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Do I Really Need to Use Antivirus Software?
When you are choosing antivirus software, you may have narrowed it down to a few programs, but you aren’t sure which ones you should pick. If so, there are a few features of the antivirus programs that you should look at and compare to help with your antivirus decision.
One thing that may be helpful when picking between several antivirus software programs is looking for consumer websites. Typically these websites have already done the reviews of the antivirus software for you, and can show you how various components rate. The only problem with online antivirus comparisons is that the programs you are looking for may not be in their comparison, which leaves you back at square one.
Due to this, you may have to do your own comparison of the antivirus programs, so there are a few things you want to watch and check for with the antivirus programs. You likely will want to load up their websites and find the feature pages for that antivirus, and compare based on that.
Updates – Will the antivirus software do its own updates automatically? You need your software to be current at all times, as there are always new viruses being released on the Internet. If you cannot have it automatically update at least once a day, then you do not want that particular software.
Scanning Capabilities – Will the antivirus software scan everything you need it to? Can it scan incoming and out going email for viruses, scan files you are downloading, as well as websites you are browsing? If the antivirus program cannot do these, then you are going to want to look for another antivirus program.
Licenses – How many computers can you install the antivirus program on? With more households running more than one computer, this can be an important factor in deciding on a program. You want to make sure that any software you purchase can be installed on more than one machine, as it can get pricey to purchase multiple versions of any antivirus program.
Usage – Another big thing when looking at antivirus program is what you use your computer for. If you just do some browsing, email or games, you likely won’t be too at risk for viruses. But, you will still need an antivirus program of some sort, just maybe not as robust or powerful as other antivirus programs out there. If in the future you decide to change your Internet habits, you will want to re-evaluate if your antivirus is still able to handle your needs.
If you haven’t already gotten some sort of antivirus software, you need to take care of that right now! Antivirus software is not an option anymore; it is a requirement when you are on the internet. When you get a new computer, one of the very first things you should be doing is getting your antivirus software set up, even before you start checking email or anything else! You never know where a virus is hiding!
Convert Anything You Can Read on the Computer into Editable Text with Screen OCR
Screen OCR uses optical character recognizer technology to convert anything that you can read on the computer screen into editable text. This allows you to copy and edit text from locked documents including protected PDF files and much more. You can also use it to copy text from a program which otherwise doesn’t provide the functionality allowing you to copy text. Screen OCR allows you to copy absolutely anything you want without restrictions. It also provides an automatic scrolling feature so that it can convert an entire document into editable text. Anything which is shown on the screen may be copied and converted; regardless of the program it is being displayed in. The only alternative is the extremely time-consuming task of typing out everything manually.
Screen OCR offers a great solution to anyone who works with text since it can literally save countless hours of time while still providing an exceptional degree of reliability. All text which you can see on the screen is recorded by Screen OCR with an outstanding level of accuracy, making it almost as effective as typing everything out again by hand without the enormous amount of time and effort involved. Regardless of whether the text is on a copy-protected web page, in the form of an image, a scanned document or anything else, Screen OCR will recognize the letters and copy them for you, allowing you to paste the now editable text into your favorite word processing program or other application. Screen OCR is an ideal solution for web designers, writers, interpreters, bloggers, journalists and pretty much anyone else who regularly works with text.
Screen OCR is also especially easy to use. No special knowledge is required and, as soon as you have installed the program, you can quickly figure out how to use it. The interface is presented in a user-friendly way and using the software is largely self-explanatory. When you start Screen OCR, you will first need to choose the selection mode. After this, you can then select the text on the screen which you want to copy and convert into an editable document. Screen OCR will read the text and convert it in a matter of seconds – the software is particularly fast and efficient. Selection modes available include a window selection, customize cursor capture, rectangular section and scrolling capture for situations where you want the program to automatically capture an entire document which cannot all be displayed on the screen at once.
Screen OCR recognizes text in any language, including those which have special characters and diacritics. The Cyrillic alphabet is also supported. Screen OCR can recognize any character sizes from 6 to 72 points making it ideal for reading text in any documents, webpages, emails and more.
The program is stable and reliable and it will run flawlessly on any Windows-based computer including both 32- and 64-bit systems.
Why I might consider leasing my company website?
I recently found an article on WikiPedia that suggested numerous benefits to renting your website. It briefly touched on these, but in my mind didn’t really go into half as much detail as I would have liked. As the technical development manager of DriveMySite (a company that specialises in web rentals) I knew I couldn’t walk away without adding my own two cents, simply because this is a subject I have had some experience with and felt I could at least contribtute some honest opinions to anyone out there considering a move in this direction. Before going any further I should mention that objectivity was a challenge for me as I have some natural biases of my own but hopefully the reader can take from my remarks some genuine benefits of web leasing.
There are several reason why a company might consider leasing or renting a website instead of buying.
Leasing often needs only a small monthly fee instead of a large fee upfront when buying. Startups looking to make a impact on the marketing opportunities of the web understand that a full blown design treatment along with all of the issues of upkeep and SEO on a shoe string budget just isn’t realistic. I’ve seen some bad decisions made in this area because some companies either didn’t have all of the available options at hand or didn’t really know what they wanted in the first place.
New small business owners can benefit by saving capital.
This is a primary issue for new startups that need a buffer to protect them against a lot of often unforseeable business expenses. I worked for a company that had a client that spent £14,000 for a well designed website without any good SEO. In effect they ran out of the money they should have used to improve their page rankings and were left with a fantastic looking site with no one to see it. Clients don’t always understand this and suppliers in my opinion should inform their clients of this.
If a website is only needed for a short amount of time.
This has often been the case for companies I have worked with that need to run mini campaigns or ‘sell by date’ type brochure sites. In these cases quick turnaround is the key and having a pre-designed template that can be leased for the duration of the campaign makes good sense. After all why spend all that money if you only need the site around for a few months.
If one is unsure their business needs a website leasing is a way to test without paying for a full price site.
This is great for those ‘proof of concept’ or ‘market testing’ scenarios in which you want to test the waters without breaking the bank. I spoke with a colleague today about a business idea he had. He had already invested some money to get a developer to build a database, purchase the domain name and setup hosting. After speaking to him about his idea it was clear to me that what he really needed was a place to showcase his ideas, generate a social networking group to field test this and go from there before spending any more time and money on the idea.
The owner is responsible for the technical aspects and upkeep of the site.
I was recently sat in a meeting with a client that wanted a awesome looking website and told me that he wanted it to be high up on the rankings in Google. He was uncomfortable with my explanation that to do this organically he would need to invest some time to keep the content updated. After talking this through with him I learned that they used a very clunky FTP based method of updating content. It was time consuming and prone to breaking their existing pages which to some degree explained some his reluctance in relation to keeping his site updated. I was able to explain that a good Content Management System can take care of this without the worry of breaking a page. The more reputable site leasing companies provide these. At drivemysite.co.uk we provide our customers with Umbraco an open source CMS that has recently been endorsed by Microsoft but more importantly has been used by many of the clients I have with worked with and to good effect.
Changes and updates are often included in the monthly fee.
This has to be one of the best benefits of leasing. Like leasing a TV or a Car you pass it back and get a newer model without the hassle of selling it first and losing money in between. A lot of clients I have worked with would often come to me asking for a feature or technology they had seen on a competitors site but because the technology itself had been superceded, it wouldn’t be possible with a complete rewrite of the site and its underlying technology.
There are also tax benefits of leasing a website.
This goes without saying. Although most CEO’s will completely endorse and understand the benefits of leasing when dealing with tangible assets many still don’t consider digital assets in the same way. Changing the mindset of the Managing Director is often the biggest challenge here.
Some companies that offer a website leasing or rental service also give the option for the user to buy the full rights to the site either after a certain amount of time (leasing) or at any time (rental).
This is a real win/win if the website leasing company are prepared to do this as it gives the customer the assurance that the site they have been renting for the duration of the lease already has a proven ROI.
Website leasing and rental companies may also offer Search engine optimization services as part of the leasing or rental package.
This is almost an expectation these days. To me it would be like going into a car showroom and having a salesman show me a car without wheels. SEO enabling technologies need to be baked into the content management system in order to be able to compete in this area. Umbraco takes care of most of this for us, i.e. it allows good naming conventions of URLs, provides Sitemaps for your robots file and allows custom html injection of meta data on a page by page basis.
In summary, leasing your website should be as viable an option to your company as leasing any other asset. If the figures stack up and the SEO investment is their then you could do a lot worse with a lot more money at stake. On the other hand if you make a poor choice with website rental you can always pull out early with the minimal loss.
George Robinson is the technical development manager of drivemysite.co.uk a web company that provides a low cost way to get a SEO powered website up and running quickly and without the stress.