Different types of credit card processing

Credit cards have been popular for a very long time now. As a result of this, different ways to use a credit card have entered the market. The different methods of credit card processing depend upon the business medium (retail stores, online, or via mobile phone), the seller’s finances, and circumstances. For example:

1.    Credit card imprinting machines. These machines simply make a facsimile of the credit card using carbon paper. The information on the credit card is used to process the transaction. This method is fairly cheap, since these machines are made available for free by some banks, and cost less than USD 40. However, it is also slightly clumsy as instead of currency notes, the seller is now dealing with several slips of paper containing highly sensitive data.

2.    Credit card terminals. These are much safer and more advanced than imprinting machines. They are frequently seen at retail stores – the magnetic strip of the credit card is swiped on the machine, the amount to be paid is entered, and a receipt is printed out for the cardholder to sign. While most terminals need a power supply and telephone line, and offer real-time processing, other models can store transaction information until a power supply or communication channel is obtained. Credit card terminals are fast, safe and also verify the transaction with the cardholder. They can be rented for occasional use, or bought for about USD 200.

3.    Point of Sale ensembles. These ensembles are a combination of hardware and software that can perform the functions of a credit card terminal, but can also do several other things. They can add the prices of different items, use a display pole to display the total to the customer before the receipt is printed out, and use separate swipe keyboards, price scanners and receipt printers. These are extremely popular at retail stores, due to their ease of use.

4.    Virtual terminals. A virtual terminal is merely one of the online options to process online payments. Credit card information and payment details can be filled into a form, following which the payment is processed. This is time-consuming, as each payment’s details must be entered separately. However, since the rental for a virtual terminal is low, it is excellent for small businesses or telephone transactions (where details always have to be entered manually).

5.    Online payment vendors. Online payment vendors offer buyers the opportunity to enter their own card details, minimizing work for the merchant. Large online stores find this method of credit card processing to be optimal, but transactions that take place in person or over the telephone can also be processed through this method.

Therefore, opting for credit card processing facilities in a business does not imply having to restrict oneself to a single processing method. Based on the needs and characteristics of your particular business, it is possible to choose among the credit card processing methods given above as well as other options that are evolving by the day.

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Guest Post by RadAnkh

Creative Product Description Sample

There is nothing in this world that can substitute innovation. If you are in the business of innovating products for a mass market, you are in the mind-reading business. You are required to stay one step, may be even two steps ahead of everyone else. That 'everyone' not only includes your competition but your customers as well.

This is of utmost importance because you are expected come up with something that will make people go "Wow!” Making existing things simpler is only doing half your job. Creating something simple, effective and viral is where the true challenge lies.

Innovation should be the tagline for Apple but the name itself is quite enough. Brand recognition is something that Apple does not need to worry about anymore. The company has become synonymous with products that ‘simply work’ and that is something most other companies can only hope to achieve.

For most other companies, having one successful product takes years to achieve. Apple has multiple products that are successful to the point where they have become standards against which others are measured.

Apple’s design philosophy is one that is almost impossible to follow but guaranteed to succeed. They create products that look stunning, perform seamlessly and are exceedingly simple to operate. It is very hard to make the three principles coincide but Apple has been doing just that for years now.

They are standing proof that all you need is innovation and dedication. All else will follow.

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This article was written as a sample. It is meant to show off a specific style of writing. There is no relation between the company mentioned and the writer.

Latest technologies: Netbooks

When the term first came to public notice, many thought that it was a typo that was supposed to be ‘notebooks’. Netbooks got their name from the fact that they are mainly used for surfing the Internet. These portable devices offer a great compromise between a handheld device and a full-fledged laptop and.

It all started with Asus’ Eee PC and then most other major companies brought out their own versions of these mini portable devices that are the bonsais of the mobile computing world.

These netbooks have been running modified Linux distributions for the most part. But some recent ones feature Vista home basic. There are also some models that are sold with a sort of ‘light’ installation of Windows XP. Microsoft of course is not all too happy about that and has openly declared that they are looking into the netbook market for making up some lost revenue.

A recent development has given the netbook market a performance boost. Intel has released a new chip called the Atom, aptly named because its key target area is the scaled down devices market. This of course includes netbooks mostly for now.

Netbooks have become really popular amongst people who are using it to access the Internet on the go. But this popularity perhaps would not have been possible without the advent of mobile broadband and its rapid spread in all major countries in all parts of the world.

Netbooks have filled a general gap in the market where people craved more than a tiny mobile handset screen but something more portable than a full sized laptop. It was really ingenious market targeting by Asus when the introduced the Eee PC because no one really thought of the possibility of this segment before them it seems.

The increasing popularity of the netbook is also reflected by the many new models that are constantly being launched by major companies. Companies that did not previously make computing devices are also getting in. Like the latest netbook from Archos, who are originally makers of digital media players.

Top players like Toshiba, Acer, Hp, Samsung and even Sony have stepped in to make good of the opportunity while it lasts. The large sales of the netbooks might also be due to the depression. That might sound like a contradiction but many people just want some notebook features but do not want to pay for a full-blown laptop. Hence they go for the netbooks, which are easier on the pocket and offer almost everything a notebook will do in a smaller way.

Endorsements by mobile carriers and providers are also big reason why netbook are so popular. Many netbooks come bundled with mobile broadband connections and sometimes even the other way around. Some netbooks also have onboard broadband connectivity options so a precious USB port is freed up because a dongle is not necessary.

So far, 2009 looks like a promising year for netbooks as many new models are set to hit the market and advancements in the segment are in the pipeline.

Neat Business Card Scanner

Scanning business cards accurately and organizing them properly is a major need for many large and small business outfits. It helps them keep track of their contacts, payments, receipts and such things. Their need for a good business card scanner is undeniable. This is why every Neat business card scanner is made with the needs of typical businesses and executives in mind.

These efficient systems come in portable and desktop variations and have a lot to offer in terms of speed and accuracy. They are bundled with the highly efficient Neat Scanner software that utilizes a highly sophisticated deployment of OCR technology to accurately detect all the data on a card.

A very important feature of the Neat business card scanner software is its learning capability. The Neat scanner software works with you and learns from your regular usage. It will start recognizing patterns, common company codes and will also make fewer mistakes as time goes by.

The neat scanners are now Mac friendly and bring all the accuracy and usefulness to the Mac platform.
Neat business card scanners are available in a slim and small portable format for mobile scanning. You can also digitize the information on your cards and receipts with Neat Desk, which is a larger scanning system meant to sit on your desktop. The Desk can handle cards, receipts and even multipage documents. The intelligent system reads all useful information and stores it up as data on the computer, reducing your manual work and increasing your time.

Selecting A Card Scan Machine

Conducting business these days can be an overwhelming experience. The digitization has ensured that you meet more people, connect more often and thus create a larger network than before. But when you see that pile of business cards you have accumulated, you know that you need to sort them out before they get out of hand. Thankfully, digitization is the solution to this problem to – enter the card scan machine.

This machine will scan your business cards, Id cards, license cards, forms, passports and many more such things and turn the information on the card to data on your computer. It does this with bundled software that works with the scanner to digitize your data.

With a card scan machine you can quicken the speed of application processing at your business; store the information from printed bills and receipts to you computer; scan forms and input their data automatically and do other such things that speed up business.

You can finally spend less time on typing out data on your computer and more time on other things that matter. The card scan machine increases the efficiency and productivity of your office.

The softwares that come with these machines are made with the needs of business in mind. They will categorize your data according to bills, business cards, receipts, forms, etc. This will save you many hours a month, which would’ve gone in to the tedious inputting and organizing of your data by hand. Purchasing this type of a machine will be a very smart move for most businesses.

Use Your Business Card Scanner And Export To Excel

Use a good business card reading software to use your business card scanner and export to excel the scanned information. You must choose a software that has very accurate OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities. This will ensure that your cards are read and turned into data on your computer with minimal processing errors. Some of the better softwares are programmed to learn as you use them and hence they will start recognizing patterns and make fewer mistakes as they go along.

You can scan cards for data with a business card scanner, export to excel afterwards with a small step. Find a OCR software that reads scanned documents and also has the capability to export the collected data into an excel format file. This is usually a CSV or a comma separated value file that contains all you scanned data in a format that MS excel can read. Now go to excel and import the file in to your work.

So you can continue using excel’s powerful features for creating accurate and useful spreadsheets but get rid of the daily drudgery of entering your data by hand from printed documents. Get a business card scanner and export to excel easily with the advanced export features of card scanning softwares.

Go to your favorite online store and search for names like CardScan, Neat, IrisCard etc. because these scanners come with softwares that offer its users the facility to export to MS Excel. You may need to search for a step-by-step guide for exporting to excel on your software but most of the major manufacturers and developers do offer this option.

What Is The Best Business Card Scanner

It is a common question across various professional fields that need to store data from printed receipts and cards – what is the best business card scanner? The answer is actually a simple one – one that is capable of producing very high quality scanned images and is also equipped with a good OCR software.

The best scanners in the market have a high dpi (some have even 600 dpi) and they will reproduce a very sharp scanned image of the business card or any other document. As for what is the best card scanner supposed to be like, it is either going to be portable (for laptop warriors) or they are going to be bigger desktop scanners with special features to scan varying sizes of cards, receipts and documents.

When you are in the market for a good business card scanner, the ideal thing to do is to go to online stores and compare the models according to your own needs. Instead of just pondering on what is the best business card scanner, go into the details of the packages and offers. See what suits you best according to size, portability, quality and of course budget.

Some of these scanners are large multipurpose machines, others come in ridiculously small sizes for portability. Business card scanners come in packages with softwares so they start archiving your data out of the box. The accuracy of these systems usually depends on the software you are using them with and most have their own software and work seamlessly with it.

Scan Business Card To QuickBooks

QuickBooks by Intuit software is a very popular accounting software that is commonly used by small and intermediate sized businesses. Its popularity has caused many of the business card scanning softwares to offer the feature that enables you to scan business card to QuickBooks.

This feature has become common in card scanning softwares, on both PC and Mac platforms. There are also popular online financial data management services that allow you to export to your data in QuickBooks format. The advantages of being able to scan business card to QuickBooks format are many.

With this feature you get to keep your book keeping completely smooth with QuickBooks and you can use your business card scanner to automatically enter vital data from receipts and bills in to QuickBooks.

This is really a very handy feature to have for those who rely heavily on printed receipts and invoices that are crucial to their accounting. Just take your pick from the various softwares available on the market or the online services and use them to import your data into your QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks premier, it is that simple.

So, to scan business card to QuickBooks, you need a good business card scanner (or other scanner) and an accurate OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that reads the data from the scanned image. The software must support exporting or saving data to the QuickBooks native format. Hence with the right business card scanner and software combination, managing your financial documents with QuickBooks becomes a cinch.

Addiction to video games – truth or just an idea?

A recent study claims that 8.5% of young video game players in the country could be really addicted video games, to the point of it becoming a mental and physical problem.

Apparently, these kids are not just playing a lot of video games; they are actively slipping from social life, scoring badly at school etc.

Douglas A. gentile conducted this study. He is a development psychologist and also an assistant professor at the Iowa University in Ames. He said that the research was the first of its kind because it used a nationally reaching sample of young children to adolescents.

He said that the large number of children that suffer from this problem is the single most worrying factor for him because these kids might not be able to stop this all by themselves. His study has been included in the May edition of Psychological science.

Although, experts often do not agree on this topic and many are of the opinion that it really does not exist. The manual that lists all the known psychiatric diseases, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, does not contain this as s disorder yet. The next publication is due in the year 2012.

Gentile says that the situation is like it was with Alcoholism about 40 years ago. It took many years of research and observation to convince people that it was a definite problem.

Gentile was himself full of disbelief when he started the research, because for it to be an addiction, it has to do some kind of functional damage to one or more aspects of the individual’s life. He said he was surprised to see that the data showed that this was indeed harming kids.

This study was conducted with 1,178 children from the US. The age range for the study was from 8 years to 18 years. It was conducted by Harris interactive who are probably best known for their Harris poll.  This poll included approximately 100 children from each age group and it was conducted in the January 2007.

The children were asked to fill in survey questions that were devised to test their attachment and addiction to video games. There were questions that asked them if they had ever lied about how much they play to their family and/or friends; if they try to escape from problems and times of feeling bad, by playing video games; etc.

Gentile used criterion used to measure gambling addiction to measure the level of pathological gaming in these children. The classification was based on 11 criterion and children were deemed pathological if they exhibited 6 or more of these.

These children played games for a longer time, got worse grades at school and were more predisposed to having a hard time paying attention when compared to the other group of children. Physical problems like wrist and hand pain are also common due to the excessive playing of video games.
As compared to non-pathological gamers, pathological gamers were shown to be more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The ratio found is 11% to 25% respectively. They are also shown as more likely to have been in a physical fight over the past year, this time 24% to 12%, for pathological and non-pathological gamers respectively.

Cheryl K. Olson believes that although it does emphasize the need for parents to talk to their children regarding this and talk to them about rules. However, she is also skeptical about the ability of an 8 year old to properly complete an online survey without any help.

Cheryl is the co-director and co-founder of the Center of Medical Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital. She also questioned the effectiveness of the adapting a gambling questionnaire for this purpose. She contrasts the gravity of a small lie to one’s mother about video game playtime and a husband lying to his wife about gambling.

Gentile is also the director of research at the national institute of Media and Family and according to him; parents should always follow their gut feeling regarding a suspected problem with the child.
If a child’s social skills deteriorate and he starts skipping school to play video games, there are signals of a compulsive behavior, which may be the signs of a mental illness.

Finding this kind of addiction it usually just skimming the surface according to Dr. Michael Brody, a privately practicing psychiatrist in Potomac, M.D., and the chairman of the media committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

He is of the opinion that such compulsive behavior may be coming from a deep-set sense of fear, insecurity depression and anxiety in the child. He thinks that putting a tag like addiction is oversimplifying it.

Intelligent SEO through Long Tail Analysis

The idea of Long Tail is often thrown around in SEO circles but the truth is that it is mostly misinterpreted and sometimes people do not know what to do with the information. It is important to act upon the information you collect or else it is no use collecting information.
Long term in fact is not an exclusive SEM term. It is used in other sectors to describe a situation where a there is a small percentage of high profit customers but most of the total profit comes from a large collective of low profit customers.

Once you know what to look at, it is very easy to locate the long tail of your own website within the traffic figures.

For example, let’s take a site that has a search traffic of 11,000 plus every month and this search traffic is form about 7,000 different keywords.

To be very liberal, around 11% of this total traffic is sent by the search of specific key terms. The rest of the traffic is divided over 6,900 search terms, which means each of these terms individually bring in less than 0.5% of the traffic.

This huge traffic from a vast number of search terms is the website’s Long Tail. Each of these search terms is insignificant when isolated, but together they supply a massive traffic and hence, without them, your search traffic would almost disappear.

The point of this article is that by analyzing this huge mass of terms, you can find a potential area, which you can exploit for your benefit.

First step: How to understand the Long Tail.

Graphs are very useful for understanding and interpreting such data. So start by exporting the data of your search traffic to Excel and make a graph by plotting the traffic volume on the X (vertical) axis and the terms on the Y (horizontal) axis.

You will need to make the following graphs: -

1)    An overall graph – this will contain the entire search traffic data. Keep the branded terms in the ‘head’ section. This graph will show which terms are giving you the most traffic.

2)    Branded and non-branded; separate and comparison – Branded terms are different from non-branded ones, so make separate graphs for both types and then make a third one that compares the two.

3)    Long Tail Graphs for PPC and SEO – Make the distinction between traffic that is paid for like PPC and your natural traffic. This makes the optimization of your site better.
Now comes the second step where you will analyze the data that you have gathered.

Here is where you start looking for discernable patterns in your long tail. Try the following approaches to extract information: -

1)    See if you are often finding smaller terms that contain the main terms. If you do, it will show that your have an effective SEO, which is proving to be a positive help for the long tail terms. Now you have to look for possible ways to reproduce this effect to get another long tail campaign free of cost. The main idea behind SEO in most cases is to give your website a higher ranking when it comes to some main terms, which usually have a lot of competition. If the SEO has been done properly, related terms would also gain some attention and benefit your traffic.

2)    Look for a common theme amongst the long tail terms. Even if it surprises you, you might find a theme you never related to amongst the long tail terms. Even if it surprises you, you might find a theme that you never related to our site. In case you notice a large traffic based on that traffic, see if you can use a main term in your SEO and PPC efforts to gain more traffic.

3)    If you find more than just on theme, you should tailor your SEO for creating a free campaign for a new long tail. Or you can also try to group together the terms for bettering your PPC long tail campaign. Try to manage your long tail the best you can and it will give you better results.

4)    If you have a PPC campaign that is focused branded terms, try to look for ways to transform it into a natural traffic that won’t cost you anything.

5)    See if your SEO propelled traffic is mostly made up of long tail terms. This would indicate a bad SEO for the terms in focus. You might need to target terms with a higher traffic. Make sure you get head terms from your SEO campaign in addition to your PPC campaign so that you remain protected from the rise and fall of the PPC bidding market.

Remember that each website is a unique case scenario so your own long tail may have more areas which need attention.

Now comes the third step where you will work on expanding your long tail.

Other than your usual ways of doing suggestions based keyword research, you can also look at Google’s search-based keyword tool. You can type in the URL of your site and it will suggest keywords and will also suggest landing pages for each suggestion, which is extremely useful.
Also look for terms in the natural traffic that coincide with your PPC campaign. If you are already a getting a free traffic on those search terms, you might not want to keep paying for them. But these terms will actually be cheaper so you can just experiment with them for a while and then if they don’t work, you can simply drop them.

After that, use your present natural traffic terms from the tail to get suggestions for more long tail terms, by using your usual keyword tool.

Sometimes, a broad match is opted for by PPC campaigners instead of researching keywords for a long tail. Even though it will work, it won’t generate the maximum amount of traffic possible. Also, do understand that most of the traffic will be from terms based on the terms that you have selected.
It is good idea to make a list of long tail keywords for your PPC campaign, because you won’t pay if there are no searches for them.

It is very important to form proper groups within your long tail keywords because when you use them for your PPC campaign, it will help you optimize the performance and reduce clicks that are wasted.

How Do I Apply The Conficker Patch?

There has been a recent wave of panic attack regarding the Conficker worm. Although it is a dangerous worm, infection can be prevented and cured with proper precautions and measures.

So did here I hear someone ask, “How do I apply the Conficker patch?” This article lists the main ways to apply the Conficker patch.

The main Conficker patch is the patch released by Microsoft that fixes the vulnerability in Windows networking. It is very important to have this patch installed in order to be completely safe from the Conficker virus.

The Conficker patch can be downloaded from Microsoft’s site and used to patch the system manually. If you pc has been running automatic updates all this while, your Windows computer should have the patch installed already.

If you are still unsure of whether the patch has been properly applied or not, you can do a very simple thing. Run the windows update software and make sure that you have installed all the available updates for your system.

Remember that this patch only prevents the Conficker worm from entering your system from the Internet and spreading through your network. To have a full prevention ready, make sure that you have disabled the Autorun or Autoplay feature on your Windows system.

There are several free Conficker detection and removal tools available for free on the Internet from several security websites. You can use these to find out if you have a Conficker infection.

Microsoft has a lengthy step-by-step guide for removing the worm and preventing a re-infection. In case you see that you have been infected, apply the patch after all the removal and prevention steps have been taken. Following Microsoft’s guidelines exactly would be a good idea when recovering from an infection.

Changing Registry Values For Conficker Protection And Removal

The Conficker worm has become one of the largest botnets in the history of the Internet and it is continuously spreading. Large business networks are the worst hit because this worm spreads through a vulnerability in the Windows networking system.

Microsoft has released an emergency patch that closes the vulnerability in Windows system but the worm is still spreading through infected PCs, unpatched systems and removal devices.

To counter these, several registry key modifications or ‘hacks’ have been devised to accomplish an effective prevention against the worm. Microsoft has published a knowledgebase article that has a detailed how-to guide for preventing Conficker from infecting and spreading within networks.

This involves modifying registry values for Conficker spread prevention by creating a new group policy. It makes sure that the worm cannot take advantage of the network and spread through it from a single infected PC. It modifies the netsvcs registry value to change the permissions associated with it.

There is another popular hack on the Internet that makes sure that autorun is disabled on every account on the system. It essentially changes registry values for Conficker and other worms that take advantage of the autoplay/autorun feature. It changes registry values of the autorun.inf file so that it never runs.

In case of an infection, Microsoft has listed a 26 step long process to remove the worm completely from the system. It involves backing up cleaning the registry using the regedit tool to copy, modify and delete several entries to protect the legitimate entries and to get rid of the malware created entries.

At the end of searching, modifying and deleting the registry values, the user must ensure that all the security services such as autoupdate, windows defender, BITS and Windows error reporting service are running.

Microsoft’s guide should be followed to the letter. Ideally, someone familiar with such operations should perform the recovery.

The Conficker Precautions that everyone should take

Conficker is a win32 worm that has a specific purpose and can be given instructions from the outside. But as of now, what it is meant to do is unknown. That is because it has the ability to download instructions from the controller and change its objectives. It infects nearly all the common windows versions that people are currently using.

The best Conficker precautions would be to keep your anti-virus updated and to apply all the available patches from Microsoft. The worm uses a vulnerability in the Windows networking structure to infect PCs and spread the infection further through the network.

There are many security companies who have released Conficker repair tools and they are available for free download from their respective sites. Other than releasing an emergency patch for the Conficker worm, Microsoft has also released a detailed step-by-step guide for removing and guarding against the worm.

Conficker precautions devised by Microsoft requires the administrator to create a new group policy that would do the following things: -
•    Preventing randomly named malware from installing itself as a legitimate network service.
•    Prevents the worm from scheduling tasks that would re-infect the PC.
•    Disables the autorun feature so that the worm would not enter the system from infected removable devices.
•    Disables the administrator account so that the worm cannot use the guess or ‘brute force’ attack to get the password.

These involve modifying the registry and some low level work, so they should only be done by someone who is trained or knows what he/she is doing.

Ultimately the best prevention is to be aware of the situation and use all the prevention, detection and removal tools and techniques available to guard against the worm. Safe surfing practices are a must, as are proper anti-virus software that is always running when the system is on.

Business Card Scanner Comparison

This is a business card scanner comparison between IRISCard Pro, CardScan and Neat business cards scanners and their respective softwares.

The IRISCard pro software gives you the option to use your own flatbed scanner to scan up to 10 business cards at a time. CardScan too gives you the option of using any scanner that you may have and on top of that, CardScan’s focus is on the actual contact management system. Thus providing you with an advanced database software that automatically files your contacts and retrieves them on demand.

Neat scanners also come bundled with a Digital Filing system that sorts your data into various categories like business cards, receipts etc. All three support the Mac Platform in addition to Windows.

On the hardware front, Neat gives you options between mobile scanners and a desktop scanner. The desktop scanner can handle pretty much anything and has robust build. CardScan has small, mobile scanners that are very compact and imminently portable. IrisCard provides a small pen scanner, a slim mobile scanner and a business card scanner that is also small in dimensions.

So regarding the actual physical scanner, this business card scanner comparison finds that CardScan does not have variety but has quality, Neat has two very potent products and IRIS has the most variety for a buyer.

No verdicts here because this business card scanner comparison article is meant to help you find a scanner that is best for your unique needs. According to popularity though, Neat and CardScan are higher up than IRISCard Pro. CardScan also has a free online service for its customers.

How To Know If You Have The Conficker Worm

As you read this, the Conficker worm has probably infected more than 2 million PCs all over the world. It is one of the largest computer infections the world has ever seen. The most worrying part is that no one is quite sure what it is meant to do because once it has complete control of the PC, it can basically do almost anything that its creator or controller wants it to do.

How to know if you have the Conficker worm? There are actually some cases where there have been no visible symptoms at all. But here are some of the more obvious symptoms of an infection: -
•    Abnormally slow Internet connection over a long period of time – this means the worm is probably downloading/uploading through your connection. It may be downloading more malware; it may be spreading itself to other systems attached to your network, it can do almost anything it is asked to do.
•    You are locked out of your own account – This is quite likely to happen when a worm is active on your system
•    Security services disabled – Services like autoupdate, windows defender, error reporting, Background Intelligent Transfer Service or BITS, antivirus tools; are killed by the Conficker worm.
•    Network Congestion – The network might become congested even though no real work is being done through it, meaning the worm is spreading through the network.
•    Cannot access security sites – This is a very telling sign. If you can access other sites but not the many security sites over the Internet, it is probably Conficker who is preventing you from accessing the ways to repair your system.

As always, the best way to prevent such an infection is to keep a tab on the happenings around the world and have safe computing practices.

Latest Technology: Small Personal Media Players

Since the days of the first iPod, the world of the personal, portable digital media players has gone through many revolutions and product cycles. Through endless research and innovations, they are now smaller, sleeker and more feature-packed than ever.

Apple has only recently launched the new iPod shuffle and it has completely done away with controls on the device itself. Instead, the controls are attached to the headphone wire. This makes the device incredibly small and can be easily clipped on. Even though the storage size has increased to offer a 4GB variant, many aren’t happy with having to buy special headphones or get stuck with the ones that are provided. Because the pet peeve for people regarding the iPod is always the sound quality, other than the need for iTunes of course.

Stepping up, Creative released the Zen Stone plus last year with many extra features added on to the original Zen Stone. It has been a competitor of the shuffle for a long time now. The Zen Stone Plus variant has a display and extra features like voice recording, FM radio and a stopwatch. Many people say that the sound quality of the Zen is better than the iPod. It has a fairly long battery life (claimed to be 9.5 hours), supports WMA files, has good built quality, all of which together make it quite popular.

Sony has recently launched a wireless, around the head type headset player that gives you the freedom to work out without getting tangled up in your headphone wire. This model, called the NWZ-W202, may not look appealing to some people but it is a really practical solution, which should be considered seriously by regular gym goers. And since this is Sony we are talking about; the sound quality is absolutely superb. The headsets neatly attach to themselves magnetically when they are not in use.

Samsung’s new YP-S2 pebble has also gained attention due to its unique and small form factor. The sound quality is decent although the battery life is not really that good. But given the price point at which it is selling, it is quite a good player.

A major new entrant is Sansa with their Sansa Clip. This otherwise ignored company has surprised everyone with its small music player that has superior sound quality; given the price bracket.
There many other options in the market for smaller players like GoGear from Philips, small players from iRiver (who happen to have very good quality sound and built), MobiBlu (also known as ‘Cube’ for its form factor). You can also look at manufacturers like Transcend, Cowon, etc.

All these are smaller versions of the larger portable players which now fully support video and many other extra features like eBook reading, picture displaying, acting as mass storage etc.

Most of these devices do not require any special software to fill them up with music, but some support folders while others may not support it. Go through their set of features and choose the one that suits your needs the best.

The what’s and how’s of credit card processing

Credit card processing is the name for the entire invisible set of operations that take place whenever a credit card is used either at a retail outlet, online or through mobile phones. This process takes place in several stages, and with the correct service provider, should ensure maximum efficiency, speed and security.

There are various people and virtual checkpoints involved in credit card processing. These are:
The cardholder, i.e. the person using the credit card

The merchant, i.e. the account-holder of the business accepting payment from the cardholder in exchange for goods and services.

The acquirer, who provides credit card processing services to the merchant
The card association, who works as a go-between or gateway in between cardholder and merchant. Example: Networks like VISA or MasterCard

The issuer, i.e. the bank or credit card company that issues the original credit card to the cardholder.
To ensure a completely smooth and secure transaction involving these five entities, a rather elaborate process has been designed for credit card processing.

Step 1: Authorization. Before the cardholder’s transaction is processed, a lightning-fast process of verification takes place. The transaction is transferred from the merchant account to the acquirer, who verifies the existence of the given credit card with the issuer.

Step 2: Batching. The transactions, once authorized, are grouped together in batches. After a certain time period (usually at the end of the working day), the merchant sends the entire batch of transactions to the acquirer for further processing and payment.

Step 3: Clearing or settlement: This is when the money is actually debited (i.e. taken out from) the issuer, and credited (given) to the acquirer. In this step, the batched transactions are sent by the acquirer to the card association, e.g. VISA, which manages the transaction between acquirer and issuer.

Step 4: Payment to merchant. Only after the acquirer receives payment will the merchant get paid. The merchant’s payment is slightly less than the sum paid by the cardholder, as the discount rate (percentage or amount paid to the acquirer) is deducted from it.
These are the steps involved in an uncomplicated, error-free credit card transaction online. Typically, the process takes three days. This duration can be lessened if the issuer and acquirer belong to the same company (e.g. Bank of America card holders using Bank of America’s Merchant Card Processing services).

Credit cards are becoming more and more popular by the day for businessmen. For small businesses, setting up a merchant account for credit card processing is growing viable. It allows them to gain greater functionality for the website – a shop can be maintained without having a single retail outlet.

For consumers, credit cards are extremely convenient. They can be used at times when one is short of ready cash, does not want to carry too much cash, or when buying online proves cheaper than from a retail outlet. Growing familiar with credit card processing helps to demystify the usage of a credit card, and will hopefully encourage more and more people to use them.


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Content created by Radical Ancient, soon to join this blog as a contributor.

Merchant account for Internet businesses: Why you must have one.

The Internet is a powerful influence on everyone who regularly uses it. It is fast becoming the world that we live in and everyone is using it daily for making online purchases. The goods and services bought and sold are innumerable and they are varied. But one thing ties them all together. A large percentage of the payments, the majority actually, is made through credit card transactions.

These transaction often happen right on the merchant’s website through a shopping cart or through the page made available by the merchant account provider. This is how e-commerce websites can accept credit card payments in exchange for the goods or services sold.

So if you want to start a site where you will be charging people money, you absolutely cannot forego a merchant account. This is because when it comes to online payment, almost everyone has to use a credit card to make payments. So unless you are ready to accept payments through a credit card, there is no way you can do business on the Internet.

A merchant account is thus indispensible for Internet businesses. And there are many benefits of having a good merchant account provider. You will get many offers from various websites and they might look lucrative but do read the fine print.

It is better to go with a reputed merchant account provider to ensure that you are not buying to a scam and most importantly to ensure that your payments are not stolen from you. Besides, good merchant account companies will have tie ups with major gateways that have a high amount of reputation. This ensures that you and your customers are completely safe from being defrauded.

A merchant account will also provide you with all the tools necessary to setup your own ecommerce website complete with a shopping cart and a secure payment page, so you wont have to do much.

You will get all the help you need to process the credit card payments that you receive. With a merchant account, you will be able to accept almost every credit card and ATM/Debit cards that are used worldwide. This will help you attract more customers because customers love having multiple payment modes. Also, being able to accept so many different cards also makes your website more credible and makes it look more professional to visitors and potential buyers.

Everyone spends a lot of money on getting a proper site made and getting the goods to sell but with a proper merchant account you will be able to ensure a complete peace of mind on the customer’s side, you will receive more business and will be at a lower risk of frauds and losing payments.

Think of the major benefits of being able to offer so many choices. Once your customers are convinced that they are not at risk on your website, they will buy happily and frequently. You also be able to handle disputes better with a good merchant account, so you also get some peace of mind.

It is easy to see by now why every inter\net business needs a merchant account. Think about it – payment comes at the end of a sale and remember the old saying “all’s well that ends well”.

The Best Business Card Scanner

The best business card scanner that suits your needs perfectly will be easier to find if you know exactly what you want. Look at all the market leaders like Fujitsu, CardScan, Neat, etc. and you can decide which one you want by looking at their specifications and pricing.

These scanners come in mainly two different avatars – the portable and the desktop. For business executives who are always on the move, a portable scanner is the best option. These scanners are most often amazingly slim and small. Some also boast about being the size of a pen! Since most business executives are always on the move, the best business card scanner is a portable one that gets the job done without a hitch.

While buying a business card scanner, keep in mind that many of them allow you to scan more than just business cards. Depending on their size, they can digitize the data on receipts, identity cards, passports, and even photos can be digitized. It all depends on the kind of software that you are using. Most of the softwares are focused on categorizing and storing your business related data but some allow you to do other things as well like storing photographs.

The decision on the best business card scanner for your needs should depend on the image quality of the scanner, its build quality, how easily you can contact after-sales services, the bundle (if you opt for one) and the price. If you need software as well, look around for good combo deals.

Cheap Plastic Business Cards

Plastic business cards can help you stand out in the crowd. If you are worried about expenses, don’t be; it is not very difficult to get cheap plastic business cards made to your order.

One way to get them cheap is to search for a local business, to cut down on shipping costs and you can personally check things out to see if everything is in order. Also, make sure you either go for free templates or make your own designs. If you are looking for cheap plastic business cards, having someone else design your card for you is not a good idea because it will add to your cost.

Go online and search for businesses that have a good reputation and look around for prices. As long as you are not looking for very unique or sophisticated type of cards, you won’t be charged too high. The idea is to get the basic package and make your own unique card by having a terrific design that grabs attention. You don’t have to get a fancy card to make it catchy.

With a good printed design and no frills, cheap plastic business cards can set you apart from the rest of the crowd with ease. Get online with the best printers and sort through them to take your pick. Look for wholesalers and place a large order with them to reduce cost per card. This is a good time to get your employers to buy the company card, making your order larger and cheaper.