VMware Vsphere

The book I read to research this post was VMware Vsphere For Dummies by Tom Keegan et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Vsphere is a virtualization operating system used on networks which because you enter what is known as a virtual machine that only has predefined functions any virus or other malware that infects your computer is severely limited in the damage it can cause. Most viruses are written specifically to infect Windows operating systems so any other operating system limits the vulnerabilities. A Vsphere package normally comes with a client version, a server version & EXL version. These run on the workstation and server respectively. There are 3 main versions which are v3.5, v4 & v4.1 with the latter being the newest. Also there are several versions and 2 of them are for small businesses and the rest are for big companies. They use a proprietary file system called VMFS or Virtual Machine File System. It's compatible with Oracle & Microsoft SQL Server. If you use a demo of SQL or the Express version it only works with a database upto 4GB. Also the latest versions only work with 64 bit processors.  In terms of your hardware limits you are much more likely to be limited by your network hardware than be limited by what Vsphere supports. The latest version works with upto 8 processors for example and these can each be subdivided to up to 8 virtual processors. Virtual processors though can slow down your overall performance.  There is a website at 

http://vmware.com which lists the requirements for your network and what is compatible. It's essential to plan your network prior to installing Vsphere. 

Your Life Uploaded

The book I read to research this post was Your Life Uploaded by Gordon Bell et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is about a project which they ran at Microsoft called Total Recall where the aim was to be able to store information that was continuously collected throughout ones life by a variety of devices and be able to index it for later recall. Eventually this kind of technology will become a way of life with storage devices like hard drives set to come down in price even more and their storage capacities set to grow exponentially. The Defence organisation in America has also been working on similiar technology to help troops in the theatre of battle. One project was called ASSIST. The main problem facing scientists isn't storing the information but being able to file and index it for later recall. In the next ten years the price of a 1 terabyte memory is set to become the same as a cup of coffee and mobile phones are set to have 250 terabytes of memory. That's 10 years from the publication of this book making it 2020. There are set to be devices in things like clothes that constantly record what we do and the online storage for the data for these devices will in a lot of cases be free. There will of cause be upgrades to paid options. If someone needs information about something there will be implants in their body that will in a lot of cases be able to give them a perfect memory and will provide almost any information he needs. Of course there is a nefarious side to this that will have to be sorted out like if someone breaks the law will this stored information be used as evidence and will people be bombarded by adverts according to what they are thinking about and what has been stored about them. There is also the potential for abuse like can these storage be turned off and can people pay someone to doctor the stored information to make them look innocent of a crime. Also in countries with dictatorships will people be prosecuted for political crimes based on this stored information. 

Stock Investing

The book I read to research this post was Stock Investing For Dummies by Paul Mladjenovic which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. There is 2 types of stock preferred & common. Preferred gives you voting rights and you are more likely to receive a bigger share of a dividend. Common means you get more money back if the company goes into liquidation. You need to do your homework on a company prior to investing in it. A couple of good websites for researching the market in general are http://bloomberg.com & http://marketwatch.com. Also try the Wall Street Journal at www.wsj.com. A site that tells you things like how to read a financial report is Dismal Scientist at http://dismal.com. A site that has information on individual companies is http://nasdaq.com. 2 that cover various aspects of individual companies are www.sec.gov & www.prars.com. It is possible to make money in almost any market even in a war the defence industries will probably be booming for example. A company you invest in should show a healthy profit compared to its competitors and that profit should increase each year by at least 10%. Also check the companies debts and compare the profits to its running costs. A lot of people look to a broker for advice but these aren't infallible and many follow market trends and don't analyze a company shrewdly enough. Just look at the dotcom market collapse when many computing and technology companies saw there shares become over valued and then collapse. Information is the key to successful investing.

Guerrilla Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Guerrilla Marketing For Dummies which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is a little out of date because there is no mention of doing marketing with web sites like Google + or Foursquare and there is quite a bit of marketing information on MySpace which is less popular than it was a few years ago. It does mention there is a MySpace music site at http://music.myspace.com which is for musicians. There is quite a bit of information on Facebook though.

Guerrilla marketing is about taking a small company which has a very limited advertising budget & making every dollar or pound count. It can be as simple as setting up a stand somewhere and paying a couple of people to give away free samples. It can also mean using local billboards and also you might hire some people to advertise your product and get some orders in a location like a shopping centre. Another good idea is promoting your products on Youtube in the form of amusing short films. One good example of Guerrilla marketing was someone who sold a product aimed at young people paid some students $24 each to advertise on their foreheads for a day. It got the product a lot of exposure in their local university. I think the main key to guerrilla marketing is be creative. Finally if you can work out things like the average age range and sex and other demographics of a typical customer it can help you correctly target your advertising.

Digital Footprint

The book I read to research this post was Digital Footprint by Simon Webb which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. I'm not sure but I think this book may have been free and is only short but is really interesting. It's about how the information you supply in the form of your history on social media sites, your emails and what you search for in search in search is used to tailor adverts supposedly to suit you and definitely to make money from you. This has a dark side in that if you are after promotion at work, or a loan from a bank or even the amount of insurance you pay is influenced by these firms that collect information about you from the web. Do you wonder why companies like Yahoo offer free email it's because they scan your unencrypted emails for information about you and sell it to a web marketing company. In the book if you're wondering they recommend an email provider called http://hushmail.com which encrypt your emails and don't sell the information in your emails to anyone. There is over 200 companies worldwide that do a deal with web site owners and put cookies on these sites that give them information about you. A search engine they recommend if you don't want your searches logged is http://duckboards.com. The website is rather basic in design though. This book has loads of addresses of resources for internet privacy and obviously I've only mentioned a couple. Another issue as well is getting information from devices like tablets & mobile phones which usually aren't as well protected as your computer and you can use VPN's or Virtual Private Networks for protection. Finally there is also plug ins for all the major browsers that help prevent your internet information being logged.

The Earth

The book I read to research this post was The Earth A Very Short Introduction by Martin Redfern which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is of particular to anyone studying anything like geology, astronomy or earth sciences. A lot of geologists are looking at other planets and stars to see what processes originally created the Earth. It's thought there have been many impacts by comets and meteors in the past although mostly in the early history of the Earth. Many bigger comet impacts bigger than the one that probably wiped out most of the dinosaurs. The seas and rivers were probably formed from the ice in these comets. In the earliest history the Earth didn't have an atmosphere that would protect it from most impacts. The Ozone layer which repels most radiation is only 3 millimetres thick hence you can see why it is so fragile and susceptible to attack from the chemicals in aerosols. If you are studying something like rock formation you have to study all the Earth's cycles not just the geological ones either. One thing astronomers want to do is put at least 4 or 5 infra red telescopes in space which would be as Jupiter to avoid the infra red radiation of Earth. These telescopes would be several times the size of Hubble and would look for planets like Earth in other solar systems. A minimum of 4-5 telescopes would be needed to triangulate the location of these planets. They would look for the free oxygen signature on these planets and we know for oxygen to be stable on a planet there must be cycles similiar to Earth's and life. 

Investing In Shares

The book I read to research this post was Investing In Shares For Dummies by Paul Mladjenovic which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is a UK version so a lot of it is done from a British perspective. Most people who buy shares keep them for quite a while which is the best way to get the most money out of it. Buying shares and selling them later in the day is regarded as speculating in the book and is quite risky. You should try and get a company report for any company you are considering investing in. If you invest in companies that make a loss in the hope they turn a profit in the following year, that's also speculating and is very risky. Investing is about finding a successful company and investing in it to benefit from continuing profits. Warren Buffet the famous and very successful investor would only invest in the types of companies he understand. He avoided Information Technology companies as a result and didn't lose lots of money in the dot com crash. You should always make sure you have plenty of liquid assets which you can cash in a hurry if needed. Things like shares are illiquid because you have to wait for your money & if cashed in an emergency you will probably lose money.

Solar Power Your Home

The book I read to research this post was Solar Power Your Home For Dummies by Rik DeGunther which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. If you have a solar power installation fitted in your house chances are you will get a contractor to do at least some of it and this book guides you through the various jobs involved but also helps you find a good contractor. It also guides you through the various options and tries to give you a rough idea what they cost. For some people it can be as simple as setting up solar lights in the garden which only cost a few pounds and merely have to be positioned in sunlight. A lot of people want a solar panel in the rook which can be used to heat water or provide electricity or both. Most climates can benefit from solar power in your home and they have incredibly efficient and can even work when it's cloudy for example. Many people use it in conjunction with wind power and most areas are windy especially if you locate the wind turbine carefully. Most solar power installations that heat water heat a non water liquid that in turn heats the water. This lessens the risk of corrosion. Many people especially in hot climates use solar power in conjunction with their swimming pool. When you consider a typical swimming pool costs $25,000 solar powering it adds a relatively small cost and helps lessen electricity bills. If you are tempted to fit this kind of thing yourself bear in mind that you will probably have to cut through the roof and it's notoriously difficult to seal it to avoid leaks. If you have solar panels on your roof they must be able to withstand a wind of 125mph and if the wind blows them off they are likely to be like a giant frisbee and maybe decapitate someone.

Identity Theft

The book I read to research this post was 50 Ways To Protect Your Identity In A Digital Age by Steve Weisman which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Steve has a blog devoted to identity theft and associated issues at http://scamify.com This book is also one of the most comprehensive guides to what is a wide ranging subject. The most common form of identity theft is giving law enforcement officers someone else's identity with connection to crime. This of course can result in some poor person being arrested for something he hasn't done. One poor man got arrested 3 times for possession of cocaines and even had to spend 2 nights in jail while it was being cleared up. Luckily his fingerprints were checked and they realised they had the wrong man. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime worldwide. Much of this type of crime is carried out on a large scale by organised criminals but also there are many one man operations often with no previous convictions and usually on a much smaller scale. The FBI won't investigate crimes where less than $100,000 is involved. Often banks and credit card companies don't investigate relatively small infractions. It's not just your computer that puts you at risk either, many people have smartphones, internet televisions and tablets which in many cases have very little protection. One example of a method of hacking in the book is very few people change the default pin for their voicemail so anybody can eavesdrop on their messages. Much identity theft is carried out by friends and relatives who can fairly easily gain access to things like your credit card etc.The better your credit rating the more likely it will be stolen. Also popular sources of identity are dead people, children & old people. By law in America you are entitled to a credit review from each of the 3 major credit reference agencies for free per year. If you space them out that works out at one per 4 months which is good as it is free.

Location Based Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Location Based Marketing For Dummies by Aaron Strout et al which is a very good book which I bought from Amazon. This book is all about using Location Based Marketing websites to promote your business. The biggest website among these sites is Four Square but Facebook Places if it continues to be integrated with Facebook looks likely to become the biggest. There are lots of sites within this sphere each one a bit different to the rest so it may make sense to market your business on one of these. A lot of these sites integrate with the really big sites like Twitter & Facebook so in a lot of cases people can access relevant information without visiting the LBM site. One way companies can market on these sites is offering virtual gifts to customers. These can be something like a pin with a picture and there is talk about making it possible to trade these gifts. Your business can vary these virtual gifts from week to week and in some cases these have become collector's items. Another way is offering relevant bargains. Often someone will put an update on a site saying they are looking for something and if you offer them the item at a reduction and you are nearby you almost certainly have a sale. To get you started here is a list of LBM sites.

http://foursquare.com

http://yelp.com

http://gowalla.com

http://glympse.com

http://neer.com

Basecamp

The book I read to research this post was Sam's Teach Yourself Basecamp In 10 Minutes  which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. I think this book is the only one about Basecamp on the market. Basecamp is a project management cloud computing tool. If you don't know much about project management this program is easier to use than a lot of products and also you don't have to install it on your computer. The company that provides Basecamp used to specialize in web design but decided to specialize in project management and supporting products after the success of Basecamp in 2004. Some of the other products they do are Writeboard for note taking & Campfire for instant messaging. These integrate with Basecamp. It doesn't have a feature for sub projects but you can put a company or client down as a category and put the sub project underneath. You can have several people work on the same project at the same time and they can collaborate online with each other. They have a variety of plans to suit the size of your company. If you are a one man business you might get it free.

Google Chromebook

The book I read to research this post was My Google Chromebook by Michael Miller which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book tells you all about the Chromebook and has lots of tutorials showing you how to do the various tasks on it. There are  currently 2 companies making Chromebooks, Samsung & Acer & there is also a desktop version called the Chromebox. These computers do away with the hard drive & dvdrom drive found in most computers. They use cloud computing and even the operating isn't installed on the computer but is run via your broadband connection. Most cloud computer applications work quite happily with it. Any software you use is a web application and your work is stored on these sites. You can also store it on a USB flash drive. These computers have a solid state system memory of 16 GB. There are many vendors offering cloud computing applications, among them Quickbooks, Microsoft & Zoho. At present there are cloud based photo editing applications but these are a little limited in what they do compared to retail software like Photoshop. The operating system is based on Lynux & Unix & to make it user friendly they have tried to make the layout of the Chrome Operating System similiar to the Chrome Internet Browser. Some Chromebooks come with 3G so you can go directly onto the internet & others just have Wi-Fi. The Chromebook has a 12 inch screen & is very light. They are similiar to netbooks in not having a dvdrom drive. One thing worth pointing is it will only work in conjunction with the internet & you must have a fairly quick broadband otherwise you will find the cloud software running very slowly.

Fundamental Analysis

The book I read to research this post was Fundamental Analysis For Dummies by Mark Krantz which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is a great introduction to this subject and also contains a lot of more detailed information for those who know quite a lot already. I am new to the subject and had difficulty understanding the more complex stuff but it's an interesting book nonetheless. This book working out if a company is a good prospect to buy shares in. In America companies who are on the stock market have to publish detailed information about things like cash flow and profits in what is called a 10-K. This has to be done within 75 days of the end of the financial year for big companies and within 90 days for smaller companies. Often the vital facts are buried deep within the report. The most important thing to look for is the profits made and how that compares to the outgoings per quarter. A good company should minimize their outgoings and if their profits dried up tomorrow should have enough accumulated profit to keep it going for quite a long time. Bear in mind even if a company looks good on paper the stock exchange is a very fickle place and there is no guarantee buying shares in that company will make a profit. A couple of good financial web sites are http://reuters.com

& http://money.msn.com there is also financial sites owned by Google & Yahoo but these are mentioned in a previous post. Yahoo do business reports which you can find by searching in the Yahoo search engine. Many of these are priced between $10 & $100 but many are free. If you are looking for the most successful shares today try

http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/

A site where you can pick a date and see what the share prices were for a given company is at http://money.usatoday.com

That site is also easy to use. Of course there are lots more web resources in the book and I think this book is essential for any budding investors in shares.