Wednesday, 29 May 2013

Windows 8 First six months’ sales – A flop show?

In the first six months of being in the market, more than a hundred million copies of Windows 8 were sold. The Microsoft disclosure also confirmed that the Windows Blue update(Windows 8.1 it’s officially called now) would be available in the latter part of the year, as a part of the company’s response to the customer feedback it has been flooded with after Windows 8’s release. Other than the number of Windows 8 licenses mentioned, the company also claimed that since the launch, the number of apps in Windows Stores had grown six times. There were 250 million app downloads, with 90% of all apps getting downloaded every month

Microsoft was also picking up users with its cloud services, with an alleged 250 million SkyDrive users, 400 million Outlook.com users, and active Microsoft Accounts running into 700 million. The changeover to Outlook.com from Hotmail has been completed and all users are now using their new email platform weeks ahead of schedule. Microsoft has talked for about the third time on the number of Windows 8 units it has shifted: 40 million copies sold in the 1stmonth, which grew to 60 million after a month. Since then, the pace seems to have slowed down with only 40 million copies being sold in the last 4 months. This is not really so unusual, as in the past, operating systems saw an initial surge in sales and then leveled off.

So is the picture good or bad for Microsoft? Its critics will recall that Windows 7 sales had picked up much quicker, and say that Windows 8 is a failure. Microsoft, however, is upbeat, saying that Windows 8 represents a huge change, and such changes take their time. And actually, the hundred million figure does point to the fact that the PC is not quite dead yet, and actually represents a higher figure than iPad sales in the last quarter, and it is the iPad which is supposed to represent the end of the PC and hence of Windows!

Apple sees profit decline in Q1 2013 Sales

Does Apple have an Identity Crisis?

Apple Inc is preparing to report its first quarterly earnings decline in a decade, with investors getting increasingly jittery, and a recent plunge in its share price. Investors are nervous about the way Wall Street is valuing the Cupertino company, as though it were a traditional hardware maker only. Certain sections of analysts and investors think that the company should be evaluated as a software hardware hybrid instead. This distinction is critical; if Apple, identified as it is with products like the iPad and iPhone, is seen as primarily a hardware business, it could run aground with changing consumer tastes and tablets and smartphones getting commoditized. That is something that happened to the makers of BlackBerry whose hardware was overtaken by Apple products.

If, instead, Apple is categorized as a hardware-software hybrid, it could be evaluated like software and internet makers which often trade at higher prices. But Wall Street continues to classify Apple, which made a staggering profit of $13 billion in the quarter ended December, as a hardware maker.

Apple is still a highly efficient company at making money, with gross margins of about 40%, roughly double of Dell’s and HP’s. It has characteristics that are very different from other hardware companies; its customers, for instance, very often go in for annual upgrades of their Apple products, which is much more frequent than typical PC four year upgrade cycles of hardware tech businesses, like Dell or HP. Apple’s iTunes and operating system are already everywhere. They have around 500 million App Store accounts and a customer base for selling new services, giving the company a recurring revenue stream in software and services. In the last quarter, Apple earned revenues of $3.7 billion, amounting to 7% of total revenue, from its software and services, and iTunes. But Apple’s woes won’t be over even if Wall Street changes its views on Apple. According to analyst Gene Munster, people loved their Apple products and wanted to buy them, but they had only six months. There had to be something cool coming.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

proxy server

6. What is proxy server?

Proxy server sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server.
It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it
forwards the request to the real server.

Proxy servers have two main purposes:

Improve Performance: Proxy servers can dramatically improve performance for groups
of users. This is because it saves the results of all requests for a certain amount of time.
Consider the case where both user X and user Y access the World Wide Web through a
proxy server.

First user X requests a certain Web page, which we'll call Page 1. Sometime later, user Y
requests the same page. Instead of forwarding the request to the Web server where Page
1 resides, which can be a time-consuming operation, the proxy server simply returns the
Page 1 that it already fetched for user X.

Filter Requests: Proxy servers can also be used to filter requests. For example, a company
might use a proxy server to prevent its employees from accessing a specific set of Web
sites.

7. If you can not receive emails:

- Check your Incoming Mail (POP3) settings.

- Make sure that you use the full email address not just the first part of the email address
For example: janedoe@comentum.com and not just "janedoe".

- Login to your Web Mail and Delete any suspicious email that can block your Mailbox.
(emails that have no "From" or corrupted spam emails can cause Outlook/Outlook
Express to hang.

- Check Bulk and Spam folders.

- Check whether you have reached your storage limit.

- There are many reported issues on newly installed or existing Firewall/Anti-Virus/
Anti-Spam softwares which are misconfigured and are causing problems sending and
receiving emails. You may want to disable these types of software in your computer
temporarily to see if your email problems go away. If this fixes your issue, try updating/
re-installing or re-configuring your Firewall/Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam software correctly.

8. If you can not send emails:

- Check your Outgoing Mail (SMTP) setting.

9. Microsoft Outlook vs. Outlook Express

Outlook Express is the Internet e-mail and news reader included with Microsoft
Internet Explorer version 4.0 and later. It was formerly called Internet Mail and News.
While it shares the Outlook name, Outlook Express doesn't have the task- and contact-
management capabilities of Microsoft Outlook, nor can it handle e-mail other than
Internet mail.

Microsoft Outlook is a full-featured Personal Information Manager (PIM) application that
lets you store information such as Contacts (Address Book), Calendar (Date Book), Tasks
(To Do List) and Notes (Memo Pad). It also acts as an email application, connecting with
a standard POP3 mail server or a corporate Microsoft Exchange mail server. Outlook
usually appears in a business or organizational setting; rarely is it used primarily as a
personal email solution.

Outlook Express is a free email application that connects with a standard POP3 mail
server only. It is bundled with Internet Explorer. Outlook Express usually appears in a
personal or home setting. It does not include the full-featured PIM elements that are part
of Microsoft Outlook.

10. What is TCP/IP?

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, is the basic communications protocols
used to connect hosts on the Internet.

A communication protocol is a description of the rules computers must follow to
communicate with each other. The Internet communication protocol defines the rules for
computer communication over the Internet.

Networking Guides for Beginners.

Best useful guide for Engineering and Corporate Studies.

1. What is DHCP?

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a communications protocol that
lets network administrators centrally manage and automate the assignment of Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses in an organization's network.

Without DHCP, the IP address must be entered manually at each computer in an
organization and a new IP address must be entered each time a computer moves to a new
location on the network. DHCP lets a network administrator supervise and distribute IP
addresses from a central point and automatically sends a new IP address when a computer
is plugged into a different place in the network.

2. What is DNS?

Domain Name System (or Service or Server) is an Internet service that translates
domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to
remember. The Internet however, is really based on IP addresses.

For example, the domain name www.example.com might translate to 198.105.232.4.

Port number for DNS: 53

3. What is SMTP?

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a protocol for sending e-mail messages between servers.
SMTP is generally used to send messages from a mail client to a mail server.

Port number for SMTP: 25

4. What is POP3?

POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is the most recent version of a standard protocol for
receiving e-mail.

POP3 is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by your
Internet server. With POP3, your mail is saved for you in a single mailbox on the server.

Port number for POP3 is 110.

5. What is IMAP?

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a standard protocol for accessing e-mail
from your local server.

IMAP (the latest version is IMAP Version 4) is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is
received and held for you by your Internet server.

With IMAP, You can create and manipulate multiple folders or mailboxes on the server,
delete messages, or search for certain parts or an entire note.