony also planned to develop another, Nintendo compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super Nintendo cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CD discs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.
The SNES-CD was to be announced at the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 a.m. the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknown to Sony, flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.
After the collapse of the joint project, Sony considered halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what they had developed so far and make it into a complete, stand alone console. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in U.S. federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of the PlayStation, on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the new Sony PlayStation was revealed. However, it is theorized that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.
By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Sony Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped and the space between the names was removed.
Launch
The PlayStation was launched in Japan on December 3, 1994, North America on September 9, 1995, Europe on September 29, 1995, and Oceania in November 1995. The launch price in the American market was US$299 (a price point later used by its successor, the PlayStation 2), and Sony enjoyed a very successful launch with titles of almost every genre, including Battle Arena Toshinden, Twisted Metal, Tekken, Warhawk, Air Combat, Philosoma, and Ridge Racer. Almost all of Sony's and Namco's launch titles went on to spawn numerous sequels.
The PlayStation was also able to generate interest with a unique series of advertising campaigns. Many of the ads released at the time of launch were full of ambiguous content which had many gamers rabidly debating their meanings. The most well-known launch ads include the "Enos Lives" campaign, and the "U R Not e" ads (the "e" in "U R Not e" was always colored in red, to symbolize the word "ready", and the "Enos" meant "ready Ninth Of September", the U.S. launch date). The Enos ad could also be read as Sony written backward with phonetic sound of "E" replacing the "y". It is believed that these ads were an attempt to play off the gaming public's suspicion towards Sony as an unknown, untested entity in the video game market. The PlayStation 3 slogan, "PLAY B3YOND", resembles this slogan, as the 3 is red.
Titles
As of September 30, 2007, 7,978 software titles have been released worldwide (counting games released in multiple regions as separate titles). As of March 31, 2007, the cumulative software shipment was at 962 million units. The very last game for the system was FIFA Football 2005.[citation needed]
The OK and Cancel buttons on most of the Japanese PlayStation games are reversed in their North American and European releases. In Japan, the 
button (maru, right) is used as the OK button, while the 
button (batsu, wrong) is used as the Cancel one. North American and European releases have the button or the buttons as the OK button, while the 
or the 
buttons are used as the Cancel ones. However, a few games such as Squaresoft's Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy Tactics, and Konami's Metal Gear Solid, have the buttons remain in the same Japanese configuration in their North American and European releases. These Japanese button layouts still apply to other PlayStation consoles, such as the PlayStation Portable (PSP), PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3. This is because in the early years Sony America (SCEA), Sony Europe (SCEE) and Sony Japan (SCEJ) had different development and testing documents (TRCs) for their respective territories.
Production run
Lasting over 11 years, the PlayStation enjoyed one of the longest production runs in the video game industry. On March 23, 2006, Sony announced the end of production
Variants
The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run, each accompanied by a change in the part number. From an external perspective, the most notable change was the gradual reduction in the number of external connectors on the unit. This started very early on—the original Japanese launch units (SCPH-1000) had an S-Video port, which was removed on the next release. This also led to the strange situation where the US and European launch units had the same part number series (SCPH-100x) as the Japanese launch units, but had different hardware (Rev. C silicon and no S-Video port)—they were the same as the Japanese SCPH-3000, so for consistency should have been SCPH-3001 and SCPH-3002 (this numbering was used for the Yaroze machines, which were based on the same hardware and numbered DTL-H3000, DTL-H3001, and DTL-H3002). This series of machines had a reputation for CD drive problems—the optical pickup sled was made of thermoplastic, and eventually developed wear spots that moved the laser into a position where it was no longer parallel with the CD surface—a modification was made that replaced the sled with a die-cast one with hard nylon inserts, which corrected the problem.
With the release of the next series (SCPH-500x), the numbers moved back into sync. A number of changes were made to the unit internally (CD drive relocated, shielding simplified, PSU wiring simplified) and the RCA jacks and RFU power connectors were removed from the rear panel. This series also contained the SCPH-550x and SCPH-555x units, but these appear to have been bundle changes rather than actual hardware revisions.
These were followed by the SCPH-700x and SCHP-750x series—they are externally identical to the SCPH-500x machines, but have internal changes made to reduce manufacturing costs (for example, the system RAM went from 4 chips to 1, and the CD controller went from 3 chips to 1).
The final revision to the original PlayStation was the SCPH-900x series—these had the same hardware as the SCPH-750x machines with the exception of the removal of the parallel port and a slight reduction in the size of the PCB. The removal of the parallel port was probably partly because no official add-on had ever been released for it, and partly because it was being used to connect cheat cartridges that could be used to defeat the copy prevention.
The PS one was based on substantially the same hardware as the SCPH-750x and 900x, but had the serial port removed, the controller / memory card ports moved to the main PCB and the power supply replaced with a DC-DC converter that was also on the main PCB.
With the early units, many gamers experienced skipping full-motion video or dreaded physical "ticking" noises coming from their PlayStations. The problem appears to have come from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments—the plastic moldings inside the console would warp very slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution was to ensure the console was sat on a surface which dissipated heat efficiently in a well vented area, or raise the unit up slightly by propping something at its edges. A common fix for already affected consoles was to turn the PlayStation sideways or upside-down (thereby using gravity to cancel the effects of the warped interior) although some gamers smacked the lid of the PlayStation to make a game load or work.
Sony then released a version dubbed "Dual Shock", which included a controller with 2 analog sticks and a built in force-feedback feature.
Another version that was colored blue (as opposed to regular console units that were grey in color) was available to game developers and select press. Later versions of this were colored green—on a technical level, these units were almost identical to the retail units, but had a different CD controller in them that did not require the region code found on all pressed disks, since they were intended to be used with CD-R media for debugging. This also allowed the use of discs from different regions, but this was not officially supported; different debug stations existed for each region. The two different color cases were not cosmetic—the original blue debug station (DTL-H100x, DTL-H110x) contained "Revision B" silicon, the same as the early retail units (these units had silicon errata that needed software workarounds), the green units (DTL-H120x) had Rev. C hardware. As part of the required tests, the user had to test the title on both. Contrary to popular belief, the RAM was the same as the retail units at 2 MB. The firmware was nearly identical—the only significant change was that debug printf()s got sent to the serial port if the title didn't open it for communications—this used a DTL-H3050 serial cable (the same as the one used for the Yaroze).
A white version was also produced that had the ability to play VCDs—this was only sold in Asia, since that format never really caught on anywhere else. From a developer perspective, the white PSX could be treated exactly like any other NTSC:J PlayStation.
The PS1 with a model number of SCPH-1001 has been reported to be a very good sounding compact disc player rivaling audiophile CD players from high end audio manufacturers.
Hacks
A number of these units appeared on the secondary market and were popular because they would run games from any region and CD-R copies, which tended to result in them commanding high prices. All the blue, green and black units tend to have CD problems, but the DTL-H110x units (with an external PSU block) are significantly more reliable than the original DTL-H100x ones, perhaps due to generally running cooler than the machines with direct high-voltage AC input.
"Chipped" consoles
The installation of a modchip allowed the PlayStation's capabilities to be expanded, and several options were made available. By the end of the system's life cycle almost anyone with minimal soldering experience was able to realize the modification of the console. Such a modification allowed the playing of games from other regions, such as PAL titles on a NTSC console, or allowed the ability to play copies of original games without restriction. Modchips allow the playing of games recorded on a regular CD-R. This created a wave of games developed without official approval using free GNU compiler tools, as well as the reproduction of original discs. With the introduction of such devices the console was very attractive to programmers and illegal copiers alike.
Anyone seeking to create copies of games that would work correctly faced several issues at the time, as the discs that were produced by Sony were designed to be difficult to copy — and impossible to copy on recordable media. Discs were manufactured with a black-colored plastic, transparent only to the infrared radiation used by the CD-ROM drive's laser. This was found to offer little protection. Additionally, the discs were mastered with a specific wobble in the lead-in area. This wobble encodes a four-character sequence which is checked by the CD-ROM drive's controller chip. The drive will only accept the disc if the code is correct. This string varies depending on the region of the disk—"SCEI" for NTSC:J machines, "SCEA" for NTSC:U/C machines, "SCEE" for PAL machines and "SCEW" for the Net Yaroze. Since the tracking pattern is pressed into the disc at the time of manufacture, this cannot be reproduced on a CD-R recorder. Some companies (notably Datel) did manage to produce discs that booted on unmodified retail units, but this required special equipment and can only be done with "pressed" discs. However, inexpensive modchips were created that simply injected the code to the appropriate connections to the controller chip, which provided an easy way of bypassing these measures. The other issue is that most PC drives used Mode 1 or Mode 2/Form 1 (2048 bytes/sector) and the PSX uses a mixed-mode format with most data in Mode 2/Form 1 and streaming audio/video data in Mode 2/Form 2, which most CD-R drives at the time could not handle well. Newer drives were able to correctly handle these variations.
The creation and mass-production of these inexpensive modchips, coupled with their ease of installation, marked the beginning of widespread console videogame copyright infringement. Coincidentally, CD burners were made available around this time. Prior to the PlayStation, the reproduction of copyrighted material for gaming consoles was restricted to either enthusiasts with exceptional technical ability, or others that had access to CD manufacturers. With this console, amateurs could replicate anything Sony was producing for a mere fraction of the MSRP.
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed directly with Sony's PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Europe and Australia. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. It was discontinued in late 2006.
History
The Xbox was Microsoft's first product that ventured into the video game console market, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Dreamcast console. Notable launch titles for the console included Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Dead or Alive 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, and Project Gotham Racing.
History
The Xbox was Microsoft's first product that ventured into the video game console market, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Dreamcast console. Notable launch titles for the console included Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Dead or Alive 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, and Project Gotham Racing.
Development
The Xbox was initially developed within Microsoft by a small team that included game developer Seamus Blackley. Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which was revealed at the end of 1999 following interviews of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Gates stated that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times, confirmed by Microsoft with a press release. [4]
According to the book Smartbomb, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, the remarkable success of the upstart Sony PlayStation worried Microsoft in late 1990s. The growing video game market seemed to threaten the PC market which Microsoft had dominated and relied upon for most of its revenues. Additionally, a venture into the gaming console market would diversify Microsoft's product line, which up to that time had been heavily concentrated on software.
According to Dean Takahashi's book, Opening the Xbox, the Xbox was originally to be named "DirectX-box", to show the extensive use of DirectX within the console's technology.[5] "Xbox" was the final name decided by marketing, but the console still retains some hints towards DirectX, most notably the "X"-shaped logo, which DirectX is famous for, along with the "X" shape on the top of the system.
As the console approached launch, Microsoft's J Allard was responsible for the hardware and system software development, Ed Fries was responsible for game development on the platform, and Mitch Koch was responsible for sales and marketing; all three reported to Robbie Bach. This team was also primarily responsible for Microsoft's follow-up product, the Xbox 360..
Price history
With an expensive PlayStation 3 (PS2) and the moderately priced but seemingly family entertainment focused GameCube as competition, many gamers were eager to invest in the console. The Xbox initially sold very well. All three platform-holders had difficulty manufacturing and selling the systems profitably.
By September 15, 2005, Microsoft reported a four billion dollar loss in selling the Xbox gaming system.
Xbox 360
NVIDIA ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which marked the end of Xbox production and the quick release of the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005.
When equipped with a removable hard drive add-on, the Xbox 360 supports a limited number of the Xbox's game library through emulation. Emulation adds support for anti-aliasing as well as upscaling of the still standard definition image. These emulators are periodically updated to add compatibility for older games and are available for free through Xbox Live or as a file download to be burned to a CD/DVD from the Xbox web site. These updates are also available monthly as part of the demo disc that comes with each issue of Official Xbox Magazine. As the architectures are entirely different between Xbox and Xbox 360, software emulation is the only viable option for compatibility without including processors from the original Xbox .
Hardware and accessories
Hardware
The Xbox was the first console to incorporate a hard disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves compressed in ZIP archives and content downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate memory cards (although some older consoles, such as the TurboGrafx-CD, Sega CD and Sega Saturn had featured built-in battery backup memory prior 2007). An Xbox user could rip music from standard audio CDs to the hard drive, and these songs were used for the custom soundtracks in some games.[7]
The Xbox was the first product in the gaming industry to feature Dolby Interactive Content-Encoding Technology, which allows real-time Dolby Digital encoding in game consoles. Whereas previous game consoles could only utilize Dolby Digital 5.1 during non-interactive "cut scene" playback.[8]
The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and runs a custom operating system which exposes APIs based largely on DirectX 8.1; the API commonality led to a common confusion that the OS was a stripped-down version of the Windows 2000 kernel.[9]
The Xbox itself is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5 inch hard drive. However, the Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being pulled from the surface it resides on.
The original game controller design, which was particularly large, was similarly often criticized since it was ill-suited to those with small hands and caused cramping in the hands of some users. In response to these criticisms, a smaller controller was introduced for the Japanese Xbox launch. This Japanese controller (which was briefly imported by even mainstream video game store chains such as GameStop) was subsequently released in other markets as the "Xbox Controller S". In addition, all future Xbox consoles were shipped with a "Controller S", while the original controller (known as Controller "0" or "The Duke") was quietly discontinued.[10]
Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing battle to discourage modding (hackers continually updated modchip designs in an attempt to defeat them), to cut manufacturing costs, and to provide a more reliable DVD-ROM drive (some of the early units' drives gave Disc Reading Errors due to the unreliable Thomson DVD-ROM drives used). Later generations of Xbox units that used the Thomson TGM-600 DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still vulnerable to failure that rendered the consoles either unable to read newer discs or caused them to halt the console with an error code usually indicating a PIO/DMA identification failure, respectively. These units would not be covered under the extended warranty.
In 2002, Microsoft and NVIDIA entered arbitration over a dispute on the pricing of NVIDIA's chips for the Xbox.[11] NVIDIA's filing with the SEC indicated that Microsoft was seeking a US$13 million discount on shipments for NVIDIA's fiscal year 2002. Additionally, Microsoft alleged violations of the agreement the two companies entered, sought reduced chipset pricing, and sought to ensure that NVIDIA fulfill Microsoft's chipset orders without limits on quantity. The matter was settled on February 6, 2003, and no terms of the settlement were released.[12]
Launch-era Xbox gaming units were manufactured in Hungary, while the controllers were manufactured primarily in Indonesia.
Technical specifications
- CPU: 32-bit 733 MHz Custom Intel Coppermine-based processor in a Micro-PGA2 package. 180 nm process.[13]
- SSE floating point SIMD. Four single-precision floating point numbers per clock cycle.
- MMX integer SIMD.
- 133 MHz 64-bit GTL+ front side bus to GPU.
- 32 KB L1 cache. 128 KB on-die L2 "Advanced Transfer Cache".
- Shared memory subsystem
- 64 MB DDR SDRAM at 200 MHz; 6.4 GB/s
- Supplied by Hynix or Samsung depending on manufacture date and location.
- GPU and system chipset: 233 MHz "NV2A" ASIC. Co-developed by Microsoft and NVIDIA.
- Geometry engine: 115 million vertices/second, 125 million particles/second (peak)
- 4 pixel pipelines with 2 texture units each
- 932 megapixels/second (233 MHz x 4 pipelines), 1,864 megatexels/second (932 MP x 2 texture units) (peak)
- Peak triangle performance (32pixel divided from filrate): 29,125,000 32-pixel triangles/sec raw or w. 2 textures and lit.
- 485,416 triangles per frame at 60fps
- 970,833 triangles per frame at 30fps
- Peak triangle performance (32pixel divided from filrate): 29,125,000 32-pixel triangles/sec raw or w. 2 textures and lit.
- 4 textures per pass, texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing (NV Quincunx, supersampling, multisampling)
- Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
- Similar to the GeForce 3 and GeForce 4 PC GPUs.
- Storage media
- 2x – 5x (2.6 MB/s – 6.6 MB/s) CAV DVD-ROM
- 8 or 10 GB, 3.5 in, 5,400 RPM hard disk. Formatted to 8 GB. FATX file system.
- Optional 8 MB memory card for saved game file transfer.
- Audio processor: NVIDIA "MCPX" (a.k.a. SoundStorm "NVAPU")
- 64 3D sound channels (up to 256 stereo voices)
- HRTF Sensaura 3D enhancement
- MIDI DLS2 Support
- Monaural, Stereo, Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital Live 5.1, and DTS Surround (DVD movies only) audio output options
- Integrated 10/100BASE-TX wired ethernet
- DVD movie playback
- A/V outputs: composite video, S-Video, component video, SCART, HDMI Optical Digital TOSLINK, and stereo RCA analog audio
- Resolutions: 480i, 576i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
- Controller ports: 4 proprietary USB 2.0 ports
- Weight: 3.86 kg (8.5 lb)
- Dimensions: 320 × 100 × 260 mm (12.5 × 4 × 10.5 in)
Official accessories
Audio/video connectors
- Standard AV cable: Provides composite video and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. Comes with the system. European systems come with an RCA jack to SCART converter block in addition to the cable.
- RF Adapter: Provides a combined audio and video signal on an RF connector.
- Advanced AV Pack: Provides S-Video and TOSLINK audio in addition to the RCA composite video and stereo audio of the Standard AV Cable.
- High Definition AV Pack: Intended for HDTVs, it provides a YPrPb component video signal over three RCA connectors. Also provides analog RCA and digital TOSLINK audio outputs.
- Advanced SCART cable: The European equivalent to the Advanced AV Pack, providing a full RGB video SCART connection in place of S-Video, RCA composite and stereo audio connections (composite video and stereo are still provided by the cable, through the SCART connector, in addition to the RGB signal), while retaining the TOSLINK audio connector. As Europe had no HDTV standard when the Xbox was released, no high definition cable was provided in those markets.
Numerous unofficial third-party cables and breakout boxes exist that provide combinations of outputs not found in these official video packages; however, with the exception of a few component-to-VGA converters and custom-built VGA boxes, the four official video packages represent all of the Xbox's possible outputs. This output selectivity is made possible by the Xbox's SCART-like AVIP port.
Networking
- Ethernet (Xbox Live) cable: An Ethernet cable with RJ-45 connection for connecting the Xbox to a broadband modem or router. The Xbox also can connect to Xbox LIVE.
- Xbox Wireless Adapter: a wireless bridge which converts data running through an Ethernet cable to a wireless (802.11b or 802.11g) signal to connect to a wireless LAN. While the official Wireless Adapter guarantees compatibility with the Xbox, almost any wireless bridge can be used.
- Xbox Live elite Starter Kit: A subscription and installation pack for the Xbox Live service, as well as a headset (with monaural earpiece and microphone) that connects to a control box that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. The headset can in fact be replaced with most standard earpiece-and-microphone headsets; headset specialist Plantronics produces various officially-licensed headsets, including a special-edition headset for Halo 2.
- System Link cable: A Cat 5 Ethernet crossover cable for connecting together two consoles or a Cat 5 straight through cable used in conjunction with an Ethernet hub for connecting up to four consoles, for up to 16 total players. This functionality is similar to Sega's DirectLink for Sega Saturn.
Multimedia
- Xbox Windows Media Center Extender: A software kit released by Microsoft which allows Xbox to act as a Windows Media Center Extender to stream content from a Windows XP Media Center Edition computer. It can also be used for DVD playback.
- DVD Playback Kit: Required in order to play DVD movies, the kit includes an infrared remote control and receiver. DVD playback was not included as a standard feature of the Xbox due to licensing issues with the DVD format that would have added extra cost to the console's base price. By selling a DVD remote separately, Microsoft was able to bundle the cost of the DVD licensing fee with it. Although there is nothing to prevent the Xbox from acting as a progressive scan DVD player, Microsoft chose not to enable this feature in the Xbox DVD kit in order to avoid royalty payments to the patent-holder of progressive scan DVD playback. The DVD Playback kit only plays DVDs from the local region. The DVD Playback kit will also allow the Xbox to play VCD movies. By default, the Xbox can only play Xbox games and audio CDs.
- Xbox Music Mixer: A utility software bundled with a microphone that connects to an adapter that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. It provides a music player with 2D/3D visualizations as well as basic karaoke functions. It also allows users to transfer pictures in JPEG format (to create slide shows) as well as audio in MP3 or WMA format (for karaoke or a custom game soundtrack) from a Windows XP or Windows Vista machine running the Xbox Music Mixer PC Tool.
Controllers and removable storage
The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, Black and White).[14]
The standard Xbox controller (also known as the "Duke" controller) was originally the Xbox controller for all territories except Japan. The Duke controller has been criticized for being relatively large and bulky compared to other video game controllers (it was awarded "Blunder of the Year" by Game Informer in 2001[15] and a Guinness World Record for the biggest controller in Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008). The black and white buttons are located above the A, B, X, and Y buttons, and the Back/Start buttons are located between and below the d-pad and right analog stick.
The Controller S, a smaller, lighter Xbox controller was originally the standard Xbox controller only in Japan (codenamed "Akebono").[16] It was designed to be more comfortable for those with smaller hands.[17][18] The controller S was released in other territories by popular demand, and eventually replaced the standard controller in the Xbox's retail package, with the larger original controller available as an accessory. The white and black buttons are located below the A, B, X, and Y buttons, and the Back/Start buttons are similarly placed below the left analog stick. This controller has received its share of criticism as well, especially with regards to placement of the black/white and back/start buttons.[19]
An 8 MB removable solid state memory card can be plugged into the controllers, onto which game saves can either be copied from the hard drive when in the Xbox dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game. Most Xbox games can be copied to the memory unit and to another console but some Xbox saves are digitally signed, each console has a unique signing key, and some games (e.g., Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball) will not load saved games signed by a different Xbox, limiting the utility of the memory card. Additionally, game saves can be tagged as uncopyable, or simply padded to over 8 MB (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). The signing mechanism has been reverse-engineered by the Xbox hacking community, who have developed tools to modify savegames to work in a different console, though the signing key of the recipient Xbox (the 'HDkey'), and the ramped-up title key of the game (the 'authkey'), must be known. It is also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, to simplify its use on more than one Xbox. In order to play on Xbox Live you must pay a monthly fee.
Games
The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. The greatest success of the Xbox's launch titles was Halo: Combat Evolved which was well received by critics.[20] Its sequel, Halo 2, is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game worldwide.[3] Other successful launch titles included NFL Fever 2002,[21] Project Gotham Racing,[22] and Dead or Alive 3;[23] however, the failure of several first-party games (including Azurik: Rise of Perathia)[24] damaged the initial public reputation of the Xbox.
Although the console enjoyed strong third party support from its inception, many early Xbox games did not take full advantage of its powerful hardware, with few additional features or graphical improvements to distinguish them from the PS2 version, thus negating one of the Xbox's main selling points. Additionally, Sony countered the Xbox for a short time by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (although they were later ported to the Xbox and are no longer exclusive).
In 2002 and 2003, several releases helped the Xbox to gain momentum and distinguish itself from the PS2. The Xbox Live online service was launched in late 2002 alongside pilot titles MotoGP, MechAssault and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Several best-selling and critically acclaimed titles for the Xbox were published, such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden and LucasArts' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Take-Two Interactive's exclusivity deal with Sony was amended to allow Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels to be published on the Xbox. In addition, many other publishers got into the trend of releasing the Xbox version alongside the PS2 version, instead of delaying it for months.
In 2004, Halo 2 set records as the highest-grossing release in entertainment history making over $125 million in its first day,[25] as well as being a successful killer app for the online service. That year, Microsoft and Electronic Arts reached a deal that would see the latter's popular titles enabled on Xbox Live.
Xbox Live
On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with (or against) other subscribers all around the world and download new content for their games to the system's hard drive. This online service works exclusively with a broadband Internet connection. Approximately 250,000 subscribers had signed up within two months of Xbox Live's launch.[26] In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers, and a year later, in July 2005, that membership had reached two million.
Xbox modding
The popularity of the Xbox, as well as its relatively short 90 day warranty, inspired efforts to circumvent the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms, a practice informally known as modding. Within a few months of its release the Xbox BIOS was dumped and hacked by MIT student Andrew Huang so that it would skip digital signature checks and media flags, allowing unsigned code, Xbox game backups, etc., to be run. This was possible due to flaws in the Xbox's security.[27][unreliable source?] Modding an Xbox in any manner will void its warranty, as it may require disassembly of the console. Having a modified Xbox will also disallow it from accessing Xbox Live as it contravenes the Xbox Live Terms of Use,[28] however most modchips can be disabled, allowing the Xbox to boot in a "stock" configuration, softmods can be disabled by "coldbooting" a game (having the game in the DVD drive before turning the console on, so the softmod is not loaded) or by using a multiboot configuration.
Four main methods exist of modding the Xbox :
- Modchip: Installing a modchip inside the Xbox that bypasses the original BIOS, with a hacked BIOS to circumvent the security mechanisms.[29]
- TSOP flashing: Re-flashing the onboard BIOS chip with a hacked BIOS to circumvent the security mechanisms. The Xbox BIOS is contained on a commodity EEPROM (the 'TSOP'), which can be made writable by the Xbox by bridging points on the motherboard.[30] Flashing is usually carried out by using a specially-crafted gamesave (see 'Game save exploit', below) to flash the onboard TSOP, but the TSOP can also be de-soldered and re-written in a standard EEPROM programmer. This method only works on 1.0 to 1.5 Xboxes, as later versions replace the commodity TSOP with an LPC ROM contained within a proprietary chip.[31]
- Softmods: Installing additional software files to the Xbox hard drive, which exploit programming errors in the Dashboard to gain control of the system, and overwrite the in-memory copy of the BIOS.[32] Soft modification is known to be safe for Xbox Live if the user enables multibooting with the Microsoft dashboard and an original game disc is used.[33]
- Game save exploit: Using select official game releases to load game saves that exploit buffer overflows in the save game handling.[34] When these special game saves are loaded, they access an interface with scripts for installing the necessary softmod files. Disassembly of the Xbox is not required when installing most game save exploits.
- Hot swap: Using a computer to change the data on the hard drive. This requires having the Xbox unlock the hard drive when it is turned on, then swapping the powered hard drive into a running computer. By using a Linux-based Live CD, data on the hard drive can be read, altered, and deleted. In most cases, an automated script will automatically install the softmod files directly to the Xbox hard drive. This technique has been used extensively to harbor cheating on many online games. Disassembly of the console is required to perform a hot swap.
Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with the Xbox Media Center.[35]
There are also distributions of Linux developed specifically for the Xbox, including those based on Gentoo, Debian (see also Xebian), Damn Small Linux, and Dyne:bolic.
Alternative operating systems: Xbox Linux is a project that ported Linux to the Xbox. FreeBSD has also been ported to Xbox.
One advantage over a regular, unmodded Xbox, is the ability to use a trainer.
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