The Model Info Center

UK-based internet service provider Zen Internet has bagged the PC Pro Best ISP for this year’s Reliability & Service Awards. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the company has been gaining the recognition from PC Pro.
The PC Pro Reliability & Service Awards represent the most comprehensive consumer guide in Europe. They are based from independent surveys conducted in the UK covering IT customer satisfaction.

In a statement released by Zen Internet on the recent recognition, the company’s Product Management and Marketing Head Andrew Saunders states how delighted they are to have been awarded for the sixth consecutive year. He added that the company is grateful to all its clients who have continuously supported Zen internet, particularly those who have taken the time to vote for the company during the extensive surveys.

The award acknowledges the quality of the services that Zen offers its customers through various products, no Fair Use Policy, one month contracts and other services. Every product or solution that the company offers is complemented by exceptional customer services, says Saunders. The continued success that the company has been experiencing at the PC Pro awards is a product of the team’s commitment to its mission of offering the best in ISP services in the UK, he adds.

Zen also received nominations for Best Web Host by PC Pro. The company offers a wide range of web hosting solutions and services including Linux and Windows hosting, domain names, managed hosting and collocation solutions.
Zen is mainly perceived as a provider of Broadband connections. However, the nomination it received for Web hosting is an indicator of the company’s commitment to expanding its portfolio in order to meet its clients’ growing online requirements, Saunders said.

Well, you don’t need it, but you might want it in order to view many of the important files that you might find on the Web. Files that you will find in Adobe’s PDF format are common documents like IRS forms, product manuals, reports, business information, maps, e-books (electronic books) - which includes all formats like novels, plays, poetry, magazines and historic documents - and many other documents.

Let’s take an example: (sorry reader’s outside of the USA, you may not totally ‘get’ this reference!) It’s April and U. S. taxes are due. You start your paperwork and realize that you did something different last year and need another form that’s not in your regular packet.

OK … what’s the procedure for this … you get in the car, drive to the local post office, park the car, go in and rummage around the piles of forms that are there and it isn’t there. Oh well, get back in the car and drive to the downtown federal buildings and again find a parking place … find the IRS office … look through the stacks of forms to find the right one … finally find it and proceed to make your way back to the car … fight the downtown traffic back home and now you are too tired to work on your taxes!

Whew!! That sounds like a lot of work! Well, I can tell you for certain that there is an easier way to get that form! Here’s the new procedure:

Connect to the internet (however you connect); open up a browser (where you view web pages: like Internet Explorer, Netscape, or AOL’s browser); go to the address bar (box) near the top of the window; type in www.irs.gov; press the Enter key or click on the ‘Go’ button to get you to the site.

Now, over to the left you’ll see a heading labeled “Most Requested Forms and Publications” and below it you’ll see a list of the most common forms that people request. If your form is not listed, then simply click on the last link in that section labeled “More Forms and Publications” which will bring you to a different page.

Now, this is the most difficult part of the whole procedure … remember now, this is a government web site, it’s not supposed to be easy! On the page there are about ‘500′ links - well, it seems like that many! Anyway, at this point - don’t give up now! - look at your situation - do you know the name and or number of the form that you need? If you do, then simply click on the very first link under the heading: “Download Forms and Publications by:” which will get you to another page with the listing of all the forms available on the site. It looks very confusing but don’t give up yet!

If you look at the first column to the left of the list it looks like there’s no rhyme or reason to it (oh, that’s right, it doesn’t have to! It’s the IRS after all!) - just kind of ignore that column and look at the next column of information. This column will contain the more familiar form name and number and it is in order! You will see the more common forms like Form 1040 and 1040A and when you do, you will notice that the ones that are before it are forms in the 900 range of numbers, so you can see that all you need to do is find the number for the form you need and then choose it.

You choose it by clicking on the line that the form is on and then go down a bit on the page and click on the button that says “Review Selected Files“. You will have a link on a new page for that particular form that you selected. Make sure that it is the correct form number and then go ahead and click on that link. If it isn’t correct, click on the back button and try again.

By clicking on that link, you are choosing a PDF formatted document - by the way PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is also the extension for each document. So if you see a file in your folders on your computer that looks like this: filename.pdf - that file can only be viewed by the Adobe Reader software.

Getting back to the IRS website, when you click on that link, you don’t have to do anything else other than to watch it come up in your Adobe Reader - that is, you will if you have it installed on your computer. Need to get it? Simply go to www.adobe.com where you will find a link to download the software for free!

Now, so you can find it and use it again, make sure that you click on the “Save a Copy” button in the left corner to save that form that you searched so hard for! Also, don’t forget to go back to the list after you save the form to get any instructions that go with the form. Bring it into your Adobe Reader software the same way and you’re ready to work on your taxes!

Now, even though it took a while to write out these instructions on how to get a form from the web site, it is actually a very quick procedure!

So, why do people and companies use PDF documents so extensively?

PDF files are enormously popular because of 2 main features: they retain the original formatting for the document and they are “portable”.

Formatting is the design - the look and ‘feel’ of the document. Easily represented by forms to fill out that need to look and print the same for each person, like the tax forms, it’s meant to be a standard ‘view’ no matter what ‘platform’ it’s viewed on - Windows computers, Macintosh computers, Unix computers or any portable device like a cell phone. Consistency is the key here and that is why people choose to create and transmit documents in PDF format.

Written by Debbi Baird, Co Owner, PC For Seniors Author of many technical articles in ‘plain English’ for the “Older Generation” and Trainer / Tutor / Consultant in the Palm Beach, Florida area. Go to http://www.pcforseniors.com to find more information on computers and The Internet in the “How Do I …” section of the web site! Also, check out our Hot Sites! Listing for links to great places to go online for Seniors!

Microsoft is currently on the way to release Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Current version is MS CRM 1.2. Why Microsoft Business Solutions skipped one version (2.0 or the like)? One of the Microsoft answers was - version 1.2 had too many new features (as developers we may guess - MS CRM SDK redesign - some functionality was deprecated - joke - of course MS CRM 1.2 is very impressive progress comparing to the pioneer - 1.0), so 1.2 was playing the role of skipped 2.0. This article is targeted to IT departments who do self-implementation and self-customization and we’ll try to give you the info on new release, which is expected in December, 2005.

• Migration Tool. There will be migration path from MS CRM 1.2 to 3.0. According to Microsoft it should be relatively straightforward upgrade

• Pre-Callouts. N MS CRM 1.2 as you probably know - you can use post call-outs to place your custom logic. In 3.0 you can deploy he possibility to call your custom code before the commitment and so if needed roll-back the change

• Duplicates merge. Well - you probably noticed the fact that in 1.2 you can’t clean up duplicate records with one or another automation tool. In 3.0 - duplicates merge is finally realized and you can merge activities and decide which phone number, or address to pick for the consolidated record.

• Marketing Module. Now you should be able to do marketing campaigns and place criteria to pick the targeted audience.

• Scheduling. You will see more features, available in MS Outlook to facilitate your work. Now you should be able to schedule “field service” type of appointments with your customers

• MS Outlook-like interface. Microsoft Outlook users worldwide count is probably something astonishing and it is logical marketing idea to capitalize on this. If you make your products to use intuitive (or trained in your alma mater university) Microsoft Office Outlook interface - clients may expect their users to speed up with the learning curve

• Installation, Administration, Support. These should be a way more simple. It is hard to believe, because MS CRM uses MS Exchange, Active Directory, etc. - but this is what it is.

• Technical Highlights. One of the most astonishing should be the possibility to integrate one-to-many custom table relationship, including MS Outlook client synchronization. Imagine - you have cargo tracking system and you use MS CRM order as shipment object. Then you can have multiple shipment one-to-many relationships, such as shipment statuses, shipment items, etc.

• MS CRM Suite. With 3.0 you do not have to purchase MS CRM Sales or Professional to get, say service module. Now you have the option to add modules in the future. However if you purchase MS CRM Professional before December 2005 - you will get full set of MS Dynamics CRM 3.0 modules

Please, do not hesitate to call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

Many computer users adopt the ‘it will never happen to me’ policy, but there are a number of computer viruses out there just waiting to infect and destroy the information contained on their hard-drive. This is why companies invented anti-virus software, which is a program that automatically helps to detect the presence of viruses on a computer or in a file before it is opened.

Anyone who spends a considerable amount of time surfing the internet, visiting unfamiliar websites or downloading photographs is at a higher risk for computer viruses than those who do not. Computer viruses are typically attached to word processing documents, computer programs and images which, if downloaded, may instantly affect the computer’s performance.

If a computer virus infects a computer, the owner may immediately lose everything in their computer and may be forced to use the factory restore disk. This CD, which is accompanied by most new computers, will restore the computer to it’s original factory settings.

Anti-virus software is quite affordable considering it’s wealth of use. Without it, computer users are at constant risk for computer viruses. Anti-virus software can generally be found at any computer manufacturer’s website, retail store’s electronic department or online at many retailers selling computers.

Anyone who suspects that their computer may be infected with a virus should refrain from sending any e-mail messages or uploading photos to family or friends. Otherwise, the virus may spread to infect their computers as well.

Anti-virus software is available most commonly on a CD-Rom, but may also be downloaded from some manufacturers. By double clicking on the software, the anti-virus program will begin to perform a scan of your entire computer. As it progresses, it will give you an update on any potential located viruses or files that may be of concern. In addition, some anti-virus software will allow users to scan a single file before opening it. For example, if a computer user were to download an image but wanted to run a virus scan on it prior to opening the file, he/she could click on the anti-virus software and direct it toward the file in question. The anti-virus program would scan the file for potential viruses and will post the results immediately on the computer screen. This will allow the computer user to know which files are safe and which are not.

In today’s world, anti-virus software is to computers as Tylenol is to headaches. It’s both a preventative approach and a cure for certain ailments affecting a computer. If a user does not have anti-virus software pre-installed into their computer, it is recommended that they purchase a program immediately before logging on to the internet.

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