Cheap Prepaid Calling Card - Making The Work For You

So most prepaid calling cards are cheap prepaid calling cards.  I mean when you think about it, the calling cards really are significantly cheaper than the cost of calling from a landline.  My parents pay around 20 cents a minute to call me and I have found calling cards from the United States to Venezuela for a low at 3 cents a minute.  I found most of these online.  Of course this is not surprising since you are able to find most things you need these days online.

So anyway; if you go online and search under calling cards or cheap prepaid calling cards, or anything remotely resembling these terms you will find a large list of companies devoted to finding you the cheapest prepaid calling cards possible.  Many of these sites will let you order the cards online and will even let you refill the card you have, on the same website; saving you the aggravation and charge of buying another card.

So maybe I am just lazy.  This seems like an amazingly simple thing to do yet my parents, my best friend, and I still communicate using traditional landlines.  I am sure my best friend’s husband has to have pitched a fit over her phone bills.  Still no one looks for any other option.  Maybe we are all just lazy, but I feel like there are definitely better options out there.

For some reason my parents have not investigated this service. It would seem as though it is a good resource.  However my parents and most of my friends in the United States still all using conventional landline.  Why is this?  I mean they are all smart people, they have to know that there is a cheaper way to call me; but yet the all use their landlines.

For some reason I think they may see cheap prepaid calling cards as being unreliable.  Where I live, anything that is cheap and gets you around conventional channels is suspect.  Maybe this is the problem, though I don’t think it is a true observation.

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Consumers Tuned In To Benefits Of HD Radio

Consumers have consistently and rapidly adopted new digital technologies--CDs, MP3s and DVDs, to name a few--because of the improved quality, choice, convenience and interactivity they provide. And this consumer adoption trend shows no sign of slowing.

The latest development is HD Radio™ technology, which offers broadcasters and their listeners radically upgraded audio quality, along with an on-demand interactive experience and compelling, new wireless data services. HD Radio marks the most significant advancement in radio broadcasting since the introduction of FM stereo more than 50 years ago.

Consumers can continue listening to the same local AM/FM stations they love but with the added services and benefits that HD Radio offers, including:

• AM digital will have FM-like audio quality, allowing for new and innovative programming using music formats. FM digital will have CD-like audio quality.

• Static-free and crystal-clear reception.

• Multicasting for more channels of programming that includes currently unavailable genres.

• Metadata-song, artist and other information (news, weather, traffic ticker info as determined by the broadcaster) displayed on-screen.

• Wireless data services to include on-demand audio. On-demand audio allows for the streaming of content, providing more information on station programs, news, weather and traffic-all at the touch of a button.

"We're moving very rapidly to improve consumers' radio listening experience," says Peter Ferrara, president and CEO of the HD Digital Radio Alliance. "Listeners will now have even more local choices of new and diverse programming."

Some of the totally new formats to be introduced include Viva La Voce (opera), Classical Alternative, Traditional Jazz & Blues, Coffee House, Female Talk, Future Country, Extreme Hip-Hop and in-depth news. Also of note is the wide variety of new rock formats.

One option for taking advantage of HD Radio is a new entertainment system from Polk Audio. The I-Sonic™ produces big, lifelike sound quality-and is the first to offer HD Radio technology with a DVD player and XM-ready satellite radio technology, making it a total entertainment solution. Its compact dimensions (14.5" x 9.75" x 4.75") allow for use virtually anywhere-home, office or business.

In addition, the I-Sonic was honored as the Best of Innovations audio product at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show.

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Call Canada Through a Cool Connection at Hot Rates

Planning to go to Canada to finally go for an awesome and long-awaited vacation in Alberta with your granny? Well what are you waiting for? Book it!

Extremes of climate heat and cold symbolize Canada, a country distinguished by its multi-racial citizens. Citizens include people of: European, Indian, Arabic, American, Italian, Hispanic and Caribbean descent. The aboriginal inhabitants of Canada also add to the distinct flavor of the country. Situated in the northern side of the North American continent, Canada captivates you with its pristine, scenic beauty. From snow-capped mountains to serene lakes and rivers and wooded forests, Canada beckons you with its natural environment.

Though you are not at any rate short of funds, “No so fast!, your mind tells you. Too bad you have never placed an international call to Canada. Now you just have to forego the masterplan til somebody offers you to make that call for you. NOT! It just so happened that you are not led to this article just for any reason. Fortunately, information regarding how to make an international call to Canada abound and they were just so packed here for your convenience. And guess what? You are about to learn to save some precious dough too. So, just read on.

Easy tips to save on your international calls.

It is recommended to not make an operator assist you with your calls. This would cost you dollars when you can just spend some few cents in making that phone call. Another piece of advice is to avail of flexible prepaid long distance calling plans offered by various telecommunications sources.

Know your calling patterns. According to your habits in making international calls, whether you are a night or day caller or non-business days caller or not, informing the company that you are eyeing on to give your business will be of great help.

The real deal in placing international call to Canada:

Take note that the country code for Canada is 1. This number is also known as the routing number, prefix, and country code.

Any mistake on this number could lead you to other countries. Surely you would not want to be greeted by somebody speaking Hungarian or Japanese. That would be a waste of money too. If you do not want to suffer these consequences, better be really on your toes when dialing all the numbers you are supposed to dial.

Here is a list of the area codes in Canada:

Alberta 403

British Columbia 250

British Columbia (Lower Mainland) 604

Manitoba 204

New Brunswick 506

Newfoundland 709

Nova Scotia 902

Ontario (London) 519

Ontario (North Bay) 705

Ontario (Ottawa) 613

Ontario (Thunder Bay) 807

Ontario (Toronto Metro) 416

Ontario (Toronto Vicinity) 905

Prince Edward Island 902

Quebec (Montreal) 514

Quebec (Quebec City) 418

Quebec (Sherbrooke) 819

Saskatchewan 306

Simple Steps to Call Canada:

Dial the international access code – 011 (no need to dial this code if you are calling from USA).
Dial Canada’s country code – 1.
Dial the city code of the place you want to connect with. (e.g.: Alberta city code is 403 and Manitoba city code is 204.)
Dial the remaining digits.

Avoid calling direct unless you are well-off enough to not mind spending a hefty amount on making that simple and effortless international call. A prepaid phone service is a lot more practical. Also, if you despise dialing too many numbers, most prepaid call services do not require you to dial any pin. Just shop around for the best rates.

Despite the fact that English and French are the official languages of Canada, understanding the local parlance can be quite daunting. For instance, a ‘mickey’ is not a cartoon character, but a small bottle of booze; and the Royal Mountain police are referred to as the ‘Mounties’.

Aside from this effort in learning the instructions in placing a call to Canada while saving money, you might want to go that extra mile to make your international calling experience a bit more rewarding than the usual. Go greet the person you’re calling with a homely "Bonjour" since French is also one of the major languages used in Canada. It won’t just surprise your call’s recipient. It might also just make his or her day.

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Antenna - Mobile CB Antennas

If you were around in the mid 70s in the United States you'd have to have been living under a rock not to know about the great citizen band radio craze made popular by the smash hit "Convoy" by C.W. McCall. If you were into citizen band radio at all you knew that there was a certain prestige to having certain kinds of antennas, especially if you had a CB setup in your home.

For the mobile units, the ones that were installed in your motor vehicle, the antennas were rather simple and relatively weak. They could only send and receive a short distance depending on the time of day. In the afternoon, mobile CB antennas were lucky to reach a few miles, especially during sun spot time. At night, if you were lucky you could reach about 10 to 20 miles, maybe sometimes a little more.

Mobile antennas came in several types. One of the most popular antennas was the fiberglass model that hooked on the back bumper. These antennas were very good transmitters and receivers. Most were about 3/8 of an inch in diameter and about 2 feet tall. Some could handle up to 1000 watts of transmission power.

Another popular type of Mobile Antenna was the magnetic roof top antenna. These were not very powerful but they were real easy to hook up. Just pop the cable into your CB, which was installed usually under the dashboard in your car, and then just take the antenna, stick it out your window and pop it on your roof top. The magnet was strong enough that there would have to be a hurricane for that thing to blow off. These antennas could handle about 300 watts of power which made them a pretty low end antenna for CB use, but they were also very cheap.

Then we have the center load mirror mount antennas. The most popular of these were the Cobras. Don't let these small things fool you. They could handle up to 3000 watts of power, usually made of 24 carat gold-plated 8-gauge copper coil. These antennas were also very expensive and today go for as much as $60 or more.

Of course one of the most common mobile antennas were the trunk mount CB antennas. These were very good antennas mostly because of the center placement on the vehicle towards the front of the trunk just before the back window. These antennas were not very expensive but usually were able to handle about 500 watts and because of their good ground, were very good for sending and receiving, even with a mobile unit that wasn't that powerful. A good trunk mount antenna wouldn't cost you more than $35.

There were some other odd brands of antennas but for the most part, these were the most common. They were relatively easy to hook up. In some cases, some drilling was required through parts of the vehicle to run antenna wire but for the most part anybody could put one of these things together.

Next, we'll take a look at the most popular and powerful base antennas.

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Better Online Communication Makes Business Sense

Many companies are now doing the majority or even all their business online and foregoing the “Brick and Mortar” storefront. It is easy to see why that trend has happened. For one thing, the cost of setting up such a business is relatively inexpensive and easy. There is no need to pay for the overhead of a physical building. Also, the cost of maintaining a Web site is minimal. Moreover, the Internet provides a convenient and efficient way of marketing products. As more and more people are spending time on the Internet, the market of online customers continues to grow.

But when businesses shift from face-to-face customers to anonymous online customers, there is a loss of personal connection and trust. All the online spamming and scamming hasn’t helped the matter at all. That has eroded the trust in E-commerce and the credibility of many companies. How are you gaining and maintaining customer trust? What are you doing as an online vendor to communicate to your customers?

In an online world, business just doesn’t stop after hours and on weekends. What are you doing to answer your customer’s questions? Here are a few things that you can do to improve communication with your customers:

1. Offer a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and online product support information. This is an excellent way of answering basic questions that may otherwise flood your support email. For example, our voice-changing product, MorphVOX, has a FAQ on the common issues that customers may come across. We also have provided detailed online documentation on topics that users may want to explore more. This takes care of roughly 95% of the questions people may have.

2. Add a support email link on your Web site for issues that can’t be resolved by the Web support. At Screaming Bee, we try to answer our customer questions within one business day. More often, we’ll answer questions within an hour of receiving the email. I believe that we have gained many loyal customers because of our aggressive efforts to meet needs in a timely manner.

3. Provide a message board or forum for customers to voice their opinions, add comments, and interact with each other. Remember that people are social creatures and like to be heard. This also helps to build up a community of users that are empowered and have a say in the products and services that you provide.

4. Write a personal email to each customer. Have you followed up on your customers after they have made a purchase of your products or services? This is essential, not only from the perspective of getting feedback on how to improve your offerings, but more importantly, maintaining the trusting, long-term relationship with your customer. Send them an email within 3-4 weeks of the first purchase. In this way their experience with your products and services is fresh in their mind. Remember, a customer who is ignored is a customer who is lost.

Spending time and effort on better communication with your customers will pay off. Your company will rise and fall not on the customers you gain, but on the customers that you don’t lose. Loyal customers will be the ones that give you the best testimonials. They also provide you with the richest, organic, word-of-mouth marketing. Remember that every happy customer is a testament of your company’s success.

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About Botnet

BotNet, also called zombie network and network of bots is a group of computers which are used to discreetly send data like spam and viruses to other computers on the internet. These actions are carried out by malicious programs without the knowledge of the users. These malicious programs mainly consist of viruses, Trojans and worms. Infected computers are called bots or zombies. Most computers which are infected are personal home internet PCs which are inadequately protected.

When a PC becomes part of a BotNet, it can be instructed to do almost anything by the creator of botnet. In effect it becomes a drone which cannot resist the commands of its master. In this case, the master is the creator of the malicious software (malware). Most Bots are employed in propagation of spam and viruses. Often malware is used for key-press logging which can result in mass identity theft. Zombie computers can also be used for denial of service attacks in which many bots simultaneously log onto a particular server, thus exceeding the server's bandwidth and crashing it. This technique is particularly effective when the Botnet is large and contains thousands of computers. Many advanced malware can even spread themselves via email while the malware of smaller botnets lack this capability.

BotNets are programmed in such a way that they are difficult to find and analyze. Normally they receive instructions from their creators through IRC (Internet Relay Channels). As of April 2008, the Storm BotNet and the Kraken BotNet are the largest BotNets in the world with an estimated 400,000 bots. Other significant BotNets are Rbot and Bobax with an estimated 20,000 bots each.

So on a day to basis, the best way to protect your computer properly is to frequently scan and update your antivirus and firewall software. Special sensors called 'honeynets' have also been set up on the internet these nets mimic the characteristics of computers with known security flaws in an effort to lure hackers into them and track down malware creators. It has been recently quoted by Kaspersky Labs (creators of Kaspersky anti-virus) that botnets pose more of a threat to the internet community than individual viruses and worms.

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A Quick Guide to Spy Phone Software

Spyphone is a 100% software based solution which users can download and convert any latest Nokia phone into a sophisticated spy device within a minute. Such device may have several spy features.

If you call a spy phone from a predefined number, it makes no visible or audible indication that it is in operation, and you can listen to any conversations or discussions in progress around the spy phone. Conversations within 5 to 10 metres of the spy phone are completely audible. The software can be activated or deactivated by sending a silent sms to the converted phone and works on GSM networks only.

Yet another interesting spy feature is called sms forwarding. Upon installation of the spy software on the target phone, it enables to receive duplicate copies of all incoming and outgoing text messages that will be forwarded directly to the predefined number.

The spyphone software controls the basic functions of the cell phone such as incoming call handling, backlight, log engine and installation logs. No hardware tweaking of any kind has to be made and that there are no special steps for customising the cell phone. The software is also invisible to the end user. Moreover, no parts of the software can be traced to be installed on the phone or logs of incoming calls.

What could you use the spy phone for? In truth, the list is endless. You might want to check up on someone periodically, listening out for out-of-place sounds, and even intercepting real time calls between 2 parties. It can be used for listening to conversations in the office whilst away on travel. You might also use it monitor your children, wife or husband.

You may come up with a question, how to protect myself from such spy? Here is the answer. At present such spy software can be installed on Symbian based smartphones only. Never leave your smartphone unattended. Do not give the phone to someone you do not know. If you suspect that spy software is installed on your phone, bring the phone immediately to the nearest service centre. The most popular spy phone models are: 3250, 5500, E50, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, N73, N76, N77, N80, N91, N95, 7610, 6600, 6670, 6110, 6120, 6121.

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