US Advanced Technology

Excel Workbooks: Can’t Live With Them – Can’t Live Without Them

Excel…. When it comes to spreadsheets, it’s the only game in town. For basic formatting, calculations, and the rare chart or two, it has all the functionality most users need. However, those who regularly use advanced features to create Excel workbooks understand the program’s limitations. The hair pulling starts when you have to repetitively perform virtually the same formatting and analysis steps on new data for the same fields and continues when you discover that there is virtually no re-usability for the work you perform in Excel. Each time, it’s almost like starting from scratch.

But what if there were products that could streamline the creation of workbooks, so that what usually takes hours could be accomplished in mere minutes? Imagine a world where you could format data on an ad hoc basis or new data for the same fields on a repetitive basis in a way that would create formatted worksheets, a PivotTable, and a PivotChart utilizing more Excel formatting and analysis features than you could ever implement manually? It would be a world of sheer bliss.

After looking at all of the products on the market, there’s one that stands out above all others: Xcelerator. In essence, it transforms Excel from a cumbersome necessity into a fast, powerful, easy-to-use report writer. By automating Excel’s most frequently used features, it completely eliminates repetitive, mechanical, and time consuming manual formatting tasks. The best part of all is that the program never touches the original data, whether it’s manually maintained Excel data, data extracted from databases, or data imported into Excel from other applications.

If you find yourself constantly formatting new data for the same fields, Xcelerator’s workbook creation and formatting process is completely automatic. Because it creates templates, it literally takes less than one minute and produces new, identically formatted Excel workbooks every time.

Although Xcelerator isn’t a substitute for a thorough understanding of Excel’s features and capabilities, it does streamline every step of creating Excel workbooks. But it goes beyond simply making a more efficient mousetrap because it has a number of powerful features that are exclusive to Xcelerator, such as mixing multiple subtotal types at each subtotal level and dragging the field contents of non-breaking and non-totaling fields to any subtotal level.

As if that wasn’t enough, the program also allows you to print out charts and tables with headers and footer, making it ready for presentation.

Although Excel workbooks have their inherent limitations, products like Xcelerator tear down those walls and keep you from tearing your hair out!

DVD Replication for Dummies: 4 Easy Steps to Professional DVD Replication

Every avid independent filmmaker has dreamed about making that special interest documentary, or short film to show off their creative prowess. Many have great ideas and want to wow the film-festival scene, or video renters with their big project.

But once you have the film in the can (no easy feat), how do you move from a couple of master DVDs with the Sharpie marked hand-written title inside a secondhand CD case, to a pile of cardboard boxes full of shiny new, retail-ready DVDs, with UPC barcodes and polywrap sitting on your doorstep?

You need to create eye-popping artwork and have your project replicated. Using a reputable full service DVD Replication company like PacificDisc, Inc. to partner with is certainly a helpful option to ensure a professional end result, but to help with your DVD replication project, here are 4 easy steps to follow for good DVD replication results:

1. Prepare your DVD master.
To ensure the replication company can read your master, you either need to create a DVD-R master, or output your project to a DLT (Digital Linear Tape). DLT has been around for years and used to be the only way to replicate. Thankfully DVD-R technology has advanced so much over the past few years, that a pair of DVD-R masters are normally all that is required when working on a standard DVD5 project. Why a pair? Just in case one of the masters gets damaged in transit, you dont waste time looking for another good master.

2. Create your artwork
Youll need to design artwork for the DVD face, the outside of the case (commonly called a wrap) and, if desired an insert for the inside of the case (postcard, or booklet). All CD or DVD Replication companies will have templates on their websites that you can download and use to assist in layout of your art. Just make sure you download the correct template for your project, as there are many variables and you wont want to waste time with the wrong layout.

While on the subject of artwork, its important to mention that you need to decide if your project needs a barcode (commonly called a UPC, or the black and white dashes inside a box on many products). If your DVD will be sold through retailers, you should have a UPC issued, as many retailers wont stock an item without one.

3. Find a DVD replication partner
Although there are literally dozens of DVD replication companies out there (just type dvd replication company into your favorite search engine) not all DVD Replication companies are created equal. Youll see all kinds of pricing models that will do an excellent job of confusing the heck out of you. Instead look for a partner who offers good pricing and tries to simplify the process. Make sure you are comparing the same thing when shopping around and watch out for hidden extras, like overage (where the replication company makes an extra bunch of discs and then expects you to pay for the extras). Watch out for setup fees, glass mastering fees, extra costs for offset printed discs, extra costs for 3-color vs. 5-color artwork.

A little homework up front will ensure your DVDs look great when they arrive and you arent left with the feeling of being cheated, or have crappy looking discs that nobody will want to buy.

4. Approve check discs and artwork proofs
Once you have found the DVD replication company, you will be asked to send in your masters, artwork and cash. Most replicators want their money upfront, as they start burning materials as soon as the project lands. Within a few days of delivering your masters, you should see either email proofs of your artwork (simple digital prints (PDFs) showing you how your art elements will line up when printed. If you ordered a hard proof, the DVD replication company will ship you a print proof printed from the actual printing press earmarked to print your job. With a hard proof, you know exactly what youre getting before you print hundreds of them. If you request a check disc, youll get a small number of silver discs to ensure your project has come through the DVD-R (or DLT) master to glass master process successfully.

Assuming everything checks out, and you send back your approvals, within a couple of weeks, you should hear the beep-beep-beep of the FedEx truck backing up your driveway. After a quick signature, you should be the proud owner of a pile of cardboard boxes filled with shiny DVDs — your DVDs!

Computer Forensics – Finding Out What The Bad Guys Did With Their Computers!

Computer forensics is a lot like the CSI investigation programs on the television. Using advanced techniques and technologies, a computer forensic scientist will reconstruct a possible crime using the data that one computer systems. This data may include email trails, files, hidden directories and other related clues.

Computer Forensics is the scientific study of computers or computer related data in relation to an investigation by a law enforcement agency for use in a court of law. While this technology may be as old as computers themselves, the advances in technology are constantly revising this science.

While all computer languages are created with ones and zeros, it’s much easier to track what was done when, although by whom continues to be problematic. Forensic science has done well to keep up with the task of tracking and tracing what is done and creation of a timeline in an attempt to reconstruct a possible crime. Although it’s possible to clean and remove data from a hard drive, most people simply think that a delete key really removed the data. In actuality, the delete key simply removed the file location from an index file and the actual data is still safely on the system. It’s up to the data recovery skills of the forensic computer personnel to capture and restore that data without modification.

Computer forensics can be used to track emails, instant messaging and just about any other form of computer related communications. This can be necessary, especially in the world where computers and data travel around the world in seconds. Packet sniffers can literally be placed within a data stream and provide information on what’s running through the network in real time. This is really phenomenal considering the millions upon millions of data packets moving through any individual part of the network.

Computer forensic science is an interesting niche in the law enforcement field that is seldom considered as a career. As it’s relatively new, the field is considered by many to be wide open for anyone with the initiative to learn the skills. Unlike many computer related jobs, a computer forensic specialist will not be outsourced to a country on the other side of the world. The confidentiality of the data is just too sensitive to allow it to travel throughout the world just to save a little cash.

Avoiding Data Loss A Guide To The Best Online Data Storage Websites

We all know the effects of data loss but exactly what is it?

Data loss – A crash in computing is a condition where a program (either an application or part of the operating system) stops performing its expected function and also stops responding to other parts of the system. Often the offending program may simply appear to freeze. If this program is a critical part of the operating system kernel the entire computer may crash (a system crash).

Having noted the definitions for data loss Ill note a few reasons why it occurs, and how to recover the data, as well as a few links to specialized sites.

1. User error – A simple mistake on behalf of an employee could lead to the loss of megabytes of critical company data. From the deletion of a critical file to the accidental deletion of database records, your customers could face large expenses and significant down time recovering the disaster created by a simple mistake.

2. Employee theft – Employees need access to sensitive data in order to perform their jobs. Your customers have to limit the information to which employees have access, ensure that terminated employees no longer have access to sensitive data, and be able to track who’s touching what, when and how.

3. Disaster – What natural disasters or unfortunate accidents might affect business? Magazines daily contain news of organizations that have faced unbelievable catastrophes. In the event that your or your customers’ organizations are hit with a fire, flood or other disaster, how will the data be protected?

One way is to have backups. Using an Iomega REV drive powered by Iomega Automatic Backup Pro software, configure a full backup to REV 35GB disks once a week. Once this backup is done, you can secure the full backup offsite. With your data now backed up in two locations, no single event will be able to damage both sets of data. This backup can be done through backing software, like Argentum Backup , which automatically detects and locates the proper paths, folders and files under any Microsoft Windows (95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and 2003) platform. Argentum Backup does it for sure, without any mistake or occasion. Argentum Backup is designed to be suitable for both beginners and advanced users

But, the best and newest way are the online backup solutions, which help you protect your data on a regular basis (daily, weekly or monthly). One of this sites is Iomega iStorage, from one of the best backup companies. This site offers a feature-rich, highly secure online storage vault designed perfectly to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Includes administrative abilities that give you control of content shared and accessed. It creates multiple logins to the same account, giving members their own login and storage space and creates logins for guests to use with restricted access

Another site is www.backup.com, where you can find another on-line backup system, called @backup. Its main features are:

simple finding and selecting of files is made easy with our right mouse click options or with our explorer-like interface;

You dont have to remember to do a backup. @Backup remembers for you. You set your backup schedule and we do the rest;

They encrypt your data with bank level security procedures before transferring over the Internet to our data centers. Your data is stored encrypted and only accessible with your password.

You can restore files anytime. In the event of a crash, a virus infection, or a simple user error your backups are a click away. Additionally you have access to your files from any PC anywhere.

These are just two of the sites that offer you on-line backup system. The internet is packed with offers that vary from the size of the backup they provide to the monthly cost of the service. For your help, Ive included a few links, to other sites, where you can find details and prices for on-line backups.

www.livevault.com
www.dataprotection.com
www.xdrive.com

Don’t wait until it’s too late – make a back up plan now!